How to Write Ork

Ever wondered how to speak ork... Well go cockney and you are almost there. Write ork? Slightly harder. Here are a few pages of ork glyphs that I shameless lifted from Google. I could not get the source webpage to work so I cannot credit the creators of this work. It is ACE though and I thought I would share it with you warbosses out there. (it is a remake of the text from old GW books and it is cool looking)... Enjoy!






Also... The Space Wolves FINALLY arrived this morning at 7:30 AM... Review to follow shortly... And it won't be pretty.

Progress Report

I thought I would write a quick progress report on my feral ork/orc horde.

I green stuffed a few more cloaks on my basic boyz but a small hobby knife accident ended that endeavor (hope it will be healed by next week). I figured that green stuff water was not something I wanted in a wound. Call me crazy.

In the meantime I started to work on the front ranks of my regiments and added heads to 40 more orcs/orks. All the front rankers (including hopefully the nobs) will be in kilts. I had the crazy idea of using these front rank models as the commandos in the 40K version of this army. I plan to use bagpipers as four musicians and modeling them in such a way that they are also burners. Thats right kids burning bagpipes (I have sketched them out but have not done the green stuffing yet).

I have an old Gorkamorka metal nob that I will be converting to make a feral version of Snikrot. I am really looking forward to getting on that model BUT I am saving it as a reward for getting through green stuffing the boys.

I also pulled out my old half finished black orcs and I plan to remount them on rounds because they are terrible to rank up on square bases. Anyway..

I have heard from China saying my wolves are on the way. So that is good.

I am off to Brisbane with my lovely wife for the weekend to watch Aussie rules football and to misbehave at amusement parks.

I HATE TO WAIT!

Ever since I was a kid I have hated waiting for things. I still remember when I saved up my proof of purchases from G.I.Joe action figures to send away for my limited release “Duke” (the only one that existed at the time. I checked the mailbox in front of my house everyday for months (literally) hoping that my “Duke” would arrive and just when I had given up hope… He showed up in a nondescript plain brown cardboard box. He was a fairly ugly figure in retrospect but man was I excited when I ripped open that box and for weeks afterwards when I played with him. I am sure that I hated waiting for things before that event in my life but that is as far back as the old memory goes.

My lack of patience is not so bad when I have an end date to my misery. For example, Christmas and Birthdays. You know when they are coming. You know how to wait. You can distract yourself in the season of the thing and remember to not be a selfish jerk and remember there is more to these events than the shiny new bicycle that you hope you are going to get under the tree. Don’t get me started on the commercialization of Christmas! Messed me up royally as a kid. Anywhooo…

No, it is not the major holidays or events that are regular and predictable. It is waiting for the undefined that causes me grief and results in near obsessive-compulsive behaviour (how many times do I check that mailbox?). When I was a teenager it was when do I call the girl? Or does she call me? If so how long do I wait? Anyway growing up a bit helped with this so did watching “Swingers” (a truly excellent film). Now that I am all grown up and happily married I find that I rarely get these annoying feelings… That being said… I ordered 6 squads of Space Wolf Marines off of Ebay a few months back. They said to expect the models in 5 to 7 weeks. It has been exactly seven weeks. For the last week or so I have been rushing home to check that little metal box for a note telling me to raid my local Post office.

I am expecting 6 sets of these to be exact.


Ahhhh well. Back to waiting (and writing student’s reports). In the meantime I leave you with news of a movie that I cannot wait to see. As a child of the 80’s I love a good action film especially those starring Sly or Arnie. Finally all of my childhood fantasies have come true. Both in one movie! WITH BRUCE WILLIS! WITH JET LI! WITH JASON STRATHAM! WITH DOLPH L… Ok you get the idea. It will probably be rubbish but you better believe I will be there opening day.

It is called the Expendables and here is a clip for your perusal.

Rumble aftermath

Last year I travelled to nearby Geelong, Australia for a great weekend of warhammers and hanging out with good mates. Despite it falling during report writing time (I am a teacher) I made the trip down with a relatively untested army and a mob of good mates hoping for the best. My weekend began with a pre-dawn wake up and a 6:30AM pick up on Saturday morning. Though tired and bleary eyed it turns out I had more sleep than most of my friends in the car. (Big thanks to Drew for arranging the accommodation and Nick for the lift!) After some McDonald’s drive through and a tall cup of coffee we hit the road and headed down to G-town.

