Axemaster 2024 Aftermath - Part 2

This is the second part of my account of Axemaster. You can find the previous part here.

Game 2 - Mountain Pass
Nathan Shipley - Orc and Goblin Tribes

Black Orc Warboss on Wyvern with Talisman Of Protection, Trollhide Trousers, Great Weapon, Shield

Night Goblin Oddnob (Level 4, Waaagh! Magic) with Idol Of Gork

Night Goblin Warboss with Big Boss 'At, Wollopa's One Hit Wunds, Great Weapon, Light Armour, Shield

Orc Bigboss with Battle Standard, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield

Orc Weirdnob (Level 4, Battle Magic) with Buzgob’s Knobbly Staff

19 Black Orcs with The Big Red Raggedy Flag, Full Command, half with Great Weapons and Shields, half with Additional Hand Weapons

10 Goblins with Shortbows, Skirmishers

10 Goblin Spider Riders with Full Command, Light Armour, Shortbows, Cavalry Spears

5 Goblin Wolf Riders with Cavalry Spears, Shields

30 Night Goblins with Full Command, 3 Fanatics, Netters, Thrusting Spears, Shields

21 Night Goblins with Full Command, 2 Fanatics, Shortbows, Da Spider Banner

12 Orc Boar Boys with Full Command, Big Un's, Waaagh! Banner, Cavalry Spears, Heavy Armour, Shields

Orc Boar Chariot

So more Orcs and Goblins, this time with a proper number of Orcs and Goblins and no Trolls at all. Played down the length of the table (realistically just giving us a narrower deployment zone). Nathan definitely approached this game like he knew what he was doing. I guess at least that made one of us...

All lined up and facing each other... Sideways. That Black Orc by himself was a placeholder for the whole unit (including BSB and Weirdnob/Great Shaman) because the hill was interfering.

Axemaster 2024 Aftermath - Part 1

Well, it has certainly been a while. I don't think I've ever gone 6 months without a blog post before. I am ashamed, and don't really have a good excuse.

In recent months my hobby efforts have been a bit all over the place. I've spent a fair bit of time painting battlemechs and vehicles for Alpha Strike, I've refurbished a whole ton of cheap snow-covered trees into various shades of green and red, and I've played the odd game.

A whole lot of Steiner vehicles in Lyran Guard colours.

Many many trees getting the green treatment.

A game of Alpha Strike against Clan Wolf.

Even games of Battletech can start to look appealing once you introduce some 3D terrain.

This was a larger Old World game against Sean's Beastmen.

This game was a failed attempt to make Empire infantry work against High Elf cavalry (and pillars of flame). A cautionary tale.

Anyway, whilst all that was happening, someone decided we should run an Old World Axemaster tournament, and so of course I declared I would enter it. I think it was kind of intended as a practice event for Cancon (both of them are 2400pts), so all I had to do was decide what army to take. Ummm.... yeah.

I spent a lot of time thinking about various plans, being dissatisfied with them, and changing to different plans. I stared at Ogres a lot. Like, it was a whole lot of staring. You would have been impressed. But nothing ever came of it. My Ogres give me headaches at the moment. In the end I decided I would take Dwarfs, because I had bought a beer pony and Doomseekers, and needed some motivation to paint them.

Axemaster was just a one-day, 3 game event. I admit I might not have prepared for it in as dedicated fashion as I probably should have. But Cancon is a 3-day, 6 game event that's occurring in a few weeks... and I intend not to prepare for that as well as I should either. So like I say, Axemaster was good practice...

Given the tournament was in the lead-up to Christmas, it's taken me a long time to get around to putting together this blog post. Some of the details are pretty hazy, so bear with me.

Dwarf Royal Clan (2400 points)

• Ungrim Ironfist
• King on Shieldbearers with Rune of Fortitude, Rune of Preservation, Master Rune of Gromril, Great Weapon
• Dragon Slayer with Rune of the Dishonoured, Great Weapon
• Runesmith with Battle Standard, Rune of Spellbreaking, Great Weapon, Shield, Full Plate Armour
• 10 Quarrellers with Full Command, Shields
• 20 Royal Clan Warriors with Standard Bearer, Veteran, Shields, Drilled
• 8 Slayers with Great Weapons (2 Giant Slayers with Additional Hand Weapons, 1 with Standard)
• 8 Slayers with Great Weapons (2 Giant Slayers with Additional Hand Weapons)
• 19 Hammerers with Full Command, Drilled
• Bugman's Cart
• Doomseeker
• Doomseeker
• Bolt Thrower with Rune of Skewering
• Bolt Thrower with Rune of Skewering, Stalwart Rune
• 6 Irondrakes with Standard Bearer, Ironwarden with Trollhammer Torpedo
• 6 Irondrakes with Standard Bearer, Ironwarden with Trollhammer Torpedo

So that was my army. Lots of units, not a lot of war machines, but theoretically enough shooting to make a high value target think twice about just messing around in front of my lines. I was admittedly worried I'd run into an endless wall of dragons. The King was primarily a tank to give me another thing to try to hold one up. Most of my list would be annoying for a dragon to try to pick off. I didn't really think I could kill one unless something funny happened with Ungrim, but I just didn't want it to be a procession. I also took almost no magic defence, figuring I'd just have to ride the magic out. That may have been a mistake...

The Old World - How I feel 4 months in

Hello! It has been almost 4 months since my last post. Obviously this is disgraceful, but it's hardly my first offence in this regard, so let's just agree I'm a terrible blogger and move on...

Over the last few months I've played maybe 10 games of The Old World, sampling lists from the Empire, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarfs and Ogres. I've also watched a number of other games, and spent a fair bit of time talking about the game with friends. This hardly makes me an expert, but at least I've had a chance to get a feel for some things. I've also spent far too much time preparing more base adaptors. Pretty sick of those, and I need so many more...

