KnaveCon 3 - Post Mortem & Oldhammer Funtimes

That's right. Catan cake.

KnaveCon 3 is done, the smoke has cleared and the games are all back in their boxes. We were extremely happy with the turnout and the vibe on the day, everyone seemed to have a fine old time. A big thanks to Vic and Deccie for keeping the wheels on all day, keeping the bank of coffee machines running and manning the bring and buy as well as taking registration. Nice one lads.

Possibly the ultimate gamer breakfast.

The Wee gamers posted an interview about the doings of the day with the incomparable Victor Gannon, you can catch it here.

For my own part, I met up with some of the Irish Oldhammer personalities to run our participation game. Paul, Sean and John (Cheetor, theOttovonbismark and Just John respectively from the Oldhammer forums) had taken various responsibilities for building terrain, painting figures and assembling cards and playing sheets. Once we had reconciled our online preconceptions with the real life versions of each other we pulled ourselves together and set up.

The fimir move off the beaches in search of booty.

We had intended running a few games over the day with some breaks in between, but with a list of people interested in playing the whole break thing flew out the window. Despite a hideous lack of preparation and zero playtesting, somehow the whole thing held together and provided us with a copious amount of entertainment. We gave the players four turns of mayhem before the slann rescue party arrived, giving the fimir another four turns to make it back to the beach. The slann hero on cold one wearing a power fist was particularly feared as he punched the raiders back to the waterline.

And the screaming begins in halflington.

Burninating the village.

Some favourite moments: three eagle-eyed halfling milita managing to shoot a fianna fimm square in the eyeball, the players realising they could use the larger fianna to throw sheep and halflings, and the scrum over halfling princess as one warband struggled to murder their way through the halfling guards only to have a rival fian sprint in, grab her and run headlong back to the beach. Good stuff.

It's graviton gun time.

There are a few things we would tweak if we ever ran it again, remembering to bring stats for the fimir being high on the list. There was enough accumulated knowledge to get us by on the day though. Sean's sheep (sculpted, cast and painted in a very short amount of time, I might add) were easily my favourite thing on the day, and I fully intend to convert a fimm carrying one under each arm as a tribute to the day. All in all a great success and we're certainly giving thought to running something else in the future. Finally, a little group shot of all the oldhammer gents there on the day.

On a side note, Sean's Skeletork was one of two Skeletor conversions there on the day, the other being Skeletogre.

With that, I'll leave you with some more images from the day.

KnaveCon 3 - Even More Free Coffee

On March 1st, the third KnaveCon will be held at the Kilmurray Lodge hotel in Limerick. The last KnaveCon was a huge wodge of fun dipped in the sauce of gooey gaming goodness. Served with coffee. Free coffee.

We expect bigger and better things this time, so prepare for gaming deliciousness. You can see all the hubbub at the KnaveCon facebook page.

I and some of my oldhammer confederates will be running an oldhammer participation game concerning some innocent halflings, competing foul-intentioned fimir raiding parties and a possibly heroic slann rescue party. We're not certain of the intentions of the frogs just yet. Do call over if you're about!

Painty Time 2

Last weekend I continued the tradition of getting some mates down for a bit of a painting session. We set up in the man cave and settled down for day's clipping, gluing, painting and basing while talking shite and listening to various stand-up comedy routines on the interwebs.

It's rather amazing when your hobby usually comes in one hour bursts of an evening, how much you can get done in a full day. I managed to build a 50x50mm base extender for my meargh, a small but necessary job I had been putting off. Plundering other folks hobby supplies is an unexpected boon as well. I was offered a stash of volcanic rock for tarting up the base extender which, due to whatever way it forms, scales excellently to 28mm miniatures. I managed to fix a fimm standard bearer who had been damaged in battle, a fiddly job as the standard broke at the top of the pin I had put in, meaning I had to pare back the plastic to reveal enough pin to allow me to glue it back into a newly drilled standard pole. A real pain in the h$*e. He still needs a little paint before he is re-admitted to the cabinet.

Finally, I painted three wyrm daemons which I'll be using as 'crew' for the hellcannon version of Crom. All in all a goodly day's work. My hobby brethren assembled manticores, artillery, hellpit abominations and terrain along with a bunch of other bits and bobs. I am still chuckling after one irate comment: "Argh! There's nowhere I can put my fingers on the plagueclaw catapult where there aren't f@$king spikes!!"