Rego and setup was fairly straight forward since I had grudged last year’s TO (Tournament Organizer) Jason Murdoch (AKA Mouse). Ran into a slew of familiar faces including a few I normally only ever see playing 40K. The camaraderie and familiar smack talking that goes on between games is one of my favourite parts of being a tournament regular. The banter started early but the action didn’t start til Mouse and I rolled for deployment.


Mouse won the roll and chose terrain that best suited his newly painted (in two weeks no less) ogre kingdom list. He ran a very similar list to my friend Drew’s pirate ogres with a couple units of iron guts, leadbelchers, a couple of butchers and other assorted big gribbly things. His butchers shut down my magic pahse and his deployment kept my shooting from ruining his day. It was a close fought battle that had a few great moments including my dragon princes breaking and running down his general and a big unit of bulls on turn two. Of course turn two was also when his iron guts charged my white lions and due to my ability to miss with everything lead to a very messy end to my stubborn little lions. OUCH! I would like to say at this point that I did forget to use my Lion Standard that partially lead to this messy end. My fault. But I was learning. The game ended in a draw and I am keen for a rematch MOUSE!

Game 2: In game 2 I faced Wayne Pollard’s speedy Dwarves. I have faced dwarves on a variety of occasions in the past and they generally all have the same things: lots of war machines, shooty units and hammerers. Wayne’s Dwarves had none of these. He had Ironbreakers, warriors, warriors, warriors and a gyro copter. Our table had a great big pyramid in the middle. I put my fast units on one side and my foot units of the other across from all of his ground troops. My plan was to wheel around one side of the pyramid and hit the rear of his units the same time my foot troops did. My magic was completely shut down by Wayne’s 6 dispel dice and my shooting was woooooefull. It came down to combat again. My cunning plan would have worked too but Wayne used the Rune of Challenge to pull my dragon princes out of formation. His uber unit of iron breakers broke AND ran the cav down. Dual charges from lion chariots did no better. Sigh… Minor loss to me.

Game 3: I faced my old opponent Nick Hoen who is an excellent player (Always in the top 5 kind of player). He had an army that was entirely composed khorne daemons. 100 bloodletters, 3 blood crushers and a bunch of heralds on juggers. I gambled a bit and my dice utterly failed. (most notably scoring 1 impact wound between TWO lion chariots). I was not impressed and lets just say that by the end of the game Khorne had a pile of high elf skulls added to his throne pile. Nick was great to play as always and is a real gentleman. Next time GADGET!


Soooo… a draw and two losses. Pretty sure this is the worst set of results in any game I have ever gotten. Had fun though. I think that high elves are not the army for me.

Got together with my mates. Had an awesome dinner and a few tasty beverages before heading back to the hotel to watch You Only Live Twice before bed. I would like to point out that I was really cold that night while we were sleeping. So much so that I put on my woolly hat and jumper under the covers AND took the sheets off the bed next to mine (which was free). I slept very poorly as a result. In the morning we discovered that the window was open in our room! I didn’t check because I assumed that windows would be closed IN THE WINTER!!!

Anyway. Cup of coffee number two and Game 4:
Andrew Thompson’s Orcs and gobbos. Andrew had annamosity problems allowing me to take his army as I pleased. My dragon princes were stellar as was my eagle (who should be renamed bolt thrower eater in “eagle”). I don’t remember much from the game other than Andrew was an ace dude who had a cool looking army. I did drop his giant down to one wound with some lucky bow fire only to kill him when he charged my sea guard. Spears on bowmen are GREAT! (here are a few of Andrew's units)


Game 5:
I lined up again Hieu and his naughty Dark Elves. Hmmm… No dagger, no hydra, no ASF banner, no black guard, no reverse ward… WOW! He had some spears, a big unit of knights, a chariot, two bolt throwers, some crossbows, and a big block of executioners. We deploy and I get first turn. In my turn 1 between my magic and shooting I destroy 1 bolt thrower and his crossbows (and 1 of two assassins). From this point on it all goes my way. I shoot and magic to my hearts content as I advance. My dragon princes take his cauldron down and run into everything else. His knights line up for the charge on my white lions only to fail stupidity and walk into charge range. I add the insult of two lion chariots to that charge and his knights were reduced to a fine red mist. I win a max 20 points and give up none. Sorry Hieu! Voted Hieu the best sport in the Tournament. I have never seen such bad dice taken with a smile.

