Sunday, July 31, 2011

Heavy Hitter competition 2011

I think my cat is possessed

Hello all,

Just a quick update of yesterdays exploits. My local GW store held a painting competition through the month of July that ended yesterday. The main rule of the competition was that the model chosen had to be purchased, assembled, and Painted in the month of July (This was to make it a level playing field for all contestants.)

I decided to enter. even though my schedule this summer has been brutal. For the last three weeks I have worked on my entry and Thursday night I declared it DONE! (Sanity would not let me go any farther)

Here is what I ended up with. I call it "Playing with your food"








Here are some close ups of the details...





I am especially please with the results of this model. I guess Perseverance and hard work does pay off. I say this because the other models in the event were fricking Awesome!!! I am sure they will be posted on The their Facebook Page

What surprised me the most was when they gave me this...



Well until net time

Later

RGH

Friday, July 29, 2011

40K Fun

Just a Quick Post about the 40K game I had last Sunday.

I finally got to get a game in...

I tried out a 2K Ork list vs. a Codex Marine list Gratan brought over.

Over all it was a fun game even though both of us are a bit rusty (I am sure we did a few things wrong)

Here are a few picks from the game...






I managed to pull out a win but we ended the game after turn 4 so really it could have gone ether way...

Thanks for the Game Gratan!

Later

RGH

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Battle of Windle's Tower (Battle Report Part 3)

The Battle of Windle's Tower 3




(Note: Lakait is both the player code name and the name of the Wood Elf General while Rattling the Mad is The code name of the Skaven player and Warlord Scratcheye is the name of the Skaven General)

Turn 3

Turn three is where things started to really heat up between these two combatants



General Lakait

The Wood Elf Spellsinger Worked her magic on the General’s Eternal Guard unit Rolling a double 6 guaranteeing a successful casting but took a wound and lost a spell due to the fickle nature of magic in this edition.

Lakait- ‘It's important to note that both spells can be cast on units that are engaged in combat. I cast fear on the Noble's unit again. It didn't do any good, since the Storm vermin were able to pass their fear check. And I cast Ariel's Blessing on the general's unit. I got a critical success and lost this spell for the rest of the game. I'd taken a magic item that allowed me to re-roll on the miscast table, but I found that I would have preferred one that allowed me to ignore a single miscast. This is what I thought I was getting at first.'

The Large unit of Eternal Guard (Lead by the Army General) Charged the Unit of Skink Slaves and blew them off the table.

Lakait- ‘After having defeated the Hell Pit, I decided that I might as well engage the Slaves (I hate slaves) since they were the best target I had. I wanted to get into the backfield and attack his general's unit from behind. I was hoping to act as reinforcements for my Noble's unit. This opened up my general's unit to all kinds of missle weapon attacks from the Rattling Gun, the Mortar, the Jezzails, and the Warlock. My unit was ultimately wiped out by missle fire more than anything else. I did have to make a panic check at one point. However, since my Wood Elf Highborn made the unit stubborn, it was unmodified.’

The second Unit of Eternal Guard now weakened was attacked by the undamaged Storm Vermin Unit of Scratch Eye himself! The Fight went against the poor Elves who were all but wiped out. (The Elf Noble survived but was left to face the onslaught alone.)

The Glade Guard Managed to Rally with the intention of taking the tower back!



Warlord Scratcheye

Both Units of Slaves were pretty much gone at this point. The first unit continued to flee while the second (Skink) unit was wiped out. They did manage to inflict some minor damage to the eternal guard and left them in a vulnerable position for the next Skaven turn!

The Clanrats held the tower

Lakait- ‘Yeah, but no one was assaulting it either. They were just twiddling their thumbs and ripping up my banner that added one to my move.’

The General’s Storm Vermin Unit killed the Wood Elf Noble

Lakait- ‘I tried to challenge the general, but he refused. All of that written elsewhere. So, yeah, I died’

Both The Warlock Engineer and the Jezzail team fired on the , now vulnerable Eternal Guard unit both scored a massive amount of hits but when the smoke cleared the unit still held!

Lakait- ‘So, Ariel's Blessing is the only reason that my general's unit managed to survive the rain of missile weapons that came forth to give them a shady spot to stand on the battlefield.’

