Orcs! (With a 'C') part 2

For the past 2 weeks I have been scrambling to get my fantasy orcs completed by today, but I grossly underestimated post-workday burnout and other non-hobby related distractions. Never-the-less, I have made some progress! On the chariot I made quite a bit of progress but I will showcase that in it's own post. But I have made, what has got to be a speed record for me, quite a bit of progress on the spear regiment.

By the morning of May 24th this was where I was at with orcs.

I had spent a few evenings clipping the legs and bodies off of the sprues and cleaning off mold lines. Probably my least favorite thing about miniatures is mold lines. They are annoying to have to contend with and I always find one in the middle of painting the model that I've missed. They are my bane. Anyway, like I have shown in other blog posts, I add the gravel to my bases this early in the process. After taking some time to glue that on, it was time to go out to my deck for some priming action.

I had cleaned off the spears as well and primed them with bodies. The other components I left on the sprues and primed them as they were. Note the 'command' sprue, the one on the right, appears to be mangled?

My local, and now sadly gone, favorite gaming store that was around about 10 years ago received a box from their distributor that badly damaged and the owner gave me the box because he couldn't sell it.

Although that one sprue had a few bitz detached everything was there. One of the shield sprues was warped but no big deal. At the time I had no intention of playing WHFB I just figured I could use the bodies for 40k and just add on left over parts from a Orks boxed set. So I got this damaged box and it stayed in my mini-closet until recently.

 On May 26th I began the base coating stage by painting all the flesh in Dark Angel's green (actually the new version, 'Caliban green' I think it's called), and the weapons, teeth and base a dark brown color.

I also separated the left arms and heads. over the span of about a week I slowly applied Goblin Green, and the thinned yellow/green ink washes to all the orc skin.

This was the level the regiment was at as off June 9th. The black clothing was highlighted with a gray tone.

I am always tempted to just leave the heads off and paint a single eyeball on the neck stumps... :)

 By the evening of June 12th I had the heads on my fodder...um, troops, attached as well as their arms. I did this in a way that hope will make it so that they will rank-up properly. The only factor I've not accounted for is the shields I will be adding to these guys, so I hope I have provided enough room to accommodate them.

Last night I added Bleached Bone to the teeth (these models have teeth not just in their mouths but also hanging from necklaces, ear rings, etc.). and I used various browns to paint up the leather bits. As you might be able to spot on some of the arms, that I have also begun to paint the next highlight stage on the orc flesh.

Also I applied Tin Bitz to the spear heads, but each one was applied a different amount of this color. I intend to make the heads of these spears appear like old farm equipment, or weathered tools with must the edges highlighted in silver. Some will be rustier than others. Looking at the way these are sculpted and seeing how GW tends to paint these in their product shots, it doesn't make sense to me that these would be shiny and bright, but weathered more like and old hoe or a rake, but no less deadly in the hands of these brutes.

The early stages of the nasty spear heads.

So, I will not make today's deadline. Not possible I think. But I have still made decent progress and will continue to hammer out this army at this pace which I hope to carry over to the 40K orks. If I can just keep from coming home exhausted that is,,,;)

Teleporter effect for 40k

Here's something cool my buddy Jim came up with:

Yes, those Terminators are beaming in to kill Da Masta Cheef's vile inquisitor and lackeys. When I walked in during their game, I saw the terminators in this awesome field effect off to the side and I instantly comprehended what was going on: these models had yet to beam in! It was a great way to remind himself so he wouldn't forget about them, and it looks cool as heck on the table top.  But where did Jim find that template?

Well, he made it!

How? More like from what. He made it from a 2 liter Mountain Dew bottle. He just cut it to the height he wanted, painted on the shimmering effects with white paint, and that's it!

Jim is also a fairly good hand model.

The cool thing is that it coils around the models without forcing any stress on them, so it doesn't snap too tight to harm the models and is adaptable depending on the size of the unit that you want to have appearing to beam in. You just got to have a bit of care while cutting it out as the surface of the bottle can be sharp and tricky, and know how you want your 'shimmering' effect to appear. Most of which he painted on the outside, with a few on the inside to get a sort of 3D illusion to take place.

So there you have it! Thanks Jim for the great idea!

-Joel

Tau about that?

Deploying in cover.

Taking a break from painting a sea of green (more on that in a future post) I found myself scrambling an army together and marched over to HobbyTown-USA in Johnson-City where Da Masta Cheef and I decided to give his girlfriend's newly constructed Tau army a workout. It was my 1st game against the new Tau Codex, so I was expected to be gunned to death. We both took pics and are both writing battle reports  (in fact, he has beaten me to it, the-first-engagement-of-my-gfs-tau-army. (kinda of bold using 'engagement' and 'GF' in the same sentence, but that's the Cheef's fearless tendencies for you).

