WIP Mangler Squigs and Ugly Pump Wagons

Soooo...  As I horde bitz for the chaos dwarf project to continue I thought I would do something novel and try and finish an army.  Conquest in coming up Easter Weekend and Rumble in the Bronx is slated for the week after (both during my school holidays so I will theoretically have some more time to hobby). I got to talking with friends and thinking things through.  I will finish my Orcs and Goblins army for both and move onto the Chaos Dwarves for Empire in Flames later in the year.

Soooo Mangler squigs are amazing.  For their points they are brutal and honestly I love the fluff behind them...  Sadly I HATE the GW models for them with a passion and they don;t really match my army concept anyway... So I am going to make my own.  This in mind I bought some ping pong balls and got to work.  Stage 1 teeth:

I have intentionally left the teeth imperfect.  I have some plans for the messy spots later though there will be some sanding happening at some point...

Next up (24 hours later) Lips: (Part 1 upper lip... or bottom lip...  haven't decided yet):

 I also went on a mighty bitz hunt through the closet and not only found my missing vampire gear AND missing ghoul models I found the legs to some chaos spawn that with some recutting and sculpting will be perfect for these guys....  Have to think about the eyes soon too but I have to decide which lip is the upper lip first).  I will be heavily fur coating these guys at some point as well which means I need to get some grey stuff (best tools for the job and all)...

And here is the very beginning of an upside down pump wagon idea. Supposed to look mini-steam tanky....  I know it looks boring now...  I have a pile of stuff to add yet.

Wolves, Nids, and more Wolves and Nids... Oh My!

It appears that besides new glue (who cares) and a resin repack of the Hell Cannon (that I actually do really care about)...  We will have some pretty awesome 40K goodness in March:

Space Wolves Thunderwolf Cavalry 3 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 
Space Wolves Fenrisian Wolf Pack 5 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 
Arjac Rockfist, The Anvil of Fenris 1 Fig Clampack 3-Mar-12 
Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 
Tyranid Hive Tyrant / The Swarmlord 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 
Tyranid Tyrannofex / Tervigon 1 Fig Box 3-Mar-12 

I have to say the wolves look great (I will be using them for fantasy wolf riders shortly I believe) and Arjaj looks sweet but I am most excited about the new Tyranid junk.  I want a swarm lord and I am not even really playing 40K right now...

Time to rob a bank me thinks!  :)

New stuff coming up (space skaven?)(FW Bassie... Not 40K)

Sooo after a delightful evening of boardgames with the boys we took a quick look at Warhammer forge and Mantic and we generally like what we saw.

First of all here is the HUGE (that is an araknarock spider base) new resin Basilisk.  I absolutely love this model and at 60 pounds it is a wonderful price at the current exchange rate.

As beautiful as this model is...  I really want Warhammer Forge to make a K'daai Destroyer and/or little K'daai.

AND here are a few teaser shots of Mantic's new Space Skaven...  They look like they are marketing them as "Aliens."  I am interested in seeing more of what they will do with new models....

In any event I look forward to seeing what comes soon from a variety of companies...

B

More Chaos Dwarves and Gaunt's Ghosts?

So it has been an insane week at my new school which has really cut down on the amount of hobby time I have available at the moment.  That being said I have finished sculpting the join bitz on my unit of 26 chaos dwarves and in hoping to paint the other night... I primed the lot black...  They are still black.

Here are some shots of a few of the bull centaur/ warrior hybrid models...

You might notice that I have swapped weapons as well as some of the hats to vary the models up a bit.

 and from behind...

Not the most amazing sculpting I have ever done but I think that once paint hits these models they will look much better.

AND coming soon from Blight Wheel Miniatures...  Grant's Specktors... Criid anyone?

These guys have already done a stalk tank...  I hope they do more basic troopers.  I would by another guard army!

B

My Take On Hob(goblins)

The Chaos Dwarf madness continues.  After a crazy week of work in my new job at a new school I have been able to finish cutting and assembling 26 of the 30 chaos dwarf warrior hybrids that I need for my new army.  The last 4 slots will be taken up by a yet to be determined unit filler (suggestions anyone?).  That just leaves a fairly large number of belts, pouches and scale mail armour pieces to sculpt to cover up the construction.  Well I know what I will be doing for a while.

With the actual dwarves sorted that just leaves the rest of the core to be filled out.  In a word: Hobgoblins!

What can I say, I love the little blighters.  In my mind they are an integral part of the chaos dwarf fluff and story.  I have always thought that the chaos dwarves would be few in number and that in battle they would drag along their backstabbing, sneaky minions to get in the way of enemies while the dwarves whittled down opponents from afar.  In the new book they were the biggest disappointment for me as the new list did not include my favourite unit in the old army.  Sneaky Gitz.  Sure they were crap but they were cheap and man did I have fun poisoning everything in sight.  The new list has generic Hobgoblins but at 5 points I know that I would rather have regular goblins (for less) or chaos marauders (who are admittedly undercosted).

Whatever.  I got over it.  I decided that I needed my hobgoblin unit to out number my Chaos Dwarf unit as I explained earlier I feel as though that is the way it would work in "real life."  Probably not a great battlefield choice but I am not playing Chaos Dwarves to win.

