Gaming Arena March 2026 Aftermath - Part 1

Another one day Old World tournament has been and gone, and I'm here with a bit of a report of how it went. In keeping with the pattern of never taking the same army to an event twice, this time I dug out my High Elves. Truth be told, I expect that pattern will end - not because I've run out of armies, but rather because I'd like to give my old High Elves some love and attention, and using them in more tournaments will probably help with that. Anyway...

The list I decided to take was pretty bad, and basically thrown together from the stuff that I had that was mostly presentable (I told you, they need some love and attention). I did paint up a Caledor archmage for the occasion, which just goes to show you how silly I am. The tournament was 2000 points, however characters were capped at 33%. This wasn't great (I realised very late), but I persisted with my rough plan and just trimmed important things off my characters. What could go wrong, right?

• Prince with Warden of Saphery, Sword of Hoeth, Armour of Caledor
• Archmage (Level 4, Illusion) on Barded Elven Steed with Blood of Caledor, Full plate armour, Meteor Hammer, Dragon Helm
• Noble on Griffon with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield
• 20 Elven Spearmen with Full Command, Monster Hunter's Tapestry
• 10 Elven Archers (Detachment)
• 16 Lothern Sea Guard with Standard bearer, Musician (no shields)
• 5 Silver Helms with Champion (no shields, see below)
• 6 Dragon Princes with Full Command
• 16 Swordmasters of Hoeth with Drilled, Full Command
• 1 Tiranoc Chariot
• 5 Sisters of Avelorn with High Sister (Bow of the Seafarer)

Note that neither the Sea Guard, nor the Silver Helms have shields. This is because I was using Maiden Guard as my Sea Guard, and they don't have shields. And it's because I stuffed up with the Silver Helms. I think I flicked them in and out of the list so many times that I ended up missing the checkbox. I played them as though they had shields, so I cheated by 5 points. It didn't matter; they never did anything...

Game 1 - Encirclement
Max Piccione - Dwarfen Mountain Holds

• Burlok Damminson
• Runelord with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Master Rune of Balance
• Thane with Handgun, Full plate armour, Shield, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Rapid Fire, Master Rune of Bursting Flame
• Thane Battle Standard Bearer with Full plate armour, Shield, Master Rune of Grungni, Rune of Confusion
• 25 Dwarf Warriors with Heavy armour, Great weapons, Shields, Full Command, Rune of Battle
• 18 Quarrellers with Crossbows, Heavy armour, Shields, Full Command
• 16 Hammerers with Great hammers, Heavy armour, Shields, Drilled, Full Command, Master Rune of Hesitation
• Grudge Thrower with Rune of Reloading
• Organ Gun
• 14 Irondrakes with Drakeguns, Full plate armour, Drilled, Champion (Cinderblast bombs)
• Dwarf Cart, Bugman's Cart

The battlefield had 4 objectives as well as baggage trains. Note that I managed to lower the vibe significantly by forgetting to bring anything to represent these, so I was just using sad pieces of paper until Nick showed up to at least give me something to sit on top of them. I deployed my Chariot and Sisters over to the left, put the Sea Guard next to the hill with the Archers on it, then had the Prince leading the Spearmen (which was the general plan for the army), the Swordmasters in a silly squeezed formation due to space (but at least they had Drilled), the Silver Helms and finally the  Dragon Princes.

Big Old Grudges Aftermath - Part 1

Another tournament has been run and won, and as usual I'm here to provide my rundown of how things went for me. No, you can't stop me. And no, you don't have to read it...

Big Old Grudges took the place of what would usually have been the Old World tournament at Cancon. The organisers decided to run it away from the larger convention, at Jolt Games (a nearby game store with the capacity to host the tournament). As someone who travelled up in a group of 10 people to "attend Cancon", only for 2 of us to split off and spend the weekend somewhere... Well, I am opposed to tournament splitting off and running elsewhere. It's been done with other games before (Kings of War has been running offsite for a number of years now, and seems to be doing OK), but realistically those of us who travel to Canberra are often looking to be part of the convention, rather than only being able to drop in for brief appearances.

Having said all that, the venue was large and comfortable, the prize support was significant (one of the benefits of not having to fit under Cancon's umbrella, I think), and everything ran very smoothly. It was surely cooler at Jolt than it was in the big sheds at Cancon, with the weather maxing out at nearly 40 degrees Celsius on the second day.

