Vampire Counts - Rules Morsels

Thanks to Fields of Blood for the following new rules from the vampires book via the January White Dwarf.

Lore of the Vampires
Signature Spell is definitely Invocation of Nehek - on the most fundamental level it can restore "D6 + caster's Wizard level" of Wounds to friendly Undead unit within 6". Boosted version has 12" range, as well as 18" ones.

Other spells includes Raise Dead, Vanhel's Danse Macabre, Curse of Years, Gaze of Nagash, and Wind of Death.

Lore attribute: When the spell from the Lore of the Vampires is succefully casted, the wizard or any undead models within 12" restores 1 wound.


Rules tidbits:

All Vampire has rule called "Hunger" - You get to roll a D6 when the vampire kills one or more models in combat, on a 6 you recover one wound. (Vlad with Blood Drinker pass the roll on 4+.)

Also Vampire, including vampiric creatures "such as" Varghulf and Vargheist, can march. So Vargheist will be able to move 20" per turn almost all the time. (Not sure if Varghulf can also fly.)

Vampiric Powers: (not all of them, just those mentioned in WD)
Flying Horror - give the vampire ability to fly (unsure)
Dread Knight - ability to boost WS (don't know how - but a Vampire Llord with Dread Knight has WS of 9)
Quickblood - gains ASF.
Master of the Black Arts - get to re-roll one D6 for the Winds of Magic.
Dark Acolyte - add D3 to the total number of models raised by Nehek.
Red Fury - should be about the same. (unsure)


New units:

Coven Throne
- Basically a chariot mount for your Lord.
- Is a Large target with S5 T5 5W and 5+ save.
- has Spectral Steed rules (can move 8"), Undead, Vampiric, ASF (only for Handmaiden who has 2 S5 Attacks).
- has Random Attacks (2D6) at S3 from the spirit horde.
- Has Ward Save of 4+.
- Battle of Wills (before the first enemy rolls to hit against the character or the Throne, both player roll a D6 and add their LD value. Has effects based on the difference of the score).
* no effect (0 or less).
* suffer -1WS/BS.
* the enemy must re-roll successful To Hits.
* each model in the enemy unit strike each other (only 1 attack per model).
- Has Bound Spell (lvl3) allowing the Throne (and all of its crew) to re-roll either To Hit or To Wound rolls.

Mortis Engine
- Is a Rare Choice.
- Same stats as for the Throne (S5 T5 W5 Sv5+).
- has 2D6 attacks at S3 from the spirit horde.
- Undead, Terror, Spectral Steed, and Regeneration.
- can make Ghostly Howl attack.
- can take upgrade, allowing any wizards casting spell from the Lore of the Vampires to get +2 to their casting attempt. (ANY) miscast wizards rolls twice on the table and have the opponent choose the result).
- The Reliquary (at the start of your turn, roll 2D6 and add the current turn number - until the start of its next turn, all friendly Undead units within this number of range gains +1 bonus to their regeneration, 6+ if they don't have any, to a maximum of 4+. Also, all enemy units within this range suffers D6 hits at the strength equal to the turn number.

It also has some penalties if removed from play - by damaging every units within a random range at the strength equal to the current turn number.

Master Necromancer
- New Lord choice (ie. better Necromancer).

- Banshees and Cairn Wraith are now Hero.

Hexwraiths (special)
- Fast Cavalry with Ethereal (yes!) that can inflict automatic S5 hits on unit that it moved through.

Vargheist (special)
- Flying Monstrous Infantry that has Fly, Frenzy, and 3A.

Crypt Horrors (special)
- Monstrous Infantry unit with M6 S4 T5 I2 W3 A3, has Poisoned Attacks, Regeneration 5+, and Undead.

Vampuary is Go - New Vampire Counts Deluge

Wellity wellity wellity. It looks like the new vampire counts pics have hit a little before I was expecting. Here's what we got. But first, a word on the cover.

What the hell?

As Paul from Hobby Horse put so well,  GW have never really hit the nail on the head with their vampire characters. This appears to have transferred onto the cover of the new book. While I am super happy to be getting a new book, the emo-haired nutter on the front cover does not do it for me, with a cloak red riding hood would kill for. But enough of that, for where the cover sucks a bag of balls, the miniatures, for the most part, do not.

