Skarsnik and Kemmler

I mentioned in my previous post that Tim and I were inspired to play a game of Warhammer recently, which led to my painting those heroes on big squigs. Well, this was the game. Such as it was... At least I got photos!

Skarsnik's Horde
Tim's highly questionable list was built around the simple concept of whatever I had available that didn't include Orcs, for the sake of glorious Goblin purity. He was limited a bit as some of my more useful elements like Goblin Chariots are in a terrible state of disrepair.

• Skarsnik and Gobbla
• Goblin Warboss on Gigantic Spider with Armour of Endurance, Basha's Axe of Stunty Bashing, Shield
• Night Goblin Great Shaman (Level 4) with Dispel Scroll
• Night Goblin Big Boss with Battle Standard, 5+ Ward, Great Weapon
• Night Goblin Big Boss on Great Cave Squig with Spear
• Night Goblin Big Boss on Great Cave Squig with Great Weapon
• 40 Night Goblins with Spears, Command, Netters, 3 Fanatics
• 40 Night Goblins with Spears, Command, Netters, 3 Fanatics
• 40 Night Goblins with Short Bows
• 20 Night Goblins with Short Bows
• 10 Goblin Wolf Riders with Command, Spears, Shields, Short Bows
• 10 Goblin Wolf Riders with Command, Spears, Shields, Short Bows
• Squig Herd with 12 Squigs, 6 Herders
• 6 Trolls
• 8 Squig Hoppers
• Mangler Squig
• Mangler Squig
• Arachnarok
• Rock Lobber
• Doom Diver

Kemmler's Legions
I didn't even make my list. Pete made it for me, with the basic instruction of making a weak Vampire Counts list, as I assumed the Goblin list wouldn't be particularly potent. Especially given I was busy at the painting table, painting up a pair of squig heroes. This is what Pete came up with.

• Heinrich Kemmler
• Krell
• Necromancer (Level 2, Lore of Vampires)
• Wight King with Battle Standard, Armour of Endurance, Great Weapon
• 40 Ghouls with Ghast
• 30 Skeletons with Command
• 20 Zombies with Standard, Musician
• 20 Zombies with Standard, Musician
• 5 Dire Wolves
• 2 Bat Swarms
• 10 Black Knights with Command, Heavy Armour, Barding, Shields, Lances
• 20 Grave Guard with Command, Great Weapons
• 20 Grave Guard with Command
• Black Coach
• 5 Blood Knights

Seems reasonable, right? No vampires, not a lot in the way of fancy toys, and several things where Pete would normally look at them and say "that's terrible" made it in (like the Black Coach)...

We rolled up Watchtower, and decided that would do as well as anything in terms of a scenario. Skarsnik rolled to delay all my units with his sneaky traps, but only managed to snare the Blood Knights. Given how many rolls Tim had made, I got off very lightly. Tim "won" control of the Watchtower, meaning he really lost the first turn...

Deployment. Tim suffered here, due a combination of inexperience with the nonsense of Goblin deployment, and our forgetting the exact order of declaring charges, moving chargers and compulsory movement (that's the correct order. We were using the 7th ed rules where compulsories went in between declaration and movement of chargers). Hey, we're rusty.

Another hop in the right direction

On the weekend, Tim and I decided to play a game of Warhammer. It was all a bit rushed, but on the evening before the game we both tried to work out what to use, and Tim (being the ultra-potent cheese-monger that he is) decided to use an all-Goblin list. Of course, this meant he was using my greenskins, and he expressed an interest in Night Goblin heroes on Giant Squigs (see, I told you he only liked the absolute best stuff). I didn't have any painted, but I had had a pair of them undercoated for months (or maybe years), and it was only 9:30pm... Sure, I can do that. 

Long story short, I got them to a usable standard by about 12:30am and went to bed. We played the battle on Saturday afternoon as planned (I took some photos, which I'll share later). Last night I decided I should probably take some photos of my newly painted models and share them here. But it seems I'm out of practice or something. I went to get the good camera, and discovered that both batteries were flat as a tack. Oh well, I guess the phone camera will do. 