Game 6:
Two big wins! I’ll take it I was rocketing up the ranks and ended up again Hannes’s Wood Elves. Before the game I discovered that he read this blog and I had never met him before (first time I met someone who followed my work online that I didn’t know). Cool. I played another autumn themed wood elf list on that same table in that same round at Rumble last year and was smashed off the board. Unfortunately history was about to repeat itself. My dice were fairly good the first two turns and I was feeling really good until the TO walked by and commented on how well I was going. My dice didn’t like my answer apparently as I failed EVERYTHING from that point on. Miscast magic. Missed shooting. Chariots wiped out to single units of bows. It all went wrong. It was a great game though and Hannes was a top bloke. I would grudge you for Convic Hannes but I am scared of your army! ☺



Overall I almost broke even at 60 battle points (shakes fist at Hannes’s Wood Elves). And ended up 1 place ahead of Drew and 1 place behind Pete who I drove up with. Got 21st place (my lucky number). Again I know I am not the best at fantasy and I will endeavour to improve before Convic (and to play test A LOT more!!!). Don’t think that High elves are my speed but they fun for a once off. I may pull them out again later depending on what 8th ed brings.

The group I went up with took 2nd, 3rd, 4th, best painted (Congrats Drew!), 2nd best painted, and best sport. Big ups to Noakes for taking Best Sport and 2nd Best Painted... While we didn’t take everything ala last year, we did give it the ol team try and had a blast doing so… Looking forward to next year already!

Here is a parting shot of Drew's Ogre Tyrant and Goblin Trappers... (sorry all the shots get blurry if you zoom in.. I'll fix that for next time).

MY CAMERA HAS FINALLY RETURNED!!!

Well, now that our camera has returned from its visit to the manufacturer (Thank god for warrantees) you can see what I have been working on. My "Alien"nids are more than half finished, my Storm Raven is almost done (coming soon), and my orc/ork tournament army has really grown. Today I will be focusing on the green skins since I have to get them done ASAP (and I think they look really cool.)

As stated before, the idea behind the fantasy side of this army is that they are black orcs, orcs, and hobgoblins escaping from their Chaos Dwarf oppressors. See my prior post for the theme on this. The 40K side of things focuses on feral orks in a winter climate (ever notice that Space Wolves are the only army that hangs out in snowy environments?).

I have five 5X5 round base to square movement trays from Gale Force Nine. Laser etched wood, gotta love it! What can I say I like what these guys do. Anyway. The first rank will be regular orc models in kilts with furs hanging heavily from their backs. The 2nd through 5th ranks are made up of my heavy cloaked "shrouded" orcs (think Batman when he is doing his lurk thing).

All of these shrouded boys are based on two stacked smaller sized dice. I attached the ork heads to the top of one flat side of the dice. Once that glue has dried I cover the orc in green or grey stuff and sculpt furs using the flat back of my hobby knife.

Ranked up they look like this at the moment.




Here are two pictures of the same regiment. I have another full tray done (command is at the same stage though) using green stuffed orcs instead of grey stuff. I find the green stuff easier on my hands but I do not like the furs nearly as much. Too bad I have a crud load of the stuff. I think the next couple packs of putty I buy for this will be grey.

Anyway here is a shot of what they look like before the heads and furs.



I am planning to differentiate units by putting shields with different iconography on their backs. I had experimented with weapons sticking out from the fur but didn't like the results. Gonna monkey with that some more before I give up though.

In other news I packed up the High Elves last night and I head off to Geelong in 36 hours to muck around and play some serious Warhammers at Rumble In The Bronx. I have slightly changed my list because I was a few points over by dropping a spearman and adding dragon armour to both my nobles. I am looking forward to a good weekend with Drew and the boyz. Tournament write up will be forth coming.

Wish me luck.

Review of "Battle Field in a Box"

About six months ago I was perusing my local hobby shop when I noticed Gale Force Nine’s new “Battle Field in a Box” line of scenery and terrain. The first thing that grabbed me was the price point. Surely the price tag couldn’t be right? It was way too cheap. I decided to take a closer look.