Now a while ago as part of my "Chaos Dwarf Liberation" Orc and Goblin Army I made generic goblins that I intentionally designed to appear more hobgobliny than regular goblins.  They were made using a 40K ork shoota with clips and handles cut off.  This pole was then stuck to a base muzzle down so it made a cylinder of plastic sticking up.  From there I glued a goblin head to the tube and sculpted furry cloaks to cover the tube and to give the model some girth (not much mind you...  they are supposed to be weedy).  They ended up looking like this:

From there paint was applied and they ended up looking like this:  (please keep in mind that the helmets are not done and I have not decided what to do with the bases yet)

Or a close up:

Hope you like them...  More to the point I hope I like them on the battlefield.  With 40 I am paying a fair number of points for a crappy unit.  Time will tell I suppose.

Return of the Chaos Dwarves... Or.. Brad brings the stumpy back...

It is no surprise to many of you that I am in love with the Warhammer Forge Chaos Dwarf list and stuff... As I generally love FW and I love Chaos Dwarves.  My big gripe with the range is the general lack of big hats.  I know, I know... I am one of those people.  I love the hat!

So I picked up the Turmakhan book over Christmas and I have to say that it is well worth the double army book price that is demands.  It is beautifully bound with great art and I really like the narrative structure of the story.  Then I read the chaos dwarf list.  My initial reaction was meh.... too expensive (then again my expectations were honestly a tad high) for what things did.  BUT after rereading it with some gamey friends (read as Dave and Mark) I changed my tune.

I think it is time for the return of the HAT!  More so now that the Warhammer Forge has released three beautiful character models for 18 pounds!  WOW!!!  That is cheap compared to GW regular prices... AND THEY ARE WEARING HATS!!!

All this evil stumpy talk has got me going...  New army list in the works and new completely converted warriors in the wings...  Stay tuned gang.  The hobby train is back on the tracks.

P.S. While it is kinda ugly and shamefully expensive... The new Orc idol by Warhammer Forge might back a good basis for a K'daai Destroyer...  Think giant stone/metal/fire daemon...  

Though I might have to make my own...

A Battle Report Featuring the New Vamps and My DOC

Howdy gang and welcome back for something new and exciting on the old Land o'Misfit Toys.  Dave of War will guest star this post.  He and I played a game on the weekend. Dave with his cheesy Vampire Counts list (using the new book) and me with my horrible daemons list.  To be honest my list is really rough.  A few units of 20 Bloodletters with heralds, 20 Daemonettes with a herald, 20 horrors with a lore of light herald.  It also had two individual fiends, 6 flamers, 5 furies and Mr. Huggy the Blood Thirster.


I took a few happy snaps that I will intersperse with Dave's write up and great looking diagrams. Without further ado...  Here is the big man:


(Brad's Army Deployment to the right... Dave's below)

Starting the game I thought I was going to have a pretty hard time of this game. I have played Brad on quite a few occasions and without a doubt the Bloodthirster army is my worst possible scenario. After playing Wood Elves competitively for more than a year I have developed a healthy respect for what the big guy can do to an army and I wasn’t to sure how to kill him unless Brad decided to walk into the grave guard. I deployed so that all my units except the black knights were within 12" the necromancer, hoping that I could put the pressure on and make Brad commit his thirster early in the game. 

Brad's first turn went really poorly for me. In addition to the gradual advance to three chunky daemon units and a flanking Bloodthirster Brad's magic went wild. Destroying the entire Fell Bat unit and sneaking 3 wounds off a Varghulf.  In response I cautiously advance my army hoping to break him into two manageable potions, my knights on one side to deal with the horrors, letters and flames, and the rest of the army on the other to deal with deamonettes, letters and thirster. My magic works ok getting off a raise that brings up around 16 zombies and van hells helps the army get in more challenging flanking positions.

Turn 1

In Brad's turn two he slams Mr. Huggy (the blood thirster) into my ghouls and slowly advances the rest. Realising his mistake he takes the flamers out of his building and casts time warp on his horrors who were facing down the black knights. Mr Huggy gets challenged out by my ghoul champion and takes out 6 ghouls with combat resolution. At this point my hopes are pretty high, I declare a valiant charge with my Black Coach, the Black Knights into the Horrors and my zombies into the Daemonettes. Unluckily the Black Coach fails to make it in. The knights and zombies rumble into the enemy units with a threatening moan. In my magic phase very little goes off. with Brad dispelling the all important invocation on my ghouls. In combat Mr. Huggy does his thing taking down 18 ghouls in exchange for one wound. My vampires whale on the herald of tzentch before my black knights attack taking him out in a blaze of pointy lances. Despite this the black knights do very few wounds and the horrors stick around taking very little damage. The zombies have very little effect and lose more wounds from combat resolution, the deamonetts reform to cause a world of pain.