The tournament was for 2500pt armies, with 6 games over 3 days. It allowed the Renegade rules for Legacy armies, and that (combined with the fact that I'd been meaning to give them some love for a long time) resulted in me deciding to take an Ogre Kingdoms army. Did I give great thought to what I wanted to use in the list? Well no, not really... But this is what I ended up with:

• Tyrant on Stonehorn with Tenderiser, Talisman of Protection
• Slaughtermaster (Level 4, Illusion) with Butcher's Cauldron, Skullplucker, Spangleshard
• Bruiser Battle Standard Bearer with Armour of Meteoric Iron, Great Weapon
• Hunter with Sword of Might, Longstrider, Scout
• 8 Ironguts with Heavy Armour, Great Weapons, Full Command, Look-out Gnoblar
• 8 Ogre Bulls with Light Armour, Ironfists, Full Command, Cannibal Totem
• 4 Sabretusk Pack with Scouts
• 4 Mournfang Cavalry with Heavy Armour, Ironfists, Full Command, Totem of Wrath
• 3 Mournfang Cavalry with Heavy Armour, Ironfists, Full Command

It was not a lot of units, but at least having a couple of large Core units gave me a chance of contesting objectives. I had high hopes for the Tyrant with his Tenderiser catching up to something horrible at some point in the tournament, and also had the potential giggles of the Slaughtermaster always striking first with killing blow, possibly enhanced by Spectral Doppleganger...

Also full disclosure here, when I made the list I had failed to realise that Scouts can't charge in the first turn. I knew that they couldn't do it if they got the first turn in 8th edition, but they took that rule off Vanguard in The Old World (though apparently they added a similar rule back later). I think I just got confused. Consequently I did charge a couple of times in the first turn before someone queried it at dinner that night, and I realised I had been cheating. I can't say massive things came of it, but I apologise to my opponents anyway. Funny that my failure to apply the rules wasn't spotted by anyone until I was discussing my games with someone who wasn't even playing... We're all so clever. Anyway, I definitely won't be making that particular mistake again. I can find a new one. Gotta keep it fresh, you know?

Round 1: King of the Hill (Baggage Train)
Dylan Martin - Dwarf Expeditionary Force

• Burlok Damminson (General)
• Thane on Shieldbearers with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield, Master Rune of Smiting
• Thane with Battle Standard (Master Rune of Grungni, Rune of Battle), Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield, Rune of Fortitude, Rune of Passage
• Runesmith with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield, Master Rune of Calm, Rune of Passage
• Runesmith with Great weapon, Full plate armour, Shield
• 16 Rangers with Crossbows, Throwing axes, Heavy armour, Great weapons, Shields, Champion, Standard bearer (Rune of Battle)
• 18 Thunderers with Handguns, Heavy armour, Shields, Expeditionary Marksmen, Champion, Standard bearer
• 18 Dwarf Warriors with Heavy armour, Great weapons, Shields, Drilled, Champion, Standard bearer (Master Rune of Hesitation), Musician
• 16 Rangers with Crossbows, Throwing axes, Heavy armour, Great weapons, Shields, Champion, Standard bearer
• Dwarf Cart (Bugman's Cart)
• Bolt Thrower 
• Bolt Thrower
• 1 Gyrocopters (Steam gun)
• 1 Gyrocopters (Steam gun)
• 16 Miners with Great weapons, Heavy armour, Champion, Standard bearer
• 12 Miners with Great weapons, Heavy armour, Champion, Standard bearer
• Doomseeker with Master Rune of Alaric the Mad, Rune of Wrath

This was one of those weird armies where Dylan only setup a fraction of his models before Scouts were placed, and all the Miners were hanging back until later in the game.

Slow, quiet progress

It's been a long time since I posted a hobby update (over a year, it seems), so here is a bit of a catch-up.

First of all, I spent a fair bit of time painting battlemechs and tanks for games of Alpha Strike with friends. I probably did more than I needed to, but that doesn't mean I'm done (you probably know that about me by now)...

My current Steiner force, painted in dribs and drabs across the last year. I've shown some of the tanks previously, but there's well over a battalion of stuff all told. It's not well balanced in terms of the mechs I got finished. I need to add some more light and medium mechs, maybe some infantry or battle armour...

It hasn't all been mechs and tanks, of course. I played in 2 Warhammer: The Old World on either side of Christmas, and needed to paint things to get my armies ready for both of those events. Firstly for Axemaster, there were various gaps that needed to be plugged...

