Grot wuz ere.

oh yes he waz.

Greatsword progress

Another weekend has ticked by and the Battle of Heffengen is now only 10 days away. Time us running out, but I continue to make progress. Since my last update I have painted my Greatsword unit filler and another 9 members of the unit. This means the 15 I had completed previously has suddenly expanded to 42, counting the filler. This is satisfactory progress, and if I am feeling like things are under control, that must mean they're really going rather well!

The supply wagon unit filler for my Greatsword regiment is completed.

The Battle of Heffengen: scenario rules

This scenario is designed to recreate the Battle of Heffengen in its entirety. It serves as an amalgamation of the following scenarios from the End Times: Nagash source book: Heffengen: River of Undeath; Heffengen: Fire and Iron; and Heffengen: Gurug’ath’s Doom. Some of the rules have been modified to suit the game as a whole, and certain additions have been made in order to better represent the flow of the battle in the background account.

The rules presented here are intended for 6-8 players divided into 2 teams, and a total points value of between 30,000-40,000 points per side.

A productive weekend

It's Monday morning and I am very tired, however I have come out of the weekend feeling pretty productive. 

I had planned to spend Painting Night on Friday working on more Greatswords, but then I got randomly inspired and instead spent the time converting and assembling my new wagon unit filler for the regiment. This was partly because I needed to work out exactly how big its base was going to be, as that would determine exactly how many individual Greatswords would be needed to round out the unit. 

The answer to the filler base question is that it takes up the room of 18 models (6x3). This is the same as the first wagon I built for my Stirlanders. Turns out I can't realistically jam the thing onto a smaller base if I want to include the horse pulling it. This is fine, but it does mean that the unit will really need to be 60-strong. Anything less and the filler will feel too big. I think I had been toying with the idea of reducing my workload and aiming for 50 Greatswords rather than 60. Guess that plan is gone again...

My new unit filler, set to take the place of 18 Greatswords.

Greatswords - first wave done

I'm starting to get some momentum up for painting a regiment of Greatswords. My last post was 5 days ago, and in that time I've managed to get the first 15 members of the unit finished. I started with a group of 5 including the command group, and was a bit worried when they took me a couple of days. But the next 10 took a similar amount of time, thanks to the lack of a banner and musician to worry about, I suspect.

15 Greatswords painted to a decent tabletop standard. If I can get a full regiment done to this level, I'll be pretty satisfied.

Ostland progress continues

I feel like I'm starting to gain some momentum in terms of painting the red and black "Ostland" contingent for my Empire. Since my last post I've completed the remaining 10 Handgunners I wanted to add to the first unit, including magnetising the bases. So they're done, and I can move onto something new.

20 Handgunners, ready to go! The banner doesn't rank up very well. Serves me right for just grabbing a second-hand model someone else assembled and assuming it would all work out.

The colour scheme is simple, and it did feel reasonably fast to paint.

Heffengen

I realised during last week that we were about to enter December and I really hadn't gotten the ball rolling in terms of this year's "big game". It seems to have become an annual event now, and I see no particular reason to break the pattern. Anyway, all the End Times stuff has thrown whatever plans I might have had into something of a spin, so I've decided to embrace it and use some of the material from the Nagash book. This year (well, technically it looks like it will happen on January 1st next year) we shall recreate the Battle of Heffengen.

For those who don't know (and without giving too much away for anyone who is worried about spoilers at this point), Heffengen saw a large Empire army led by Karl Franz intercept a Chaos invasion that had burst through the human defences to the north. As things started to look grim on the Empire flank, an Undead army led by Vlad von Carstein intervened.

The battle is actually covered by 3 separate scenarios in the End Times: Nagash book. I have decided we'll roll the scenarios together into a single large game involving 8 players.

The players are lined up and I'm starting to gather a list of the forces we have available so that I can determine the final size of the battle. My suspicions are that the limiting factor will be the Empire side, so of course I am doing what I can to bolster that side of things. I'm finally adding a third "region" to my own Empire army - something I've been planning to do for a long time.

10 Handgunners in the black and red of "Ostland" (shhh, don't tell the proper Ostland players. They will point out my scheme is wrong)...