Battle report: Earth minute

Very quick roundup of the game this weekend, which coincided with a very half-hearted Earth Hour:
Everyone wrote up 2 separate armies; 1000pts as the main and 500pts in reinforcements. The reinforcements had to make it across a 4' board before the game in order to join the main army. My re-list had my Khorne Herald, 6 Flesh Hounds, 5 Furies and 2 single Fiends.
Every unit was affected by a Wind spell on a 4+ at the start of each turn, so they all got pushed around a bit (the Furies got over in 2 turns and got lucky enough to not be hit, otherwise they would have taken the Heavens Lore attribute hits). Everyone got different rule sets, but also got all of their guys across.

We rolled off and I was facing High Elves again. I had another 2 single Fiends in my main army (exploiting the separate armies rule a bit), along with 15 BLs and Daemonettes, 4 Screamers, a Slaanesh Herald, a Tzeentch Herald and 3 Flamers.
Elves had 20 Archers, 3 Eagles, a Mage, a BSB, Dragon Princes and Phoenix Guard.
Post deployment and mid-pizza we looked like this:

 

 Elves took first turn and moved the Eagles and Princes up. Magic and shooting focused down a Fiend and gave an Eagle Pha's Protection.

My reinforcements moved on and everyone moved forward. The FLOCK OF DOOM!! hit the Phoenix Guard (I need a shorter name for them... Phard). My Herald miscast and wounded both himself and a Flamer. :(

Phard shuffled backwards and the Dragon Princes... Pragons charged my Fiend. Eagles got in the way of my core and the rest of the turn was devoted to killing Fiends: shooting and Pragons did the job.

Core charged their respective Eagles and the Hounds moved to get in the way of the Pragons. My Screamers got the first kill by flying over the last Eagle. Hounds were wildformed in magic and the Eagles were cooked and/or overrun. Mid-my turn: 

 Pragons charged Hounds. Shem's hit my Tzerald, who warded it like a boss, and there was an epic fail of Pha's Protection:

 A bit of shooting took out 2 BLs and combat damaged both the Hounds and Pragons, ending in a Hound exploding in combat res.

Daemonettes, Fiend and BLs moved up to charge next turn, one Screamer got over the Phard. Tzerald Flocked the Archers and Flamers shot them up a bit more. Another Hound died bravely in combat.

Mage left the Phard and Archers reformed to shoot the BLs:

 Pha's protection got off and the last Hound took a wound, taking a Pragon with it. Awesome. Last photo:

Everyone charged the Phard (should have had one core move round the side). Screamers flew over the Mage - to no effect - and the Archers, killing a couple. After a Flock of Doom killed the Mage I got greedy with magic and dimensional cascaded while buffing my core. Tzerald exploded. Flamers killed a few more Archers and the last Hound died in combat.

Slerald died, along with a few of each core. Phard held their gound well and won combat, popping a few people.

Over the next few turns all my guys slowly fell apart while the Archers were finished off, and there was a surprising lack of ward saves on my side. Pragons joined in and the BSB killed my Kherald in a challenge. Elves won with the Pragons, BSB and Phard still alive, while I had Screamers and Flamers.

Still a great game and since they struck me down, I will become more powerful than the Elves could possibly imagine :)

Can't wait 'til next time.

"Oh, is that in the rules? I thought I was just letting you cheat."

        -Me

Soupy Twist

Spent the afternoon painting while watching a Bit of Fry and Laurie. I went with painting my regular Tentacles, planning to paint the Fez group and the lovely Laverne during the week. Managed to remember to take pictures of each step, so there's some sense of the process.
So! Undercoat of black:

 I put everyone on pins, then did a full basecoat of Royal Purple, which made it quite clear that they spun around on the pins waay to easily.

 Painted Sick Green on the suckers, giving up on the pins and holding them by the head.

 Did some highlights with Hexed Lichen and Scorpion Green, and put black on the monobrows.