Axemaster 2024 - Part 3

This is the final part of my Axemaster report. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

Game 3 - Open Battle
Brian Holland - Vampire Counts

• Master Necromancer (Level 4, Necromancy) with Spell Familiar, Sceptre Of De Noirot
• Vampire Count on Zombie Dragon with Beguile, Biting Blade, Armour of Silvered Steel, Talisman Of Protection
• Vampire Thrall (Level 1, Dark Magic) with Battle Standard, Dark Acolyte, Spell Familiar
• 10 Crypt Ghouls with Crypt Ghast
• 5 Dire Wolves with Doom Wolf
• 5 Dire Wolves with Doom Wolf
• 20 Skeleton Warriors with Full Command, Thrusting Spears
• 30 Skeleton Warriors with Full Command
• 40 Zombies with Standard Bearer, Musician
• Corpse Cart with Warped Tintinnabulation
• 20 Grave Guard with Full Command
• 5 Blood Knights with Full Command
• 5 Blood Knights with Full Command, Supernatural Horror (Kastellan)

So I was up to my third and final game, but somehow I had only played a total of 7 turns, and not a lot had really happened. Hopefully this game would improve that.

Brian deployed both units of Blood Knights in a forest because he didn't fully understand how the terrain worked. He had fooled me - I had assumed he had some cunning plan I couldn't fathom.

The Zombie Dragon was lurking behind the hill, and seemed likely to cause me problems unless Ungrim somehow got to grips with it and fired up. Well, I had intentionally made my list to be a bit hardened to the threat of dragons, so maybe it would be OK. The Dire Wolves used vanguard at the same time as my Doomseekers and Dragonslayer did.

Being amazing, I got the first turn and advanced bravely in column formations, mainly because I could, and it was another thing my list had been made to do if it found the chance. My shooting removed one unit of Dire Wolves and a chunk from the other.

Slayers were anchoring both of my flanks. I hoped the Doomseeker would find a way to deal with the Ghouls, because I didn't really want them charging the Trollslayers.

Look at that speed! Beer powered columns of marching Dwarfs. So agile. So beautiful.

The Zombies wasted no time advancing in response, aided by Hellish Vigour. The orange template is a Spiritual Vortex that was cast in the first turn and would remain for the entire game. I simply couldn't dispel it, even though I tried.

The Ghouls and Dire Wolves also headed for my lines, but they were rather lacking support.

I considered whether I really wanted to be bogged in what was obviously intended to be a tar pit of Zombies, but they had advanced so close that some of my troops were going to be unable to avoid it. So the drilled Warriors expanded their frontage and charged with support from the other Doomseeker. Between them they did pretty significant damage to the enemy unit.

The Hammerers also shifted into a more battle-ready formation, right next to the nasty vortex.

The Ghouls had come too close to the Doomseeker on my flank, and he made extremely short work of them. The Trollslayers continued across the rather lonely expanse toward the Skeletons, in the absence of any better target.

The Hammerers had gotten close enough to interest the Blood Knights, and they charged in despite Ungrim's presence. This was apparently a sound plan, as they did enough damage to basically prevent any return attacks from the Hammerers, and Ungrim struggled to make decent headway against them.

The Trollslayers eventually engaged the Skeletons, and would spend the rest of the game struggling against them and very slowly losing their own numbers. The Doomseeker did eventually manage to get in to help (he was meant to be there from the beginning), but my units couldn't do enough damage to make real headway. By the end of the game the Skeletons, Doomseeker and Trollslayers were all still there - but the Trollslayers had been reduced to a single model.

The Vampire on her Zombie Dragon had flown up into a possition of prominence on the hill in the centre of the field, and I had a decision to make - open up on it with my shooting and try to start wearing it down, or go the more direct approach and hope for an exciting performance from the Dragonslayer. It was a Dragon, after all (or what was left of one). He assured me that he had this under control. Unfortunately, he was wrong. He couldn't get a blow past the Vampire's saving throws, and narrowly succumbed in return. The presence of the Trollslayers was not enough for me to win the fight (there were too few of them and they are only Open Order), so they got shoved back and the Zombie Dragon was free.

The Blood Knights had badly dented the Hammerers, and would eventually wipe them out (with the assistance of some undead magic, including some of the fallen Blood Knights being raised back to keep fighting). Ungrim battled on, but couldn't get enough damage past their saves to deal with them. I did at one point send my Thane with the battle standard into the flank to help - it was a mistake. The Blood Knight on the end beat him down without even bothering to look at him. It was extremely disdainful (and some pretty hot rolling). That was the only trick I had to try to free up Ungrim. He was still fighting them at game's end.

The second unit of Blood Knights eventually left the cover of the forest and tried to get involved, but my shooting spotted them and removed the unit. 

Having shoved the Trollslayers back, the Zombie Dragon was able to reform to face along my lines and threaten the flank of the Warriors.

