Terminator Reinforcements

My Knights of Eden Space Marine army has been neglected for some time...OK, nearly three years.  I am shocked that I have added nothing to this army for so long.  A couple of months ago I got the army out on the table (I might not have played the army in three years either) and got in a game against my friend, Lonnie.  He wanted to try out his 2000 point Deathwing Assault army.  Well, let me just say that he showed me that I have a few gaps in my army.  In order to try and fill some of those gaps I decided to add some much needed heavy weapons to my terminators.  It just so happens that I had a box sitting around so I decided to build one of each heavy weapon as well as a Chainfist and another Sargent. 

I now have 14 painted Terminators for this army.  I still have another box of unbuilt terminators so I will be adding another Cyclone and an Assault Cannon at least.  I also have 5 more AOBR terminators so this could get out of hand.

First Batch of 28mm Confederates

 The first batch of Confederates for by Black Powder ACW project are ready to go!  These figures are all Sash and Saber, which are some of the best 28mm ACW figures around.  I would love to take credit for the painting but these were painted by my friend Tim at Saguaro Painting Service.  Tim gave me a sweet deal on these and I think they look great.  They look much better than my crappy photography shows.  Turns out my new camera hates my lighting setup more than my old camera.  I need to work on that.

Anyway, Tim painted a Confederate Brigadier and one regiment of troops.  Hopefully, this will inspire me to get back to this project but that does not seem likely.  It took me 2 weeks just to base these and add a banner.  I do have two more regiments on the paint table but they have been sitting there for weeks with no progress.

28mm Normandy Roads

 Well, it has been more than a month without an update.  I wish I have some excuse for my lack of productivity but the fact is I just haven't had anything to post.  I guess the new year blah was just a little late this year.  The good news is I have been playing lots of games.

One of the things I wanted to get done this year was to build some terrain for my 28mm WW2 Normandy games.  The first project is to get a good collection of dirt roads.  Roads are one of those terrain items that are really important for modern games but a major paint to to do.  For years I have experimented with different materials and ideas for making roads and I just never found on I liked. This winter I had the idea of using Masonite as the base for the road an then using Liquid Nails as a surface texture.  After some tests I was sure I was onto something.

So after several months of work (and a few weeks of goofing off) here are some pictures of the finished product.

I plan on doing a how-to post on these roads so stay tuned for that.  I am very happy with how these turned out.  There was no warping and the Liquid Nails sets very solid and hard.  Next up for this Normandy project will be the Bocage.  This is another item that I have been thinking about for a long time...

Plastic Soldier Pz III G Platoon

I have been on vacation all week and doing stuff with the kids who are on Spring Break. We we haven't been out doing something fun I have been reading or playing Fallout 3 on the PS3. It has been a pretty good week but I have not neglected my miniature painting. Yesterday I finished up this platoon of Plastic Soldier Company Panzer IIIs. I built these as ausf G to use with my mid war and early war DAK Panzer Co. I have another box of these that I will be building as ausf H for the DAK.

As usual the PSC models are amazing and cannot be touched for price and quality. I am not sure why anyone is buying anything else right now.

True North Hurricane MkI 1/144

I finally finished the first of the True North 1/144 scale Hawker Hurricane Mk I's that I bought to support my British 8th Army. The lists all call for Hurricane II's but I don't think anyone can tell the difference. This is a nice representation for air support in FoW so no need to get all version crazy.


Since Flames of War 3rd edition no longer requires having three aircraft models I worked out a trade for this plane. It went to my friend Tom to support his British North Africa forces and I got one of his extra Shturmoviks for my planned Soviet army.

I still have two more of these models to finish. I will keep one and the other I will try and trade for something useful. Not sure what I will need.

Shagrat, Captain of Cirith Ungol

Miracle of miracles there is a LOTR:SBG tournament this weekend and it is not being run by Tim and is not part of the GiTD! This will be the first chance for many of us to build armies using the new books and the 'warband' concept. I plan on doing a fairly in depth review of the new books soon. For now let me just say that my army for this event is unlike anything I have ever played for LOTR and I was not entirely happy with the process.

