Chaos Dwarves - The Destroyer Cometh

There's some work in progress shots out now for the K'daai destroyer from Games Day. These are from Dice and Brush. I have to say, so far I'm not feeling it. I like the head and upper arms, but the hoofyhands and little mechanical legs, not so much. I'm still unsure what it's based on. The fireborn are essentially fire elementals bound into armour, so, what's this guy? Aren't they meant to be cousins, or somesuch?

It's a sight better than the concept illustrations in Tamurkhan though, and as it's still work in progress hopefully it'll be grand once the final release it ready. Then all we need are hobgoblins. You hear me, Forge World? HOBGOBLINS.

But wait? What's this lurking at the back here, looking all very nice indeed? Lammasu baby!

Campaignhammer - It Lives Again!

 After some small break, campaignhammer is off again. We had a bit of a bottleneck waiting for two sieges to be played, but using the new Blood in the Badlands siege rules (which worked really well for us) we got them done last weekend. My undead had a good run, winning both games with a little backstabbery from their new Druchii allies. If you want to take a gander, try here. There's almost a year of campaigning on the blog now, which I'm quite satisfied with as these things tend to fizzle out if let drift. Now though, there's a fresh injection of hate, which is the lifeblood of a good campaign!

Scenery - Tower Keep Finished

Well, the keep is finished. Not much to it really. I added some slight weathering along the base of the tower just to break up the grey stone a little, and I finally tried out some spray matt varnish. There's no way I was brush varnishing this thing. I used Windsor & Newton all purpose matt varnish, and it went on a treat, so happy days. I've all the paints and techniques I need for the main event, the enormous Hudson & Allen castle, which I'll start on next week, so be prepared for some serious masonry on the mumblings for the next while.

Scenery - Hudson & Allen Tower Keep

I'm taking a brief break from the fimir to finish up a scenery project for a friend. It's a castle, the rather groovy Hudson & Allen six section one. First though, I'm going to test out my castle painting mojo on the tower keep. You can see the work in shot progress here. It's a big bugger too, 8.5" in diameter and 8.75" tall, plenty big for a war machine, monster or sun lounger. The watchtower scenario will have a tower worth fighting over from now on...

The Horus Heresy Vol 1: Betrayal

 Today the ripple of excitement on the hobbynet is all about the upcoming book from Forge World, The first Horus Heresy book, Betrayal. It isn't part of the Imperial Armour series, but looks much closer to Tamurkhan in presentation and as a stand-alone expansion. Looking at the video and some of the images of the pages, it looks beautiful. I'm not 40k player, (though I am getting more tempted by the day) but I love the fluff, so I'll be having this, as the background and artwork make it a worthwhile buy for me all on their own.

Fantasy Mathhammer - Only 118 More Downloads!

Hey kids. My good mate Craig of the Blog of Grudges has been having some success of late with his hyper groovy android app Fantasy Mathhammer. The app got a nice mention on Garagehammer on episode 55, and Craig was interviewed by Andy Sherman on Ohiohammer for episode 29. It's a great app for checking your various units combat effectiveness when list building, or just generally testing them against other armies units, and Craig is adding features all the time. Click the link below to get the app.

Fantasy Mathhammer

Craig needs 1000 downloads, and is currently at 882. It would be fabtabulous if Craig got to 1000, so go ahead and download the thing! Tis free! You'll get 1000 Mumblepoints* for each download, and Craig will give you a full body massage.

*Mumblepoints may not really be worth anything, or actually exist.

Fimir - The Half Dead, Update 1

 So inspired was I by my test model, I went ahead and test built the entire unit of half-dead. They're a mix of several kits, Mantic zombies, GW skeleton heads, Warlord Games Celts and a few other bits and bobs. I'm liking the way they rank up and the general movement of the models, but there's a few changes to add here and there, as well as the copius green stuffing I need to do once I start actually building the unit properly. You can see the mock-up of the slave driver here too, who will be part of a unit filler. I wanted to give him some height, so he's scaling a rotten tree stump so he can better administer the lash of his leystone-tipped whip.

