Ogres are on the march!

Ok, so as mentioned i've started a new army. After toying with the idea of Bretonians (i wanted something that could make a big splat!), Dwarves (something that could shoot well and be tough as nails) and even Tomb Kings (again...the shooting), i settled on Ogres.

They can shoot, they can hit hard, they have, and i can't stress this too much...really fucking gorgeous models! and they're tough as nails!

So after Gamesday i bought myself the Ogre battalion. I've got two lists i'm playing with at the mo. One is very shooting heavy (@2k pts, i have 2 x 6 Leadbelchers) and one is very much a charge forward and smash list!

So i'm now spreading myself around painting High Elves, Dreadfleet and Ogres and the turn had rolled around for Ogres.

I decided i wanted to venture slightly away from the standard paint scheme (of red pants!) as i always seem to "paint to the box", and since the fluff for ogres is they basically use what they can pillage, i figured that a patchwork medley of colours could work (i wanted to spread the colour love a bit more than just Blue, White and Metal elves)

I did away with my usual Badab Black wash and just coated the whole damn thing in a very watered down Flesh Wash. Aside for the obvious benefits to the flesh areas (duh), it gave the guns a rusted look and the clothing and boots a dirty worn look!

I painted the weapons with Boltgun/Mithril Silver. The Bronze was a bastered to paint! I worked it up with blends of Tin Bitz and Dwarf Bronze which seemed to do the trick as painting pure Dwarf Bronze just looked reallly false and GW Metallics dont paint over each other very well i find!

The Flesh was built up with Foundation Flesh and Elf Flesh building in more and more of Elf Flesh into the mix as a highlight. Had i known what i would do at the end i wouldn't have spent so much on this stage!

This was all good so far, but far too clean for bloodthirsty ogres. I'd wanted to try the whole "verdi-gris" shading on the weapons to get the whole "antiquey" look! I also had seen pictures of the leadbelchers with sooty faces and that made sense...so i tried my hand at that too! Lastly, all the pictures of ogres seem to have a bloody right hand - for reasons i have no idea why...not wanting to look like a prat for some obvious "fluff" reason, i succumbed to the "rule of the schoolyard" and did that too!

Now lastly, the bases...i usually hate this part due to painting them fully on my High Elves. However, i wanted to get a "snowy mountain" feel to them. So i first based them in pure GW gravel (as seen in the above pictures).

I then mixed some Snow flock i bought from my local Railway modellers shop (Rails of Sheffield) with some GW static grass (bout 4:1) and based selective parts over the top. Finished it off with white edging and i really like the results!

 And finally, the obligitary camera flash/guin firing shot...(i like th shading!)

Next up is High Elves turn again and i reckon i need to knock  out about 35 archers....yay!!

Dreadfleet I

So having played a sampler game of this at the otherwise dissapointing Gamesday UK, i succumbed to the siren call and purchased it when i stopped in Games Workshop to merely buy some paints for my new Ogres (more on them in another post!).

I've already played the first couple of scenarios and its great fun but poetic license is already reequired cum Scenario 2 as (those of you who own it may have already found out), it's bloomin hard to get the Swordfysh captain free and off the board in 6 turns!

Anyway, i spent today painting some scenery from it (and counters) and thought i'd share it with you.

This is a shot of every thing i've painted so far:

Here's a close up of the Wind Marker. This goes around the edge of the Seascape in order to denote the direction the wind is coming from! The other side is a Vortex marker for a scenario further on, but as i'm not near that yet, i decided to leave the otehr side for now!

This is a close up of the Turn Marker. It's used to allow your ships to turn 45 degrees to port or starboard (left or right). You get 2 in the box!

I've not taken a close up of the Measuring divice you get in the box. You can see it in the very first picture, but it's essentially an 18" measuring stick  that bends at the 6" and 12" at 45 degrees. It's really cool.

My favourite bit of work from today is the island. In all the pictures, they seem to show an eerie glow coming from the skulls eyes which i've tried to emulate. I've never tried a kind of OSL affect effect before and i'm quite happy with the results

After undercoating Chaos Black, i painted the whole island with a mix of Astronomincan Grey and Chaos Black. I then heavily drybrushed pure grey mixing bits of Skull White into it until it was pure white. I then gave th entire Island a very watered down green wash. A little bit more white wash brush on after this before i put a glob of Dark Angels Green into the eye sockets. I then kinda "Wet-modged" (Trademarked!) this with Goblin Green towards the eye ridges, building a little white into it!

Hoping to try and get anothe risland done tommorow and maybe start painting some flesh on my Leadbelchers!

