Monthly Archives: June 2010

Warhammer 8th Ed Game

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Last night, I got in my first real game of Warhammer 8th.  I’d sorta played a game last week against Jeff but, it sorta fell apart halfway through (so I don’t think it counts).

Played against Joey’s Ogre Kingdoms.

My list:

8th Edition Test Army
Skaven – 2,500 points

Lords
Warlord (General) – Bonebreaker, Foul Pendant, Shield of Distraction

Heroes
Chieftain (BSB) –  Shield, Storm Banner
Warlock Engineer – Lvl 2, Warplock Pistol, Warp-Energy Condenser
Warlock Engineer – Lvl 2, Warplock Pistol,Dispel Scroll

Core
Clanrats x30 – Full Command, Shields
– Poisoned Wind Mortar
Clanrats x30 – Full Command, Shields
– Poisoned Wind Mortar
Clanrats x30 – Full Command, Shields
– Poisoned Wind Mortar
Night Runners x10 – Slings
Night Runners x10 – Slings
Skavenslaves x20 – Slings
Skavenslaves x20 – Slings
Skavenslaves x20 – Slings
Stormvermin x30 – Full Command

Special
Rat Ogres x6 – Master-bred, Packmaster x3
Rat Ogres x6 – Master-bred, Packmaster x3

Rare
Doomwheel

Joey’s list was something along the lines of:

Lords
Tyrant (General) – Siegebreaker

Heroes
Bruiser (BSB) – Ragbanner
Butcher – Dispel Scroll, Rock Eye
Butcher – Hellheart

Core
Bulls x10 – Full Command
Ironguts x10 – Full Command
Gnoblar Trappers x8

Special
Leadbelchers x2
Leadbelchers x2
Gnoblar Scraplauncher

Rare
Maneaters x4 – Different Weapons

I pretty much immediately regretted forgetting to take the Doomrocket.  My mortars hit with pretty disturbing accuracy, but only managed to do a wound or so a turn.

The first half of the game was extremely grim.  Ogres are, now, pretty disgusting.  With so many attacks being pitched around, static CR isn’t worth very much.  And, when you have to do so many wounds to remove models (like with Ogres), I didn’t stand a chance of winning a combat.  Ranked Bull Charges didn’t help, either.

Fortunately, Steadfast really came through and helped my units stick around for the most part.

The tide started to turn when I was able to get Cracks Call off and trash his Tyrant, who’d been leading his Ironguts in a protracted battle against Stormvermin to the front (and Slaves to the flank).  By that point, we’d whittled down the Ironguts and Stormvermin to about half strength (and chased the Slaves off).  The lack of the death of my Bonebreaker Warlord made room for another six Stormvermin to step up and the extra attacks wrapped up the unit.

Then, a block of Rat Ogres (the other one was liquified by a Bull Ogre + Bruiser Bull Charge) got charged by the Maneaters and wrecked face.  It was pretty cool.

We didn’t calculate VP, but at the end of the game it was pretty close.  I had Warlock Engineers x2, a full Clanrat block, most of a Stormvermin block, most of a Rat Ogre block, two Mortars and the Doomwheel.  He had his Bruiser and the Ironguts, the Scraplauncher and, I think, a Maneater.

Overall, I think the army did pretty well; I’m probably going to stick with this and tweak it a bit for the next few games.  Need to fit in the Doomrocket, and will probably juggle weapon teams, but this’ll be where I start from.

Dawn Power Dissolver

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A couple of weeks back, Scott posted a link to an article about stripping minis that mentioned Dawn Power Dissolver.  Ron posted something about using it a while back, too, but the article is what really motivated me to try it out.

I had a lot of trouble finding it locally.  Not sure why that is, because it seems like it’s the sort of thing easily available, but… no luck.  So, I bought the crap online.

I LOVE IT.

I’ve been using Simple Green, which certainly works, but I’ve never been super thrilled with it.

My test run was these three minis: a metal mini, a plastic mini and a metal mini with crud (which is what Simple Green always gives me).

I let it sit for just a couple of hours.  What was shocking was just the act of spraying the minis did some stripping.  That white spot on the pauldron was khaki.

After soaking for a couple of hours, I ran them under the sink and brushed them somewhat vigorously with a toothbrush.  Here’s the result.

Unbelievable.  The metal minis look new.  There’s a bit of crud on the plastic mini, but more soaking might fix that.

I’m totally sold on this stuff for stripping.

Painting Progress – 20100626

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Lost most of my free time this week/weekend to Batman: Arkham Asylum (missed the game the first time around). 