Musician

 

Fimir - The Half Dead (tester)

The old mind has been bubbling along all morning considering the next fimir unit to paint. I've settled on the half-dead, as it allows super happy conversion goodness. I plan a unit of eighteen, with one filler, which will be the fimir driver standing on the marker stone raising his whip to lash on his undead charges. I think a few half-dead will be emerging from the swamp, and possibly one dragging down a victim below the water too. Fun times. Here's the tester I whipped together at lunch. He's not quite there, needs some roots or branches or something. The skin will be dark peaty brown, but the bone will be regular bone. If I painted it all brown as it would be in reality, this model would be on a one way ticket to boringtown. Removing the plastic base will be the biggest pain in the hoop.

Fimir - Morgayne the Meargh

After some final touches and the addition of some foetid swamp water, here's the withered, saggy leader of the Fir Domhan, Morgayne. She's not as scary as a chaos lord, or as nimble as a dark elf sorceress, but she's got a bus pass in there somewhere and she's not afraid to use it. In the end the addition of the staff, ogham scraps of parchement (which do actually say something) and a spot of fancy basing really helped jazz up a very old model. Many thanks to all those who supplied feedback, much appreciated! She's given me an idea how all the other old school fimir will look, and I'm very excited to get started on nobles, fianna fimm and the dirach. The question now is, do I do the fianna fimm next, or the half-dead?

Anyone interested in Morgayne's background can read it here.

NWG 2012 - Post Mortem

So, NWG 2012 is all wrapped up. A great event, well run and lots of fun. It's the first event I've attended in my return to the tournament scene, and I had a ball. I was completely exhausted by Sunday, but it was a happy exhausted.

I'd been working up to this event for a while, getting my meargh ready with a day or so to spare. There's still an awful lot of work to be done on the fimir, (an awful lot) but this was their first outing and I was eager to see how the list functioned. So here's how the games went. This won't be blow for blow, more the highlights and things I can actually remember. We were using the SCALE system, with my list being SCALE 1.

On Friday night there were demo games of Malifaux, Hordes, Warmachine and such going on, as well as some Warhammer. There was a rather entertaining pub quiz which our team, team sparkleparty, managed to win. Go us.

A nice ease into the weekend ahead.

What IS that big metal fellow?

Game 1: Gareth Lombard's Dwarves (SCALE ?).
The first scenario was Dawn Attack. Most of the dwarf units ended up either centre or on the dwarf left flank, with most of mine centre or my left flank. Pretty much a classic dwarf castle, with dwarf units backing away from combat as unerringly accurate artillery complete with the rune of no misfire for dwarves pounded my poor fimir. There was not much more to the game, I eventually got to the dwarf lines in turn four, and as turn five rolled up we had to call it just as my half-dead (chosen) were preparing to give the anvil a good beating and hopefully overrun into all his toys. Sigh.

There was a little bit of a hoo-ha with Gareth's scale, so I'm not entirely sure of the final result, but I believe it was in the region of 13-7 to him after SCALE. Not the best start, but at least not a total tabling.

Hot dwarf on dwarf action.

Game 2: Dave Leahy's  Warriors of Chaos (SCALE 0)
Ah, the mirrormatch. This was probably my favourite game of the weekend. Dave is a combination of great hobbyist, great player and fun bloke to boot, a winning combo. We were playing Blood and Glory. Dave's warrior list was very different from my own, with Slaanesh units and the dreaded doom totem making my worry about leadership tests. His army was beautiful too, and most of the models were female.

