Take me to your toaster

Many years ago I saw a Gary Larson cartoon with an alien carrying an English-Martian dictionary, saying "Greetings, Earthling. Take me to your toaster". Apparently the internet never noticed this particular cartoon, so I can't include it here. So I guess you will have to take my word for it. Guess you had to be there, eh (if it's not on the internet, did it ever really happen?)...

Aaaanyway, I have painted a couple of Dark Elf bolt throwers. As October has not yet begun, these will not count towards Duelling Paintbrushes. But I wanted them done and I've been sitting on them for so long that it felt like they were due. The bolt throwers are of the old 4th edition "toaster" variety, due to their being shaped a bit like 2 bits of toast having popped out, side-by-side. I always preferred these models to the newer version, although you'll notice that I've used the more recent crew, as the original ones were the old Marauder miniatures (and for all that Marauder Dwarfs are the best things ever, they never seemed to get the hang of Elves and they all look a bit goofy with big, bulbous noses). 

Relatively new crew manning antique bolt throwers.

The 7th army

When my painted Empire reached a playable size (well over 2 years ago now - in fact, not that long before I started this blog), they became my 6th painted army. They had been preceded by High Elves, Wood Elves, Orcs and Goblins, Dwarfs, and Ogres. As anyone who has been following this blog can attest, I then made a point of focusing on painting Empire, building them up to an excessive size.

Through all of this, there have been two other armies sitting in cupboards, waiting for their time in the sun. Those armies are Bretonnians and Dark Elves, and they have been waiting their turn for years. Both have had the odd model painted now and again, but I've never gotten around to sitting down and painting up a proper force of either.

Well, it seems like that is about to change. Apparently deciding that it was about that time of the year again, Owen the Hippo appeared, brandishing paintbrushes with wild abandon and challenging all and sundry to another round of Duelling Paintbrushes. This time it was decided that the challenge would take place in October, and the 1000 points that each participant painted would be required as part of one of the 1500 point armies being used for the Warhammer World Series in mid-November.

I had a few options that I could focus on for the challenge, however the main contenders were to flesh out my Empire Ogres to a fully autonomous 1500 point Ogre Kingdoms army, or to finally get around to working on one of those long-shelved (although never really forgotten) armies. When Nick Gentile (of The Dwellers Below) expressed interest in painting up a High Elf force for the challenge, it seemed logical to pair them off against an army of their arch enemies, the Dark Elves. We then set about plotting a pair of well-matched armies for the occasion.

About halfway through the process it occurred to us that the rumour mill was strongly suggesting that the next army to be updated for Warhammer Fantasy was the Dark Elves, and that this major overhaul was meant to be occurring in early October. In other words, all our careful list planning was about to become meaningless. It sounds like nearly all the models are being updated as well. The timing was less than ideal. Not to be deterred, I decided that the chances are good that a relatively similar list can be planned out when the new army book is available, and I would just work with the existing list in the meantime.

In terms of what I have to work with right now, here is my mighty Dark Elf army as it currently stands:

All my painted Dark Elves. About half of which are assassins...

Axemaster 2013 Aftermath – Day 2

So my first day at the tournament had been less than ideal. I had scraped one very marginal win, but was on only 20 of a possible 60 battle points coming into day 2. At this point Nick's rather unusual comp system started to take effect, with half of everyone's comp scores applied before the draw was determined for round 4. The other half of the score would be applied at the end of the tournament. With my pretty poor list, this meant I would effectively be getting a bit of a boost up the tables. I guess this could be a good thing...

Axemaster 2013 Aftermath – Day 1

It's taking me a while to get around to my tournament reports nowadays, so once again I will declare my intentions to keep things briefer than normal. Who knows, I might even achieve it this time...

My Wood Elf army list for Axemaster 2013

I've discussed my army list before, however I will repeat it here for convenience:

• Highborn on Great Eagle with Longbow, Light Armour, Shield, Helm of the Hunt, Stone of the Crystal Mere, Ogre Blade, Potion of Foolhardiness
• Glamourweave Spellweaver (Level 4, Lore of Beasts) on Unicorn with Longbow, Dragonbane Gem
• Noble (Battle Standard) with Asyendi's Bane, Hail of Doom Arrow
• Branchwraith
• Branchwraith
• Branchwraith with Cluster of Radiants
• 10 Glade Guard with Standard, Musician, Banner of the Eternal Flame
• 10 Glade Guard with Standard, Musician
• 16 Dryads
• 15 Dryads
• 12 Wild Riders with Standard, Musician, Gleaming Pendant
• Treeman
• Treeman
• Great Eagle

I went into the tournament with pretty modest expectations. We will see how these panned out.

The Campaigner Interview

The Campaigner is a relatively new magazine covering all things wargaming and miniature-related. Recently I was interviewed as the Featured Hobbyist in Issue 5, which is available for free online. You can read about it here. Also included in the issue is an interview with Owen and Grot, from Terrain for Hippos. Go check it out!

In other news, I have started collating the photos I took at Axemaster last weekend, but I'm yet to start writing the tournament report in earnest. In the meantime, here are a few shots of the models I updated as part of my preparation.

2 units of Glade Guard with their horrible 15-year-old paint jobs updated a bit.

The Treeman on the right is nothing new, but the one on the left was hurriedly updated on the Friday night to make him a bit more presentable and a better match for his mate.

My Spellweaver. She is not newly painted, but this rather flawed army list was mainly her fault. She filled my head with silly ideas about lots of Dryads and Beasts magic. She has a lot to answer for...

Warhammer World Series 2013

Last year we tried running a tournament with a difference, and it went so well that it is happening again this year, in an expanded 2-day format. Here is the player pack....

16-17 November

Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition rules

1500pt pre-determined armies (read below)

2 days, 7 games

$50 (late entry)