The Mortis Engine/Coven Throne.This looks a bit an the fantastic side. Like, Willy Wonka fantastic. (Which is a good thing) I am loving the whole ethereal section, with the whirling spirits and ghosts and such. I was worried about the large model release, but no longer. Fantastic. The bits in this kit will be very handy, quite apart from the model itself. This will be one I'll be looking forward to getting my hands on. Not tooo sure about the female vamp couch thing, but we'll see. It does also look a bit top-heavy, but I'll have to get my hands on the sprues to see. 

The new black knights/hex wraiths. All I can say about the black knights is about damn time. After at least fifteen years of waiting, they don't disappoint. Excellent. Nice mounts, (at last!) very characterful, love the armour and the slenderness of the models. The hex wraiths, well, they look pretty sweet, too, whatever the hell they are. Again, looks like a lot of tasty tasty bits in this kit. One please, barman!

Have you noticed the army of the barrow comment on the black knight page? What's this now?

Now, the oddest new addition, the vargheist/crypt horror kits. Jury is out on these lads. I think I like the vargheist, and they are a conversion away from a decent vargulf. I can see a unit of these boys (I'm assuming monstrous infantry) would look cool.

The crypt horrors though. Mmm. I was hoping for some kind of stitched together zombie golems. I guess GW thought they might have some competition from the myriad of companies who have released large undead models of this kind. They aren't blowing me away at first glance. I may yet assemble a unit of large undead from models I already have to represent these lads. As ghoul unit fillers though, maybe

And onto the characters. The new plastic wight king, just awesome of the sauce variety. Definitely on my list. As for the finecast releases, Krell looks good. There's something weird going on with his helmet, but I can't make it out from the angle of the photo. AS for Isabella, well, meh. She's a nice model, but not my cup of blood-flavoured tea. Added to this finecast scares me. It scares me deep down in my soul, with it's melty, bubbly, where's that guy's face gone failnosity. Krell might be my first, but if he's a finecast mutant, count me out of any more finecastery folks.

Overall, I a very happy fellow. I'm aching to see the rules for all this new shiny stuff, and the rules for the old faithful. Roll on January 14th.

Warhammer Forge - 3 New Fimir Revealed

So, there are three new fimir models! That's the second rank of my fianna fimm unit sorted. I love the shouting guy in the middle, but they are all excellent. I wonder are they 40x40 or 50x50? I would imagine monstrous infantry, which is 40x40.

It's hard to articulate just how happy I am about this.

Warhammer Forge - It's a Fimir!

Behold his magnificence. The new Warhammer Forge fimir. Joy. Looks like I know what my first post-Christmas purchase will be...

Christmas Mumblings - 2011 Recap

I feel the urge for a meandering end of year mumble, and seeing as I can ramble on as much as I like on this little corner of the interwebs, I shall indugle myself. It is Christmas after all.

It's been a pretty amazing year for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The new army books are  in my opinion, a real step up for the game, having taken a more balanced approach to the armies and taking us away from the intolerable power-creep of 7th edition books. More of that. The fact that the next army book out, by all account is for my own army, the vampire counts, has me more excited than a puppy in a room full of brightly coloured bouncy balls. Keeping with books, I really liked storm of magic.

Wait, hear me out. 

It's great fun. It's not a tournament friendly supplement, unless you want to instigate mass bloodshed. It's a great variant on the game that takes itself not at all seriously. I mean, a spinner? That said, you can field a shedload of different monsters, blow up buildings and generally have a laugh, which is kind of what this whole hobby thing is about. Plus, it's got a fimir in it.

On the flipside, Tamurkhan. What a book. Now that's a serious warhammer book. Beautiful is the only way to describe it, in it's production, content and the fact it has a chaos dwarf list. More of this, Warhammer Forge. More now.

On the model front, we've had some good times, and some bad times. On the plus side, GW has upped the ante once again, giving is some just wonderful plastic models. This was the year of the gribbly, with the arachnarok, warsphinx, thundertusk and so on. Some really great kits got released. The tomb guard, ironblaster, Nurgle champion, wraith, all excellent. However, stories of malformed finecast figures continue to terrify me. I am quite reticent about buying anything finecast from GW. I mean, why should it take three days to clean up one figure?! Jack from Fields of Blood shocked me with the amount of work he had to put in on his Haemonculus. Especially when I have bought many resin figures from other companies and never seen more than the teeniest of air bubbles, if anything. Why can't GW get this right?