Besides that, I touched a few spots on the Bloodcrushers with paint, and fiddled a bit with my Skaven.
I snipped the rods on the War Litter I build a while back.  I liked it, but the platform was so high up, it was a bit silly.  So, I brought it down.  Also, finally put a banner on the pole.
Also, post some stripping with Dawn Power Dissolver (post to follow), I caught the bug to build a new Battle Standard Bearer.  I’ve been using this guy for a long time:
It’s a little standard, though.  I’ve had a spare extra of this model who’d see some half-hearted conversion that I’d gotten in a lot a while back.  So, I started with that.
The shield is from the Warg Riders kit, I think, and the weapon is from the Stormvermin kit.  This is my first time using cork on a base.  We’ll see how it works out.  For the banner, I used the banner from the Minotaur kit.
It’s so enormous, there’s no mistaking it.  I’M THE STANDARD BEARER.  THE BATTLE STANDARD BEARER.  (Do they make a bigger banner?  Probably not.)  I love it.
In other news, my interview with Pat should be in tomorrow’s episode of the 11th Company.  Hope I sound like less of an idiot than I actually am.

Painting Progress – 20100621

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I’ve given up on painting my next quartet of Bloodcrushers.  It’s been a chore to paint them and if I’m honest with myself, I kind of resent the Daemon army at the moment, as if it’s Khorne’s fault I won’t be running them 8/14.

I did decide that I like my approach with the chariot.  I didn’t get much feedback, really: just Matt H. telling me that it looked off, possibly small.   The chariot itself is slightly larger than the Chaos and Tomb King chariots and is about the size of the High Elf chariot.  The perception could come from the FW Herald of Khorne being enormous.

The chariot is a Defiler “knuckle” with a plasticard base and edges and spikes from the Chaos vehicle sprue as rails.  The Khorne symbol is from the same sprue.  The wheels are from a Chaos chariot.  I’d been planning on having plasticard struts connect to the shoulders of the Juggernaut, but Sunday afternoon I decided that would be hard to work.  Instead, I used some hobby chain I picked up years ago for some long-since abandoned project. I think it worked out pretty well.

I will say, though, that painting this thing is going to be a huge pain in the genitals.  At least the Herald isn’t glued to anything yet.

Also, because I’m looking at returning to my Skaven (if I’m not playing 40K at the Open, why wait to return to Fantasy?), I finally stuck the Grey Seer on my Screaming Bell.  I wouldn’t call it done just yet, since I need to decide what I’m doing with the bell-ringer, but… this is a big step.

Basically, I clipped the front of the saddle off, and smoothed it down.  Ground out some of the area between the Seer’s legs to try to get him to sit more flush against the dragon before pinning it onto the saddle.  I used a little green stuff to pull its robes down and look natural (as opposed to just stuck on).

I also had to do a hand-swap, as the Seer’s left hand is supposed to be hanging onto the Bell, and there’s nothing for that hand to connect to.  Instead, I just used a sword/dagger hand from the Stormvermin sprue.  I like the result a lot.

Finally, I had to throw out my spray station.  I’m quite annoyed by this fact, since it was great and big and I’d been using it for several years.  A wasp decided to start building a nest in it, however, so it had to go.

Coming up, I’ve got a lengthy battle-report to type up and post.  I’m also going to be focusing on my rats (over 40K) starting pretty much now.  That means I’ll probably start with finishing my half-painted Doomwheel.

Feedback Wanted: Chariot of Khorne

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So, I’m working on some Chariots of Khorne, and I’m looking for some feedback on where I’m going with it.

First off: I’ll be building two.  The actual herald will be the Forgeworld Herald of Khorne.  They’ll be pulled by Chaos Lord Juggernauts.  The aesthetic of my army is, I think, somewhat clear, and it doesn’t really allow for wood, which makes things hard.

I’ve looked really closely at all of the different chariot kits GW puts out… and found them all wanting.

  • I have a Chaos Chariot, and probably track down a second one without too much heartburn.  But it’s wood.  It’ll look weird painted brass and iron.  I could fill in the woodgrain, maybe, but I don’t know quite how that’ll work out.
  • The High Elf Chariot isn’t bad, but it’s way too delicate.
  • The Tomb King Chariot is much better.  Still a bit delicate, but it’s a lot closer.
  • The Beastman Chariot‘s no good.
  • Matt H. has used the Corpse Cart for his Chariots, but it’s not going to work for me.
  • The Dark Elf Chariot is probably the best of the batch, but it’s OOP and a bit too elvish.