We did try a 6000pt game to see how the rules scale. It felt like it ran pretty well.

I currently have mixed feelings about The Old World. There are things I like about it, and things that displease me. It's still a battle to work out how many of these feelings are simply based on resistance to change. I'm sure some of them are. I'm old and bitter. Anyway...

Adapting to the brave new old world

The Old World is here, even in Australia (which had to wait a few weeks more than the rest of the world to get our hands on the physical books). We've already played a few games, asked lots of questions, only found some of the answers, and are generally still in the process of coming to terms with things.

The game definitely feels like a new edition of Warhammer Fantasy, probably most closely aligned to 6th edition (with a few things borrowed from other places). However, there are a number of things that feel like they're going to come as the biggest shock to returning players:

• The addition of the Fall Back In Good Order and Give Ground alternatives to properly fleeing
• The disappearance of the magic phase, with spells being cast differently and scattered throughout the turn
• Base sizes

Cancon 2024 Aftermath - Part 5

This is the final part of my report of a recent 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

Game 5 - Finish The War
Adam Wonderley - Wood Elves

• Spellweaver (Level 3, Lore of Life) with Moonstone of the Hidden Ways, Dispel Scroll
• Spellsinger (Level 2, Lore of Athel Loren) with Dispel Scroll
• Alter Kindred Noble with Great Weapon, Hail of Doom Arrow, Helm of the Hunt
• 12 Glade Guard
• 10 Glade Guard
• 10 Glade Guard
• 8 Dryads
• 8 Dryads
• 5 Glade Riders with Musician
• 5 Wardancers
• 3 Warhawk Riders
• 5 Wild Riders with Full Command
• Great Eagle
• Treeman

This felt like things coming full circle. When I used the forest spirit army at Cancon maybe 19 years ago, I played Adam with his Wood Elves. It was a draw. And here we were again, this time on the top table in the final round. We had a bit of an audience as a few people who knew us both pulled up chairs to watch the clash that might decide the fate of the tournament. I declared that whatever happened, this time it would not be a draw... The scenario was a normal battle - the bonus points were for standards and table quarters etc instead of them just being worth 100 victory points.

There was a river cutting the table in half, which is probably not ideal on the top table. It wouldn't matter so much for this match, with 2 armies loaded with skirmishers. It did mean having to commit to plans with units like the Treekin, though.

Cancon 2024 Aftermath - Part 4

This is the continuation of my report of a recent 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

After 3 wins, I was getting perilously close to the top of the tables. By this point however, I had realised that there was only one Daemonic Legion list in the entire tournament, and I was not going to have to play it (which was nice, because they were basically kryptonite to a forest spirit army). I don't know where all the daemons had gone, but maybe we could win this thing!

Game 4 - Steal Their Supplies
Kieran Pink - Bretonnians

• Bretonnian Lord on Warhorse with Gauntlet of the Duel, Gromril Great Helm, The Heartwood Lance, Virtue of the Joust, Shield, Grail Vow
• Damsel of the Lady (Level 1, Lore of Life) on Warhorse with Dispel Scroll
• Paladin Battle Standard Bearer on Warhorse with Banner of the Lady, Questing Vow
• 6 Knights Errant with Musician
• 6 Knights Errant with Musician
• 6 Knights of the Realm with Standard Bearer
• 5 Mounted Yeoman with Shields
• 5 Mounted Yeoman with Shields
• 3 Pegasus Knights with Musician
• 8 Questing Knights with Standard Bearer, Banner of Chalons
• 8 Grail Knights with Musician, Standard Bearer, War Banner
• Field Trebuchet

This scenario involved 2 objectives. One didn't move and needed to be controlled at the end of the game. The other was a little cart that could drive around each turn and could be captured and carried with you. Control of those objectives at the end of the game dictated the bonus points.

Bretonnians had the potential to be a problem for my army. My armour penetration was only so-so, Bretonnians can easily add a rank or two to my none, and they would generally out-charge me. The Grail Knights in particular could probably kill anything in my army, especially on the charge. On the bright side, a single Damsel with one dispel scroll is not a lot of anti-magic... This game was also notable for being the only time all tournament that one of my spellcasters rolled The Call of the Hunt (a movement spell).

How we setup. I decided to keep a small unit of Dryads in reserve, given there was a forest right in the middle of the Bretonnian deployment zone. If nothing else, I thought it might mess with my opponent.

Cancon 2024 Aftermath - Part 3

This is the continuation of my report of a recent 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

Game 3 - Break Their Will
Kierin McPartland - Wood Elves (Drycha)

What the hell, another Drycha army? I admit, I didn't see that coming. This was going to be a really weird game...

• Drycha (Level 2, Lore of Athel Loren)
• Branchwraith (Level 1, Lore of Athel Loren) with Annoyance of Netlings, Lamentation of Despairs
• 12 Dryads
• 11 Dryads
• 8 Dryads
• 8 Dryads
• 8 Wild Riders with Full Command, War Banner
• 5 Wild Riders with Standard, Musician, Banner of the Zenith
• 4 Treekin with Elder
• Treeman

Yeah, that's very similar to my own list - there's not really a lot of choice in an all-Forest Spirit army. The scenario was a variation of Blood and Glory from 8th edition - breaking your opponent was worth bonus points (the sooner you did it, the more it was worth), and the break point was based on characters and champions instead of banners.

Kierin painted up his army as a sort of "corrupted" version of the Forest Spirits, so we agreed that my Drycha was the good guy, and he was driving the baddies. That's the bigger unit of Wild Riders over to my left flank, behind the impassable ruins.