After a grey highlight on the monobrow and some Dark Green inside the suckers, we have this terrible photo of the finished painting.

Working on basing them on snow right now with a slime trail behind them, more on that as it develops. One day I might actually paint a GW mini.


"This is more like it: Sorry to hear your teeth fell out in the Arndale Centre. All my love, Thomas."
"My, that is specific isn't it?"
         -Get well card sketch in A Bit of Fry and Laurie

The game so epic I don't remember most of it

 Biiig game this weekend. It took 14 hours to do including setting up, so yeah, big game. I didn't take any notes, so this will probably just devolve into a "highlights" battle report. And also mainly from my end of the board.
2500 points each 2v2: Daemons and Vampires vs. Warriors and High Elves, we played on an 8x4 board to fit everyone on.

For environment we rolled a tornado which freaked out at the start of every player turn because we re-rolled for size on a direct hit as well as a misfire; I think we should just go with the direction of the tiny arrow on the direct hit.

Terrain was the most unusual I've ever seen, with no forests in 8 rolls. We got an Earthblood Mere, Mist-wreathed Swamp, Mystery river, Sphinx, Brewhouse, Elven Waystone, Grail Chapel and a Tower of Blood.

 In deployment I learned that you shouldn't just let your ally take the whole centre, otherwise your guys will all be crammed together on one side and tripping over each other. As you can see I went with a very Nurgle build, using Plaguebearers, Nurglings, a Great Unclean One, Epidemius and a Beast. They were joined by Boobs the Fiend, some Flamers, Furies, some Horrors and a Tzeentch Herald with Lore of Shadows.

Vampires had some fun models, with a Mortis Engine, a Wight King (I think) on a Terrorgheist, Banshee, Hexwraiths, Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Chorrors, Bat Swarms, Grave Guard and a Necromancer (again, I think).
High Elves got 3 Eagles, a few sets of Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard, a big pack of Spearelves, Archers, Mage, Archmage and some BSB guy.
Warriors got a mounted Wizard, Hellcannon, a Chariot, some GODDAMN Knights, and 2 packs of Warriors.

For magic I rolled from Nurgle: Miasma, Pit of Slime and Plague Wind :)
Vampires got some Invocations and one other spell I don't remember.
High Elves got the entire Lore of Light except for Net of Amyntok.
Warriors got.. well it doesn't matter what he rolled, he got the magic of everyone he could see. New LoS rules make that a bit insane.

The tornado moved in front of the Phoenix Guard and they walked right into it like a boss, losing a couple. They got first turn and did the usual shuffling forward.Magic phase was very uneventful with nothing getting through, and the Hellcannon did nothing.
Tornado moved off the Phoenix Guard and killed a couple more. Our turn had our own shuffling, putting the Chorrors in the Tower. Furies charged an Eagle and the Mortis Engine double-sixed, taking a wound. Magic had plenty getting through, but also 2 miscasts, killing 16 Grave Guard in exchange for an Invocation, and I lost a Horror to get the Withering on the Spearelves. Shooting killed a couple of Spears and wounded the Chariot, while combat was a draw between the Furies and Eagle.

Tornado did nothing at the start of turn 2, but the Chariot charged the Flamers, Knights charged Furies and Swordmasters charged Boobs. Magic once again did very little, I think they hurt some Zombies and the Hellcannon did nothing again. All of my forces were annihilated in combat and the Knights reformed to face my Nurglings.
Tornado looked intimidating again but did nothing. Beast charged spears (a very bad move) and Nurglings charged Knights (also bad). Zombies charged the Phoenix Guard over the river of Light and got ASF. Chorrors left the tower.  Magic did nothing much, but the shooting from the Undead took out a few Warriors and the Flamers damaged some Swordmasters. Beast and Nurglings died horribly, but the Zombies fared very well against the Phoenix Guard, who lost and only just managed not to flee, which would've been a domino effect that wiped out the Elves. If we'd remembered that the tower gave the Zombies hatred and frenzy the Phoenix Guard would've lost by more and fled. Big mistake forgetting that.