The “Battle Field in a Box” range consists of a variety of terrain pieces you can buy to spruce up your tabletop warzone. There are rivers, hills, buildings, ruins, barricades, tank traps… you get the idea. These are made out of high quality resin and are pre-painted. I am fully wary of pre-painted models after buying one pack of WTOC’s Star Wars toy soldiers. YIKES! Still the art on the box looked good and I figured it couldn’t be too hard to paint some wrecked buildings. I grabbed a few packs of ruined walls and a ruined tower of some sort and headed for the counter. I am a regular in this particular shop and after explaining my concerns, the shopkeeper let me open one of the boxes to see what I could see. I liked what I found.

Heading home. I was in the lift (elevator) of our building looking at the back of the boxes when I noticed that these terrain bits were sculpted by Jason Buyaki. Now you might not know the name. Jason used to be one of Games Workshop’s promotions team and was responsible for many of the awesome tables at US Gamesdays and Grand Tournaments. The man does good work and ironically I bought this work in Melbourne Australia when he and I used to be roommates in Baltimore. (Thursday night game night for the WIN!)


Now I only have the buildings and rubble packs thus far. With two walls section kits and a tower my table went from wilderness hills to destroyed town/ city instantly. The resin and paint jobs are without blemish and are surprisingly sturdy (I am notoriously hard on armies and terrain). I use mine regularly and have yet to damage any of my bitz (this includes using them on two tables at the Melbourne’s Masters 40K tournament). I found that adding the second ruined walls box really gave me a choice in terrain that ensures that I have a wealth of possible configurations for my table.

From a game standpoint I really like how the walls were designed. The windows are at a good level for True Line of Sight if you are using orks, guard, marines… really almost everything… except for gaunts. The walls come in a variety of widths (all fairly short) which means, depending on your configuration, as long as you are thinking about what you are doing, your boys can get a cover save and generally still get to all shoot. Good times. It also means that if you need to move vehicles into the buildings you can move or remove the pieces that are being driven through without perching your beautifully painted rhino tank in a place where it might take a hard fall.


At a price of $25 US a pack I think that Jason and his boys at GF9 have really outdone themselves this time. I not only recommend that you get a set I am thinking about buying more myself. Until next time… (hopefully with my camera)

B

Another Bad Idea

Convic is Melbourne’s largest Fantasy tournament. It has 120 players and is know for bringing the best of the best out of hiding with their A game armies. This year instead of composition, Convic will be using a slightly modified version of the system used at the WFB European Team Championship.

(40K fans see the bottom note)

Armies are 2000 points, 2250 points, or 2600 points depending on the “tier.” Tier A armies are considered the hardest to beat so they only get 2000points. Conversely tier C armies are considered soft and get 2600 points. Everything in the middle gets the usual 2250 points.

When calculating victory points at the end of the game, once you have the result, then add 10% to any category A army’s losses rounding off as normal. Any category C army would conversely have its losses reduces by 20%.

There is only one tier A army: Daemons
Tier C is deemed as Beastmen, Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs and Gobbos and Dogs of War.
Everything else falls into Tier B.

Personally I was a little surprised to see Dark Elves in Tier B and the new Beastmen book in Tier C. There were additional army restrictions that significantly changed the balance of many of the army books out there now.

We’ll start with a listing of the general composition rules:
Tier B and C amries may have 6 Special and 4 Rare Choices
Max 1 of each Rare choice (max two for High Elves)
Max 2 of the same Special choice
Max three of the same core choice unless it is a ranked infantry unit without missile weapons
Max three chariots (including characters and units)
Max 3 units of flyers (including characters)
Max 45 models with missile weapons with a range of 20”+ (not including war machines, characters and chariots)
Max 5 War machines
Max 9 Power Dice

Magic:
The max any army can have is 9 dice. Bound items count as a dice and there are a huge pile of other restrictions.

The max number of dispel dice per army is 10. 1 scroll counts a 1 dice. Two scrolls counts as three. Three scrolls count as 5 etc..

Army specific restrictions:
Every army has a pile of restrictions that are just too long to list. I will mention the army with the least restrictions. Orcs and Gobbos. They can take a max of 6 fanatics and they can take two of a single rare choice.

