Catch Up 3 - Weird War II

 

I was the first person to bring Bolt Action to our club, early in first edition, but as usual I had to go about it differently and I did it in 1/72 scale. When others developed an interest they all went full Warlord and my poor British and Germans got left behind. They've seen a few games of Iron Cross or Chain of Command over the years but things have been quiet for them. Until now...

I flirted with the idea of Konflikt 47 and Weird War but it wasn't really doable in 1/72. Until now...

Enter stage left my 3D printer and a ton of free (or at least cheap) Weird War STL files. Add to that an awesome set of rules in the shape of Xenos Rampant and it's full steam ahead!

I was nearly sucked into K47 second edition, but the new fluff / lore is awful so the idea was swiftly rejected, and I'll create my own narrative for scenarios and a campaign kicking off in '44.

I found a lot of free STL files intended for Dust-48 and a few weapons that looked the part that could be sliced in, starting with some Pz IV's and a Panther. All of them have historical turrets that can be swapped in anytime.

3 Pz IV's, two with rail guns and 1 with a gravity projector

Closer look at the gravity projector

The panther with a gravity projector, in a heavily converted turret

The last vehicle for now is a spider Panzer with auto-cannon. The crewman is plastic from Valiant. In common with all the other vehicles here, it needs balkenkreuz (?) adding to finish.

It's not all about the vehicles of course! Occult forces are at play and the Dead are restless... Here are my Wehrmacht zombies from Kyoushuneko Miniatures.

This weekend I'll be statting up two simple Late War forces without Weird War assets for Xenos Rampant to give the rules a try. Then the weird stuff will trickle in over the course of an escalating narrative campaign. Next time, the German's achieve interesting results tampering with DNA!

Catch Up 2 - Middle Earth Wargaming (MESBG and SOBAH)

 If I'd restarted this blog a month earlier, Middle Earth wouldn't have even featured. Mourning the loss of Forest Dragon STL files on Patreon, I spent an evening looking at where else I might  spend my money and was drawn to Davale Games who do a wonderful range of proxies for GW's Middle Earth range.

I haven't played MESBG in a long while. I'm not sure if I've totally skipped one or two editions of the rules but my last game was definitely pre-Hobbit and possibly even pre-blog!

Regardless, I had to (re)start somewhere so I've bought the latest edition of the rules and found an excellent online army builder. Despite the fact that I have fully painted Dwarf, Moria, Rivendell, Minas Tirith and Mordor armies I have decided to hit the ground running with matched forces for Arnor. I have the very old supplement from eons ago and I'm currently putting together the forces to be able to play all of the narrative scenarios within.

I'm also looking to downscale and play small games using Song of Blades and Heroes, and possibly upscale as well, to play games with Midgard and/or Dragon Rampant.

Needless to say, I've gone in to this with all guns blazing but I'm only sharing figures I've painted. The grey resin mountain in my wargames room is my business, not yours!

First up, Buhrdur and his buddies. The scenarios I want to play needs three Hill Trolls and their leader Buhrdur (Arathorn slayer!). GW produce lovely models covering everything I need but at £72 for three figures it was never going to happen! Enter stage left Davale Games and their wonderful proxies...

This is my Buhrdur proxy...

And these are his two Hill Troll buddies that the scenarios demand...

I'm pretty stoked at how they turned out. 😁😁😁😁

About 20 years ago, no exaggeration, I bought a bunch of  GW Dunedain / Rangers of the North (RotN) at a wargames show, getting there about 5 minutes before my mate Sean who would have snapped them up. No problem if I slap some paint on them and get them on the table so we can both use them, right? Yeah, that never happened, but 20 years later I've got the first six done (and the rest undercoated).

The latest edition has combined RotN and Dunedain into one profile. Fair enough, as the only difference was armour (+1 Df to the RotN). To differentiate between them I have chosen to depict the RothN with grey cloaks with chain mail and the lower Df Dunedain in green.