 In Brad's turn three he gets angry in a way that only a bald beardy man from Boston can do and charges in blood letters into my black knight flanks along with the flamers. His fiend marches into the way of Mr Huggy trying to stop my grave guard and varghulf from charging into position. In combat my ghouls are finished off without being able to raise another champion to suck up combat damage. My vampire declares a challenge and is accepted by the bloodletter champion, blocking the Flamers from fighting. The blood letters and herald do three wounds after armour saves to my relief while the vampires kill the champion and a large number of horrors. I win combat taking a few more wounds form each unit. The deamonettes finish off the zombies while taking very few wounds.


 In my turn the grave guard and the varghulf wander into the fiend. The black coach finally makes it into the blood thirster. In my magic phase I get van hells off on the grave guard with the help of the book of arkhan while raising back 3 black knights. The black knights perform well taking the horrors down to three wounds and taking a few more wound in return. The herald of khorne refuses the challenge so that the flames can fight. However, as the flamers are hitting on 5s they have no effect. Each unit loses a few more wounds to instability.  On the other side of the board my varghulf and grave guard slaughter their foes and overrun into Mr. Huggy. To Brad's horror he realises that as the black coach is already in combat with Huggy both charging units will now be able to fight. Despite facing 7 st6 attacks rerolling to hit on 4s, 5 st5 attacks with rerolls, d6 st 5 his, 3 st6 attacks and 2 st 5 hits Mr Huggy plays like a daemon and takes only 1 wound. After smashing grave guard face Mr Huggy wins combat despite facing a triple charge with ranks and a banner. Ouch.


In  Brad's turn four he charges in the blood letters to the black coach and the deamonetts to the grave guard. With very little else left on the table combat begins. Against the black knights the vampire issues another challenge, which is accepted by the Herald of Khorne.  In the challenge my vampire I only do one wound with my 4 asf attacks, in exchange the herald luckily fails to killing blow my vampire.  The black knights finish off the horrors and sneak a few more wounds to the letters. After the combat a few more knights go down and the flamers are finished off.  In the other big combat the blood lettters fail to do a wound on the coach due to its saves and toughness, the deamonetts do a handful of wounds the the grave guards. In response the varghulf mans up and kills the bloodthirster outright, why couldn’t he have done that last turn! I lose combat by 5 which kills off the black coach and varghulf and shaves a few wound from the grave guard.  In my turn I charge in the zombies to the deamonettes flank. Magic heals a few wounds on the grave guard and raises about 10 more zombies. I am also able to get vanhells on the zombies hoping to save some combat resolution. Luckily the gambit pulls off the grave guard take a few wounds but aren’t killed off as the zombies sneak a few wounds on the deamonettes and both units crumble a few models.  Very few lettters are left against the black knights as my vampire slays the herald with a few pointy jabs.

In Brad's turn five he inches around the blood letters hoping for a charge. Come combat the daemonettes still don't kill off my necromancer but finish off the grave guard with combat resolution. I finish off the blood letters on the other flank and reform. In my turn the black knights inch around the flank getting ready for a charge on the deamonettes. The zombies still fight on with the daemonetts and the necromancer is finished by combat resolution.

Come turn six the furies jump in front of my knights stopping a charge while the bloodletters charge the corner of my zombie unit. Luckily the zombie unit survives as my knights charge into the furies. I raise back the rest of my black knights and heal more wounds on the zombies. At the end of my turn the zombies still haven't been ground out due to some helpful raises.

This was a really hard game for me and I was glad that it ended on a draw. I did get Mr Huggy, but to do that I had to sacrifice my grave guard, my necromancer lord, my varghulf and my black coach. A pretty big price to pay for a 500 pt model. The knight performed amazingly and were able to take much more of a beating than I thought.  I am still not convinced by the Varghulf or the Black Coach in the new book, and these units will probably be replaced by small units of hexwraiths and vargeists.  It was good to have such a tight game, but I don't think I could have avoided a loss it if Brad wasn't suffering from such a brutal hang over. 



No comment on the hang over at this end but I want to thank Dave for his hard work and show ya'll a few happy snaps from the game.  Might find some good karaoke shots from Cancon later that show Dave at his very best!  :)

Mr. Huggy in a bit of strife... Or "how I like to fail all my saves and ward saves"...

Dave's Deathstar of Doom eats my left flank...  Grrrr...

Shortly after...  Yikes!
ASF Vampires in reraising black knights are scary!  Might have to try them myself!  :)

Another Award Winning Army (This time one that was featured in WD)

So day two of Cancon I had the privilege of playing another veteran player of many years, Chris Mackonis.  I am not sure if many of you know his name but he is a WFB Warriors of Chaos fanatic that has been building and playing WOC for over 20 years.  His models are immaculately painted and converted and feature models from many generations of GW Chaos models.  His army was displayed in White Dwarf a few years back and I have to say the models are much better in person which is saying something because they were beautiful in print.  My photos are not to the same caliber but I had to get some happy snaps none the less.  Here is Chris's army:

These Khorne knights ate two units of my knights and a chariot all at one time!

This Khorne Lord was a beast that ate huge chunks out of my army.  Khorne Lord with Jugger, the Armour of Moreslieb, Dawnstone and some kind of bonus strength sword.  Dude had a rerollable 1 up save with a 4 up ward.  He also had a truckload of attacks... Brutal!!! 

The Warshrine

Here is another shot of the Warshrine