There have been other good releases, the liquid greenstuff is legend. Finecast brush, not so much. Dreadfleet was a wonderful looking game, and actually very enjoyable. Seeing as I play vampire counts, chaos dwarves and fimir, this has been a good year, and next year promises more. A new VC army book and model releases in January (joy), the new monstrous arcana book from Warhammer Forge (more fimir) and rumours of a new version of either Bloodbowl or Necromunda,(or something else entirely). I'm pretty a pretty happy fellow.

On my own projects, I started this year planning to continue my vampire counts and start chaos dwarves and fimir (using the warriors of chaos list). Rumours of a new chaos dwarf list halted the dwarves, and as I got engrossed in the fimir I decided to concentrate on them until I had 2,400 points done. I have about two thirds of the fimir built now, with the first unit of fimm well under the paintbrush. I've been experimenting with getting decent water effects, and a goodly fimir update is not far away. For 2012, I imagine I'll stick with the fimir. It takes me a while to get an army done (vampire counts ten years and counting) but I'm planning on taking the fimir to those tournaments that will permit them, so I have to stay focused. Added to that I'm really enjoying the project.

Oh, and on another happy development, there's this.

With that, I wander off into the Christmas season. Have a good one folks, that's all from the mumblings for now!

Forge World Jigsaw - Part 2

The second part of the Forge World jigsaw is up. I'm even more sure it's a Fimir now, given the detailing on the leg armour. No sign of a tail though...

All the same, I think we're still on for a new fimir model (I wonder if there is more than one sculpt) in the new year. I've put the two pieces together for a more complete view.

Dip - The Army Painter Guide

In recently had a package from Maelstrom drop through my letterbox. It contained a few bits and bobs, mostly tools, putties and general hobby stuff. I have to say, liquid greenstuff is a wondrous product. As soon as you use it it becomes something you just have to have in your toolkit. Anyhow, in the box I saw a guide from army painter. I imagined it was just an ad sheet, but after a quick flick it turned out to be a very handy little guide.

The guide goes through all the basics of dipping, from clean-up to basing. While I don't really need this, they do list all their primers, paints, examples of results of the various dip tones, tips in varnishing, basing and some nice examples of finished armies. There are also two excellent little tips on getting the best out of the army painter dip.

1. Keep it warm. In cold weather, pop the tin on a radiator or in a container of warm water to help it flow better, but not too warm or it won't shade properly.

2. Thinning. The dip thickens over time, so adding a tiny amount of mineral turpentine can thin it to a decent consistency again. One teaspoon at a time until you're happy with the thickness.

Not at all bad for a free promo booklet, worth picking up if you use or are planning to use the dip!

Fimir - Fimm Musician WIP

After the weekend painting sessions withe RedCraig I had three fimm pretty much base-coated. I went on and dipped the musician after adding some freehand tattoos. There's still a good way to go with him yet though. I like to add more highlights and detail over the dip. Dip is great, but I still feel a mini needs more work afterwards. Still, he's coming together nicely, I was wondering how his bronze necklace would work out, and so far so good.

Painting with RedCraig

Basecoating Fimm...

This weekend my long-time wargaming compadre RedCraig of Blog of Grudges fame called on me for a weekend of painting, drinking and more painting. In fact, I sit here in the wee hours of the morning with the RedCraig cursing quietly under his breath at the desk behind me as his desire to paint battles with his need for sleep. We've had a good innings today, Craig has gotten some hammers done, replete with flaming orange beards. Nice. Some dwarf war golems are rapidly taking shape, destined to become pretty excellent unit fillers. As for myself, three more fimm warriors are approaching done, but I'm way too tired to try freehand tattoos now...

Hammer time.

Perhaps tomorrow.

I'm also waiting on some water effects to arrive so I can finish the fimm movement tray after discovering during some tests that Vallejo still water is a little on the garbage side. I have high hopes for this Enviro Tex Lite stuff. Fingers crossed.

Forge World - Fimir Warrior?

The Forge World newsletter popped into my inbox earlier, with a tantalising shot of an upcoming release for 2012. I was about to move on when I noticed it had three fingers. It had three toes. Am I looking at one of the new Forge World fimir warriors??