I present, 20 years after purchase, the first six Dunedain...

Well, it's a start... Time for a little scrap using SOBAH!

Catch Up 1 - Kings of War

 So most of my gaming activity these days seems based around Mantic's fantasy rules, Kings of War.

I started around the time 3rd edition launched and mainly focused on the Undead and more recently, Abyssal Dwarfs. I've dabbled in the Trident Realms on the way too. Other armies are sitting in boxes and drawers but haven't seen the table yet. My first tournament is just around the corner! I'm also running a 6 player map campaign, which I'll be posting about in the near future.

I had big plans for KoW but the imminent launch of 4th Edition has caused me to rip them all up. The army that I'm playing in the Campaign, the Herd, is almost certainly going to be trashed in the new army lists. Also the army I wanted to play in the tournament will not be possible under the new composition rules so a rethink is needed! There's already Undead and Abyssal Dwarfs in my Campaign and I don't want to double up, so the quickest thing is probably going to be boosting my Trident Realms to 2300+ points.

https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war-4th-edition/

More on all of this shortly!

AND HE'S BACK!!!

 For real this time, honest!

I've tried getting this blog to lurch into life a few times over the last few years and it's never happened, but I have a slight advantage this time. I've gone part time / semi-retired since I last blogged so now have a little more time on my hands.

It's difficult to know where to start? I certainly can't pick up where I left off as almost nothing from my old projects has come to fruition and much of it has been sold on.

Best I start with a series of Catch Up posts I think...

Panzer March! TANKS 15 mm skirmish game

Well, I'm away on holiday in my caravan for three glorious weeks! I've brought plenty of painting with me but a long painting queue was never a barrier to further purchases. We popped into Taunton for the day and I found a fantastic hobby shop, Krackers. I've rarely seen so much crammed into such a small space, with the possible exception of my wargames room back home. As usual there was the psychological battle when faced with RRP prices and the knowledge of the savings available online but decency prevailed, the wallet came out and I did my little bit to keep a bricks and mortar store open.

I walked out with the starter set for the tabletop game Tanks. I tried to purchase this at a show when it was first released but they'd sold out when I returned to the stand later in the day. To increase the replay value I also purchased the Pz IV and StuG III expansions. It took a couple of evenings to assemble the models and although they're not painted I'm looking forward to my first game. The models went together very well and really look the business.

The starter set includes a Panther and two Shermans with enough spare parts to allow them to be fielded with 75mm or 76mm guns. There's cardboard terrain included in the set and the only disappointment was that there was no play mat.  I'd convinced myself that there was a cheap paper one included, never mind. More soon...

More Ponsonby's.

The last two trays/companies of infantry for my ECW regiment were finished this afternoon. Ponsonby's Regiment of Foote might not be their final name but as a working title it'll do for now. Once I get these home I'll base the whole regiment and sort out a standard.

I need to assemble the cavalry now...

Ponsonby's Regiment of Foote

A project embarked on since my last real post, English Civil War in 28mm. My son-in-law is a recent (and enthusiastic) convert to wargaming and I agreed to join him in this endeavour, ECW being something he's always had an interest in.

We went halves on a Warlord Games starter set and a few extra command figures. He painted his very quickly but sad to say I have kept him waiting... :( Still, I have my mojo back, have started to paint again (enjoying it!) And have made some good progress.

Initially at least we're planning on using File Leader as our chosen rule set. Infantry are on 'trays' of six figures representing a company. Our simple regiments will have four trays of musket and two of pike. Officers are based separately.

I painted the first two trays months ago but things stalled as they always do. Anyway, today I finished the musketeers for the other two trays and started the pikemen. I'll base them all at the same time at the end.

I'll get onto those pikemen right now!

The next rush job; more Menoth painted for Warmachine.

Sean is participating in a Warmachine Journeyman league and had recently moved up to 25 pt. so I agreed to match this. After a little procrastinating I realised I had just three evenings left for painting. To make life easier I decided to use all of the 15 pt. that I had used in the last two games so that left 10 pt. to paint and base. Uh oh!