Some fun gaming was had! (2 game summaries)

1500 High Elf Vs Skaven

OK so i finally had a game with this my new 1500pts list yesterday and thought i'd update the results! Apologies for no "proper" battel reports - we're still playing on an unpainted citadel (grey plastic) board with scribbled on paper to represent scenery...it serves its purpose but doesn't really make for good viewing! We'll try and address this once the initial surge of September "AHMAHGHAD!" has subsided!


The List:

Lvl 4 (High) - 260
Lvl 1 (Beasts) - Silver wand - 110

12 Archers - 132
12 Archers - 132
11 Archers - 121

16 Swordmasters - FC, Banner of Et. Flame, Amulet of Light - 280
5 Dragon Prince
5 Dragon Prince

RBT
Eagle


Total: 1500

I finally got a win...it must have been about 6-7 games since i last tasted victory and that was only @1k pts which is small enough to not even count. I've really been struggling to find my feet at higher points levels and feel much more comfortable and balanced with this list!

It's not a supah-powah'd list as, even though i whitewashed my mate's Skaven, he was using a very experimental list himself so i'm not counting my chickens...oh and he pretty much fluffed nearly every roll possible...you know what they say about skaven having a catastrophic game every 6 games or so? Well this was his...

It was Scenario 2 (Random Deployment) and i managed ot get my RBT and two archers units on a hill and the AM's unit was behind a ghost fence on the hill for extra protection! One DP unit was on the right flank aiming for his WLC with the SM's nearby facing up against his new-to-be-trialed Plagemonks unit.

The army basically did everything i wanted it to do! We both rolled the spells we wanted, with my AM getting Shield, Curse, Flames and Fury and teh L1 with wand (Beasts) getting Kadons and Amber Spear - (i swapped Kadons for WW).

The archers managed to shoot the crap out of his weapon team - the mortar one on the first turn even with him releasing the storm banner! (how could i forget about this??!!) With curse on a unit of clanrats, i maged to whittle them down for the DP to massacre them. On the other flank, the other DP's took out the WLC.

Magic wise, Shield was amazing and gave the game its final twist as my SM's faced with his Plaguemonk unit, got chopped to crap by good use of some epic magic items and then flanked by slaves. By using shiled i managed ot keep 4 alive which allowed my DP's into the back of his monks and my AM's archer unit into the flank of slaves.....he called it at this point!

So, thoughts...

Magic - I liked using High Magic. It's really versatile with good offensive spells (fury and Flames kept his DD used up) which allowed me to protect my SM and use Curse more. Beasts on the L1 was under utilised as i think i only got Amber spear off once @ his doomwheel taking 2 wounds off (which was it's purpose) but again...i'm taking Beasts purely for WW so any of the other spells is a bonus. I'm glad i swapped Kadons as it would have been cruel to have a dragon on the table too! (but i really DO want to try this spell one time...could be a Dispel Scroll user-upper)

Shooting - Against Skaven, this did exactly as designed - it killed his weapon teams that have caused me so much (tactical) grief in previous games. Against say, his WoC army, they would still serve a purpose in taking out his re-directors (Hounds) and then support stuff, but lets face it - they're core - they're not meant to be my game winners! Against Lizzies i reckon these would be good at taking out his pesky Skinks and Krox units. Against Dark Elves the 6" extra range gives me a whole turn of rolling on my opponent which is great. And since they're the only 3 armies i've played, i can't really comment on any other, except to say that against the OK army i'm planning, they would really only be able to wipe out the gnoblars and sabertusks - but like Chaos, if i'm taking out my opponents redirectors, then it allows my DP and Eagle to do what they do again!

Combat - The DP's did brilliantly and this was down to good placement of deployment really (and once again as with other stages, my opponents WOEFUL rolling - this really can't be stressed enough!) Having 2 units of them splits the oppononets target priority and their fast manouvrability means that they move so much in the first turn, they may forget about my SM...speaking of which, weren't the game changers they can be, but did manage a good job of holding up his danger unit for 2 important phases!

What next? - i want to try this list against my mates Lizzies and WoC to see of the Theory pays off! I reckon a good battering is expected from the WoC but could be realy fun Vs Lizzies!

A second army on the Horizon?

So i then played his WoC (experimental list) with my mocked up "Cardboard Proxy" Ogre Kingdoms list.

This game was fun! I ended up getting butchered (pun intended!) as i only remembered at a rather critical point in the game that we were playing "Blood and Glory" scenario!

Ogres are going to be Horrific!!! to play against as HE!

Dragon Princes finally finished and first 2500pts played

Ok so i've finally got my Princes finished. This has taken a lot longer than i'd hoped but having started my full time teaching post two weeks ago, i'm finding free time at a premium at the moment.

