The Field of Shattered Dreams

This is a scenario intended for use in large (multi-player) games of Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition.

The intent is to allow 2 teams of players to fight an objective-based scenario, but where there is more point to controlling the objectives before the end of the game and where it is easier for players to take a direct hand in each other's area of the field (rather than pretty much playing 3 separate games alongside each other, as can happen in a game like this).

The Field of Shattered Dreams

Deep within the borders of the Empire, a coven of Chaos sorcerers performed a ritual to open a rift into the Realm of Chaos. This rift was intended to allow a flood of daemons to enter the mortal plane and cause havoc within the heart of the Empire whilst an army of mortal Chaos worshippers advanced under the cover of the confusion that followed. 

Well that was the plan, anyway. Unbeknownst to the sorcerers, their actions had drawn the attention of the Colleges of Magic in Altdorf. A response was hastily arranged, and at the height of the ritual the Empire wizards struck. The spell could not be entirely stopped, but the outside interference caused the rift to fragment, shattering into several smaller parts. These smaller rifts lacked the direction of the original spell, and as such they fell dormant, waiting for someone to seize control.

A mad scramble ensued as the mortal Chaos invasion force rushed to claim control of the rifts, whilst the Empire response force held what they could and waited desperately for aid. 

Painting Heavy Pike Ogres

Well in my last post My Republican Guard Ogres were assembled. Now they are painted! Hooray for progress! 

3 very heavily armoured Ogres, ready to go poke something with their long, pointy sticks.

As is always the case for things that I've sculpted myself, these guys didn't take long to paint. There is a certain lack of detail that helps speed things up. If they all had hourglasses and fish and dead cats hanging from their belts, it would take a lot longer (even if they might look fancier at the end). Simple is good. Simple is fast.

This guy was the first I constructed, and probably still my favourite.

Making Heavy Pike Ogres

In my previous post I showed 21 completed Ricco's Republican Guard models and stated my intentions to fill the unit out to a horde of 40 including 3 Ogre fillers. I've been quiet for a while on the blog, but I've actually been working on these silly Ogre pikemen every chance I could find. Progress has been slow.

My main problem is that I seem to be getting a bit pickier as I go with these Ogres. I already had moulds for the arms, legs and torso of an Ogre in heavy armour. The detailing didn't really match the Republican Guard, but I don't think that would have bothered me in the past. Apparently it bothered me this time though, because I set about modifying various components to get them to tie in better with their little friends. Here are some photos showing my efforts.

Making new heads and feathers.

Painting Pikemen

I stated in my last post that I was intending to work on my regiment of Ricco's Republican Guard, and I actually seem to be following through on it. This is relatively novel, as my last few months have been full of stalled efforts to pick a project and try to build up some momentum with it. I think this time I will actually be able to push through to my goal.

I've finished painting the first wave of 21. That leaves 7 more models and 3 Ogre fillers (which don't exist yet) to push the unit up to KoW horde size (ie 40 models). That's my current goal, despite the fact that I will have a number of models left over at the end. Given that they need work to sort out their incorrect and/or missing pike situation and 40 is a reasonable footprint in Warhammer too, it might be a while before I get onto doing anything with the remaining models. Let's not be picky. At least I'm making progress!

21 Ricco's Republican Guard, or if you speak KoW, 21 Heavy Pike. I thought these guys would be really fast to paint because they're pretty much fully encased in plate armour. But there is still enough feather, leather and cloth to slow me down more than I would have liked.

Twirling!

"As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball; but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling..."

Right now I feel like I have been taking slightly too much of my advice from Kang. Sure, it sounds like a good motivational speech (in places), but I'm not sure it really points towards progress...

Anyway, I have been making some limited progress in certain directions. I just don't feel like I have much to show for it right now. I think I am still in the twirling stages. I continue to hope that at some point I will settle on something and have a little more focus in my efforts.

Somewhere under there is a work space. Truly.

My first KoW tournament - Smorgancon

After trying out my first larger game of Kings of War, the following day I went along to my first tournament - a small event called Smorgancon. I think it was the first time any of us were involved in a Kings of War tournament, so it was always going to be something of a learning experience for us all. 

I was actually a pretty late entry (a spot opened up when someone pulled out), and my list was not exactly a finely honed precision instrument. I had been toying with lists that might resist flyer-heavy armies, as a theme seems to have been developing in our games that big flyers are very powerful and can be difficult to counter. Rather than taking this as an invitation to go mad with power and field several monsters, I wanted to try making a list that might counter them and help buck the trend. The list below was what I came up with. 