 Tornado moves menacingly toward the Hellcannon.
Knights charge Plaguebearers as the Eagle flies behind. People move up to prepare charges and the Warriors Sorcerer explodes during magic. Hellcannon takes out a few Skeletons while the Archers shoot with a little effectiveness at the Terrorgheist. I missed my chance to do Miasma on my Nurgle BSB, and he died in a challenge with the Knight Champion. Phoenix Guard won this time, shrinking the Zombies slightly. We called it a day there and came back the following morning.

Our turn had the tornado move into empty space as the Terrorgheist charged the Archers, who fled in terror and were overrun. Ghouls and Mortis Engine charged a pack of Warriors and my guys sat around waiting for me to actually carry out the only one of my plans that I followed through on.
And so in the magic phase I 6-diced Plague Wind on the Spearelves, who never had the Withering removed for some reason. Each hero took a wound and the vast majority of the T1 Elves turned into 10 Nurgling bases in a flash. The miscast made the Necromancer take a wound, and that was all.

In shooting, the Undead screamed at the Warriors while the Flamers shot at the rest of the Spears, leaving us to consider whether it is still considered a unit of Spearelves when it is made up of only 3 characters. After another round of combat the Zombies were reduced to a single rank while the Mortis Engine exploded to surprisingly little effect. Chorrors cut through the remaining Warriors in one unit.
Despite now poisoning on a 4+, the Plaguebearers were torn down a bit more.



The tornado moved into the edge of the board and pretty much stayed there until the end of the game.
Warriors left their house, while the Hellcannon frenzied at the sight of the Hexwraiths, charging a couple of inches. Giant charged Chorrors. The shock of losing all of the Spears led to the Elf characters scattering as the Eagle moved to get in the way of the Nurgling swarm.The Archmage made a Pha Bubble. In combat the Zombies were torn down to a single rank and the Plaguebearers were left with only the champion and Laverne, while a Chorror sidestepped the Giant's club and bopped him on the head, causing him to fall over and cause a wound on a Chorror.

GUO charged the Phoenix Guard and Nurglings charged the last Eagle. Chorrors lined themselves up with the Warriors. Not much magic went down but I picked on the Dragon Princes a bit. Flamers shot at the Archmage, but did nothing. The last of the Plaguebearers died and the Knights turned to face the GUO, who took 5 wounds from the combat res thanks to the Zombies dying (it was this turn that we remembered frenzy and hatred). On the upside, the Eagle died and the Nurglings reformed to face the Knights.

5 Archmage joined the Swordmasters and the Knights charged the GUO. Elf mage toasted my Flamers, leaving only the champion alive. 3 Ghouls were left after combat and the Warriors tried to reform to face the Chorrors, leading to arguments over whether you could reform to put someone on your flank, among other things.

Chorrors charged the Warriors. Archmage Swordmasters fled from the Nurgings, who redirected into the other SM unit. Hexwraiths flew over the Hellcannon to little effect. In magic my Horrors pulled off their first Flickering Fire ever, killing the Elf BSB. I forgot to move the Flamer, so he just sat around. Nurglings did some damage to the Swordmasters, and the Ghouls were finished off. Warriors reformed to face the Chorrors. GUO also died and the Knights reformed to face the Nurglings.

Hellcannon charged Terrorgheist and Knights charged Nurglings. SMs rallied. Not much magic again and no shooting; the Hellcannon died in combat.Nurglings were reduced but took some SMs with them, Chorrors died out after rolling terribly:

Hm, there are only 11 dice in that photo. Anyway, Terrorgheist didn't reform after winning, so he couldn't charge the last Warriors. Flamer moved up to attack the Archmage, but he fled after the SMs were cut down by more Horror Fire and left the board. Nurglings were finished off and the Warriors survived shooting.