To make this fun for us, I have intentionally not yet read his battle report, just for the sake of perspective and to make it fun to compare and contrast the two against each other.

1500pts of Ultramarines

 So once again I mustered the ultra-flashback.army but with a few unit adjustments. This time I wanted to use both Legion of the Damned and Sternguard, but I was limited to only 5 Legion of the Damned. The whirlwind ought to make a mockery of the Tau's pathetic attempts to stay at arm's length from me. Muhahaha!

The Tau assemble.

The Tau totally camped out in this building. We suspect it is a brothel...

The Tau deploy the big guns. They never tire apparently, which is why they weren't allowed in the brothel...

"Sarge! Xenos scum have taken the brothel?! They're ruining our shore-leave!"

Once again we had diagonal deployment and once again I rolled Master of Cities for my Warlord trait! This is becoming a trend, but one that I like (so long as I am playing on this board). I tried to position the Whirlwind so it could strike deep into the Tau position but not be so easily picked out by his big guns. The Landraider was packed with Sternguard.

"Concentrate fire on the brothel, we MUST retake it!!!"

 We had 4 objective markers scattered about the board, in the pic above there is a building with black and white tiles to the right of the Land Raider. On the opposite side of it is an objective marker. On this side of it there is a squad of Tactical Marines that will quickly take it.

On the 1st turn, we just moved in a bit, taking objectives and getting our shots lined up. Tau has the first turn, where he attempted blast the Land Raider but failed to do any harm to it. He killed these marines:

The first to go to Ultramarine Valhalla!

The two on the bottom are from the squad that was stacked up in the tall building, the in the middle was in the squad under the squad in the tall building and the guy in the rear was sniped by from the squad that too the closest objective to my line.

On my first turn we killed only 3 Tau, one from a bolter shot and two from the scattering whirlwind.

Turn two would set the stage for who was going to have the toughest uphill climb...




The 1st stealthsuit unit enters the Tau's zone, while Da Cheef premeasures his target...



The 2nd Stealthsuit arrive in the Utlramarine DZ.

 These Stealthsuits changed the game for me, taking away my biggest gun by blowing up the Whirlwind! And getting the First Blood VP!!!

The Sternguard React.

On my turn two, after watching most of my other units getting picked apart by Tau firepower, my reserves arrived. More on that in a sec; check out how the Land Raider Turned around and discharged the Sternguard....

The results of the Sternguard reacting!

 ...it was a thorough and deep cleansing as they mowed the Stealthsuits down!

They arrived, with a boom box blasting 'Maiden's Children of the Damned.

The Legion of the Damned arrived, and they blew apart the Devilfish! On turn 3, they would be completely blown away by the Tau big guns! (Da Cheef hates metal and would have none of that racket in his DZ!) I think I stated that a 3+ invulnerable saves looks good on paper, but I can't roll anything higher than a 2, it doesn't matter anyway. Not seeing how they earned back their worth in points, when I might've had the same result with a lame scout squad! LOL!

The Librarian and his Terminator Squad arrives! "Focus on the brothel men, we must save those ladies!"

My Librarian shows up, focusing on dealing with the concentration of xenos filth that infests this particular zone. They dumped everything they had at the Crisis Battlesuit in the ruins, and managing only to knock out his drone...(Arrrgh! Frustrating dice!!!)
 

Imagine LOTS of tracers, lasers, missiles, bullets, women's undergarments, and obscenities blasting the terminators!

The rain of firepower that was dumped into this Terminator squad could've wiped out an Imperial Guard unit! Some how the Librarian lived, albeit with a single wound, and two terminators.

"Take the brothel! You are expendable, it is NOT!!!"

Notice in the pic above that there is only two terminators now? The other was shredded by the utterly INSANE amount of overwatch fire that this unit endured! It is a miracle that any of them survived. To add insult to injury, the Terminators failed to wipe this squad out on the charge and would be stuck in combat until the top of turn 4.

"HA! We did it!" "Sir, what about the other squad?" "...sigh.."

The Tau army warlord would come around the corner and kill the Librarian, earning the Tau a Slay the Warlord VP, while the remaining terminator would kill the Tau commander's partner and then charge the Tau commander, who in turn kills the terminator with overwatch shooting!

The sole survivor of the squad that started on the burnt out rhino.