The Warriors had busted through the Zombies after a few rounds, and overran into the enemy battle standard bearer. The Corpse Cart had charged in to support her, but with my Lord on shieldbearers in there, it was a losing fight. The Zombie Dragon first charged the Doomseeker (who had overrun a very underwhelming distance, and was now sitting back next to the flank of the Warrior unit). He died very quickly, allowing the Dragon to overrun and fight again against the Warriors.

To begin with the Warriors were able to hold their own, compensating for the damage the Dragon inflicted by finishing up the Corpse Cart and Vampire Thrall. But then the Lord challenged, again trying to perform the role he was meant for - to tank a high power target and protect his unit, buying time. He did it OK, but was taking wounds faster than I had hoped, whilst offering no chance of doing wounds in return against the Vampire's saves. I sent the Slayers into the rear to try to help us actually win a round of combat, but at didn't work... We won combat, but because the Slayers were behind the Dragon, it couldn't be pushed back. This meant the Warriors couldn't turn to face the enemy because they never had the chance to reform. Very frustrating.

Eventually the Slayers got engaged and beaten by the Grave Guard, and the Warriors fell back in good order away from the Zombie Dragon. At that point we were out of time, and the game had to be halted after 5 turns - the closest I had gotten to actually finishing a game, but still not a full 6 turn battle.

I had lost the Hammerers, my BSB and partial points for one unit of Slayers. I had also lost a Doomseeker and the Dragonslayer, but they didn't give up points (unlike the one who was grumpy about still being alive). In return I had killed a unit of Blood Knights, the Dire Wolves, Ghouls, Zombies, Corpse Cart and Thrall. It was enough to buy me a very narrow win, 867 victory points to 618. Yay, not a draw!

Result: 11-9 Win

So with that, the game was over. In conclusion, I had very nearly had the most Dwarfish of tournaments, with nothing but draws. I had been pushed around enormously by magic, finding myself practically incapable of stopping a spell all day (I dispelled maybe 3). I had also found my games running out of time, really badly. I didn't like that, and resolved that my next list would hopefully do something to address all of these issues. On to Cancon! 

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...

Bendigo Besieged Aftermath - Part 2

This is part 2 of my report of a recent tournament. You can find the previous part here.

Game 2 - Dawn Attack
Harry Pearse - Dwarfs

• Lord on Shieldbearers with Gromril Armour, Great Weapon*, Shield, 2 Runes of Striking, Rune of Might, Rune of Iron, Rune of Preservation, Rune of Stone
• Runesmith with Gromril Armour, Shield, 2 Runes of Spellbreaking
• Thane with Battle Standard, Gromril Armour, Shield, Master Rune of Grugni
• Thane with Gromril Armour, Shield, Dwarf Pistol, Rune of Stone
• 50 Dwarf Warriors with Heavy Armour, Shields, Full Command
• 10 Thunderers 
• Cannon 
• Grudge Thrower with Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating
• Gyrocopter with Brimstone Gun
• 35 Hammerers with Heavy Armour, Shields, Great Weapons, Full Command
• 10 Miners with Heavy Armour, Great Weapons, Champion
• Organ Gun with Rune of Accuracy

*When I first read through Harry's list, I assumed he'd decided that Strength 4 on his Lord was enough, provided that it would double against Toughness 5 or more. It turns out he'd missed the rule saying the great weapon counts as a hand weapon anyway because of the runes. In Harry's defence, it took several of us waaay too long to find the rule in the book that we all knew was there somewhere. I had actually given up and decided they must have dropped the rule in the latest book when someone finally spotted it right where we had all been looking. 

Honestly, against my list the great weapon probably didn't matter much anyway. The Lord was sitting happily in a unit of 35 Hammerers, along with every other character in the army. I guess it's what you would call a "traditionalist" Dwarf approach. Take every egg you can find, and stuff it in the Hammerer basket. Not the way I do things, but I'm a weirdo and not really a proper Dwarf player. When we went to KFC immediately before, Harry put his name is as Grombrindal up on the screen. I should really just defer to his superior Dwarf cred...

The scenario was Dawn Attack, which means you do have to nominate units for your characters before rolling to see where they all end up. I've been cruelled by this a couple of times, but this time the dice were merciful and my deployment more or less made sense.

That is certainly a unit. 

Bendigo Besieged Aftermath - Part 1

It's been a while since my last post. In actual fact, the last time I posted on the blog, I was recounting my experience at a 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament. Well I'm back again, ready to talk about another tournament I have attended - but this time it's for 8th edition! If this is confusing for you, rest assured that it confuses me too. I had to double-check so many rules to confirm whether I was in the right edition or not. Anyway...