After adding everything up, we lost by 214 points (initially we thought it was just 164, but the 10-block of Nurglings was worth a whopping 50 points). I made huge mistakes during deployment and across the game, so what did we learn?

Spread out your army. Don't get anywhere near Chaos Knights.
Withering and Plague Wind work very well together.
New LoS rules make 3rd Eye of Tzeentch very good.
Horrors take a miscast very well.
Grave Guard do not.
Use Miasma before it's too late.
Mortis Engines are large and scary, even when they're not complete and falling over all the time.

Not as bad as I thought. Might be a few less posts over the next weeks; with 50 hour working weeks I have to choose between posting and painting each night, and I really want to make some progress. Hopefully have something up on the weekend.

"That's ridiculous."
         -Pretty much everyone at some point in the game

Sculpter extraordinaire

Ok so I didn't get any painting done over the weekend. The good news, though, is that green stuff is the greatest thing ever! Once you get past the whole sticking to everything part, it's pretty easy to work with and being able to make something from scratch is great.

Plaguebearers are the only main core models that don't some in plastic, so they're pretty expensive at double the price of the others. I've bought 20, but if I ever want to use a nice big Nurgle force it'll take more than that. As a result of this and my love for 90s point-and-click adventure games, I've decided to supplement them with a few of my favourite characters.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my reinforcements from one of the greatest games ever made: Day of the Tentacle:

Obviously unpainted and Laverne on the left needs her legs put on, but she'll make a great standard bearer. The little ones on the right are going to be used as Nurglings. I have plans to give one a Diminuator gun to use as a champion, and one with a beard and a gun for a herald.
I've gone through a little under half of the 36" of green stuff I bought, making it 7 Plaguebearers and about 2 bases worth of Nurglings for $7. I'd be able to get less than 2 real Plaguebearers for that price, and would be poorer by one cultural reference. A good deal in my book.

More will be on the way, and I'll get to work on converting a couple of models from spare bits eventually too. Games are going to get weird.

"Nonsense, it makes me feel good. Smarter, more aggressive. Like I could...
I could... I could... TAKE ON THE WORLD!!"
                     -Purple Tentacle, in Day of the Tentacle

Aaaaand one.

Well, it's been a busy week between writing up several (surprisingly varied) lists and painting up my first model. I'm still finishing up the base, but meet my as-yet-unnamed Herald of Slaanesh:

I'll say this about Reaper minis: they have an insane amount of tiny details. Between her 6 arms there are no less than 10 bracelets/armlets. Reasonably happy with it as an experiment in painting and very surprised with the sheer number of different paints I used.

I've got my hands on some stainless steel sheet and a pair of aviation snips, so after the base is cleaned up I'll be putting the metal in the base for magnetic movement trays.

A small mountain of green stuff also arrived today, so I'll be playing with that tomorrow afternoon. Or starting my Plaguebearers. Or Furies. I really should decide on a list for next weekend so I know what to paint. In any case there'll be some kind of update by the end of the weekend.

"The colour of infinity inside an empty glass,
I'm squinting my eye and turning off and on 
and on and off the light." 
          - Experimental Film, They Might Be Giants

Kickass models and making up your own rules

 Tonight's post is mostly about making up rules, but I'll break it up a bit with some pics of my latest assembly progress.
I'm a big fan of unpredicatability, so custom rules for games naturally appeal to me. The main section of the WH rulebook has objective-based battles which do add something extra, but I'm more into the "extra random element of danger" than the "capture and hold objectives" brand of variation. So here are a few rules I brainstormed on the bus this week:

Environmental factors
I envisioned these as a sort of situation where you roll to determine the conditions of your game (after agreeing with the other player that there will be weird conditions in the first place). My boundaries were simple: it had to be unbiased, non-overpowered (I save that for the magic phase) and each variety had to be unique. First though: Look! A Bloodcrusher!