I list the Orc and Gobbo restrictions because that is the army that I am going to take to this mess. While I was initially put off by the system completely as it banned most of the fantasy armies I owned, I did have a moment of clarity in the shower one sleep deprived morning (where I get most of my bad ideas). I would take orcs. The idea of a horde of cheap as chips boyz sounded really good all of a sudden. I had experimented with orcs at one point and just lost every time. I was just outclassed by my opponents at every turn. Maybe this point difference could make a difference I needed. Sounded like a good plan. (maybe)

I decided to give it a go. The idea became how many boyz could I fit in 2600 points. I ended up with a silly number that I could never get done in time. Hmmmm that wouldn’t work. Also, that army lacked the characters and hard hitting units necessary to actually win games. I refined my idea. I am an old school Chaos Dwarf player of many, many years. Going back to an army theme idea I came up with after a few tasty beverages.

The Chaos Dwarf liberation army.

As stated in old fluff: Black orcs were created magically from the ordinary orcs by Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers in an attempt to engineer a superior slave. However the Black Orcs were too strong -willed, so they led a revolt and many of them escaped from the lands of the Chaos Dwarfs and can now be found among orc societies across the Old World.

Basically the idea of the army is that a group of Black Orcs lead an army of escaped orcs and (hob)goblins across the World’s Edge Mountains into Old World. Hilarity ensues (or something). I have not finalized my list yet but the army will have five big units of orc boyz, a big block of Black Orcs, some war machines, a giant and some black orc heroes.

Lots and lots of boys. Now I have painted the orc horde for my 40K swamp orc army and I was really over it by the end. I really wanted to do something different model wise. I got to thinking about what an orc refugee would be wearing as he crossed the World Edge mountains… Probably the skins of anything he kill in his path. Heavy cloaked orcs. Yeah, that’s the ticket! I watched the Dark Knight again and had an idea. The boyz in the background have heavy furs draped over them like Batman when he is shrouded in his cape (with just the faces showing). The boys in the front rank have thrown their furs back and their arms and fronts are exposed with the furs hanging down their backs. If that makes sense?

I jury-rigged some armatures to sculpt on top of and a few days later I have the foundations of my army done. Our camera has just come back from the shop so look for pictures of this monstrosity shortly. 300 dice, 150 bases and 120 orc heads... Wow.

(Note: There is a major 40K tournament 2 weeks after Covic called Killcount. It is a 1750point tournament. I will be spending so much time on the orc army that I will not be able to finish my long suffering Alien themed Nids for this tourney. Because of this I have mounted my orcs on round bases and they will be appearing modified two weeks later as a feral themed Ork list. I will be adding boar/ bike boys and weird boys to the mix. I am making two sets of nobs (one for fantasy and one for 40K) and additional special weapon boys. )


To make up for my lack of piccies this time around, here is a photo of me in front of Bagend in Hobbiton (New Zealand).

My first review of a model painting company.

Buying painted models and armies on ebay can be a risky proposition and that is why I will be running a multiple part series reviewing the work and business practices of some of these companies.

Now buying pre-painted armies and units is a controversial subject with many people taking hard lines on whether or not it should be allowed (in a tournament setting). Let me explain why. Many argue that if I buy a tremendously painted and converted army from someone else I should not be eligible to a painting score or awards at that tournament since it is not my hobby being scored. For this reason, some tournaments run penalties for players who do not use their own painted models. To be fair I think there is something to this argument, I believe that you should not be awarded a “best painted” trophy for something that you did not do. On the other hand I do believe that you should be entitled to the painting score your army deserves. While I have “bought” quite a few armies over the years I have done extensive work on almost all of them to get them to what I consider my regular standard.


Now if I can paint and convert fairly well (in most tournaments I get max painting or close to max painting scores) why would I buy someone else’s work? Well the answer is fairly simple. I paint incredibly slowly and I have ADD (literally) that manifests itself in a constant need to play different armies. While I have a job that gives me 12 weeks of vacation a year to paint and hobby the rest of the time I am fairly busy and don’t have much opportunity to hobby. Thus I sometimes have to get my new hobby fix from buying someone else’s work.