A very pleasant surprise was a box of dark elves that was presented to me as the owner had left the hobby some time ago and they were just hanging about. Delving in I discovered a cache of 3rd edition dark elves, warriors, command and characters, some Marauder, some Citadel. Lovely.

Some games were then played. The very simple bit tremendously fun Ribbit. A great game for kids as well as bitter veteran gamers.

Next up the excellent Letters from Whitechapel. This is a cracker. Similar to Fury of Dracula, it pits the London constabulary against the infamous Jack the ripper. Essentially a game of cat and mouse, Jack must escape from the scene of the crime back to his lair before the police close in. I did manage to do in all the girls and confound the coppers this time round. Muahhahahaaa...

After wiping off the blood of the innocent, we thought we'd give Triumph and Treachery another go. I enjoy this expansion, and this time proved no different. Skaven, Orcs & Goblins and Fimir (chaos warriors) played hold the centre using only 500 points each.

Over the course of the game it tooed and frooed with pleasant regularity, the skaven initially causing terrible damage with thier ranged weapons while the goblins shoved two fanatics in front of my chariot, smashing it to splinters. Of course, the next thing they did was panic off the table along with the spider riders. Heh.

The cards provided constant hilarity, frustrating skaven shooting phases and removing rank bonuses. Not before the warp lightning cannon blasted Crom off the table though. I managed to take the centre and rack up a couple of turns worth of victory tokens before charging Grunsgul into the remains of the savage orcs and getting butchered. MVP certainly went to the savages, who chopped their way through skaven globadiers, the lightning cannon, stormvermin and finally my dirach. Still, I managed to come out with the most coinage and stole the win. Great fun.T&T rewards aggressive abandon combined with ruthless back stabbing, so perfect for my group.

All in all a good weekend, we'll certainly be doing the painting/chatting/drinking thing again.

Cityhammer - Post Mortem

marlwyrms on the charge.

Last weekend saw the first Cityhammer, a small event in Limerick for a few folks to get together and play some friendly warhammer at 2,500 points set up by Jay McKeown, the wargaming honcho for BroCon. Well, I say friendly, but what I mean is non-competitive. Actually, more not a strict tournament than non-competitive. Just as well as I was more forgetful than usual with the old rules.You know what it's like when the dice start rolling.

The photos here are from his Craigness, you can see some more here. You can often catch Craig weeping softly on the Blog of Grudges.

I took my fimir (warrior of chaos). I took a lvl 4 Nurgle Daemon Prince on lore of death with all the toys, a defensive Nurgle  BSB with the Crown of Command, a lvl 1 sorcerer with Dispel Scroll, and Throgg. 17 Nurgle Chaos Warriors with halberd, full command and the Standard of Discipline, 3 crushers with ensorcelled weapons and the gleaming pennant, 17 Forsaken of Khorne, 5 Chaos Warhounds, Hellcannon and 5 Chaos Trolls.

Game 1: Bruce Sutton - Orcs & Goblins
I've known Bruce for a good while now, but we've never managed to play each other. We decided to finally consummate the relationship. Bruce was playing with a large block or black orcs, boyz, arrer boyz, a stone thrower, 2 orc chariots, doom diver, a unit of six trolls and a large mob of gobbos with 2 heroes with great weapons, shaman and fanatics. An bsb and fighty lord completed the army.

Things went awry for Bruce early as he failed all three required animosity rolls and had to charge with all three units, the arrer boyz, wolf riders and gobbos. None connected bar the wolf riders, who saw off my warhounds.

The fimir mean to teach them orcs some manners.

We juggled about a bit before the battle lines met. My warped (forsaken) took a charge from two orc chariots and a unit of black orcs and were wiped out to a man. Well, fimir. Rolling double six for the chariots impact hits was painful. In return the black orcs were murdered by the fimm (chaos warriors) and meargh (daemon prince). The goblin unit turned out to be a real pain, after unloading their fanatics with great weapon wielding goblin heroes actually managing to take down a few warriors. The eventually failed their steadfast roll and fled only to be run down. On the flanks a unit of trolls and wyrm riders (skullcrushers) danced about each other for most of the game. My hellcannon performed poorly, hitting bugger all before running off an orc chariot. My unit of fianna fimm with dirach, (Trolls with Throgg) which I'd never taken before surprised me with their ungodly kill power. Throgg is a murderer.

The MVP on my side was certainly the meargh. She was toting lore of death this game, and purple sunned her way through a high tally of orcs, gobbos and various heroes. We called it at the end of turn three, slow play (we were taking it pretty easy) dictating we call it. I came out about 400 victory points on top. A great game with a high blood content.