Anyway, I needed another hero for my Cirith Ungol force so I pulled out Shagrat and painted him up. Just a quick and dirty paint job.

2012 Gathering in the Desert Battles

I really meant to post up my battle reports for the Gathering last week but, I got lazy. Here is a quick over-view of each of my games along with a few photos.

Game 1 "Artifact" vs Moria Goblins (Jeremy)

The first game of the event was a cool themed match between my Dwarf army and Jeremy's Goblins. The scenario was "Artifact" which is a modified "Seize the Prize" scenario. There is an objective in the center of the table and you need to dig it up and carry it off the opponent's table edge.

Being the first game of the event and facing the Cave Drake I must admit to being a little distracted. During the deployment phase I was really only thinking about how to not get smashed by the Drake. I actually did not start thinking about the scenario until about turn three when Jeremy's Wargs dug up the artifact. By the time this had happened I had over committed my army on the right and allowed a big gap to open on the left in front of the Drake. With the Wargs now racing for my baseline behind the Drake I had to make a quick redirect of my force to block. This is not very easy to do with Dwarves.

I did manage to tie up the Drake and the Wargs for several turns of hard fighting. This allowed me to deal a lot of damage to the Goblins on my right as well as redirect my center. I actually managed to take the artifact away from the Wargs but this was not going to last long. Jeremy took it back and was only a few inches from getting off the table. By this time both armies were broken so it would come down to some key courage tests. In the end Jeremy was able to pass a courage test with one of the Golbins with the artifact and exit the table. This was a fantastic game and a good start to the event.

Result - Minor Loss






Game 2 "Domination" vs. Corsairs (Chris T)

Game two was a modified Domination scenario. In this scenario there are three objective markers place diagonally across the table. The armies are them deployed diagonally from opposing corners. Chris had a truly stunning Corsairs army with a budget Wraith on a horse. I have played against Corsairs several times so I knew most of the tricks. I also knew the army was much tougher than you might think.

The first few turns were uneventful, just moving towards objectives and some very ineffective Dwarf volley fire. With the slow speed of my army I knew I could not contest all three objectives so I focused my efforts on the center and the left. Chris would take the right objective and hold it uncontested for nearly the entire game. This meant I was down one objective from early in the game. As our armies closed the gap the shooting of the Corsairs started to take a tole. Crossbows and throwing weapons accounted for 12 dead Dwarves before I took any of his models out of action. It makes thinks tough when you spot someone 12 kills and you are starting with almost equal size armies.

Chris really did a great job managing his throwing weapons and shooting but once the Dwarves made contact he had a really tough time getting past the high defense. I slowly started to make up ground and both of our armies broke on the same turn. I was truly stunned by this as I had been losing all game but now I felt like I had a chance. In this scenario once one army breaks the game may end suddenly. If the game had ended on the turn we broke Chris would have walked away with a major victory. But the game didn't end then, instead we had two bonus turns and this would prove to be the decisive factor. Chris' army's low courage meant that he lost lots of troops to failed courage tests. In fact, he lost all the troops holding the right objective leaving unoccupied. Two additional turns of fights and courage tests allowed me to capture the left objective. We both had too many troops and characters to capture the center so it remained contested.

Chris was a great guy to play against and was a great sport. On several occasions during the game he reminded me of re-rolls for my banner. This is something that I always forget to do and it did make a difference. Most people are more than willing to let you forget to do things during the game and I can understand why this happens. It is my responsibility to know my army and to use it to the best of my abilities. It was refreshing to play someone who was more concerned about having a good game rather than just getting a win.

Result - Minor Win



Game 3 "Emissary" vs. White Hand (Mike W)

The "Emissary" mission is a modified "Storm the Camp" scenario. In this scenario you must escort an special emissary model across the table and into the opponent's camp. The emissary only moves 6". This modification helps slowdown the cavalry armies and gives the foot armies a chance. I our game speed was not going to be an issue. It was going to be a slow slug-fest.