Long story short, I finished basing my battle group 15 minutes before Sean was due to arrive. Here they are, in all their crimson glory.

 Vassal Mechanic - 1 pt.

 Temple Flameguard UA - 2 pt.

 Temple Flameguard (min) - 4 pt.

I was going to paint another min. unit at the same time but dropped them on the floor... :(

 Choir of Menoth (min) - 2 pt.

(I painted the whole choir...)

Wracks - 1 pt.

Sean arrived, the game took place. Details coming soon...

Club Night - 15 pt. Warmachine refight.

Sean and myself found out that neither Keith nor Dave could make it to the club so we had a change of plan and switched over to Warmachine using exactly the same two forces as in our previous game.

My list - Menoth - 15 pts.

pKreoss
Castigator
2 x Revenger

Sean's list - Cygnar - 15 pts.

Stryker
Ironclad
Lancer
Charger
Black 13th Strike Team

This proved a much quicker game than our previous encounter. We were just that little bit faster with the rules but also managed to get a decisive result in less turns; last time was an attritional grind. I forgot to take photos apart from a couple of shots during turn 2 (3?) and the details are hazy.

Early in the game I moved Kreoss up behind a wall and cast Defender's Ward on him which I think I upkept for most of the game. The Revengers pressed the attack in front of Kreoss while the Castigator moved up the left flank to engage the 13th who ran across to the other flank leaving him stranded. He toasted one but made no other contribution to the game.

All the action was on the other flank. Stryker feated first and did a lot of damage to my Revengers, crippling several systems and leaving one without it's arc node and the other disrupted. This made all the difference when I feated with Kreoss straight after. Both Revengers moved through the huge gaps between the knocked down Cygnar 'jacks to attempt an assasination but neither could charge. If they'd been in any fit state they'd have got the job done but instead they left Stryker on one box!

The mists of time have clouded what happened next. I know a Revenger went down and maybe a Cygnar light  'jack. Stryker really needed to get out of dodge but instead stumbled into Kreoss' line of sight. Focus was duly camped and a boosted Immolation fest saw Stryker incinerated as befits all heretics.

Later I realised I had forgotten the +2 shield bonus for the Revengers for the entire game. This might have made all the difference in Stykrer's feat turn leaving them able to kill him for me in mine.

'Man' of the Match was awarded to the wall that sheltered Kreoss throughout the game.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Game on

Sean came over a few weeks ago for my first 'proper' game of Warmachine but later in the day Keith arrived so we moved on to SoBaH. I'd been itching to give this a go and had had various lists and fully painted warbands sitting on the sidelines for days.

I'd planned a classic Dwarf v. Goblins game. The dwarfs are more powerful, costing more, so were massively outnumbered. Most AAR's I've seen for SoBaH have been between two similar warbands with similar capabilities and they looked like fun games but I can sum up my feelings on how well the rules stood up to a more asymmetric scrap in one word... Disappointing.

Hordes of poor quality troops in SoBaH seem to have no chance against smaller warbands made up of high quality troops. The points system fails to allow for the massive disparity in the abilities of the troops. It was bad enough in the first game we played but once we added Leaders it was ridiculous. The dwarf player just kept shouting, "3 actions!", rarely causing a turn over. The Short movement dwarfs ran rings around the goblins, setting up advantageous fights and slaughtering them. Gruesome Kills happened all the time causing 50%+ of the goblins to flee every time the dwarfs ploughed in. I played a 3rd solo game after the others had left, same results.

I took loads of photos, planning on doing a detailed AAR/batrep but it all seems pointless now as there wasn't really a battle. My enthusiasm for these rules which was riding high has really drained. I'll give them another go with two warbands of similar size/quality but first impressions are that the game engine won't allow me to do what I want to do.