With only Blue, White and Silver (and a bit o' flesh) to paint they should not have taken this long...but ah well.

Here's a load of pictures of the riders already attached to the horses. I really quite like the highlighting on the blue and think its quite striking.

The 2500pt Game vs WoC
So i played my first proper 2500pt game last night using the follpwing list:

L4 Archmage w/ Book of Hoeth (Shadow)
L2 Mage (Death) w/ Silver Wand and Ring of Fury

35 Spears w/ FC and Gleaming Pennant
14 Archers
14 Archers

14 Swordmasters w/ FC and Standard of Balance
14 Swordmasters w/ FC and Banner fo Eternal Flame
5 Dragon Princes
5 Ellyrian Reavers w/ Spears and Bows
20 Pheonix Guard w/ FC and Banner of Sorc

2x Eagles

My opponent uses a Tzeentch L4 on a disc with the 2+/3++ combination, and i've been really struggling with ways of dissolcing this threat as he also arms it with the "Infernal Puppet" and some 2D6 S1 breath weapon. It's manouvreability and nigh-on-unkillable status makes it really fucking hard ot even wound never mind kill! This is the reason i'd chose Death on my L2, aside form potentially getting more Power Dice i want to get the sig spell off if he came within 24 inches of me.

He also used a Chosen unit and a warshire for the first time last night but didn't use the cheesey combinations. They're still a tough unit but the Standard of Balance really helped in this combat....well...until the Hellcannon weighed in!

In short, the game can be summed up by him rolling absurdly good on Magic and woeful in combat and me rolling woeful on magic and pretty ok in combat! This meant i was quite weakened in the early turns where treason screwed my SM (again). The problem was...with a Bookmage, i needed to use DD more than ever to dispel Pandamonium as i needed those doubles!

Lessons Learnt:

1) The Pheonix guard are amazing! This is my first time with them and that 4+ ward save is immense! They eventually (as in...4 rounds of combat) wiped out a unit of 18 Khorne warriors with Halberds whilst the Hellcannon was chewing them up too....i must add they only survived as the HC kill enough to remove itself from combat!

2) The Standard of Balance - Didn't get as much use out of it as i'd liked but i'm still feeling the love for it! As my WoC opponent loves treason (and why wouldn't he?) Making them immune to Psycology means this spell is useless on them...and having 2 units of swordmaster means he wont know which one has which...he just happened to choose the right one to screw first last night...doh!

3) Ring of Fury - again, another magic item i was trying out. The theory being that 2D6 S4 hit cast freely every turn can draw out opponents DD leaving space for the spells i actually want. I forgot to use this in the first turn which was really annoying as it would have done some nice damage to his Marauder unit! I also forgot about the Silver wand the whole bloomin game and so was only using 2 spells on my L2.

4) Magic Lores. I was umming and arring about them. I knew i wanted to try the Death sig against his L4 and never got it off...ce la vie! I also need miscast prtection as i miscast on turn one and reduced my L4 to a L2...thus the whole using a L4 for the first time went out on the first turn! It also allowed him a lot more spells than i'd have liked.

Changed for next time - Think i'll go with Life and Fire? Life and Metal would be pretty brutal and is something i'll only turn to as a last resort against WoC...i haven't won in sooooo looong!

I'm also willing to give the RoF another chance before swapping it for the Annulian Crystal...

I think next on the painting table is my second mage. I've got some more SM coming from ebay which will mean i need ot paint about 18 of them...yay! and also got a bid on some PG...

Games, games, games

So i've once again neglected my painting duties (almost thankfully). I have at least started the rider and they're at the wash stage and may get finished after the Belgian GP today!

In the meantime i've been playing games with my 1500 Cavalry list. I got spanked by Warriors of Chaos, Skaven and Dark Elves and realised that the Silver Helm bus is too much too soon (at 1500) and so have had a couple of revisions to my army list which means i wont be painting these for a while and will be painting some of the older stuff

Had a recent 1000pt game against Lizardmen which was fun and ended up being a total gore fest as both sides ripped chunks from each other...

I've even been proxying with Bretonnians and found out just how bad a Lizardman priest with cupped hands can be on the first turn when they get chain lightning!

So, lessons learnt recently:

1) I've been using the Seerstaff wrong - when choosing my spells, i have to do it at the army comp stage - this means i wont be using it anymore as i did think it was a rather useful tactical edge to be able to choose spells tailored to an army rather than further limit yourself!

2) Probably need a feedback scroll against lizzies! But cant be bothered to find the points. Definately need to find some ward save protection for my mage!