Dave was running Galruach, who refused to die despite my best efforts. We then settled into an infernal gateway barrage on each other's armies, and eventually the eleven rolled up and Dave's bsb and her unit were sucked into the realm of chaos. My joy was short lived, as his pandemonium spell with puppet (we both had the puppet, it was quite the duel) sent my meargh after the unfortunate bsb. Dave broke me about turn three, but the game gave victory points rather than an outright win, and we played on, with me breaking him a turn or so later. Another nice moment was Dave's Slaanesh girls charging down the hill into my fimm (warriors of Tzeentch with halberds) and giving them a good hiding. Galruach was the man of the match though, keeping me on the back foot but still keeping close enough to the bsb to pass his mad two headed dragon tests. A crackingly good game, despite an 18 - 2 rollicking with SCALE. It was not looking good for the Fir Domhan...

Galruach - he crazy

Game 3: Dave Holohan's Dark Elves (SCALE 0)
I'd played Dave once before using my chaos dwarves and lost to him in the watchtower scenario. This time it was straight up Battleline. It was a bloody affair, with my half dead (chosen) and  fimm (warriors) butchering his corsairs and executioners while the meargh killed scores of elves with infernal gateway. Meanwhile Crom (hellcannon) held up the black dragon long enough to keep it out of the game. The hydra piled into my large block of human shearl (Khorne marauders with great weapons) and utterly destroyed them. Fecking hydras. Still, after the red mist had cleared it was the fimir who had won the day. Another top game with a great opponent, finishing 16 - 4 to me after SCALE.

At this juncture I was rather weary and in need of food urgently, having utterly forgotten about lunch. This was remedied, though I had to pretty much beg the waiter for another glass of water at the Indian we went to. Strange how the beer arrived with no delay though. Some drinks were had, but nowt too crazy, as I still had a fear of gin from two weeks ago. Sunday morning we were only a little late...

The ogres that won best painted. Lovely.

Game 4: Eoin Lennon's Vampire Counts (SCALE 0)
Watchtower, my least favourite scenario. My opponent, Eoin, was an utter gent, who put up with my slightly tired/hungover meanderings. This may have come across as my being a bit gamey, but was actually to do with me just forgetting to do everything. My hat goes off to you Eoin. As a vampire counts player, I was very interested in seeing the new units in action as I haven't played vampires much since the new book came out.

My half-dead (chosen) got an early charge in against the grave guard holding the tower and smashed them into bonemeal, allowing me to garrison the building. By the end of the game (we were forced to call it at the end of turn three) the terrorgheist had screamed them down to one chosen. I got a lucky strike in on his ghoul king as it ploughed into my fimm (warriors) and my Flaithmor (exalted hero) with the sword of anti-heroes and the other trickster's shard took off his head thanks to a ward save re-roll. The vargheists were fed hounds until they butted up against Crom (hellcannon) and stuck there. Crom had also managed to pin the hexwraith's.

Another fun game, Eoin was very magnanimous and I look forward to meeting him on the field of battle another day. Result was a 17-3 to me after SCALE.


Game 5: Kevin Rynne's Dark Elves (SCALE 0)
Finally game five, Meeting Engagement. After two wins, Kevin put me right back in my place. He had a stubborn pegasus lord with the pendant of Khaeleth, that bloody hydra, tooled up assassins, corsairs, spearmen, two bolt throwers and two mages, a level four and level two. He also had some hardcore harpies, who beat my hounds to death even when outnumbered.

After Crom (hellcannon) was sent down a hole with an irresistible pit of shades in turn two, I had a bad feeling. I felt better after my fimm (warriors) murdered a crossbow unit and caused his big spearman block containing his level four to flee off the field. The hydra then managed a double six charge into the rear of the fimm and sent them packing. Despite having no shooting or magic by turn four, Kevin used his pegaus lord masterfully to tie up the half-dead (chosen) while his corsairs mowed down my shearl (marauders). A really fun game against a very good opponent. Final score, 19 - 1 after SCALE to Kevin.

I'm not a 40k player, but wow.

Onto the closing ceremony and some very nice trophies and prizes were handed out. I came 18th out of 28, which I was happy with, considering I had had just two games with the warriors of chaos before the tournament. Utterly spent, we packed up and headed for home. I'll certainly be attending next year, with even more fimiry goodness.