Snake Eyes Aftermath - Part 3

This is the third part of my report from the recent Snake Eyes Warhammer: The Old World tournament. You can find the previous part of the report here, or go back to the start here.

Two rounds into the event, at least we no longer had the absolute minimum number of battle points possible. So we were improving!

Round 3: Undead, Unholy & Unapologetic

These guys were a bit of a curve ball, because they had to change one of their players (and lists) at the last minute. What would have been a Slaanesh Daemon army suddenly became a Lizardman list with 2 Carnosaurs!

Kingsley - “Undead”
Tomb Kings, Mortuary Cults 

• High Priest (395 pts) 
• General 
• Necrolith Bone Dragon 
• Warding Splint 
• Hieratic Jar 
• Necromancy 
• Arch Necrotect (90 pts) 
• 10 Ushabti (497 pts) 
• Greatbows 
• Ancient (champion) 
• 5 Skeleton Horse Archers (55 pts) 
• 5 Skeleton Horse Archers (55 pts) 
• 5 Skeleton Horsemen (55 pts) 
• Tomb Scorpion (77 pts) 
• Ambushers 
• The Terrors Below 
• Tomb Scorpion (77 pts) 
• Ambushers 
• The Terrors Below 
• Necrolith Colossus (160 pts) 
• Casket of Souls (135 pts) 
• Necrosphinx (200 pts) 
• Envenomed sting 
• Necrosphinx (200 pts) 
• Envenomed sting 

Fletcher - “Unapologetic” 
Orc & Goblin Tribes, Nomadic Waaagh! 

• Kiknik Toofsnatcha (105 pts) 
• General 
• Goblin Warboss (192 pts) 
• Great weapon 
• Wolf Chariot (Third Giant Wolf) Armour of Silvered Steel 
• Talisman of Protection 
• Goblin Bigboss (125 pts) 
• Light armour 
• Shield 
• Battle Standard Bearer (Da Angry Ladz Flag) 
• Giant Wolf 
• Biting Blade 
• Goblin Oddnob (175 pts) 
• Level 4 Wizard 
• Giant Wolf 
• Waaagh! Magic 
• 24 Goblin Wolf Rider Mob (340 pts) Shields 
• Cavalry spears 
• Light armour 
• Reserve Move 
• Ambushers 
• Close Order 
• Horde 
• Boss (champion) 
• Standard bearer (Da Banner of Butchery) 
• Musician 
• 2 Goblin Wolf Chariots (111 pts) 
• Standard bearer 
• 5 Goblin Wolf Rider Mob (60 pts) 
• Shortbows 
• Feigned Flight 
• 6 Orc Boar Boy Mob (190 pts) 
• Cavalry spears 
• Heavy armour 
• Shields 
• Big 'Uns 
• Boss (champion) 
• Standard bearer (The Big Red Raggedy Flag) 
• Musician 
• Black Orc Boar Chariot (134 pts) 
• Great weapon 
• Black Orc Boar Chariot (134 pts) 
• Great weapon 
• Black Orc Boar Chariot (134 pts) 
• Great weapon 
• Bonegrinder Giant (300 pts)

Toby - "Unholy" "Unexpected" (I don't really know what they were calling him, but he was a last minute addition, so...

Lizardmen

• Saurus Scar-Veteran [311 pts] 
• Cavalry spear
• Shield
• General
• Carnosaur
• Glyph Necklace
• Saurus Scar-Veteran [266 pts] 
• Cavalry spear
• Shield
• Carnosaur
• 20 Saurus Warriors [301 pts] 
• Shields
• Spawn Leader (champion)
• Standard bearer
• Musician
• 20 Saurus Warriors [321 pts] 
• Thrusting spears
• Shields
• Spawn Leader (champion)
• Standard bearer
• Musician
• 5 Cold One Riders [216 pts] 
• Cavalry spears
• Shields
• Pack Leader (champion)
• Standard bearer
• Musician
• Jaguar Standard
• Bastiladon [175 pts] 
• Solar Engine
• 5 Cold One Riders [221 pts] 
• Cavalry spears
• Shields
• Pack Leader (champion)
• Standard bearer
• Musician
• War Banner
• 3 Kroxigors [147 pts] 

I have no idea which army we led with in the pairings. We were all pretty tired. But somehow I ended up matched against the other Orc and Goblin army. It might have been intentional. On someone's part, anyway...