Bendigo Besieged is into its 3rd year, having kicked off back when we were in the middle of COVID lockdowns and the general chaos around that. I wasn't able to make it as a result, and the next year it proved impossible as well. But this time I finally made it, and it was great to see people keen to play some games of 8th edition. There were 18 players, which is apparently a new record for them. But it was also the first 8th edition tournament I've actually played since the End Times blew everything up all those years ago, and also probably the first multi-day Warhammer tournament of any edition I've played since then, apart from Cancon (which barely counts, as it's part of a larger convention that gives it the pull it needs). Very frequently nowadays, it seems that people are unable or unwilling to commit to a 2 day event. They are very few and far between. It amazes me that this is actually my 4th Warhammer tournament this year. Before this year, I don't think I had played one of any edition since End Times, contenting myself with Kings of War as the old Fantasy community was scattered to the winds. 

When I committed to this tournament, I decided I wanted to use Wood Elves. I never really got to use the 8th edition Wood Elf book when it came out, because its arrival prompted every man and his dog to suddenly pull out their dust-covered army and bring them to events. I am not really keen on being part of the "problem", when it comes to one army being a craze that results in far too many of one army flooding a tournament. So I decided to sit back, wait out the storm, and use them when people had calmed down and moved on. Except then the Warhammer world ended and I never got the chance. So now, some 9 years later, this was finally my chance.

I had a few ground rules for myself, based on my reading of the army book and what I saw at events back in the day. I would not use Trueflight Arrows. They were a no-brainer choice that was absolutely everywhere in people's tournament lists. I wouldn't hate them so much if it wasn't for True Line of Sight, which basically ends up meaning nearly everything can see everything all the time. You can't hide from the, and they don't miss much. And they're relatively cheap. Very balanced. My other thing to avoid was Wild Riders, because they were also one of the key go-to options. They're not as broken as Trueflight Arrows, but they're the ultimate glass cannons and hit unreasonably hard. I wouldn't mind taking one unit of them, but they were indeed everywhere - so I decided to avoid them. 

Previous years of Bendigo Besieged had avoided a comp pack, but apparently that had seen some pretty tough stuff appearing. So instead they went the complete opposite approach, and brought in a vast swathe of criteria known as Highlander comp. This rewarded taking no duplicates in a list ("there can be only one", hence the Highlander reference), and tried to make known problems down whilst encouraging things perceived as softer, like a big unit of Empire Spearmen, not taking a proper mage, a dispel scroll, or a BSB. In fact I've never seen so many 8th ed armies without BSBs. An army's comp score could be as low as you liked, but it maxed out at +10 for a soft list. Naturally I promised myself I would get maximum comp by taking a compromised list. In the end, my score was actually an 11, in true Spinal Tap fashion. What's softer than soft? I am! I still only got 10 points, of course...

• Glade Lord on Great Stag with Moonstone of the Hidden Ways, Armour of Destiny, Shield, Spear
• Spellweaver (Level 4, High Magic) with Talisman of Preservation
• Glade Captain with Battle Standard, Hail of Doom Arrow, Great Weapon, Light Armour
• Branchwraith
• 20 Glade Guard with Standard, Musician, Swiftshiver Shafts (multi-shot arrows)
• 23 Dryads with Champion
• 4 Warhawks with Champion
• 8 Wardancers with Champion
• 6 Treekin with Champion
• Treeman
• 6 Waywatchers
• Great Eagle

Updated Dwarf Army Photo

It's not that long ago (well, a couple of years, but in my terms that feels recent) since I took an updated photo of my painted Dwarf army. Since then, the army grew substantially as a result of our slow grow league and my "updated" army photo now feels... not at all up to date. I'm probably done with painting Dwarfs for now, so I figured I should get another updated group photo before I move on to other things.

Again, due to the limitations of Blogger I've got the photo here at "extra large" size, and then I've included it at "original" size in order to upset your browser window...

More Gyrocopters

 <Ride of the Valkyries intensifies>

It's been a while since my last post, but I've finally pushed the Gyrocopters off the painting table. Technically I didn't quite achieve what I set out to, as I had 4 of them there in the batch and only completed 3. The other has only had the metals painted, but I felt like these were really starting to get in the way of making progress elsewhere, and given I now have 5 painted Gyrocopters, there was not a lot of urgency with the last one. So I caved and moved him out of the way so that I can move onto something more relevant.