• Ax Horde
• Ax Horde
• Ax Horde
• Ax Horde
• Troll Horde
• War Drum
• War Drum
• Gore Rider Regiment
• Godspeaker with Bane Chant, Inspiring Talisman
• Godspeaker with Bane Chant
• Krudger on Winged Slasher with Medallion of Life
• Troll Bruiser

The theory was that this army could anchor its flank on a table edge, put out a solid 4 feet of orc hordes with no room for anything much to get in between, and then have enough other stuff to both shield the far flank and lurk behind the main line to charge any cheeky flyers that hoped to get into my rear. So theoretically both my flanks and rear would be protected, which would largely negate the impact of the flying monsters. Of course, I didn't play any practice games with the list I came up with. So it was all theory going into the event.

The theory was then undermined somewhat by my own incompetence and lack of preparation. When I arrived (late) at the tournament, I discovered I had failed to pack something - an entire horde of Orcs. I only had 3 in my box. So some emergency changes were made; a Giant made a sudden appearance in my list, and I wound up going into my games 15 points short. Oh well.

Behold my "Giant". Alas, he was all I happened to have on hand! Well at least the base size was correct...

Kings of War up-sized

The weekend saw my first game of Kings of War using anything other than 2000 point armies. Pete and I decided to increase the size a bit and see how it played. We went for 6000 points, based on what we thought we could do with the Undead we had on hand. I matched it with Kingdoms of Men, keeping the list fairly light on for magic items in an effort to keep things simple and to get more models on the table. In the end it turned out that 6000 was pretty close to the limit of what the Undead could muster, and so the list wound up a bit more character-heavy and loaded with magic items than my list. This may have contributed to how the game went - who knows?

Kingdoms of Men

• Horde of Knights (Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar)
• Horde of Knights (Brew of Strength)
• Horde of Knights
• Horde of Knights
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Shield Wall
• Horde of Pike Block
• Horde of Foot Guard (2 handed weapons)
• Horde of Foot Guard (2 handed weapons)
• Horde of Arquebusiers (Brew of Keen-eyeness)
• Horde of Arquebusiers (Jar of the Four Winds)
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Pistols)
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Pistols)
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Carbines)
• Troop of Crossbowmen
• Troop of Crossbowmen
• Cannon
• Cannon
• Cannon
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Beast of War (Light Ballista)
• General on Winged Beast (Medallion of Life)
• General on Winged Beast (Ensorcelled Armour)
• Hero on Pegasus (Diadem of Dragon-kind)
• Army Standard Bearer on Horse
• Wizard on Horse (Bane Chant)
• Wizard on Horse (Bane Chant)
• Wizard (Heal, Bane Chant)
• Wizard (Heal, Bane Chant)
• General on Horse
• General on Horse
• Army Standard Bearer

Undead

• Vampire on Dragon (Ensorcelled Armour)
• Vampire Lord (Wings of Honeymaize)
• Vampire Lord (Blade of Slashing)
• Vampire on Pegasus (The Fog)
• Liche King (Bane Chant, Lightning Bolt, Amulet of the Fire-heart)
• Liche King (Bane Chant, Lightning Bolt, Mreb's Grimoire)
• Necromancer (Bane Chant)
• Necromancer (Bane Chant)
• Revenant King
• Revenant King
• King on Winged Wyrm (Medallion of Life)
• Lykanis
• Legion of Zombies (Undead Rats/Dogs, Brew of Sharpness)
• Legion of Zombies (Undead Rats/Dogs, Crystal Pendant of Retribution)
• Horde of Revenants (Undead Rats/Dogs, Brew of Strength)
• Horde of Revenants (Undead Rats/Dogs, Blessing of the Gods)
• Horde of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Horde of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Horde of Werewolves (Dwarvern Ale)
• Horde of Ghouls
• Horde of Ghouls
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry (Potion of the Caterpillar)
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry
• Regiment of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Ghouls
• Troop of Soul Reaver Cavalry (Chant of Hate)
• Troop of Ghouls
• Troop of Ghouls

I'm not going to bother with a proper battle report here. I'll just include some photos and describe what happened in the captions.

A view down the table. We went for a simple 12x4 playing surface as the consensus was that playing on a deeper table wouldn't achieve much for this first try. Might mix thing sup a bit next time.