Thursday, May 22, 2008

Mordor vs Angmar

Tim and I played a game of LOTR on Sunday. This was another prep game for our upcoming Indy LOTR GT that we are hosting in July. Tim took his ringer Mordor army and I took version 4 of my Angmar force. The scenario was Contest of Champions. The goal was for your champion to get more kills than your opponents champion.

Tim's force consisted of an Orc captain, standard, Mordor Troll, a few Warg riders and a mess of orcs. Model count was in the 60 range.


My force consisted of Buhrdur, 2 cave trolls, 2 barrow wights and a bunch of orcs. Model count was about 40.


The battlefield, as you can see above, had a river, some trees and a few hills. The river was only difficult ground. Tim chose the side without the river. I had trouble deciding the best way to deploy with the river running right through my zone.

Being heavily out numbered I decided to place the bulk of my force behind the river with a small group, including one troll on the other side of the river. My plan was to use the river to slow down the hoard and then pick out the nice fights. Plans are pointless.

Tim deployed in a straight line and covered most of the 4' board. He had his warg riders on his left and the troll in the center. He had his champion in the rear of his line and this to prove a big problem later in the game.


The first couple of turns were spent moving into contact. Tim tried some massed archery tricks but they failed to score any wounds. The wargs made contact very quickly but were occupied the entire game clearing away the orcs on my right.

By the mid point of the game I have finally taken position behind the river. Tim paused for a turn in front of the river to see if I would cross. Instead I threw stones with Buhrdur and the cave troll, scoring a wound on the Mordor troll.

Tim moved forward and the Mordor troll was quickly paralysed by one of the barrow wights. He spent most of the remainder of the game unable to move. I, however, was unable to capitalize on this advantage.



After several turns of fighting the forces of Angmar were dying a very quick death. I desperately tried to get Barhdur into close combat so that I could get some kills. Tim's orc scouts had been harassing the troll chief all game and had managed to get 2 wounds on him.
Buhrdur broke through the Mordor line and got into contact with the enemy. Finally, I was going to get to unleash some slaughter! Tim's champion was so far out of the fight by this time it was unlikely he would get any kills. All I needed was one or two and victory would be mine!

Tim fired desperately into the combat between Buhrdur and a Mordor Urak. The last archer scored a wound on the giant troll and Buhrdur fell. The battle was over.
We called the game at that point. We were very nearly to the 2.5 hour mark and Tim was too far away with his captain to get any kills. It ended as a draw. This was a really fun but stressful game. My dice rolling was very poor all game and this made it impossible to make any headway. Being out numbered by 20 models also meant I was unlikely to be able to go toe to toe. I feel very lucky to have gotten a draw. Tim should have been able to get a major victory without too much trouble but leaving his leader in the rear meant he was never in combat.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Buhrdur

Here is Buhrdur the Cave Troll Cheif. He is the leader of my Angmar army for Lord of the Rings. This model was much more fun to paint than the standard Cave Troll models. Most this is due to having less of the troll skin with the strange color blending.




They Have Another Cave Troll

Here is my second Cave Troll. I am really begining to hate painting these. I din't think it was possible but this one is worse than the first one.

I still have one more to paint. It will be my last chance to get it right because I won't paint anymore! Yuck!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Old West Inspiration

http://gidian-gelaende.de/Material_HP/Wolfgang/Westerngelaende/album/index.html

This is an excellent Old West game setup. This is almost inspirational enough to get me to start on yet another project.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A Tale of (More than) Four Gamers - Update

OK, here is a quick update to our challenge. Points limits for the first round have been set to 300 points. A hero is option for the first round but will be required for the second round. We have two additional players so the complete list is as follows:

Robert - Beasts of Chaos
Tim K - Tomb Kings
Mike G - Lizardman
Tom O - Empire
Joe - Dwarves
Joey - Goblins
Jeff - Ogres
Tom F - Goblins

All you guys had better get in gear! Joe is already done with the Dwarves and Tom F has pinted his first unit of Goblins. I only have one figure painted!

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Wargor

Here is the first figure for my "Tale of (More than) Four Gamers" challenge. This is the leader of my Beasts of Choas army.


This was a fun figure to paint, but there are a lot of fiddly details. Unfortunately, many of the details are not visible in the pictures. The light is just a little to bright.




Here are the colors used to paint this model. This will also be the theme for the entire army, I think. All colors are Vallejo.
Flesh
Base - 70803 Brown Rose
Mid - 70804 Beige Red
Highlight - 70815 Basic Skintone
Fur
Base - 70824 German Camo Orange Ochre
Mid - 70819 Iraqi Sand
Highlight - 70917 Beige
Horns and Hooves
Base - 70867 Dark Bluegrey
Mid - 70836 London Grey
Highlight - 70870 Medium Sea Grey
One down! Only 30 more to go before June 1!

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Kiev City Militia

Here is the next installment of my Rus army for Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB). This is my Kiev City Militia. These are generic infantry, equipped with thrusting spears and shields. I wanted them to be plain but slightly uniform in appearance. I kept the pallet more restricted than I would normally do for a dark age army.




Next up for this project will be a unit of Varjazi. This will probably take several months as I have a bunch of stuff in the painting queue.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

A Tale of (More than) Four Gamers

A few of my friends and I have decided to jump into Warhammer Fantasy Battles. This is a game that, for the most part, I have had no interest in playing. I have, however, always loved the look of the Beasts of Chaos army. I finally worked out a deal to get an army so I figured, if I have an army I might as well play the game.

Most of my friends have had a similar story when if comes to WHFB. Everyone has had some level of interest but has not been compelled to jump in. I have managed to convince several of them to start an army building challenge. The players and armies are:

Robert - Beasts of Chaos
Tim K - Tomb Kings
Mike G - Lizardman
Tom O - Empire
Joe - Dwarves
Joey - Goblins

The idea is simple, pick an army you like and each month paint a set amount of points and then play some games. As our painted collections grow so will the size of the games. The starting point value is 250pts...or maybe it is 300pts...I can't remember. Anyway, we will be starting small. Each player must have atleast 2 core units and a hero is optional.


My starting 250pts force is pictured above and consists of the following:
Hero with extra hand weapon and heavy armor.
Beast Herd 1 consists of 5 Gors with sheild and 5 Ungors with sheild.
Beast Herd 2 consists of 5 Gors with extra hand weapon and 5 Ungors.
Beast Herd 3 consists of 5 Gors with extra hand weapon and 5 Ungors with sheild.
This comes to about 243 points. I will probably add sheilds to the Ungors of Herd 2. If it turns out to be 300 pts then I will add a couple more Gors to each Herd.
All together I have 31 models to paint before the first deadline of June 1. This should not be too hard as long as I don't get distracted...