3) Chaos are slow and quite easily dealt with when you can easily outmanouvre their 4" move....when they suddenly get a mage on a disc who can fly around 20" and nuke your swordmasters on turn 1 with treason...well...now i have to look at them in a totally different light...

4) The silver helm bus is only a support unit! Despite it's size! i would look at this big block and think"yeah - thats gonna cause some trouble" when really - only the BSB ever did the majoy damage! And skaven armour negating weaponry really fucking hurts!

5) Tasting my own medicine - flying re-directors SUCK when they're not my eagles!! :-)

Unitl next time...

Long time no post! Dragon Princes (well...half)

Damn it's been a while since i've posted, even longer since i posted any newly painted models. This has occured due to several reasons:

1) I've been playing more games - as you (hopefully) may have watched, i have documented these in the "OnceBitten" style of me warbling over a powerpoint. I didn't BatRep the last game i played which was unfortunate as it would've made for a really interesting one (i got spanked silly by Skaven @1500pts

2) Some silly bugger (my bank) entrusted me with a credit card. Now this has meant i#ve been on a few away days with my fair lady (you have to keep them on board!!) and has also meant that the old wargamer battle call "I'm not buying anything else until i've painted what i've got"....was swiftly ignored!!!

As such, i've now purchased and been assembling 8x Silver Helms and a mounted BSB. I've also managed to create a standning BSB using the spares from the last Lord/Hero Sprue i had! Yay!

With all the fun games, spending and holidays, i've really been strugling for painting motivation! Hence why it's taken me this long to complete anything!

But, having watched five Dragon Princes wipe out 40 Great Weapon weilding Chaos Mauraders on the charge, i reckoned they deserves a bit of paint.

So here goes...

As they're such nice models, i decided to wanted to spend that little extra on them and made the decision to paint horse and rider separately!

I took a while deciding what was going to be which colour, but as i appear to like sticking to the "box art" colours...well,...thats what i went with. I've seen them in a GW display with the entire armour blue...omitting the Silver bits which i think is a shame as i reckon the silver helps the blues stand out more!

So, usual Mordian blue basecoat on the blue armour, Boltgun Metal on the silver parts and Astronomican grey for the horse. The saddle was GW's Foundation Brown (the name escapes me right now - Caltharn?) and the robe-y bits of cloth Snakebite Leather. the few bits of gold with given a Tin Bitz base.

Wash wise, everything was given a liberal bath of Badab Black except the cloth which was a heavily watered down Flesh Wash.

I then worked on each models highlights separately instead of all five on one colour - not entirely sure on this reason...i think it was the knowledge of being able to see one "completed" model (a falsi lie - dont forget the damn basing!!) to spur me on to the others!

Either way, the blue was highlight with 50/50 Mordian Blue/Enchanted Blue with an extreme of Pure Enchanted blue - i really like this and it may not show well in the pictures, but on the horse Dragon helm it looks really good!

The cloth was highlighted in 2/3 Snakebite 1/3 Bleached bone, then i just mixed more bleached bone to about 1/3, 2/3 highlight before pure Bleached bone. i think the first one turned out well here. I'd also made the decision to "ignire" the fine detail of the "leaf" bit on the cloth and picture it as part of the cloth as opposed ot painting it green or something!

The horse was just given successive highlight of about 50/50 Astronomican grey and Skull White leading up to pure Skull White - i'm learning more and more that with white more water and more layers may take more time but it seems to be such a thick colour that if you dont, then it just globs up!

After all the highlighting was done, i did the "Gemming" in the usual fashion and then based them. I love/hate basing still - it takes a long(ish) time, razzes a brush up....but "makes" the models...

So my basing is a watered down Caltharn Brown (2/3 water), followed by 50/50 Caltharn/Bleached Bone followed by pure bleached bone. Sporadically clump glue on the base then dump and swizzle in a pot of GW;s Static Grass!

So here they are...i'm hoping to start and finish the riders by the end of this week so keep an eye out for that!

I'm also going to "The GIMPS" gaming club this Thursday with (The Skaven/Chaos) a mate so will have at least one BatRep to put up on Friday, but hopefully two as i want to play a new player and new army!

I've also got my Lizardman mate coming round on Sunday to "blood" him in his first WFB game and may BatRep that one (you get to see our amazing "paper scenary!!)

003 vs Khorne Warriors

Here's a battle report of a game i had yesterday. My (Chaos) mate has vastly improved his list. We'd rolled the Dawn Battle scenario which really throws any deployment tactics you may have out the window!

It was the most fun i've had so far in a game - due to events you will hear about!