3 more Gyrocopters, all of them on thick resin bases for a bit of stability and brass rods of different heights for a bit of variety 

Cancon 2023 - Game 4

This is the final part of my report of the recent tournament at Cancon 2023. You can find the previous part here.

We came now to the last game of the event, with it being a very relaxed schedule of 4 games over 2 days. Somehow I was undefeated up until this point, but now I would be playing the only Skaven player in the field. I remember games against Skaven being pretty rough...

Game 4 - Pitched Battle

Alex Johnston - Skaven

I'll be honest, I can't for the life of me work out where Alex spent his points. He had one million units, and I had finished deploying, gone to the bathroom and had a nap before he placed anything meaningful down on his side of the table. It was a very unusual army, and felt like it had made a lot of concessions in order to be palatable to the TOs. Just the one Ratling Gun, only a sensible amount of Warp Lightning... It's entirely possible the army was hundreds of points underweight, really. Anyway, this is what I remember, can guess, or can see from the photos...

• Warlord with Weeping Blade, Bands of Power, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield (probably - maybe he even had a hobo ward save)
• Chieftain with Battle Standard and not much else
• Warlock Engineer with Warp Energy Condenser, Supercharged Accumulator, Warp Blades, Storm Daemon, maybe a Dispel Scroll
• Warlock Engineer with Warp Energy Condenser, Supercharged Accumulator, Warp Blades, maybe a Dispel Scroll or two
• 20 Clanrats with Light Armour, Shields, Full Command, Ratling Gun
• 20 Clanrats with Light Armour, Shields, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower
• 20 Clanrats with Light Armour, Shields, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower
• 20 Skavenslaves
• 20 Skavenslaves
• 20 Skavenslaves
• 10 Night Runners
• 9 Night Runners
• Giant Rat Pack (6 rats and one packmaster)
• Giant Rat Pack (6 rats and one packmaster)
• Giant Rat Pack (6 rats and one packmaster)
• 6 Poison Wind Globadiers
• 2 Poison Wind Globadiers
• 2 Poison Wind Globadiers
• 5 Jezzails
• Warp-Lightning Cannon

Another table with no meaningful terrain, unfortunately. A river cutting the table apart, which was likely to be an impossible barrier for me to cross, but no trees and very little in the way of cover.

Cancon 2023 - Game 3

This is the third part of my report of the recent tournament at Cancon 2023. You can find the previous part here.

Two games down, and I hadn't even lost yet! This seemed like a pattern that was unlikely to continue, and here came a pair of Treemen to put a stop to my run... Dave had the only Wood Elf army in the field, which left me wishing that I'd followed through with my plan for using them instead of the Dwarfs (of which there were 5). Oh well. 

I was a bit surprised by the 2 Treemen, but the rest of the list wasn't as finely honed as it could have been, so I guess the TOs figured it was OK. I still remember getting 2 Treeman banned from Cancon in 6th edition. Ah, the good old days... Dave's list was also terrible for Blood and Glory. If I killed with the general (which was one of the Spellsingers, given the Highborn was Alter Kindred and not leadership material) or the BSB, the game would end that turn and I'd get 500 bonus victory points. I had plenty of banners, so didn't face the same dangers.

Anyway, on to glory! And blood. Always need some blood.

Game 3 - Blood and Glory

Dave Lewis - Wood Elves

• Alter Kindred Highborn with Great Weapon, Light Armour, Helm of the Hunt, Stone of Rebirth (maybe the Bow of Loren? Probably? He didn't use it, though)
• Spellsinger (Level 1) with Dispel Scroll
• Spellsinger (Level 1) with Dispel Scroll
• Noble with Battle Standard, Asyendi's Bane, Hail of Doom Arrow, Light Armour
• 10 Glade Guard
• 8 Dryads
• 8 Dryads
• 8 Dryads
• 5 Wild Riders
• 7 Wardancers
• 5 Wardancers
• Treeman
• Treeman

Another moonscape of a table. We used the crystals as another "forest", because otherwise the only one would have been the one Dave brought with him, which felt unsporting and a bit sad for Wood Elves.

Cancon 2023 - Game 2

This is the second part of my report of the recent tournament at Cancon 2023. You can find the first part here.

My first game had gone pretty well despite me making a few mistakes. Time to see what the second game would bring.

Game 2 - Get the Thingy!