This leads back to the original discussion of painting companies. There are a surprising number of people you could pay to paint your models for you. Some of these people are incredibly talented and expensive and conversely there are some people that are incredibly cheap but… lets just say you get what you pay for. Does this mean we straight to the top and expect to mortgage our house for a squad of ten marines? Well it could but I am not that guy. I am my Mother’s son and will always look for a good deal on quality workmanship. Essentially I will be looking at companies that paint above the table-top level. (Upper middle of the pack so to speak)

Our first vict..errrr.. I mean company to review is called PPSBay. They regularly have items up for sale on ebay which is how I found them. I bought all the foot troops needed for a Space Wolves Army between them and another company that shall be mentioned later (after their products arrive). I bought a unit of 5 wolf scouts and 5 wolf guard terminators. The prices were quite reasonable considering the quality that arrived. I was shocked by how quickly I had miniatures in hand. Even with my wonky local post office I got my box of goodies within 6 days of payment (including a weekend). PPSBay is located in China so I was pleased that my package arrived so quickly. A big tick in the timely box.



Now my camera is in the shop so we will rely on the pictures from their ebay sale. I would not normally do so but the photos really did reflect the actual miniatures that arrived. This is not always the case with all ebay sales. I really like the reliability that you can actually trust that the pictures of the models reflect the models being sold. Another big tick on the positive side of the board.


My models showed up in a tough cardboard box with reinforced taping on the edges. The models themselves were inside resting neatly in custom cut foam trays. Nothing was broken and packed like that I would have been surprised if they were. Of all the things I have bought over the years these models were packed the best. A+ from me! Additionally I didn’t realise that the bases came magnetized so I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box. It will make life easier when I go to make my display board later.

Down to the nitty gritty: the quality of the paint jobs. As mentioned above the pictures do an excellent job of showing exactly what arrived in my post box. The painting is generally clear and crisp. The highlights are extreme in a good way, that really make the models “pop” on the table top. Details are carefully rendered and none of the details are drowned out by over thick paint jobs. The flesh on the scouts is perfect while the flesh on the terminators will require a tad of tiny touching up especially around the problematic eye area. That being said that is me being really picky. The flesh is well done. Speaking of the problematic eye area, the eyes are very well done which is usually my first gripes with commission work. All in all I am very happy with the miniatures appearance.



No gripes? Really? Ok, I do have one. I have to say that for all of my happiness with the models I do think that the yellow is really average. The basic coat is very minutely blotchy which is ok but the highlighting is really not up to par with the rest of the models. Additionally the unit emblems are transfers. I despise transfers. I really do. I always have. I have always thought that they make your models look cheap and poorly done. Now, this is a good thing and a bad thing for PPSBay. I knew that the models had transfers when I bought them and I expected to have some trouble filing and cutting them off before I could go back and repaint over them. What worked brilliantly for me is that PPSBay did not seal the transfers at all. Now for me that is a real boon. I was able to get most of the transfers off with light rubbing by my fingernail. BONUS! If you like transfers though I see that as a major problem. Usually I buy painted models expecting them to be done. Had I expected that I would have been annoyed but once again that is just me. Overall, I was very pleased with the quality of the work done by PPSBay.



As mentioned before I only bought prepainted models and did not have them complete any commission work. I am pleased with their work and plan to try them out on further commission work in the future. I would give my overall experience an 8 out of 10 paintbrushes. I hope this review has been helpful. Until next time…

B

Pirate Ogres In ALL Their Glory!

As promised he are some better shots of Drew's amazingly converted pirate ogre army.

Drew is a hobby animal, every unit in the army has at least one model that has removable arms. Why would he do this you ask? Well as wound markers. Ogres have three wounds... You get the idea. His characters likewise come apart but they have one extra part (having 4 wounds each). These extra wounds are accounted for by removable hats. His BSB has a tricorn hat, "The Baron" (modeled after Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die) has a top hat and the voodoo lady butcher has a swirly fez. In addition every "sail" banner in the army (which is all of them) are magnetized to remove and transfer to enemy units that might collect them.

Here are the man eaters prior to paint. The only painted photo of these "gals" I have are washed out and out of focus. It does give you an idea of amount of conversion that went into this army.

The bases were sculpted/carved and recast by Drew himself. They look really good in person.

Drew's characters:


While he did not use it on the weekend he has converted and painted his scrap launcher:




Notice the accordion player musician and the fiddle player musician.