 This guy would have his unit gunned down by Stealtsuits and Drones, but manage to dive into the door of the Shrine of the Aquila where he could see the objective on the other side of the door and the Tau squad holding it. He threw a frag grenade, which scattered and killed a Pathfinder...

"Liquidate him.:

 ...not taking that crap, that squad would line up, and gun down the trooper, who never lost sight of the goal while never seeing the odds stacking up so badly against him...

Moving up the street...

 This pic shows the crater, where for about 3 turns of the game I had a unit holding this objective. The big guns of the Tau reduced them to ash. just to the left there is another set of ruins where the surviving Sgt from the squad that was holding the tall building was hiding out, waiting for a last minute grab for this objective, however he was spotted by that gun drone and was killed.

"Sir, they just won't give up that brothel; it must really be the best in the sector!"

The Sternguard had deployed from the Landraider and tore apart the Tau that was on the upper level of the ruins, but they did not break, but instead went down stairs to claim the objective! ( !@#$% BASTARDS!!!!) while their Commander wandered over to see what the big deal was about these Sternguard. He even killed one! My Landraider killed that last Crisis suit, and turned it's attention on the Stealtsuits...

 ...while the machine spirit targeted the unit holding the objective at the Shrine of Aquila. The shots on the Stealthsuits failed to kill anything.

"Ignore him and he'll go away!"

The Sternguard ignored the tasty targets of the Tau Commander and the Stealthsuits and instead fired long range at the Tau holding the objective at the Shrine of the Aquila. Although they killed a good chunk of the unit, they just couldn't kill them all and the Tau simply refused to run away!

"We held this useless ruin for 6 rounds and NOW you tell us that the other place was a brothel?! Damn it!"

 This squad above held the objective for the whole game, taking only a single casualty on turn one. They shot down a lot of drones in this game and made a lot of saves! Well done men, you earned us our 3 VPs! While the Tau took two objectives, plus two secondary objectives to earn 8 VPs total!

So, my thoughts on Tau? They finally live up to their hype as the best guns in the galaxy! OMG -the amount of firepower! Staggering! Especially on the overwatch reactions! This would've been a sick game if I had brought the orks (which I almost did). The markerlights have always annoyed me, but in this game they didn't make too much of a difference. The shoot-around-corners missiles were a surprise but not one that felt I could do anything about. The Tau's use of cover saves was impressive as well. I look forward to seeing more of this army, and I wonder if Da Cheef's gal would let me paint a Crisis suit (simply because I have never painted a Tau model before)?

The sternguard, again, I love this unit and SO wish the Space Wolves had something this awesome!

All in all, a good game, although I kept wondering how the Space Marines earn the background they have when their in game performance would suggest otherwise? A rant for another time...

The cruel tutelage of Screech.

Over on the other table Screech has been showing Jim how to maximize the cheese in his army list while showing him that he can do the same with his. I hear it was a total bloodbath!

Honorable mention to Ben who showed up in the beginning to wow us with his High Elves! I hope to be sacrificing Orcs to him in the near future...

Till next time!

Orcs! (with a 'C')

"Hi, you might know me from other posts in this blog!"

Following up from the last post, civil-wars-of-empire, I have chosen Orcs. I sorta hinted at that with the last pic in that post. I love Orks and Orcs, and I have been itching to get back to my Orks, I have kind of figured out how to paint them fairly quickly (when I apply myself that is). Plus, it's the only army that I have a rule book for and my current budget is too tight to justify dropping $50 (each-I am a completist) for the others! I figured that as I do up my fantasy Orcs it would also encourage me to finish up a few of the 40k Orks that have been in painting station limbo for way too long. Also, painting these things will be a refreshing break from many years working with Space Wolf Gray and Shadow Gray paint...

Dabbling in the Army Builder and rummaging through my mini-closet, I pulled out two complete boxes of Orc Boyz, a box of Gobos (sans 5 gobos that I turned into gretchen), an Orc Chariot (already assembled and base-coated, the arrer boyz and twin-choppa orcs from the 6th ed starter set, 4 giants (original Maurader giant, Giants of Albion set and the current plastic giant), 6 bases of painted Snottlings (originally painted late in the 40K 2nd edition era as Shokk Attack Gun ammo! A now redundant role) and 6 trolls. Not a bad start and some interesting options. Being that this is intended to be a temporary respite from 40K, I have no intention of expanding this army much (see previous comment regarding a tight budget). Although I may be forced to address the lack of artillery, but we'll play a few games and see how they fair as is.



And this is only 4 units!