Deployment was a bit strange, with a whole ton of Fletcher's army (the huge Wolf Rider unit, Kiknik and the BSB) getting ready to ambush from somewhere.

The slow grow continues

Another month has passed (well more than a month, really) and there has been some limited progress on the painting front. I'm not really sure what my target was as the month started, but I ended up scrambling to reach my target by painting a couple of cannons toward the end of the month, and that was enough for me to at least be on track from a points perspective. I'm not proud, I'll take that.

10 Handgunners, including 1 champions with Hochland Longrifles (they're meant to be used as a couple of small detachments with the Halberdiers). Of course they're all on 20mm bases (all of my stuff will forever be on the old bases, and just lean on adapters).

Snake Eyes Aftermath - Part 2

This is the second part of my report of the recent Snake Eyes Warhammer: The Old World tournament. You can find the first part of the report here.

After our glorious showing in the first round, we were at the back of the pack. Time to see if we could maintain that, or if we were going to slip up and actually get some battle points...

Tom Stockdale
Vampire Counts

• Master Necromancer [425 pts]
• Level 4 Wizard
• General
• Mortis Engine
• Sceptre of De Noirot
• Crown of the Damned
• Tomb Banshee [90 pts]
• Wight Lord [85 pts]
• Lance (when mounted)
• Heavy armour
• Shield
• Battle Standard Bearer
• Skeletal Steed
• 25 Grave Guard [343 pts]
• Seneschal
• Standard bearer - Drakenhof Banner
• Musician
• 32 Zombies [96 pts]
• 5 Dire Wolves [46 pts]
• Doom Wolf
• 5 Dire Wolves [46 pts]
• Doom Wolf
• 9 Black Knights [310 pts]
• Hell Knight
• Standard bearer - Standard of Hellish Vigour
• Musician
• 3 Spirit Hosts [147 pts]
• 5 Blood Knights [271 pts]
• Kastellan
• Standard bearer - Rampaging Banner
• Musician
• Varghulf [140 pts]

Ben Yuill (C)
Bretonnian Exiles

• Baron (307pts)
• General
• The Exile’s Vow
• Virtue of Knightly Temper
• Royal Pegasus
• Shield
• Frontier Axe
• Gauntlet of the Duel
• Falcon-horn of Fredemund
• Baron (279pts)
• The Exile’s Vow
• Virtue of Heroism
• Royal Pegasus
• Charmed Shield
• 2x Lucky Heirloom
• 10 Mounted Knights of the Realm (311pts)
• The Exile’s Vow
• First Knight - Antler’s of the Great Hunt
• Standard Bearer - War Banner
• Musician
• 15 Peasant Bowmen (85pts)
• Skirmishers
• Standard Bearer
• Musician
• 12 Peasant Bowmen (65pts)
• Skirmishers
• Musician
• 12 Peasant Bowmen (65pts)
• Skirmishers
• Musician
• 5 Pegasus Knights (321pts)
• The Exile’s Vow
• First Knight
• Standard Bearer - Banner of Honourable Warfare
• Musician
• 4 Pegasus Knights (266pts)
• The Exile’s Vow
• First Knight
• Standard Bearer - Banner of The Zealous Knight
• Musician
• Border Prince Bombard (100pts)
• Border Prince Bombard (100pts)
• Trebuchet (100pts)

Peter Reilly
Tomb Kings of Khemri

• Tomb King (441pts)
• General
• Necrolith Bone Dragon
• Great Weapon
• Shield
• Armour of the Ages
• Talisman of Protection
• Mortuary Priest (85pts)
• Wizard Level 1
• Lore of Nehekhara
• Amulet of the Serpent
• Mortuary Priest (55pts)
• Wizard Level 1
• Lore of Nehekhara
• 39 Skeleton Warriors (235pts)
• Thrusting Spears
• Master of Arms
• Standard Bearer
• Banner of the Desert Winds
• 42 Skeleton Archers (210pts)
• 5 Skeleton Horse Archers (55pts)
• 6 Ushabti (301pts)
• Ancient
• 3 Ushabti (147pts)
• Great Bow
• Tomb Scorpion (70pts)
• Tomb Scorpion (70pts)
• Necrosphinx (195pts)
• Casket of Souls (135pts)

I ended up matched against the Vampire Counts, after we led with our Chaos army so that he could avoid the monster-hunting Bretonnian army. Tom was using a borrowed army, which became apparent when he went to roll for a break test with his undead... That's OK, we sorted that out pretty quickly. They were also on the wrong sized bases. Very old school. Not at all like my much older models on new-fangled base adapters! Moral high ground for me!

