Saturday, September 24, 2011

Wryth's Week in Wargaming



Heres an update on what I've been doing wargame wise in the last week or so.

Above is the first 'Custode' Grey Knight Terminator I've started on for my Inquisition GK army. It's not quite done and as the photo shows I have to tidy up some edges but overall I'm happy with the worn golden shade to the armour. It was achieved with a boltgun metal and Mithril Silver base then successive layers of Golden Sepia wash and a little Devlan Mud. Not sure how I'm going to base the army yet but it may be amongst some arcane ruins or an old temple complex Coteaz and his forces have seen fit to cleanse.



This fella is a test paint for my possible Orc & Goblin force and I thoroughly enjoyed working on it. I know I would have potentially about 100 of these to paint but it was suprisingly fast to paint and not fiddly at all. The dirty golden hoods would be throughout the whole army as I see the potential force being comprised of travelling mercantile Orcs and Goblins capturing, training and selling off a menagerie of exotic beasties to other factions in the warhammer world. The yellow will represent their obsesson with gold/wealth. Already have ideas of a large wagons being dragged by Arachnaroks and Giants.

In actual game play I had a couple games last weekend against Dave from Feilding who I met at CTA. He brought along a very nasty dual Stormraven Blood Angel build. Game 1 was against my standard tournament Eldar build and I took control of the table soundly. A couple of bad morale checks from Dave saw his jump pack combat squads flee the table from mass fire and Dante's command squad not moving from their dropped position due to Nightspinner attacks saw a combined round of shooting and Harlequin assault wipe any threat off the board.

Cody played him next with his Dark ELdar but unfortunatly didn't do so well. I wasn't watching the game but as far as I can tell the Blood Angels massacred the DE.

I threw together a fun CSM force after that and even though I lost in the end I destroyed a satisfying amount of Daves force. After that quick game we had time for one more bash so out came the WIP Coteaz/GK list. Ryan has been helping me work on the list and via email had provided me with a very nice build with most of the toys I like in. The general strategy for the list is to create a nice 24" bubble of death for the opponent which worked wonderfully against the Blood Angels! Dave had no idea what hit him when my DCA/Crusader squad barrelled out of their Land Raider into Dante and co and the other DCA/Crusader unit aboard the reserved Stormraven flew in later in the game to wipe out his objective camping combat squads. The Callidus Assassin is proving a nice one shot nuisance for the enemy but usually getting killed by mass fire after the fact. The rest of the build works well though so I think I'll keep at it and see how it performs in the long run.

Other than all those games on Sunday we had an enjoyable D&D game monday night with the boys dealing with a Dragon, insane Bard and a Cryohydra in good order to carry on with the 4th main part of the Shackled City campaign.

I have been distracted as the weeks gone on though as my new limited edition Gears of War 3 xbox arrived =D oh xbox how I missed you so. I'm quite impressed with Gears 3 but thats no suprise however I have popped in Space Marine and my god what a bloody fun game that is. They have captured the look and scale of 40k so well and after a rocky start I've even been having a good time playing multiplayer too - gotta love the customisation tool set. A modified Black Templar for the loyalists and a sweet Alpha Legion skin for Chaos!

Anyways on the painting table now is a metal Wraithlord bound for Oz, a hadful of random Imperial Guardsmen as I experiment trying to find an Imperial colour scheme I like and more newly arrived Sisters of Battle for Wil!

Oh well a little more Xbox then back to painting right...

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Post Homecon



I had a fantastic weekend of gaming in Wellington.

Firstly I had 2 very entertaining games of 40K vs Ryan and his GKs while I playtested a couple variations of my hybrid GK/Coteaz list. A highlight was in the first game both our Dreadknights getting into assault with each other and with similtaneous rolls taking each other out via their force weapons. I also started putting a GK Brotherhood champion in with the mixed DCA/Crusader squad. Rerolls to hit in that squad is very nasty and the Brotherhood champ is great for picking off IC's and MC's.

On Saturday I made my way to Pete Dunn's house with transport kindly provided by Ryan(he wanted to see if WHFB was for him) and had two awesome days of Fantasy games.

I may not have placed overly high up the ranks(I came 8/10) but I won half my games! I got to play against some very good opponents Tim, Tom, Neil, Peter, Pete and Ben with some very nice armies and talk about the game system and various army books with people who know what they're talking about.. most of the time.

However after even the first days games I felt that the WoC are not for me, they are a very good army with plenty of variety but the march across the board and hit stuff style of play just didn't entertain me enough. So after skimming the Ogre book, reading the Tomb King book in between England beating up Argentina Saturday night and a few more chats on Sunday with the lads I think I'm going to try Orcs and Goblins next.

They are the army I originally played with when I started Fantasy many many years ago with a school friend who had gotten the old box set with the High Elves and Goblins and large cardboard stand ins for Grom the Paunch on his Chariot and the Griffon. They have a balanced up to date book, they have an extensive model range I can have a lot of fun with, they have monsters(yay) and if your game plan falls apart just blame the stupid animosity rules and keep on laughing. I have quite a large collection of the greenskins dumped into boxes so with a bit of sorting and care I may be able to get something up and running...or fleeing as is most likely!

So a big thank you to Pete for the invite, use of his Chaos models and his fantastic hospitality in his home. I may not have 100% settled on a fantasy army yet but at least I'm eliminating some and narrowing the options.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Homecon Chaos take 2?!




Ok so after Jack's advice and thinking a litle bit more about what I'd like the army to do I have come up with the following, comments please as usual

Sorcerer Lord, L4, Infernal Puppet, Talisman of Preservation, Stream of Corruption 370

Exalted Hero, Tzeentch, BSB, Shield, Ironcurse Icon 155
Exalted Hero, Tzeentch, Disc, Charmed Shield 5, Book of Secrets, 3rd Eye of Tzeentch, Talis of Prot, Biting Blade 215

20 Chaos Warriors, Tzeentch, FC, Shields, Standard of Discipline 385
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, Flails 200
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, GW 200
5 Chaos Hounds 30

6 Chaos Trolls
5 Chaos Knights, Khorne, Muso 240

Warshrine 130
Hellcannon 205

Total 2400

Keeps a mobile disc riding character to steal spells but has a better stat line so can threaten the rare lines more.

The warshrine will augment a unit where it needs too and the 6 trolls will indeed be more effective.

Got rid of the collar of Khorne as it did offend the fluff enthusiast in me! Tjough I am now missing the dispel scroll which can always be an bonus in games!