Mike and I had the same basic plan - block in the center and the left and shift the emissary around the right. The terrain was better on my side of the table for this tactic and my emissary made good progress. On Mike's side it was a different story. I was able to bottle him up and force him to move his emissary back to wards the center and then ultimately towards his left flank. It was at this point that Mike started fighting for the draw and gave up on the win. Unfortunately, I did not realize just how big of shift he was making towards my emissary and by the time I figured it out he had blocked my advance.

This was a really fun game but it was a brutal and pretty evenly matched.

Result - Draw



Game 4 "Bilbo's Treasure" vs. Cirith Ungol (Chris L)

This is a scenario that is inspired by a scenario that Tim and I worked on for Legends of the High Seas. You start the game with 6 numbered objective markers evenly distributed across the center of the table. At the start of the game you roll a d6 to determine which objective marker is the treasure. You must make contact with the marker to reveal the number. Once you locate the treasure you must take it off the board by any table edge to win the game. Turns out this game would be the perfect storm of bad luck and karma realignment.

To really understand the issues it is important to understand that this was a new version of the scenario. We have played a "Bilbo's Treasure" several times but the older version seems to result in a kill'em all sort of game with few people playing to the objective. This year we wanted to change this up a bit and encourage people to play it differently. Unfortunately Tim and I never played tested the changes and they were a disaster. So the karma came in with the crappy scenario that I had ample opportunity to address before the event and didn't.

So, start with a crap scenario and then draw one of the top players. I have been to 5 tournaments that Chris has been in and he is always one of the top contenders. He brings solid armies and knows how to use them. Chris' army included an orc drummer which gives all orcs within 12" of the drummer a 3" bonus to movement. This means he is nearly as fast as a cav army and almost twice as fast as me. Basically, I would have no chance to get to the objectives ahead of Chris, even the ones on my side of the table.

By the end of turn three Chris had contacted all six of the objectives and I, as expected, had not made it to any of them. My only chance was for the treasure to be under one objective that I was charge distance from (5"). If it was there I would at least have a fighting chance. Any of the other 5 and it was game over. Well, it wasn't the one I needed it to be, so the game was effectively over. There was just no way for me to catch an army that moves 9" a turn with an army that moves 5" a turn, especially when he had a 2" head start.

I think our game lasted about 20-25 minutes, which was not the quickest game but it was pretty fast. I think there was only one game out of 9 that went the full time. The thing that bugged me the most wasn't my game and how it turned out. What really bugged me was how many bad games happened with this scenario. I must admit to feeling a bit guilty for not putting in the extra time to make sure the scenario worked.

Chris was a good guy to play, I just wish we had had more of a game.

Result - Major Loss



Game 5 "Head of the Snake" vs. Isengard Scouts (Pete)

"The Head of the Snake" is a scenario that Tim and I came up with a couple of years ago and is a modification of the "To Kill a King" scenario. The major difference is you only get a minor win for shooting out the opponent's king. To get a major win you must kill the opponent's king in hand-to-hand combat with your king. This is one of my favorite scenarios and is a blast to play.

Pete was a last minute player that was playing one of Tim's ringer armies. Pete was, therefor, not familiar with the army and was mostly out to have a good time. This was fine with me as game 4 had made sure I was in no position to compete for the top.

We drew the Osgiliath table which has loads of terrain. Dwarves love loads of terrain with lots of choke points. Pete started off his attack with the Warg Riders on each flank. With their speed we were in contact very quickly. In the center our leaders and large numbers of troops headed for a fountain in the middle of the table. I made fairly short work of the Wargs. I was also making short work of the Uraks. In fact, I was killing his army out so fast I was worried I would get him to 25% before I killed his king. I did get into combat with his king and after a couple of turns of combat I had a wound on him but then my fears came true. I got him below 25% and the game ended. The official result was a Draw but I should have gotten a minor win based on some rulings from other games. Oh well, it was still a blast and was probably the best game of the weekend. It was nice to finally play someone who rolls dice worse than I do.

Result - Draw