This was one of 3 Vampire Counts armies in the field, which is more than you might have expected given the character and magic limits. Dire Wolves vanguarded forward on the flanks, and Tom got the first turn.

Snake Eyes Aftermath - Part 1

Recently we attended a slightly different Warhammer: The Old World tournament. This was an event with teams of 3 players, where each round the team would be matched against another team. A matching system similar to that used by the ETC was them employed to determine which armies would face each other on the tables, and the results were then tallied together at the end. A rather gentle "capping" system was in play, meaning that despite each game being determined by a 20-0 system, the overall team results would never be more than 20 apart. So the team would always get at least 20 points, and could never get more than 40. This essentially means the teams move around on the leaderboard exactly the same as solo players would with the normal 20-0 scoring system. It was a 5 round event over 2 days, and there were 14 teams in attendance (so 42 players).

There were some interesting rules in place for army selection. Every player in the team had to take a different race, and they couldn't duplicate magic items across their lists (so only 1 Ogre Blade between the 3 players). You could also only field a combined total of 8 levels of magic, and characters were capped at 600 points despite the armies being 2000 points. There were also some rules around spamming duplicate choices, but it all added up to mean that army selection was interesting. How would you spread the magic levels across the armies, which ones would work best with only 600 points of characters to work with, and did you need to look at armies like Dwarfs or Daemons, who don't need to fight over the magic items?

We ended taking a combination of Empire, Orcs and Goblins and Warriors of Chaos. Across the event there was a pretty wide range of armies in play, with only Wood Elves, Ogre Kingdoms and maybe Dark Elves not represented at all. Amusingly there was an identical over-equipped Chaos Lord on Dragon that managed to make its way into 4 lists (including ours). 

Tim grabbed some quick photos of our armies when they were arrayed for the army parade. I failed to do so, because I'm a useless blogger. This was my Orc and Goblin army

Pete's Empire army, which was slightly less White Wolf than it really looked.

Tim's Warriors of Chaos army.

This was my list. Honestly not the most carefully designed thing in the world, but I managed to play a couple of practice games with it, and I didn't do too badly in those games. I also liked actually having some infantry... Unlike my teammates.

The slowest of slow grows

In my previous post I indicated that I was going to be launching into another "slow grow" painting challenge. Well at the time, I didn't really understand just how much emphasis was going to be on the "slow" part of things...

May was the first month of the challenge, and we set off with a group of us declaring our planned involvement and what we were going to be working on:

• Me - Nuln Empire
• Noakes - Bretonnians
• Sean - Daemons
• Tim - Skaven
• Pete - Vampire Counts
• Hamish - Beastmen
• Jono - Wood Elves

The general guide was that we'd work on a rough target of about 250 points a month, with the aim of putting together a usable force over 8 months or so. All pretty simple, not very formal in terms of what order things were worked on. It's just meant to give some shape and motivation for getting some painting done.

Anyway, May is now done, and between us we have... not a whole lot to show for our efforts. Here's an update:

Me (Nuln Empire):

I figured I was starting the month with momentum on my side, having just worked my way through a regiment of Handgunners, and a War Wagon before that. This made me confident that I could tackle a relatively big opening month, and I declared I was going to paint a regiment of 20 Halberdiers and 10 Handgunners as their detachment.

How it started: 10 Halberdiers, 10 Handgunners, and a bonus Engineer. If I got all of that done, I'd be off to a flying start.

Continuing Nuln and another slow grow

I have been continuing work on my new Nuln Empire army. Progress has been steady, and I've completed 10 Handgunners with another 10 well on their way.

Technically these are meant to be Ironsides (a resin upgrade kit for normal Handgunners that came from Forge World), although they're a Magori 3D printed version of them. They still sport the heavier armour, and include kneeling models for the front rank. I printed a pile of these and undercoated them years ago, then they languished in a box, waiting for their time in the sun.

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...