So as sort of an intro to this new project, I wanted to showcase a few of the painted models. This 1st Orc Boy pictured at the top of the post is one of the twin-choppa orcs from the 6th edition Warhammer Fantasy starter set that warfrog gave to me when he decided that WFB just wasn't his bag. For the longest time these models (including the Empire ones) saw life and action as D&D minis for my 3.5 campaign. They died in droves over there so I'm sure they can replicate those results again for me in WHFB.

"Wot? No 'igh-lights on me teef?!"

This guy was painted up a few years ago when I discovered that I was running low on my precious original Bilious Green paint, I came up with a mix to extend the life of it ( I discussed this in more detail in one of my waaagh-plane posts ). This model is the standard that all of my basic Orcs (and Orks) will aspire too. I have other examples that are arguably better, but this guy just works. A particular feature of this model, and something of an experiment, is his rusted choppa. Looking at weather gardening tools, industrial machinery, farm equipment, etc, it occurred to me that these real-life tools are just as effective and useful despite their apparent age and yet everyone paints orcs as if their crude and beaten weapons just rolled off the forge! Including GW's painters! So in this boy's hands you can see the two extremes of what I was going for. For something a bit in the middle of these two examples, check out the Sword of Rust on the Boss model in my orky-love post. The other day, I added a few silver scratches on the rusty blade to indicate that this old weapon has seen some recent use.

I can not introduce this next guy without mentioning my dear friend Redbird. I introduced her to D&D (everyone's gate-way to a wider world of gaming and geekery in general, yes?) and the 1st game we played was done using the old Heroquest board as the dungeon. I had the leader and ruler of this dungeon be an Orc priest by the name of Zodbog Badgrub who captured Redbird's character and was plotting devious things to do with her when she made her escape. Zodbog would be a reoccurring nemesis for years to come. Well, Zodbog was this model:

Zodbog Badgrub. Hunting red birds since '01!

Granted, he was unpainted at the time, or primed black. I forget. Over the next....gosh, 12 years I would dabble on him, until employing the same techniques used on the orc boy above. Just the other day I added the final details to his staff and sword and glued him altogether. Despite the years of use and paint dabbling, in actual man hours of work I don't think I spent more than 5 hours on this mini, I just never focused on finishing him until the other day when I realized I needed to use this model for the 1st time in the role that it was created for!

...still, I wonder if I ought to put something else on the base? A snottling or a skull or something? See, I just don't know when to quit!

He wears that sword like it's a punishment! LOL

 So, these models are the bench mark that the rest of the horde will be reaching for! The next few posts will track the progress of this army, stay tuned!

-Neverness

Civil Wars of the Empire

In recent times some of us are feeling a bit of 40k fatigue and have been toeing the waters of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I too am eye-balling and flirting with getting an army functional for some Fantasy play as I am suffering from a bit of Space Wolf Gray burn out. So after my plans for the evening were dashed, I wandered over to Hobbytown to catch Da Masta Cheef and theBob play a game of Empire vs. Empire. I intended to only stay for a brief while, but I was hooked! I couldn't break away from seeing these two surprisingly well balanced armies duke it out on the plain of death! Anyway, I think one of those chaps is going to discuss it on their blog this week and I assisted Da Masta Cheef with some photos, so keep checking those links!

 

 

 

I was keenly impressed with seeing these two Empire armies just tear into each other. And it got me thinking of years gone by when my Empire army was being mustered! I contributed to Crisis in Marienburg, an online campaign that warhammer-empire hosted way back in 2008 (gosh, it doesn't seem that long ago!) and from there I invented the background elements for my army. In particular General Franz Grausocken of Reikland (green-socks that reek...get it? -ha!) my Pegasus riding ass-kicker (in the name of Sigmar of course)! And a few other characters. I had a complete blast writing updates for my character during stages of the campaign but I did not get in many games at all. Check that link to see some of the short stories I wrote.

 

Still, it was an AWESOME campaign, so much so that I was going to attempt to write an adaption for it for WHFRP 2ndEd but didn't get far with it due to work-overload, personal issues and the biggest one, the announcement of WHFRP 3rd edition which my gaming group and I, having just spent a small fortune tracking down the 2nd edition books, just opted not to try. Anyway, the point being is that this was an awesome campaign set during a particular period of turmoil in the Empire when various factions all fought for the crown, and Marienburg decided to make things VERY difficult for those living upstream of the Reik. It fits in very well with established background material and the material written by the campaign staff (and us players) really made it come to life. So with three Empire players (at least) in our local group, it got me thinking about trying to create a small campaign, perhaps using Mordheim rules for a few smaller scenarios as well, that I could bundle together for us or other smaller groups to play that might have a similar feel to it? I don't know for sure, nor do I know how keen my local players would be on it, but still, it got me thinking about Warhammer Fantasy again regardless.   