Throgg. What a pr*ck.

Game 2: Kevin Rynne - Bretonnians
Kevin is a great player to face as he is both gracious and merciless. He knows the game extremely well which is gold for someone like me who plays less than I might like to. He played Bretonnians (Game of Thrones themed), a tough army to win consistently with. Kevin fielded four units of knights of various flavours, two trebuchets, a big unit of men at arms, some archers and three peg knights as well as a couple of paladins, a heroic killing blow lord and some damsels.

The first couple of turns elapsed with Kevin lining up the optimum charges and myself trying to best line up to receive them. I did manage to get a purple sun through two units of knights, and the lord did fail his look out sir, but then managed to escape purpley death. Darn.

Two lances of knights including the choppy lord barrelled into the warriors, who took it well and would most likely have held if the bsb hadn't been cut down by the Bret lord. They broke and fled, and were cut down.

The trolls spent a few turns trying to avoid the flaming knight unit, but it was not to be. They were cauterised in short order, but by the end of the game the lord was down to a single paladin companion. Not before he employed his heroic killing blow on my hellcannon though. I did forget it's ward too. Sigh. The daemon prince got stuck into a unit of men-at-arms with a 5+ ward, and only ran them down in the last turn, ensuring her escape.

Once again the forsaken proved their worth (to me, anyway) and ran off a lance of knights a couple of times, but were never able to catch them, and the knights held them off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. The crushers were able to hold out long enough to down a couple pegasus knights, but in the end I was taken down piecemeal. Kevin has the movement phase pretty well down and it was good to see some great examples of how to get the most out of the phase.

A cracking game, Kevin seeing me off back to the swamps. He had a little glow about him after the game.

A spooky mortis engine.

After a break for some grub we got into the evening's entertainment, board games and a four player game of Triumph & Treachery, Games Workshop's new expansion for warhammer. Two dwarf and two chaos players duked it out. The dwarf players had a bad time of it, being run over by Jay and his unstoppable monsters. I for one have to apologise for faffing about in deployment, sorry Bruce! I played much too cautiously, only barely resisting the temptation to charge a unit of dwarf warriors in the rear after convincing them I was friendly. Why did I do that?! Jay ran away with it, easily amassing a fortune in tokens. The cards didn't affect the game as much as I'd hoped, but again I think we need to give it another shake.

Not the best first outing I think, but I believe the game works well, and I'd certainly be willing to give it another go, I feel it's a good expansion.

Angry dinosaurs.

The High Elf dragon known as 'Craig's Bane'

Asur vs Lizardemen

Good fun all in all, though I was totally wrecked by the end of it, but still managed to drive back to Galway through ice and freezing fog.

I'd do it again though.

(An oldhammer mate of mine brought me a very welcome package on the day too, some new fimi... ah, I means 'marsh daemon' sculpts just out from Oakbound Games. Check them out at here the Oldhammer forum. A review of these fellows soon.)

KnaveCon 2 - Post Mortem

Last weekend we held KnaveCon 2 in Limerick, which moved it from a gathering of mates to an actual event. There were trade stands, The Gathering, Wee Gamers and Boardgame Guys. There was a bring and buy, a huge array of superb donuts from Dungeons & Donuts and as much free coffee as you could fit in your gullet. We had three coffee machines running all day, and by days end there was a rut in the carpet between the coffee and donut stand. A magical synergy that bodes well for KnaveCon 3.

Oh yeah.

The hordes.

Oh yes, and as many board/card games as you could eat. I mean play.

Everyone looked like they were having a fine time, and there were a multitude of games available to play, as well as the teetering piles folks brought with them. From Warhammer Invasion to MTG, Spartacus (such a great game) to X-wing and Lords of Waterdeep, the only real problem on the day was how to get in everything one wanted to play. I brought some old school GW games, and managed to rope some folks into a game of Curse of the Mummy's Tomb which I'd recently nabbed off ebay for a song. Good fun, a nice starter game before heading into something more meaty, or in my case a four hour long epic game of Block Mania featuring five blocks. We actually managed to collapse a block during the game such was the firepower unleashed.

A game of Werewolf in progress.

The vibe was very relaxed, and we were very happy with the attendance. A big thanks to all who came along, and hopefully we can get even more folks to the next one!