Fog of war: Terrain is determined as per the rulebook, but due to the thick fog on the battlefield, nobody knows what it is yet. D6+4 markers are placed on the field, alternating players in the normal way. When a model comes within 6" of it, you roll to discover what the terrain is and place it centred on the marker. The triggering model doesn't necessarily have to be inside it if it is a forest or river (discretion of the person who triggers it), but it can't be placed so that another unit is also inside it (looking at you, river).
Additionally, all long range ballistic shots take a soft cover modifier, unless a friendly unit is within their close range of the target as a spotter.

Meteor shower: Divide the board into 2'x2' sections (we usually play with 6 so that works out nicely). At the start of each turn randomly choose a section via dice and place a marker in the middle of that section. Once both player turns are complete the marker scatters D6", but if you roll a 1, the meteor is delayed until the next turn (yes, 2 can hit on the next turn). Use a small template to work out who is hit, and a large template if it was delayed (it also scatters 2D6" before hitting on the next turn). Models under the template take a S5 hit, while models under the centre take a S10 hit.

Look! A Bloodthirster! That's liquid green stuff in the joints, and I'm halfway through pinning him right now. My Great Unclean One is minus his flail until I get around to it and I'm not planning on getting a Lord of Change, but maybe I should see about a Keeper of Secrets.

 Tornado: The tornado starts in the centre of the board. Roll 2 dice separately. 5+ on one means it uses the large template, while 4+ on the other makes it a magic tornado. Any model that passes through it takes a S3 hit for a small and S4 for a large. Flyers always take S4. At the start of each turn scatter the tornado, and on a misfire reroll for size and magic.
For magic tornadoes: any caster within 6" of the centre of the template (9" for large) gains magical swiftstride, rolling 3D6 for winds of magic and discarding the lowest, and a +1 channeling modifier. A wizard in the eye of the tornado gets +2 to channeling and +6 to casting and dispelling. Due to the Goddamn magical hurricane around him, he takes D6 S10 hits if he does an irresistable (both casting and dispelling) as well as the usual miscast if it's casting. For running into a tornado, he's also subject to stupidity for the rest of the game.

Earthquake: Roll a D6 at the start of each turn. On a 6, divide the board into equal sections and roll to pick 2 of them, which then switch places. If the rolls to choose get the same section, it rotates 180degrees.

Sinking island: At the end of every turn the battlefield gets smaller; 3" off each short end and 6" off each long end. First turn a section is underwater it acts as a mysterious river, then becomes fatal on the next turn. Probably not one to use if people have artillery, but I made it (just) dwarf-friendly.

Check out Kairos Fateweaverwith the unexplained fish of knowledge on his book. What a boss.

While the other 5 options have been weather/natural disaster based, my last variation comes from a different direction.
Creeps: Sick of people having battles in their peaceful forest/field/desert/tundra, the native creatures have decided to fight back. After placing terrain, you place D3+1 disgruntled creatures in the battlefield, continuing placement order from terrain. Roll to decide what you place: a Shaman/Truthsayer/Dark Emissary, a Giant, 2 Fanatics, 3 wild Squigs, a Bat or a Halfling Hot Pot. They can be placed anywhere outside the deployment zones and face a random (scattered) direction.
After both players have had their turns, the creeps will charge if possible and scatter D6" if not. Hot Pots don't move, but fire at the closest unit. Mages have a randomly determined magic missile, hex or direct damage spell, and generate power dice as normal. Players get the normal amount of dispel dice, but they cannot be used to dispel other effects. The mage uses all of his power dice in each attempt because he hates you that much.
Fanatics are placed in forests if one is available and jump out like normal.
You get 1.5x points for killing creeps, and they have the Strider rule because they know their land so well.

So, thoughts? Tornado could lose the magic variety or at least the eye of the storm part, just to make it simpler. These are just first drafts, so we'll probably refine them a bit if we ever plan to use them.

Want to be upside down, 
maybe thrown from side to side?
Want to fall from the clouds, 
sailing like a ship at sea?
       -The Fake Headlines, The New Pornographers