I’ve gone back and forth between filling in the grain on the Chaos Chariot and fiddling around with the Tomb King Chariot… and then I found this conversion.  Not mind-shattering, but much more along the lines of what I’m trying to accomplish.

So, this is what I’ve got so far.

The front of the chariot is a Defiler “knuckle” left over from building Soul Grinders.  The base is just plasticard.  The rails are rounded spiked arcs from the Chaos Vehicle sprue.  The wheels are from the Chaos Chariot; I’ve yet to find wheels I like better, so I’ll be filling in the woodgrain.  I’m sticking a Khorne symbol on the front, and a hook on the side.  I’ll run round plasticard tubes out that will hook into the holes  Juggernaut’s shoulders.

Balance is off since it’s just sort of blu-taced together.

Thoughts?  Is it worth the effort?  Should I just use the Tomb King Chariot?

Goodbye, NoVA Open

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Yesterday, I learned that the IFL Calendar (where I get all my info for gaming events) incorrectly listed the NoVA Open as being on the 7th.  It’s on the 14th.

Unfortunately, so is a good friend’s wedding.  So, even though the NoVA Open is only about 5 minutes from where I normally game, I’m not going to be there.  Depending on how pre-nuptial events go down, I have a hope of swinging by and helping set up the day before (because I’d like to be involved in some fashion or another), but that’s certainly not a lock yet.

This is quite disappointing to me, especially as my excitement for the event had really been picking up.  Now, I just need to let my excitement about the wedding crush the disappointment about the Open.

You folks have fun without me.  (If such a thing is possible.)

Did some gaming

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Taking evil_tendencies’ advice, I’ve not touched the Bloodcrushers in about a week.  They mock me from the hobby section of my desk, however.   Although I didn’t do much in the way of painting, I did get to play a couple of games.

vs. Tyranids

I got out to play a game with Casey on Saturday; I’d intended to do a pretty detailed battle report of the game… but hadn’t sufficiently prepared to do that.  So, instead, we just played the game and took some pictures.  Game was Seize Ground, Dawn of War deployment at 2,000 points.

It was a rough game: between Dawn of War and infiltrating Genestealers, he did a pretty good job of controlling where I could come in.  The first half of the game was spent with my Bloodcrushers tying up his Tyrant while I fed units to his Genestealers.

I won’t say that things turned around when my Bloodthirsters came in, but I certainly felt a lot better about myself.  The ‘Thirsters smacked into his squad of Zoanthropes and Warriors: the combat against his Zoanthropes  wasn’t amazing, but the one with his Warriors kind of was.  Unfortunately, after blowing through the Warriors, the thirster was stuck in the open, facing two Carnifex, a Trygon, Old One Eye and some Raveners.  

I fought for a draw, but it wasn’t in the cards.  I’m okay with that: the list I ran was my 2K Battle for the Cure list, which was tossed together with a “how few extra models will I have to paint” mindset and hasn’t been updated since.  That, and Casey’s a very strong player: there’s no shame in getting tabled by him.   (At least I hope not, ’cause it happens kind of often.)

vs. Chaos Space Marines

Last night, I got in a game with Mike U., someone I don’t think I’ve ever played before.  He was running Chaos Space Marines; the game Capture & Control, Spearhead deployment.  1,500 points.

This was an extremely close game, with a ton of back and forth.  We both had some really shockingly bad dice rolls that made the game look hopeless… only to have things start looking up when the other would have a horrible roll.

Fought it out to the end with a draw.  Had the game ended on Turn 5, I think I’d have won: he was out of Troops and I had some Bloodletters on an objective with one of his Rhinos ~3.5″ away.  It ran into Turn 6, though, and his Greater Daemon was able to wipe out all that remained of my Bloodletters (never mind his Rhino being able to move closer to the objective and contest).

All in all, a really good, close, fun game.

This Saturday, I should be getting in another couple of games: I’ll be running my Dark Angels against Kevin K’s beautiful Tau Empire army (I wish I could find pictures of it from Games Day Baltimore 2009’s Armies on Parade) which I’m going to try to do a detailed, photo-heavy battle report about.  Then I’ll be doing a NoVA Open practice game against Casey, which will see me trying out some new units I’ve never run before.  (Need to decide if I like them before I kill myself modelling them.)

Hatin’

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As a follow on to yesterday’s post about hatin’:

Game Parlor had the new Warhammer book in last night.  Not a single game of Fantasy was played as the Fantasy players crowded around it.  We’ll have to see what comes up on the forum today, but from the noises I heard yesterday (and Ben’s post from last night), those guys might not be as negative as they appeared.