The Last Chancers Invitational

Last weekend myself and four members of my club, The B*stards of B*stardCon fame made the journey down to Wicklow to play some friendly games of warhammer with the TLC - The Last Chancers, at The Hobby Shack. A big thanks must be given to Nigel for organising the TLC end, and to Ian who let us take over his shop all day. Also to all the TLC players who were a sterling bunch of gentlemen. Also, Elliot of the TLC was kind enough to bring treats of epic proportions (the brownies...) courtesy of his better half.

Foam cases disgorge their hosts.

It's safe to say now that all kinds of fun was had would be a reasonable statement. We had two rounds lined up using the King of the Gnoblars rules pack and the mood was relaxed in the extreme. The morning session was:

(TB) Paul C's Warriors of Chaos vs (TLC)Dave L's Spider themed goblins. (TB win)
(TB) Dave S's Chaos Dwarves vs (TLC) Paul Q's Bretonnians. (TLC win)
(TB) John's Lizards vs (TLC) Nigel's Warriors of Chaos (TLC win)
(TB) Tom's Dwarves vs (TLC) Eliiot's Wood Elves (TB win)
(TB) Craig's Dwarves vs (TLC) Ian's Ogres (TB win)
(TB - TLC turncoat) Dave H's (TLC) Dark Elves vs Lloyd's High Elves (TLC win)

I won't be going into an exhaustive reports, but just he highlights as I recall them. Paul C and Dave L's game was by far the prettiest, with a gloriously converted goblin army. Giant spiders with howdahs as chariots, featuring bait goblins hanging from the howdah as movement incentives. All manner of rickety spider driven goblin vehicles, like a pump wagon on a spring, a battery operated fanatic that actually spun(!) and all sorts of manic and genius conversions. To my shame I have no pictures. (Dave L also presented me, awesomely, with a pile of savage orc sprues which contain some very useful bits for my next fimm unit.)

Yep. Double hellcannon.

Paul Q gave me a good hiding (curse my filthy scale 4 list) with his brets, but my first outing with the new chaos dwarves was very educational. Love that K'daai destroyer. LOVE those hobgoblin bowmen. LOVE those shriekers. Not so crazy about the magma cannon.

I didn't see much of Nigel and John's game, but it was a 20-0, the most tragic event I recall being a purple sun cast by John which about turned and wiped out a hefty chunk of his own army. Again, Tom and Elliot's game passed without much chance to see it, but the elves were running for the hills by turn six. Finally, The book of Hoeth and mindrazor did for the Dark elves in Lloyd and Dave H's game.

After a break, some food and light mockery, round 2 kicked off. A few of the TLC lads had to head off, so there were only 4 games. VERY soon into round 2 a prodigious amount of alcohol arrived, so bear with me a I attempt to remember these games:

(TB) Paul's Warriors of Chaos vs (TLC) Elliot's Wood Elves (TB win)
(TB) Dave S's Chaos Dwarves vs (TLC) Ian's Ogres (TB win)
(TB) John's Lizards vs (TLC - TB turncoat) Tom's Dwarves (TLC win)
(TB) Craig's Dwarves vs (TLC) Dave H's Dark Elves (TB win)

Again, Elliot's elves weren't having a great day. In my own game, despite some pretty big tactical whoopsies, I managed to overcome Ian's ogres. This was a hugely fun game, and my first against the new ogre list. Mournfang are scary.

John was spanked raw by Tom's dwarves, and Craig, in an epic six and a half hour game, yes, you read right, eventually emerged victorious over Dave H's dark elves. This in spite of moaning for half the game about his inevitable defeat.

Strange things happen to a man after six hour of Warhammer.

At this juncture many were rather, ah, merry, with one notable casualty, who shall remain nameless...

As for the rest, it was off to the pub to declare the event a success. It appears The B*stards came away victorious, but I didn't see the final points on that one. More importantly the day was great fun. The TLC were magnificent hosts, and we're looking forward to returning the favour in the not too distant future!

Now, on a final note, there were some potential converts among the TLC to the church of Hashut (praise him) and to that end I mentioned some useful sites for up and coming chaos dwarf generals. Warhammer Forge chaos dwarf models are very pretty, but boy are the pricey. There are some alternate ranges. They are:

Ramshackle Games: The brass coffin makes for a fine Iron Daemon.
Scotia Grendel: The Leviathan dwarf range has all sorts of useful models.
Mantic Games: The abyssal dwarves are, well, pretty much chaos dwarves.

Now, time for tea.