Warmachine Wreck Markers

I really like the Menoth wreck markers for destroyed warjacks but they're expensive for what they are and they're not really a 'playing piece'. Flicking through Ebay the other day I spotted some resin bases for sale with metallic / mechanical debris and figured they were just the job. They arrived Monday and they're the first thing in a long time that I've painted the very day I got them. I only got around to photographing them today though.

Not wrecks as such but it does at least look like a 'jack might have taken a pasting in the vicinity. Each one has been matched to my normal bases and has just enough crimson and white to mark it out as Menoth.

Warmachine BatRep - 15 pt. Skirmish, Menoth vs. Cygnar

Sean came around for a day of gaming on Tuesday, giving me my first chance to use my new Menoth battlegroup that I had finished painting just the day before. My only previous game was at the club two weeks ago with the Cygnar and Cryx starter boxes. I am very much a newbie... Sean has been competing in a Journeyman League in Stafford and built up quite a collection of Cygnar; he was going to have to be rules guru for the day.

My list - Menoth - 15 pts.

Kreoss

Castigator

2 x Revenger

No min-maxing here, it's all the 'jacks I own and everything I had painted.

Sean's list - Cygnar - 15 pts.

Stryker

Ironclad

Lancer

Charger

Black 13th Strike Team

We played along a 4' x 2' strip at one end of my table though pretty much all the action would play out in a 1' square!. The photo's show the initial deployments.

I knew I couldn't pussyfoot around as Sean had shooty goodness and I had none. I ran everything forward inc. Kreoss so he didn't get left behind. This meant no defensive spells. I figured I'd be out of range for at least one turn. Wrong. My Castigator took a real pasting and I was struggling to see already how this could go my way. Turn 2 Kreoss walked and cast Defensive Ward on the Castigator (below).

Sean's Ironclad knocked Kreoss and both Revengers down but was pushed back and couldn't capitalise on the situation. The charger moved up to block the Castigator.

I then forgot to take photo's for several turns so things get a little sketchy here. Kreoss popped his feat and the Castigator slaughtered the Charger in fine style. The Revengers made little impression on the Ironclad however even with auto hitting but they made a start.

Sean tried to run Stryker and the 13th around the Castigator but they were trapped against the 'edge of the world' and were truly 'castigated' with Combustion. The Castigator had one arm functioning at this point and about 3 boxes left - turning his back on the Charger didn't seem to matter.

Stryker popped his feat but even so two of the 13th died in the conflagration though Stryker took just 3 damage... With no cortex the Castigator couldn't 'focus' on the job and finish Stryker for me. The Revengers pulled a neat maneuver and kept Kreoss covered.

Confident that Stryker could deal with the Castigator, Sean moved both his other 'jacks in for the kill. The Ironclad finished off one Revenger while the Charger started to take potshots at Kreoss.

Stryker fluffed it and so the Castigator used combustion again leaving Stryker on 1 box left! The final 13th chap was incinerated too.

Stryker's flames were extinguished and he finally eliminated the Castigator. The Ironclad advanced across the wreck of the Revenger and Kreoss finally got a pair and smacked him down, opening up a route to Stryker.

The game now devolved into a pair of duels. The first. the Charger attempting to shoot down Kreoss sheltering in the cover of a wreck, gradually chipping off boxes. The second, the Revenger trying to assassinate Stryker.

Stryker was also benefiting from a wreck and kept disrupting the Revenger. Without focus the Revenger couldn't get the single damage point I needed. Desperate times call for desperate measures; the Revenger moved to the side and Kreoss moved forward to get LoS. Two attempts at Immolation with every spare focus used on boosting and Stryker was gone. Phew! Win: 'caster kill!

The most fun I ever had with just four figures; I think I may be hooked on Warmachine already. I think Sean was going easy on me as it was my first 'proper' game, he could have done a lot more shooting before engaging but I was never going to enjoy THAT game. With less figures and Sean having ranged attacks I felt that Kreoss was very vulnerable and like I had no options. I'm looking forward now to upping the limit to 25 pts.