The Ratling Gun moved to a better position for next turn.

Ratling the Mad- ‘It moved away from the Highborn’s unit to avoid being charged, I recall because next turn it couldn’t shoot because of the facing I put it in, my not paying attention to that because in the old rules it had a much wider arc of vision’

The Poison Wind Morter misfired and jammed for a turn thus no shots were fired.
Things were starting to look up for the Skaven!

Turn 4

Turn four was about position or reposition



General Lakait

The Spellsinger moved towards the glade guard to support their upcoming attempt to take back the tower.

The last Eternal Guard unit did a reform to get into position to charge the Storm Vermin. While doing this they took even more fire and it nearly cost the entire unit but they held against the odds.



The Glade Guard moved towards the tower and prepared to assault next turn.

Warlord Scratcheye

The Clanrats continued to hold the tower and prepared for the the onslaught of the displaced Wood Elves.



The General’s Storm Vermin also reformed to face the remains of the Eternal Guard.

The Jezzail team continued to fire at the Eternal Guard Unit killing several more.

The Ratling Gun did not fire as the angle of the attack was off to fire at the only in range target.

The Warlock Engineer attempted to Warp lightning the Eternal Guard unit again but this time it was dispelled.

Going into turn 5 it looked like the Skaven had it in the bag.

Turn 5



This ended up being the final turn. And here is why…

Charge declared by the remnants of the Eternal guard into the Scratcheye’s Storm vermin Unit. This unit of Eternal Guard used a Banner that made the unit cause Terror. Scratcheye declared a hold reaction. All Eyes were on this roll. The Dice came up 11! The Skaven were forced to flee. The distance was rolled and it came up 4” +1 “for Skaven and this equaled a 5 “flee. Unfortunately The Eternal guard were only 3 “away from the Skaven and rolled 10 on the Charge distance giving them 15” of movement allowing them to run down the terrified Storm Vermin.



Why did this end the game? Remember This was the Blood and Glory scenario and that Lakait started with 5 Banner points and Ratling the Mad had 4. Lakait lost 2 during the earlier in the game when her Glade Guard were defeated and fled the tower and another when the smaller unit of Eternal Guard was destroyed. This made it 4v3 (in Ratling’s favor) at the top of turn 5. When his general’s Unit was destroyed he lost 3 banner points immediately making it 1v3 (in Lakait’s favor) AND dropped the skaven army below the minimum 2 Banner points to stay in the game thus giving the victory to the Wood Elves!

Lakait- ‘It's important to note that this happened because Robby failed his terror check. That's the only reason I won here. I had three points in my general's unit and he had three points in his. This was the clash that would decide the game.’

Ratling the Mad had this to say in a later conversation:

‘I’d say my biggest mistake was not looking up what regeneration does, and just going on my obviously faulty recollection of how these things work (you try to save some time). Things went differently than I expected, the Hell Pit got thoroughly trounced, but both weapon teams and my Warlock Engineer actually survived. Apparently I was also wrong in some other assumptions that I made, like that her General was her spell caster (it wasn’t), and that My General’s unit (12 strong, modified Ld 7) could take 3 elves (Terror Causing Elves, Galadriel took the One Ring and came after me.) It’s hard to pick an MVP here, but I’ll have to go with my Poison Wind Mortar. It may have only gotten one good shot, but man was it effective.’

The End...

I Hope you have enjoyed this Battle Report. Please let me know what you think.

R.G.H

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Battle of Windle's Tower (Battle Report Part 2)

vs.


Turn 1



Turn 1 was almost (see below) purely a movement and position round for both armies.

General Lakait

The Wood Elf Spell singer spent the first turn in cover of the woods this central position made her a less desirable target and allowed her to cast spells at all three units in the army.

General Lakait said: “Standing on the edge of the woods, to provide soft cover and still be in range to cast on the Eternal Guard units. I cast the fear spell on the noble's unit and tried to put Ariel's Blessing on the general's unit. Recall, that he had a terror causing banner, so he didn't need the other spell.”

The larger Eternal Guard moved up to within an inch of the wall and waited for the Hellpit to charge.
(Editor’s Note: Lakait did not want to lose a rank of spear attacks by charging the hellpit.)



The second unit of Eternal Guard moved into the gap between the walls.



The Glade Guard Made a Bee line for Windle’s tower moving to 1” away after a march move.



Warlord Scratcheye

The Jezzail team moved into the abandoned Watchtower.



While the Hellpit Abomination, The unit of Standard slaves, and the Storm Vermin moved forward for position. The Hellpit rolled a measly 5” and did not get to engage the Eternal guard unit it was trying to attack. The second unit of slaves (Skinks) ended up stuck behind the hellpit and Storm vermin so opted not to move. The unit of Clan Rats moved towards Windle’s tower.

Lakait-
“(He) didn’t try for the tower because Scratcheye decided that I was closer and would get there first. I think this was a mistake because he wasted a turn where he could have assaulted the building.”

Ratling The Mad -
“I want to say that I had a perfectly good reason internally for not going after the tower, that being that since it was placed slightly further toward her side and with it being very likely that she would take first turn, it didn’t seem likely that I would beat her there, so I prepared for an assault. “

The warlock Engineer hid behind the trees to watch the opening shots of the battle from relative safety

Lakait -
“Tried to skitterleap, but I threw all my dice at dispelling it. He had no shots for his magic missile spell, so that ended magic.”

Ratling The Mad-
“I also didn’t expect my magic to be so shut down, but I guess it was a mistake to position things so that in order to cast one spell, the other one HAD to go off.”

The Ratling gun moved for a better position so could not shoot that turn.

The only real action came from the poison wind mortar that fired an indirect poison globe that managed to shatter almost directly over the 2nd unit of Eternal guard destroying most of the unit.




Lakait had this to say regarding the mortar shot: “Direct hit. Deviation was absorbed. I was grinding my teeth...loudly. Still, it was a good move.”




Turn 2



General Lakait

The Spell singer Moved out of cover and tried to get into position to cast spells on the Lords Eternal Guard unit. She also took a potshot at the Hell pit but missed. (She was armed with a Magic arrow that causes a panic check if a single wound is caused)

Lakait-
“Spell singer repeated her actions from turn one. I think I might have moved her around the board some. I tried to keep her behind other units and out of the line of fire, but I was careful to make sure that she could still see and cast onto the Eternal Guard.”
Lakait-
“ The fear spell (I need to look up the name) worked, but Ariel's Blessing failed again.”
The Lord’s Eternal Guard Unit held their ground and did not move as they prepared for the inevitable charge of the Hellpit Abomination.

Lakait-
“Eternal Guard did not charge anybody because I didn't want to lose my extra rank of fighting with the spears. This bit me in the butt with the Hell Pit because I took impact wounds from the hellpit.” See below…



The Hero’s unit of Eternal Guard also stood pat waiting to get charged so they could use their spears and high initiative to good use. (as well as the unit was in no shape to face the Storm Vermin or even slaves head on.)

The Glade guard made it into the tower and opened fire on the unit of slaves in front of the hero’s Eternal guard breaking them and forcing them to flee.




Lakait – in regards to the shooting of the slaves “it worked to my favor with the SLAVES (the Storm Vermin were behind them) because I hate slaves and I was able to shoot at them in the Shooting Phase.” This made it so the eternal guard would not face that block of slaves again.

General Scratcheye

The Skaven slaves that broke by shooting did not rally and continued to run away.
Likait-
“Or you could say...The Glade Guard forced a panic check for the Slaves, by killing at least 25% of the unit. They ran directly away from the threat, but didn't get very far. As a result, they blocked the Hell Pit for a while, I believe. Though we might have moved them so that they were out of the way of both the Hell Pit and the general's unit. I'm not sure now. I know that they were at least 1 inch away from my general's unit. They quickly outpaced their general's area of influence and were never able to rally. They had no further impact on the game and need not be mentioned further.”

The Skink Slaves Moved slightly forward but were still behind the hellpit Abomination so could do nothing else.

The Skaven Clanrats charged the tower and were able to drive the Glade guard out!

Likait-
“Rat b@stards”

The Storm Vermin charged the Hero’s Eternal Guard and managed to destroy the unit except for the valiant Noble who held his ground in bitter defiance!

The Hellpit managed to reach the Lords Eternal Guard and slammed into them with serious impact hits killing 3. The wood elf Attacks were fast and furious managing to get 6 wounds in the first round of Combat. The Hellpit failed all of its Regeneration saves and died!




Likait-”(Hellpit) killed three of 15 with impact hits. General got 5 attacks, Champion got 3 attacks, musician/standard bearer/guard in first row got 2 attacks each, 5 men in the second rank got 1 attack each, remaining 2 men in the last rank got 1 attack each. This resulted in 21 dice being thrown at the Hell Pit for attacks. Unlike when the Glade Guard fought the Clan Rats, I did not choke on my rolls and managed to do all 6 wounds before he ever laid a tentacle on me. Chant it with me now: Eternal Guard Rocks! Eternal Guard Rocks!”

Ratling the Mad-
“If I had looked up what regeneration actually does, it might have lived, Just sayin”

The Jezzail team took shots at the Tree singer but did not manage to do any harm.

The Ratling Gun team shot at Tree singer but misfired and shot all shots at strength 2 and also did no damage.

The Poison wind mortar fired again but went off course causing no damage.

The Warlock Engineer moved into the woods and attempted to Skitterleap but was unsuccessful.

All in all this was a poor round for the Skaven.

More to come in the final installment. Stay tuned!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

The Battle of Windle's Tower (Battle Report Part 1)

vs.


Warlord Scratch Eye looked upon the abandoned tower near the Bretonnian border and squealed with Glee. His small war-band had surfaced 3 days earlier, and so far remained undetected. “This man house-cave will make a nice-nice place to plan my raid,” thought the warlord. A week earlier, the gray seer known as "Brain-Brain" had been blessed with a vision that foretold that a large chunk of Warpstone would be found on the border of the cursed Elfthing forest (Athel Loren) and the Manthing realm of Bretonnia. Warlord Scratch Eye was summoned by representatives of THE THIRTEEN to go forth and acquire this prize. As his forces approached the old tower, a horn sounded from a nearby wood, immediately followed by war cries as several dozen Wood Elf warriors seemed to materialize from nowhere on the other side of the tower. After a moment’s hesitation, Warlord Scratch Eye ordered his forces forward. The Battle was on!

This is a report for a battle between the Wood Elves of Athel Loren and the
vile Skaven raiding party of the Evil Warlord Scratch Eye. My wife who will
hence forth be referred to as Lakait took the role of the Wood Elves while
my son (Known in Skavenblight circles as Ratling the Mad) headed up the
Skaven army. The battle was fought on June 12th 2011 to an agreed point
total of 1000 points. The opponents agreed to the “Blood and Glory
scenario” (Page 148 of the rule book.) Once this was complete terrain was
laid out and the map looked something like this




Here are the armies of each player

SKAVEN (Starting Banner Points 4)

General- “Scratch Eye” – Skaven Clan Chieftain
Warlock Engineer- “Ratling the Mad (No relation)”- Level 2 Caster
Storm Vermin- “The Spartans”- 20 Storm Vermin with Shields + Ratling Gun+ Banner
Clan Rats- “Itchy Eye Clan”- 20 Clan Rats with Shields and Hand weapons + Poison wind Mortar + Banner
Jezzail Team- “Manthing Killers” – 5 Jezzail w/ sharpshooter.
2 Slave units- (Slave units don’t get cool names)- one of normal Skaven Slaves and one of captured lizard man Skinks.
Hell Pit Abomination- “Black Death” – 1 Hell Pit Abomination


Wood Elf (Starting Banner points 5)

General- “” – Wood Elf Highborn (Lord)
Lieutenant-“”-Wood Elf Noble (hero)+ Eternal Kindred
Spell Singer-“”- Wood Elf Spell Singer (Hero)
Eternal Guard-“”- 14 Eternal Guard w/ Wailing Banner
Eternal Guard-“”- 10 Eternal Guard w/ Banner
Glade Guard –“”- 10 Glade Guard w/Banner


The armies were deployed in standard style with each player taking it in turn to place Units. When finished the Map looked like this.






In the next installment we will cover turns 1 and 2 then in the 3rd and final installment turns 3, 4, and 5 will be covered. (Here is hint: the game only went to turn 5)

See you next time...

RGH