Luke Littlewood - Vampire Counts

• Blood Dragon Vampire Count (Level 2, Necromancy) on Barded Nightmare with Full Plate Armour, Shield, Lance, Heart Piercing, Master Strike, Red Fury
• Blood Dragon Vampire Thrall with Battle Standard, Flayed Hauberk, (naughty great weapon)
• Blood Dragon Vampire Thrall with Sword of Battle, Cursed Shield of Mousillon, Heavy Armour
• Necromancer (Level 2, Necromancy)
• 19 Skeletons with Light Armour, Shield, Full Command
• 19 Skeletons with Light Armour, Shield, Full Command
• 6 Dire Wolves
• 6 Dire Wolves
• 5 Ghouls
• 5 Ghouls
• 9 Black Knights with Barding, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows
• 3 Spirit Hosts
• Banshee

Fighting undead on the mooooon!! (I'm not sure how we got here). This game awarded something like 400 victory points if you controlled that stone near the orange die at the end of the game.

Cancon 2023 - Game 1

Cancon is over for another year, and I have survived my first foray back into the depths of 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy. As usual, I distracted myself by taking photos during all of my games, so here we are with another series of battle reports.

Prior to the tournament, I played a total of 4 games of 6th edition to test out a few potential armies, and to get some handle on the rules again. One of those games was with Dwarfs, so I was confident of my complete mastery of the army when I decided to take it to the tournament.

Initially I had dismissed Dwarfs as an option, figuring that they would be a pretty static, depressing army to play. There's a reason why most Dwarf armies you see end up in a castle formation with plenty of ranged firepower - they don't have a lot of choice. But then I realised the Anvil of Doom was a viable option to help the Dwarfs pull off some charges of their own, and decided it was a good opportunity to use the one I painted in the Slow Grow last year. In the end, this was my list:

• Runelord on Anvil of Doom with Master Rune of Balance, Rune of Stone, Shield, Great Weapon
• Thane with Battle Standard, Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Cleaving
• Dragon Slayer with axes, wearing pants (so more than some Slayers)
• 10 Quarrellers with Great Weapons
• 10 Quarrellers with Great Weapons
• 10 Quarrellers with Great Weapons
• 18 Hammerers with Shields, Full Command, Rune of Courage
• 18 Ironbreakers with Full Command, Rune of Courage, Ancestor Rune
• 18 Miners with Full Command, Steam Drill
• Stone Thrower with Engineer, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Penetrating

The list was based around the principle of a couple of "anvil" units capable of receiving a charge, and the Quarrellers with great weapons being ready to flank or counter-charge once things got close, probably with the assistance of the Anvil of Doom. The Miners were obviously also hoping for some help charging as soon as they appeared behind the enemy. So the Anvil had some work ahead of it, provided it didn't mess up its 2+ rolls.

I felt the amount of shooting was relatively modest for a Dwarf army - one piece of upgraded artillery, and 30 crossbows. The Anvil could lend a hand too, hitting and slowing a unit each turn until the charging became relevant. As it turned out, the TOs considered asking me to change the list due to the amount of shooting. They mainly thought it was a lot of crossbows, and to be fair, the entirety of my Core had been spent on them. I did try playing around with variations on the list, but they all felt like they made the army less functional, and honestly I didn't really expect 30 crossbows to do much damage against most opponents - I hoped it might be enough to deal with some light distractions, and mainly be enough of a threat to make people move forward and engage me. In the end they had given me the green light to stick with things as they were, so in the absence of anything I would be as happy with, I just went with it. I didn't expect the army to do especially well as it was, and didn't think my shooting would be enough to make anyone really miserable.

The tournament somehow managed to attract 50 players, which is an awful lot for a game that has been dead for 16 years. Every army except Chaos Dwarfs made an appearance, along with a number of variant Storm of Chaos and "back of the book" lists like Sylvanians, Errantry War and Blood Dragons. There were 5 Dwarf armies, which was the most with the exception of Vampire Counts (if you counted the variant lists). It was a pretty good mix, although it offended my hipster sensibilities to be using one of the most popular armies. Oh well.

The event was a very gentle 4 games spread over 2 days - a far cry from the old hectic Cancon marathon of 8 games over 3 days. It lent things a more relaxed vibe, although in all honesty I could have handled another game given it was all I had signed up to do when we were up in Canberra. But more games squeezed in probably would have made things feel more like serious business, and I don't think that was the goal. Nor am I convinced I really wanted that either.

Game 1 - Outflank

Angus Mackie - Dogs of War

• Mercenary General with Sword of Might, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield
• Paymaster on Barded Steed with Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• Hireling Wizard (Level 2, Lore of Heavens) with 2 Dispel Scrolls
• Mercenary Captain on Pegasus with Heavy Armour, Shield, Lance
• 23 Pikemen with Heavy Armour, Full Command
• 9 Voland's Venators
• 11 Crossbowmen
• 5 Light Cavalry with Spears
• 5 Light Cavalry with Spears
• 8 Duellists
• 13 Long Drong's Slayer Pirates
• 3 Ogre Leadbelchers
• 2 Ogre Maneaters with Great Weapons
• Cannon
• Halfling Hot Pot

Angus' whole army was painted in fancy non-metal style. It was very nice.