Ben, who’s been sort of relentlessly down on the new edition, basically said, “Well, it wasn’t as bad as the rumors made it sound.  There are some things that I don’t like the look of and some things I like the look of.”

So, maybe my grousing about their grousing was just as unreasonable early.

Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th

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So, I’ve got my preorder in for WHFB 8th.

I’ve got to say, I’m excited about it.  I’d grown very disillusioned with the game playing with the old Skaven book and, to be honest, I didn’t play much with the new Skaven book because I sucked myself into painting (and later playing with) my Daemon army.  New book, new system… I’m hoping that such a clean slate helps me find how to really enjoy the game.

I mean, the same thing happened with 40K: I played my 4th ed for a good bit but never really got it.  When 5th came out, things really started to click for me.

Not everyone’s excited about it, though.  I get that.  Change is hard, &c, &c.  What’s surprising to me is how angry the Fantasy block of the IFL is about 8th.   Not just “not excited.”  Angry.  Ready to take up torches and pitchforks.

I mean, the game’s not out yet.  Nobody’s read the book.  We’ve got rumors, some of which are translated from German.  That’s it.  We don’t know anything about the game yet: it’s too early to love it or hate it: the only reasonable responses are optimism or pessimism, nothing more concrete.   But the Fantasy players can’t stop making noises about moving to Warhammer Ancient Battles*.  There are, literally, people calling to keep the Fantasy Pyramid using 7th edition rules until the end of time.

It’s just too precipitous.

And the thing is, there’s no way they’re going to be happy with 8th.  Not after months of fuming over how horrible it’s going to be.  The Gamer’s Edition could come with the rulebook, tokens, dice, a six-pack and a hooker and they’d hate it.  It’s a shame.

It’ll be an even bigger shame if they stick with 7th for their play.  Although they should play in whatever system they want to play in… they can pretty much say goodbye to new players.  People who’ve picked up the game post-July 10 won’t want to play 7th.  People who’ve been playing 8th aren’t any more likely to want to switch back to 7th than people switching back to 40K 4th.  They can kiss tournaments goodbye; even if they show up, they’re doomed to poor performance on account of not knowing the system.

What will probably happen is they’ll switch over to 8th, and will continue complaining.  I mean, they made the switch to 7th and continued complaining (and, I imagine, they made the switch to 6th and continued complaining).

I’m just disappointed by the negativity.

*Which is, of course, bullshit.  The people making these noises only play WHFB.  Period.  I’m not sure they’re capable of switching to a new system.

Assorted, brief topics

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After seeing this post about Secret Weapon Miniatures‘ tutorials on Tabletop Gaming News (you’ve got that in your RSS reader, right?), I decided to take MisterJustin at his word and e-mail him to request a tutorial on using their Oxide Weathering Pigments.

That kicked off an e-mail exchange with some solid advice about how I’d go about integrating them with the way I’m currently doing brass/bronze that made me feel comfortable enough ordering the powders to play around with.

I mention it because I was really impressed with the quick and extremely helpful response.  That’s fantastic customer support, that is.

Last night, I had an interview with Pat from The 11th Company.

Given that I’m still confused as to why anyone would bother reading anything I’d have to write about hobby stuff, I’m truly bewildered that anyone would want to listen to anything I’d have to say.  I think the chat went well: I’ll make a note here to let folks know when they can tune in and hear me sound like an idiot.

It looks like the Forgeworld Friendly Tournament I’ve been planning to run next weekend is probably going to be cancelled, which is disappointing.

There was a good initial wave of “I’ll be there!,” but now that we’re at a week out, we’ve still only got one (1) preregistration… so it seems like it’s probably for the best just to call it.  It’s a shame, because I think it could have filled a lack that the club’s had pretty much since 5th Ed. came out… but c’est la vie.

Since there’s no point in wasting them, I figure I might as well post the scenarios I’d been planning on using.  (Apologies for imperfect formatting; I uploaded the Word doc into Google Docs, and that made things a little wonky.)  They were all pretty straightforward: core book missions modified just a little bit:

  • Seize Ground, but with objective points accruing as the game proceeds… not just at the end of the game.
  • Annihilation, but with Kill Points weighted by Force Org chart
  • Capture & Control, but without objective control being determined by the last scoring unit to be near it.

I’d just recycle these for use in the IFL RTT in July, but given its proximity to the NoVA Open, we’re going to use that format.