A small partial group shot:



For those who are curious this is the list that Drew smashed me with on the weekend.
Here's the list I used on Saturday:

Butcher General
Skull Mantle (-1 to leadership tests caused by bearer or unit)
Blood Cleaver (any wounds inflicted are returned to bearer, up to starting wounds)
(Conversion: bull made to look like Voodoo Lady from the Monkey Island computer game series)

Butcher
Dispell Scroll
Bang Stick (bound level 3, 24" range magic missile D6 S4 hits)
(Conversion: bull made to look like Baron Samedi, particularly from Live and Let Die)

Bruiser BSB
Seigebreaker (Great Weapon, +3S, roll to hit against target initiative)
Wyrdstone Necklace (5+ ward, on a roll of 1 at start of game, lose a wound)
(Conversion: bull with waistcoat and tricorn hat, BS is a large sail)

3 Bulls with musician
(Conversion: bulls with gutplate removed, bandannas added. Musician is accordion player)

3 Irgonguts with full command and Warbanner
(Conversion: ironguts with gutplate removed, various hats added. Standard is a sail. Musician is a violin player)

3 Ironguts with full command
(Conversion: ironguts with gutplate removed, various hats added. Standard is a sail. Musician is a snaredrum player)

2 Leadbelchers with musician
(Conversion: leadbelchers with gutplate removed)

2 Leadbelchers with musician
(Conversion: leadbelchers with gutplate removed)

2 Maneaters in Heavy Armour
1 with brace of handguns
1 with great weapon
(Conversion: bulls made to look like Pirate Wenches. Great weapon is a parasol)

Lions VS Pirates (Done)

I am back with my first, of what will hopefully be many, battle report(s). With Rumble coming up and having never played high elves I though I had better give the pointed eared do-good-ers a go. My mate Drew has been feverishly converting and building his pirate ogres to the point where he hadn’t played with his army either. Solution: get together and bash one another. So please keep that in mind as we hammer through this game. That being said Drew is quite the general and learn lots ever time we play.

I do not have Drew’s list but I do have a few really good picts of his army. He had two butchers, a BSB, two units of iron guts, a unit of bulls, two units of two lead belchers, and one unit of two maneaters. This came to roughly 1500pts so we played a slightly smaller list than Rumble actually is. You may note that Drew is running an illegal list without a general. Playtesting… Meh… it is all good.

I dropped my spears, one chariot, and the phoenix guard to get my list down to size (see previous post for list and pictures).

Drew won the roll to deploy and the roll to go first our deployment ended up like this:



I had my mage in with the seaguard on the hill on the right and my bolt thrower on the hill to the left. In between I stuck the BSB with the dragon princes and my general in the white lions. The eagle hid behind a tree and that was that. Drew spread out with the lead belchers on the side of the bolt thrower and bulls out front.

Drews (Ogres)turn 1:
His whole army creeps forward.
His Voodoo Lady butcher jumped from a back ironguts unit to the bulls in front.
She casts Bonecruncher on the dragon princes and dispelled.
She gets brain gobbler off on 7… I had one dice left so I scrolled it. Probably not a super bright idea but I know my luck.
His other butcher, who looks like Baron Samedi from the Bond movies, used his
Bangstick on the white lions… I failed to dispel. It goes off doing 2 wounds… but I pass one armour save.



Brad (high elves) turn 1:

Everything creeps forward except for the sea guard.
My mage miscasts wounding himself and ending magic phase (NOT GOOD!)
The Bolt thrower fires a volley at the closest unit of lead belchers. I hit five times wounding for three wounds taking an entire ogre off the board. The other fails its panic check and runs.
Seaguard are out of range… (I misread and though they had longbows… Oooops)



Ogres turn two:
The lone Lead belcher rallies.
The rest of the ogre army moved forward with other lead belchers turning to cruise towards the bolt thrower.
BSb jumped to middle unit and voodoo lady butcher jumped to left most unit of Iron Guts.
Drew got brain gobbler off on my chariot. I let it go and passed on a nine… (general’s leadership)
I dispelled bone crusher on three dice.
Bang stick hits my white lions again wounding two and again I saved one.
The man eaters fire their handguns and misses the white lions.