A New Year, and a return to 6th edition

Happy new year, everyone! As usual, it's been a long time since my last post. I actually started this post a couple of months ago, and it never went anywhere. But here I am now!

I have not achieved much painting over the last few months, partly because my priorities started to get confused. I still have several partly painted Gyrocopters on my table, and it's possible I'll get them finished before shuffling them off to the cabinet (removing them whilst partly-painted would feel like an admission of defeat). I did paint a few "Hammerers", who are random models I tried to convert to help me pad out my actual Marauder-era Hammerers a bit. It was really just a bit of an experiment.

A second command group, and a few sneaky extra Hammerers to pad my total out to 2 units of 18.

Burnination achieved

Another week or more has passed, and I've made some more progress on my Dwarfs. After grinding my way through the longbeards, it was nice to be able to move onto some less numerous choices - things that felt closer to a quick win.

First up, I finally painted a flame cannon. I've had this model for probably 15 years, and it's taken until now to actually do anything about it. I think in my head I always wanted something that looked pretty much like the original GW studio paintjob, so it's no surprise that I stuck with that plan.

The old 4th edition flame cannon, sporting the same sort of colour scheme as it had in the original Dwarf army book all those years ago.

Ready to Grumble

Somehow it's been nearly a month since my previous post. I don't really understand where the time goes anymore. All I know is that I just can't keep up. I'm clearly getting old.

Anyway, it's time for a hobby update. I haven't been posting, but I have been painting. Slowly. Painfully slowly. As if there were any other way! I actually no longer know where I'm at in terms of the slow grow schedule. My gut tells me I'm still behind, because my efforts to catch up with the longbeards were far too slow. Regardless, I am at least still making progress.

The longbeards are done. I say that, but I guess what I really mean is that I've done the 24 that I originally set out to paint as the unit. It wouldn't hurt to have more, and I could always just print more... But I think I'd need a specific reason to do that. For now, this is the unit.

24 Kyoushuneko longbeards, in a fairly fetching combination of yellow and turquoise. Well, I like it anyway. It's getting harder to find new colour schemes for new units in this army.

Dwarves are slow

When you are a Dwarf, you are slow. You move slow. Eat slow. Paint slow. The only thing you do fast is drinking and writing down grudges. And since I don't drink (not being a very good Dwarf), I obviously just need to focus on my grudge writing...

As bad as I am at some aspects of being a Dwarf, I have been doing a very good job of painting slowly. A nice slow Dwarf in a slow grow painting league is pretty much a guaranteed recipe for glacial progress. It has been 20 days since my last progress update, and my progress in that time has indeed been slow and steady. Mainly slow. Only a bit steady...

Since the previous update, I have completed the first 12 of my Kyoushuneko Longbeards. I have also made moderate progress on the next 6, having sensibly broken up the second half of the unit in order to make the process a little less painful. I probably told myself it'd mean more frequent updates here, but well... anyone can make a mistake. 

12 fully painted longbeards, ready to take the field. Once they can find enough friends for it to be worth taking them to the field, anyway.

Back to the Slow Grow

I have been doing this for a long time. The blog alone is over 10 years old, and I was painting models for a long time before that. It is slightly concerning therefore, that I seem to have learnt nothing. I keep making the same mistakes, each time somehow convincing myself that this time it will be different. It's all just a little bit of history repeating...

Anyway, I am back painting models for the slow grow. I was completely derailed last month by the battle report, so I'm currently in catch-up mode. I decided that the simple solution would just be to try to make sure I painted 500 points this month, but we're halfway through the month and I haven't actually finished anything yet. I feel like I'm leaving myself a lot of work to do. 

I started off by deciding that my Dwarf army as a whole needs more core units, and that I wouldn't mind having another unit of Longbeards. I have the files for some Kyoushuneko ones that I really quite like, so I printed off a pile of those, and figured I would start with a unit of 25. Sensible size, usable in a normal sized game, and worth a fair chunk of points. And then, being exceptionally clever, I figured I'd paint all of them in a single big batch. You can imagine how this has gone for me...

My mostly complete prototype, showing my chosen colours of yellow and turquoise. My Dwarf units are all different colour combinations, and you'd be surprised how much I feel like I'm running out of good combos.