Then I went to set up the lightbox...

 Well this is really helpful...

A Blast from the Past

This title kind of covers a couple of different aspects of this post.

So some time ago (more than 3 months, truth be told), Pete and I decided that in honour of the games club celebrating its 20th year, we should play a retro game of Warhammer. Specifically, we should play a game of 5th edition, which was what we were playing way back when the club started. Sounded like a bit of fun. Why not?

Well, it's been 3 months and my emotional scarring has mostly healed. I am now ready to share with you my tale of misadventure and woe...

My Empire
I grew up playing Warhammer 4th and 5th edition. I played countless games against my friends, and toward the end, even a few tournaments before 6th edition came along. Much of the time, I was fighting tougher opposition in the form of Undead and Chaos. Only I was not using Empire. I was using High Elves and Wood Elves. I didn't own an Empire army. Using High Elves (mostly with the rather underwhelming 4th edition army book) was a struggle against these stronger lists, but I made do - predominantly with magic. Nowadays I do have an Empire army, and I think of it as my main army. But I really didn't use it until 8th edition. 5th was a very different, unforgiving beast...

So now I set about making a 5th ed Empire army for the first time. I did it with only a few mandatory requirements in my head. The main one was: take a level 4 wizard. I would need it to avoid being bossed horrendously in the magic phases. Oh yeah, and a volley gun. Because those were funny. In the end my list looked something like this:

• Empire General on Pegasus with Armour of Protection, Dragon Slayer Sword, Shield
• Wizard Lord with Bright Magic, Black Amulet, Skull Staff, Dispel Scroll
• 5 Knights Panther with Standard of Shielding. Led by a Hero with Blade of Leaping Copper, Potion of Strength on Barded Steed with Heavy Armour, Shield
• 5 Reiksguard Knights with War Banner. Led by a Hero with Runefang on Barded Steed with Heavy Armour, Shield
• 19 Swordsmen with Light Armour, Shields, Standard
• 8 Handgunners
• 8 Crossbowmen
• 3 Ogres with Halberds, Light Armour
• Helblaster Volley Gun

I'm not going to pretend it was a really well thought-out list. And man, does it look tiny on the field.

Pete's Vampire Counts

Unlike me, Pete was actually using this army way back in 5th edition. Well, he was using different models. But the same army book. The difference was that back then, Pete operated under some self-imposed limit of 50 point magic items. What a nice guy. Then we broke him and hardened him and turned him into something else... Something evil... Well maybe not, but his lists definitely toughened up over time. 

• Vampire Lord with Hydra Sword, Black Amulet, Carstein Ring, Pure Blood
• Necromancer Lord with Golden Crown of Atrazar, Skull Staff, Dispel Scroll, 2-Handed Weapon
• Wight Lord with Heavy Armour, Shield, 2-Handed Weapon
• 6 Wight Cavalry with Lances, Shields, Heavy Armour, Barding, Standard Bearer with Standard of Shielding
• 18 Skeletons with Shields, Standard, Musician, Banner of Might
• 17 Zombies
• 10 Zombies
• 2 Vampire Bats
• 2 Spirit Hosts
• Banshee
• Winged Nightmare

Before the game started, we needed to choose spells. We had agreed to use the Colleges of Magic from 4th edition (they were a "back of the book" option in 5th), because the soulless Battle Magic that replaced them was offensive on many levels. I chose Bright Magic in the hopes of getting a spell like Piercing Bolts of Burning and Conflagration of Doom - spells which even Vampire Lords had to respect back in the day. Unfortunately, when I actually got my spells, I didn't get either of these. In fact, I got probably the 4 worst spells in the deck for this game: Burning Head, Sanguine Swords, Scarlet Scimitar and Flamestorm. It was incredibly underwhelming. On the bright side, Necromancers got to actually pick the spells they want. So Pete had no such issues. That's fair...

How we set up. Was this a normal amount of terrain? Maybe? Who can remember, really...