I'm afraid i took more photos this time, not wanting to miss anything, but that does mean its in two parts!

Incidentally, would anyone like a game (@1250/1500pts) next Thursday (4th August) round 12 @ GW Sheffield - would be nice to have a BatRep thats not Chaos/Skaven/Same player!

In Other News
My credit card has arrived, which means i have bought some Silver Helms and a noble pack so i can make a couple of BSB's.

I've started painting my Dragon Princes (as you may have seen in the BatReps) and undercoated some movement trays, but my brush was totalled by the forth horse so i had a time out to go buy one! Lets hope for rain this weekend so i can paint all happy like!

Second Game 002 Vs Warriors of Chaos

So i had 2 games yesterday which were very enjoyable and both good learning experiences. I've only detailed the first one which was at Games Workshop against my mates WoC as the second was round his house on an unpainted Citadel gameboard with torn up pieces of paper as terrain and a heavily proxied Skaven army in his command!

So here's the video battle report of yesterday's chaos game. I've mentioned in the video a few of the errors we played, but despite this i still feel it was a good tactical victory! I feel i'm getting to know my units a little better now and where and when to place them (deployment wise) and how best to match them up.

I don't envisage me winning every game against this particular mate as once he gets the tactics of his armies down he'l no doubt start crushing me, and i must agree that High Elf magic is very powerful at this points level!

The second game round his house against his new Skaven list was really fun and much more closer. I used the same list as the above report but went for Fire instead of Shadow...

...Fire is really fucking useful against skaven! I'd never even considered it as a lore before but the spell that does D3 S4 hits for every rank of 5 spells doom when he has 50 Clanrats ranked up!!

I'm gutted i didn't chrinicle it actually as it was my first Blood and Glory. He started with 6 and me with 4 and won it 3-1 in the end!

Anyway - as i'm nice and all, i've agreed to drop the Banenr of Saphery for the next game and we reckon we can bust out a 1250 pt game so i'm going to have to think about list again now!

Till next time (where i might actually have painted my Dragon princes!)

First Proper Game! 001 Vs Skaven

So i had my first proper game yesterday against my mate who's just got back into it (mentioned him before!). I was rather chuffed with how things went till i realised we'd played a rule wrong.

Note to self - you can't charge out of buildings. That one right there was a big game changer, but there was quite a few kinks that we'll no doubt iron out such as remembering to move my mage to get LoS and the great Eagle rolling 3d6 to charge (it failed the first time - not a gamebreaker!)

So, here's the Battle Report in the style of "OnceBitten". Apologies for the crappy sound quality - i'm still getting to grips with the process. Let me know what you think

Prince on Griffon and other news...

So due to crap weather on days i'd planned on undercoating, my Tirannoc chariot and RBT remains grey plastic and, wanting something to paint, i decided to paint the Prince ofn Griffon model from the Island of Blood kit. Now this model will most likely never be represented as it should in my army die to the crapness of it! However, it will most likely proxy as a great eagle for the far future (until everthing else is bought)

Before i go into pictures, i should share with the world that i traded L.A. Noire in (having 100% it - god these days of summer are long!) and used some of the money to buy a pack of Dragon Princes. I love these models (from the pictures) but they quite finnickey to assemble - either way - they are indeed assembled, and being cooler that the chariot or RBT, have jumped the paint queue.

Another mate of mine has also looked at yours truly's models and realised he too misses painting and so has bought himself some lizzies to paint - queue another gaming buddy!

The Skaven/Chaos mate has just bought a gameboard, so my next update should hopefully be a full on Battle report - attempted in the style of "OnceBitten"

So, the Prince on Griffon - to be fair, i wanted to paint it but didn't want to spend hours on it so i'm afraid there's not much to write home about - it got base coloured and the i drybrush the shit out of it! Liteally everthing was drybrushed! Few touch ups here and there and gemmed and voila - a proxy great eagle ready for my 1k game next week!

Feathers were based in foundation Caltharn brown, washed with chestnut ink and drybrushed up from  Caltharn/Snakebite brown to pretty much Bleached bone.

Blue as ever starts with Foundation Mordian blue, then gets layered up to Enchanted blue.

The white was piss poor grading from asto grey up to skull white...meh

The back end of the griffon and the claws were a 505/50 mix of Snakebite leather and Foundation Iyanden Yellow, washed with chestnut ink heavily watered down, and then successively drybrush highlighted up to Iyanden yellow.

Basecoats:

Washes:

Highlights and based:

And this last one i like purely cause the flash on the cam accidentaly went off and the way it's reacted with the white on the lance makes it lookk like its a magical weapon glowing with raw power!: