So long WoC

Thanks for all the not being that much fun to play. I'm selling my guys except for my Wizards, as my Sorc Lord is wicked famous and I don't want to part with him. Now I'm getting in on the Vampire Counts action. Just ordered the Von Carstein upgrade pack. Soon I will get a Battalion and some sexy Black knights and paint up an unholy storm. Stay Kinda Tuned!

Escalation Sensation

I'm doing a little escalation league with some friends at the moment. Mostly to get me to paint my Warriors of Chaos who have been in a box for several months after the initial excitement of doing a new army wore off.

Starting off at 500 points People need to get stuff painted. So after changing my list about a dozen times I painted some war puppies. You can see them here being all war and puppy like. I probably spent too much time on them seeing as it will be an amazing miracle if they are ever on the table for more than 3 player turns. Next up to paint is more dogs and around a dozen chaos warriors. I am cheating a little and using my sorcerer lord as my hero at the moment.

Skaven Screaming Bell

So I finally got around to taking some photographs of my completed bell. I'm quite proud of how it turned out. I look forward to terrorizing my fellow gamers with it in future games.


It took me quite a while to paint the bell in several sub-assemblies. I spent about 10 days doing it when I had time. It was painted for the special scenario I have posted about previously and it performed quite well.

The Battle for La Maisontaal

Or how Skaven are the master race even when everyone picks on them.

Last Sunday my friends and I played a special scenario from an old games workshop book, about a historical battle for an abbey in Brettonia. The players featured in the game were Throt the Unclean and Seer Gnawdoom for the Skaven. Heinrich Kemmler, and Krell for the Vampire Counts and two Brettonian lords made for the scenario Tancred Duc De Quenelles - an undead slaying guy and Bagrian, Abbot of La Maisontaal  who was a level 4 of beasts.  

There were a few changes we had to make to the original rules due to their being several editions since the scenario was written. The biggest one was magic due to the random power dice in 8th. The player who's turn it was got their power dice as normal. The two other players split the dispel dice as per desperate allies. Then they could channel dispel dice on a 4+. It actually worked quite well as magic wasn't running rampant. Another part of the scenario was if you had models in combat they fought each player turn. This sped things up and no one was sitting around for ages with nothing to do. 

Vampires and Skaven both deployed at the same time. Due to the small deployment area Vampires had to keep a few units in reserve. I also kept my Doomwheel in reserve also due to space issues. Two peasant units were deployed in the abbey with Bagrian. 

The Brettonian army arrives first turn as per reinforcements and try to arrange themselves so they can actually fit from their 12 inch deployment line. Bagrain gets wildform off on the peasant archers and they shoot a few arrows at the skaven bell unit slaying one or two clan rats. The Vampires (There wasn't any vampires in the army but I will keep calling them that) advanced towards the abbey. a unit of dire wolves and the graveguard deathstar with Hemmler and Krell and a Banshee coming for the poor Skaven. Nothing much happened in the magic phase. Then it was finally the Skaven turn where I essentially won the game. My monk unit charges the direwolves. Thrott and the HPA and Doomwheel which has arrived at the back of my deployment zone head towards the Grave Guard. I ring my bell getting embolden and my spells get dispelled. My cannon kills a few knights. Doom rocket takes out about 20 or so graveguard. Poison wind mortar is ineffective. Then my two warpfire throwers fire at the peasant bowman and the men at arms in the abbey. I cause a couple wounds however both units flee out of the abbey from panic. The monks make short work of the direwolves but I roll low for the over run into the Grave Guard.

Turn two Vampires get about 500 or so free points from the skaven by charging the fleeing peasants and men at arms with Bagrian who then flee right through all the knights and off the board. The last unit to damage/make flee get the points for the target unit in the scenario. The Grave Guard charge the Plague Monks and end up getting a flank charge, we had to dice for it as it was right on the 45 degrees. There was a little movement from the other VC units but as kemmler was getting a bit far from the rest of the army they mostly couldn't march. Magic mostly revolved around replacing the Grave Guard I had killed in my phase. My monks fought valiantly against the graveguard killing one of two but they were defeated and then run down but not very far and not into any of my units in that area. Brettonia shuffled about some more heading towards the Skaven mostly. I think dwellers was cast on me in this phase killing about half my bell unit. Luckily the horned rat was with me and I didn't lose any characters. Then it was my turn and I tried to hit the graveguard with both doomwhell and HPA. Doomwheel came up short but the HPA made contact and mushed quite a few Grave Guard. Unfortunately it turns out that Krell gets heroic killing blow when in a unit with Kemmler so Krell killed my HPA and it died for real. Also my Stormvermin jumped into the abbey where everyone kind of forgot about them for a couple turns. 

For the next few turns everyone picked on my skaven the Brettonians charge me with most of their strength I held out for a turn or two but my left flank was eventually destroyed. On the right I threw everything at the Grave Guard unit as there was quite a lot of points there. I sent in Throt's unit of giant rats who lasted a few turns due to some insane courage. Thrott managed to killing blow Krell in the face to avenge his abomination. Thrott was then left alone and was run down. I cast plague a few times on the brettonians. Some Knights killed the terrorgheist then got bogged down fighting zombies and skeletons. By turn 5 I had 3 units left. My Bell unit which was down to about 20 guys. my Doomwheel and my Stormvermin. My Doomwheel eventually managed to charge the Grave Guard unit that was down to 3 guys and Kemmler after having scorch cast on them 3 or 4 times and having half my army thrown at them. So I managed kill the GG and crumble kemmler for some serious points. Some valiant knights assaulted the abbey containing my Stormvermin. My cheiftan killed their BSB with his corrupted blade. Then nine stormvermin killed 7 of the 9 surviving knights and repelled them making it look pretty good that I was going to get the 500 bonus victory points for holding the abbey. 

I rang my bell one last time and destroyed the abbey. I lost 3 or 4 stormvermin. Seer Gnawdoom was eventually killed by the two Brettonian units that had attacked him from both sides. Vampires tried to make a few charges etc to get into the abbey but they failed. Then we added up the points and I came out winner by about 200 points or so. Mostly due to taking out the Vampires deathstar and holding the abbey.  I am now back to back champion of the Battle of La Maisontaal. 

Here's one last picture. It's of the scoreboard we had to use to keep track of who killed what for victory points. It's kinda blurry as it was about 1 am when we finished playing. We started at about 5 pm. Thanks to Lee and Danny for a very fun game. I'm sure they did cool stuff in the game that I didn't cover while writing this battle report. I'm not sure I conveyed how bad it looked for Team Skaven for most of the game. 

Bell update

Quick little update on the progress of my bell. As you can see the main carriage part of the bell is nearing completion. Stuck on the rat ogre, who is looking pretty bad ass I think. Also the Seer is very close to being finished as well. I have two and a half days left before the big game so I am starting to feel pretty confident that I can get it done in time.

It's been pretty painful doing the bell, but it has also been good as I have been forced to use all my tricks. I really wanted to take it up a notch painting wise on this figure. It's going to be the centrepiece of my army and I want it to show what two years of serious painting can get you.

One year of hobby to do list

So around this time last year I started keeping a list of the things I wanted to do hobby wise each month. As I was updating it yesterday I saw that I had been keeping it for a year now. I decided to share it here on the blog. The red parts are things I actually finished doing. As you can see there are a quite a few things that got little to no love over the year. Mostly wood elves and a few malifaux guys that I am doing for a friend. I found it to be a pretty good motivational tool over the year. Except for the end on winter when I took a bit of a break from painting etc. Mostly due to Guild Wars 2 and 6th Ed 40K releasing dampening my enthusiasm, as there are only so many times you can see new space marines on the internet and not die of boredom. They have to be the least interesting models around.

October 2011

Spray hpa

Assemble marcus and co (6)

Paint movement trays

Paint slave bases

Paint executioner

Paint austringer

Doomwheel banner

Matt spray metal skaven

November 2011

Paint hpa

Paint warlitter

Paint warpfire thrower

Paint rat swarms x3

Paint woodies (at least 5)

Base spear gobbos

Repair doomwheel

Assemble cannon

Assemble clannies

Assemble ikit

Assemble warlock

Spray cannon

Spray clanrats

Magnet stuff?

Assemble guardian and raptors

Assemble ramos crew

December 2011

Paint Warp-Lightning Cannon

Paint Warpfire Throwers

Paint Austringerz

Paint Executioner

Paint Guardian

Paint Raptors

Paint Wood Elves

Assemble Hoffman etc

Assemble Guardian

Assemble Raptors

Base and Spray Malifaux guys

Jan 2012

Paint Clanrats

Paint Lilith

Paint Babies

Paint Young

Paint Mature

Paint Cherub

Paint Warp-Lightning Cannon

Paint Warfire Throwers

Paint Warlock Engineer

Paint Wood Elves

Assemble Grems and Zoridia

Assemble More Grems and other things

Make a Boneripper

Feb 2012

Cut finger 10 stitches Probably wont get anything done this month

Assemble Ogre battalion

Assemble Ogre battalion

Assemble Ironblaster

Assemble Ironblaster

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Mournfang

Assemble Thundertusk

Paint Clanrats

Paint Warlock Engineer

Paith Lelu

Paint Lilitu

March 2012

Paint Castle

Paint Clanrats

April 2012

Paint Castle

Assemble Furnace

Assemble Malifaux ~10 2 down

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Paint Sorcerer

Assemble Warriors

Assemble Marauders

Assemble BSB

Assemble Sorc Lord

May 2012

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Furnace

Paint Skweel

Assemble Thrott

Paint Thrott

Assemble Malifaux

Paint Sorcerer Lord

June 2012

Paint Queek Head-Taker

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Tomb Guard

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Assemble Skellington Warriors

Paint Skweel

Assemble Thrott

Paint Thrott

Assemble Malifaux

July 2012

Paint Thrott

Assemble Malifaux

Paint Spellweaver

Paint Warhounds

August 2012

Assemble Bell

Assemble Chaos Dwarves

September 2012

Nothing was done at all.

October 2012

Paint Thrott

Paint Bell

Paint Poison Wind Mortar

Assemble Chaos Dwarf war machines

Base and undercoat Warriors and Spawn

Assemble Malifaux

Screaming Bell

So over the last few days I've started working on my screaming bell for the Battle of La Maisontaal. It is taking quite a while. It should go a bit faster once I finish the wood and do the basecoat of the various metal parts. I can only hope that will be less tedious and time consuming as basecoating the wood.

I put a little brown wash on the chunky bits of the stone arch because I wanted to see if I could get it to look like it had been ripped from the earth rather than giant pieces of warpstone that I've seen on the internet, which I am not really a fan of.

Also you can see the Seer and a Poison Wind Mortar in the shot who I am working on when I get sick of painting the bell carriage. Some times it's good to have something small and manageable to work on when painting a large model.  Stay tuned for further updates.

Throt the Unclean

So Today I Finished Throt. Here are some pictures. I would have liked to work on him a little more, but I have a screaming bell to paint so I decided to call him finished. I don't think Throt is going to see the table all that often anyway.

He was a fun model to paint I like doing robes. I also tried doing the patina effect which seems to have worked out pretty well. Not having any hawk turquoise I mixed my own with some olive green and a bright blue similar to games workshops enchanted blue or whatever they call it now.

Dry spell over

So I started painting again, renamed my blog and have resumed posting. I took a bit of a break from warhammer and painting over winter. Flirted briefly with 40k when the new rules were released. I just don't like it as much as fantasy and my foot slogging space elf army just gets curb stomped. I have half painted a bunch of things but haven't really finished anything. That is all going to change now as the three player game we were planning to do is back on. The battle for La Maisontaal. Today I started painting Throt the Unclean.

Here is a WIP shot. I have 3 things to paint for the 3k force for the game. Throt, who I purchased specially for the game and will probably only use it this one time in this game. A screaming bell which I imagine I will use all the time. Also I have a poison wind mortar to paint up as well.

Depending how I go I may finish painting Skweel Gnawtooth for the game as well. I am not a fan of the model. His whip looks stupid the way it is bent on my figure and I am afraid to bend it into something better looking as I am sure it will snap.

In other hobby news I plan to paint up my space elves. Also I want to paint some of my warriors as well. Hopefully they are magically more fun to play when they get their new book. I think I ruined other armies by playing Skaven first. They can do all the fun stuff. I will probably keep my warriors army small for the moment as I want to get a few more skaven specials. A second unit of Gutter Runners and the Skryre specials as I want to run a Skryre fluff list with Ikit Claw and all the toys. I tried out a proxy army and although I lost it was a lot of fun. I am bringing shooting back. I will try and blog more regularly as well.

Happy Batman Day!

In honour of the release of The Dark Knight Rises here is the most batman like skaven mini available.

Wrath of Heroes

 So I have been playing Wrath of Heroes since the closed beta. Basically it's all the good stuff from Warhammer online Age of Reckoning without all the tedious MMO stuff. Here are a few screenshots of me with my ridiculous kill streaks. As you can see I mostly play the sorceress Ilyana. The Liche Priest and the Vampire are also quite a bit of fun.

The game is free to play which is good, and you can spend real cash if you don't have the patience to grind gold for new heroes. I haven't spend anything as I was rich from the closed beta. you can download the game from here - wrathofheroes.warhammeronline.com

So if you see a Highcarb running around being your nemesis say hi. I play it quite a bit when I should be painting things or updating my blog.

Productive Afternoon

Assembled a whole bunch of Tomb Kings this afternoon to take my mind of having a cold. Nothing to do now, but hold them hostage till I get my bell. I did about 100 or so and a plague furnace. I feel I should write about the awesome production line I got going towards the end. I'd like people to keep reading my blog so I won't.

Fury of the deeply conceited

So I finished painting Queek Headtaker. He took quite a long time due to the cold weather making my acrylic medium take even longer than usual. I used 26 different paints and washes while painting him which is pretty amazing as he is just black with some bone when you look at him. I'm looking forward to trying him out against other special characters, he made short work of Konrad and he wasn't even painted then. 

I also uploaded him to the Games Workshop Flicker pool as I would like to get on the little selection from there on their blog page. I put my Sorcerer Lord on there also but they decided only to show boring 40K miniatures for the next few days after I did that. Hopefully I will get something there one day. Then I will be printing some business cards that make reference to that achievement. 

Next I will probably try and finish Skweel Gnawtooth as he is about half finished. I dont really like the model though as his whip looks stupid and if I try and fix it I'm sure it will snap. So I will probably paint some Chaos Warhounds, Thrott or Ikit. 

Turns out it's June

Seeing as I only did one post last month which suddenly ended without letting me know, I decided I should post something. I don't have much to post due to playing too much Star Trek Online. I've totally got a handle on that now and have been painting Queek Headtaker who has been sitting around patiently waiting for me to paint him for over 2 years. Here is a WIP shot of him. He has been troublesome as I went through about 3 variations of what colour his weapons would be. I tried doing them warpstone but it ended up distractingly neon and I didn't want people to think he had ethereal weapons. So now I'm back to metal which I am much happier with. He is a bit glossy in the photo as the paint is still wet and everyone knows there isn't time to wait for paint to dry when you want to take a photo.

Tzeentch Sorcerer Lord

Finally managed to finish painting something. Here is my Tzeentch Sorcerer Lord. Some people say don't paint the characters first, to them I say pssh!

Hobby Update

So I've had many irons in the hobby fire lately. Finished painting the warhammer fortress for my friend, forgot to take photos before I delivered it to him so you will just have to use your imaginations. Skaven-wise I'm painting up a few things for a special game I'm doing with some friends. It's the Battle of La Maisontaal in which  Skaven, Vampire Counts and Brettonia fight over an abbey that holds the Skaven artifact the Black Arc. We did it previously about two years ago. This time we will be doing the full size game (3K per side) with all the special characters and everything painted. When we play I will endeavour to do a battle report and take lots of pictures.

Also I have been assembling Tomb Kings for another friend and making up my new models for my Warriors of Chaos army. I can now do 2K if I use my old models but I have pretty much decided that I want to replace them all with the newer models due to the new ones being a foot taller if they were human size. Also the new ones look much much cooler.

The mighty empires campaign I was running has wrapped up with High Elves beating the Daemons in a decider game when they both got to 10 empire points. It was a fun campaign and a good learning experience for a couple new players.

Skaven embrace Glasnost in final game of the campaign

In the spirit of openness the mighty Skaven empire release information of their military might.

2110 Pts - Skaven Roster - Skeetz Skitterpaw and the Gentle Giants

Skeetz Skitterpaw (1#, 310 pts)
   1 Grey Seer, 310 pts (General; Hand Weapon)
      1 Warpstone Tokens
      1 Earthing Rod
      1 Talisman of Preservation

Mogat Black Eye (1#, 102 pts)
   1 Chieftain (Battle Standard Bearer), 102 pts (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour; Battle Standard Bearer)
      1 Foul Pendant

Skrit "Doomrocketeer" Small Horns (1#, 45 pts)
   1 Warlock Engineer, 45 pts (Hand Weapon)
      1 Doomrocket

Rikkick Quick-Kill (1#, 80 pts)
   1 Chieftain, 80 pts (Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)
      1 Fencer's Blades

Clanrats (31#, 225 pts)
   29 Clanrats, 225 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)
      1 Clawleader (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)
      1 Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team (Warpfire Thrower; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Clanrats (31#, 225 pts)
   29 Clanrats, 225 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)
      1 Clawleader (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield)
      1 Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team (Warpfire Thrower; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Clanrats (30#, 170 pts)
   29 Clanrats, 170 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield)
      1 Clawleader (Hand Weapon; Spear; Light Armour; Shield)

Stormvermin (30#, 235 pts)
   29 Stormvermin, 235 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour)
      1 Fangleader (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour)

Skavenslaves (40#, 100 pts)
   40 Skavenslaves, 100 pts (Hand Weapon; Shield)

Plague Monks (30#, 265 pts)
   29 Plague Monks, 265 pts (Beserk Rage; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack; Frenzy)
      1 Bringer-of-the-Word (Beserk Rage; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack; Frenzy)
      1 Plague Banner

Doomwheel (1#, 150 pts)
   1 Doomwheel, 150 pts (Causes Terror; Immune to Psychology; Large Target)
      1 Crew (Warlock & Rats)

Warp Lightning Cannon (1#, 90 pts)
   1 Warp Lightning Cannon, 90 pts
      1 Engineer & Crew

Gutter Runners (6#, 108 pts)
   6 Gutter Runners, 108 pts (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Sling; Throwing Star; Poisoned Attacks; Scouts; Skirmishers)

Validation Report:
Army Subtype: Skaven Army; Edition: 8th Edition; Game Type: Normal Game; Special Rules: Forbid Regiments of Renown
Roster satisfies all enforced validation rules

Composition Report:
Points of Lords: 310 (0 - 527.5)
Points of Heroes: 227 (0 - 527.5)
Points of Core: 955 (527.5 - Unlimited)
Points of Special: 373 (0 - 1055)
Points of Rare: 240 (0 - 527.5)

Total Roster Cost: 2105

Created with Army Builder® - Try it for free at http://www.wolflair.com

Skaven Glamour Photography IV

So this is probably the edition of Skaven Glamour Photography for a while. Hope you've all been enjoying it. Going to finish strong with Skaven killing trixy elf things.

Skaven Glamour Photography Part III

Another update of my Skaven photos.

Skaven Glamour Photography Part II

Here are some more photos of my Skaven, We took about a hundred, so expect a few more updates.

Skaven Glamour Photography Part I

Last weekend my friend and I unpacked my Skaven and took a bunch of photos. Here is part one.

Turn 4 Predictions

So its turn four of the campaign, and it looks like Daemons could take it out this turn as he is on eight empire points. I shall do my predictions.

Vampire Counts and Daemons of Chaos vs Wood Elves. Depending on how Trav wants to do this I am giving the game to the unholy alliance of doom, or I think he will beat Lee 1v1 as Lee is on a losing streak of terrible terrible power.

Orcs and Goblins vs High Elves. I think this will be a close one, but I think Tim has the full force of his WAAAGH! behind him and he will take a moderate victory.

Brettonnia vs Ogre Kingdoms. This game will be decided by charges I think and I'm going to back Justin this time as he clearly is the greatest ogre general of recent history even if he doesn't know about things like static combat res.

Dark Elves vs Skaven and Lizardmen I'm not sure about this match up, I'd like to 1v1 Jason as it's been awhile since I played Dark Elves and Skaven armies are always deemed sacrificial by your team mates. Also my Skaven always having a bad alliance isn't super helpful. I think it will be a close game till I do something amazing and it turns into a massacre.

Also I no longer have to paint any clan rats ever again unless I buy more. Here are the last twenty. On the weekend I am doing a full glamour photo shoot of my army, so expect a couple posts of everyone all nice and pretty as my army is done. Except for some special characters and the odd rat ogre that I never use.

Turn 3 Campaign

Well I gave it a red hot go fighting the daemons. Ended up losing quite large as the eleven daemons still on the table were worth more than 1000 points to my tiny 240 of my cannon and doomwheel. Was a really good game and I enjoyed it as it was looking pretty good for team skitterpaw for awhile. I think once the bloodletters ran down my stormvermin off the table that was the end of it for me as I was set up to 13th them but the next turn they suddenly weren't on the table. It was an enjoyable game none the less.

There was a bit of an upset with Wood Elves taking out the Dark Elves for a massacre, Orcs stomped Brettonia for a massacre as well. High Elves prevailed over Lizardmen and Ogres massacred Vampire Counts. So I got all my predictions wrong except the one where I lost. Which was the only one I wanted to get wrong.

Turn four should be interesting as real estate to expand is running out for a few players so we should see some aggressive challenges in the hopes of claiming other players tiles. I shall do more predictions once the challenges have been made.

Meanwhile at the Fortress of Solitary Painting

So I have been painting a warhammer fortress for my friend when I'm not doing other stuff. I've got most of it drybrushed now so I thought I would post a photo of it so he could see how it's coming along.

So I have to do two more sections, then do the details like the doors and things. I also want to do some moss effect type thing on it to give it a bit of colour and make it look older. My first attempt at it turned out to be not visible to the human eye so I will have to be a bit bolder on my next attempt, I need to put it all together first to put it places where moss would actually grow so that will have to wait.

In other news I forgot to make predictions for turn three of the campaign, there is three games left to be played, so I will have a stab at them.

Lizards vs High Elves. - I think I will give this to Lizards as I think they might shut down the Elves magic like they did against me in turn 1, but I think it will only be a marginal victory.

Vampire Counts vs Ogre Kingdoms. - I think Vampires will take this one out as it is about time Lee unleashed the full power of the new vampire book.

Daemons of Chaos vs Skaven. - Well I'd like to back myself in this obviously, but I have only played daemons once before at a much smaller size and I lost. I'd like to think the daemons will tire of killing skaven and fall into a peaceful slumber so whatever is left of my skaven can snatch victory. But Daemons will probably win.