High Elves Turn 2:

I moved my eagle between the bolt thrower and lead belchers.
Otherwise I moved things forward.
In my magic phase I got off Fury of Kaine off at the Bulls. I hit 5 times but only wounded twice. Now is a good time to mention that Drew has magnetized his ogres so that his arms come off. He uses these removable arms to mark wounds. For characters he has added hats for the extra wounds. Awesome hobby.
Anyway back to the magic phase. Ring of fury gets dispelled

The Bolt thrower fires a volley at the unit of two lead belchers … It kills one again. This time it does not rally. Uh-oh..
The bowmen were mostly out of range but three sea guard shoot at the bulls stripping the last wound off one bull.
They also pass their panic checks.



Ogres Turn 3:
The remaining Lead belcher charges the bolt thrower.
Everyone else backs up… Booooo...
Which brings Drew's Magic phase:
Bone cruncher goes off on the dragon princes despite my best attempt at dispelling. Three get wiped out/
Brain gobbler gets off on the white lions and they pass their panic test.
The Dragon princes fail their panic check and run away but not off the board..

The non-engaged Leadbelcher fires at great eagle. 2 hits. No wounds.
The man eater fires their braces of pistols… 2 hits but no wounds at white lions.

Combat:
The other Leadbelcher does no impact hits but he offs one crew after they fail to hit him.
My remaining crew is outnumbered by a fear causer. He runs and is caught by the ogre.



High Elves Turn 3:

The Eagle and White Lion Chariot charge the bulls who flee 8 inches through the Iron Guts.
Eagle catches the bulls and wipes them out.
Chariot hits the Ironguts and BSB. It is here that I realize that the BSB has great weapon... Oh crap.

The Dragon princes flee off the table after rolling 11 to rally. Bummer.

In my magic phase I get an irresistible flames of kaine at maneaters but fail to do anything. Grumble.
The bows do three wounds to maneaters. (looses great weapon dude)
The Chariot impact for two wounds. Lions do one wound to BSB. Crew do 2 wounds to unit.
BSB kills chariot with one hit.



Ogres turn 4:

The Lead belcher in the back reloads his cannon.
My eagle marchblocks everyone but they move in for the kill anyway.
The Baron Butcher kills three white lions with bone cruncher.
Voodoo Lady miscasts and wounds herself ending the magic phase.
The remaining Maneater fails to hit eagle with a brace pistols.



High Elves Turn 4:

White lions timidly back up. (This is a big mistake I will discuss later).
Eagle gets in front of iron guts for some redirecting goodness.
In my magic phase the Flames of Khaine is dispelled
Bows don’t do much to the iron guts.



Ogres turn 5:
Iron guts charged the eagle who ran away but this pulled them out of position. Eagle gets away.
Braingobler is out of range on archers
Tooth cracker on Iron guts is dispelled.
Bang stick is likewise dispelled.

Man eater shoots at white lions who pass their armour tests



High Elves turn 5:
Eagle rallies.
White Lions back up again.
Bows do nothing to Iron guts.



The Endgame...

Drew brings things around in an arc of bad things for me.
The Iron guts charge eagle who flees again.
The Baron Butcher joins the maneater
Other iron guts back away
Leadbechers line up for shot.

Most of the magic phase is dispelled or fails BUT brain gobbler which makes my archers and mage run. Uh-oh

The Maneater fails to wound eagle with his pistols.
The first leadbelcher does 10 hits. 2 white lions die to flying bitz of rubbish.
The second misfires but only does one wound to himself.



High Elves Turn 6:

My general has enough of this rubbish and charges out of unit to hit the wounded lead belcher.
The Eagle rallies
The Archers rally. WHEW!
Flames of Khaine miscast again which ends the magic phase.

In combat my noble does one wound.
The Ogre wounds back but my armour blocks the hit.
Drawn combat because the ogre outnumbered my general.

After all is said and done I lose a minor defeat. We decide that we had time for another game before my wife and I ran off to see our favorite Aussie Rules Football Team play. This one flew by and we both played much more aggressively. I cannot believe how awesome the white lions are in combat. A wounded unit smashed two units of iron guts charging them. I should have been running these down the ogres throats MUCH earlier and I also should have been much more aggressive with the dragon princes. They were also very effective in game 2. I won the 2nd game so Drew and I are 1 and 1 with these armies.

Thanks for reading. This is my first real attempt at this sort of thing I would love comments or questions.