 



Presented here in this blog post is General Grausocken on his Pegasus. I might show him off more from different angles and better lighting so you can see some more detail on him. It took me a while to paint this model. The horse bits were easy, as was the rider, it was that blasted throne! That thing was insanely detailed! Not that it was hard to paint, but deciding what color to paint it was a bit of a trial. This was a model that I bought used off of ebay and one of it's legs had been badly "converted" by the previous owner so I had to re-sculpt part of it. In a way I don't consider it done yet because I at the time was having a frustrating time getting the banner to come out right, and then 40K pulled me back in. However, I am working on a standard bearer for my Space Wolves and when I do sit down to draw and paint that banner I will probably tackle this one too.

 



 So at this point I have 4 possible armies I could muster:

1. Empire. Of which Grausocken might be the only completely painted guy (sans banner).
2. High Elves. I regard this as my primary Fantasy army actually, I just love the model range.
3. Daemons. She Who Milks could bring some sour-love to those Stirlanders...
4. Orcs. I have managed to accumulate quite a lot of WHFB orcs over the years... 

Grausocken vs. Oddgob!

 I will be announcing on here soon which of my WHFB armies I indeed to make functional.

Meanwhile, here is a bit of 'in character-ish' discussion from the Crisis In Marienburg campaign:

"My big question here is, why are we letting the Marienburgers (here by referred to as the defeated) define the terms of their surrender?  Clearly we need to be talking to the Middenlanders who have done more internal damage to the city than us, and to whom we have already signed an agreement to divide the city via the river.

The defeated should never have a hand in deciding their fate. In fact, I think the Marienburg Alliance should be permanently dissolved, and we allow the League to step in to govern the merchant districts and all aspects of commerce and trade. The defeated need to be ousted from power-permanently. We have conquered them; and for the consequences of their actions and betrayals that kicked off this campaign in the first place, they need to accept the new paradigm.

I reject any treaty that allows the people who sponsored the starvation of our Empire, who would seek to ally with orcs to kill our sons and brothers, a seat of power of any kind."
-General Grausocken 



Relic fight!

War!!!

A weekend or so back, we gathered at the local Hobbytown USA for some gaming and somehow we decided to have a two vs. two game. I haven't done one of these in some time so I was keen to give it a try. It would be a fight to retrieve and capture The Relic. Who knows what that would be from a background perspective considering the Grey Knights (RT Voril) and Imperial Guard (Screech) would be sent to prevent the Space Wolves (your very own Neverness) and Lions of Harlech (Kushial's space marine chapter) from taking possession of it! We ended up using a metal nuclear symbol as The Relic. So whatever it is, it must be a bit of  radioactive STC or something else rare and warpy.

The Space Wolves and Lions of Harlech prep for battle. This is a combined 3k in points.

The Grey Knights, right after their Psychic Friends Hot line call-center shift ended... "Time for real work boys..."

The Imperial Guard, unwrapping their flyer spam to add to the Grey Knight cheese! ;)

The battle field. Note the dilapidated bastion at the edge of the shelled city.

Space Wolves and Lions deploy. Note my Lone Wolf way over by himself in the Lion's side of the table.

Close up and field view of Space Wolf deployment. The RT era Land Speeder hamming for the camera

Turn one- The Wolves and Lions Drop Pod into the Grey Knight's DZ and start messing things up. The Lions deploy a dreadnought and it takes out a basilisk (First Blood!). Sven and his four Wolf Guard quickly discover that they showed up a bit under equipped to charge the GK terminators, so they focus on the chimera but fail to destroy it.



Drop pod assault! Turn 1: Lion and Wolf pods line-break the GK & IG deployment zone!

Sven and Wolf Guard attack that Chimera, and fail....heads down, incoming!!!!

Combined wolf and lion attacks bring down the bastion!

Combined fire from the Lions and Wolves weaken the dilapidated bastion which has a unit inside and a command unit in and on it, A final shot from the SW vindicator sends the bastion crumbling down, killing a lot of IG!


Lots of retaliatory shooting from the Grey Knights and Imperial Guard! The wipe out my Fenrisian Wolves (surprise!) and wound my Rune Priest.

Well, that hurt!

The Lions took the Relic near the imperial statue, but they got blasted up pretty bad...


Also, the Grey Knights brought the pain the my Wolf Guard! One single Wolf Guard survived (sounds impressive but there were on four to start with, so...) and Sven, who break, and knowing no fear would advance on the surviving command squad in the crater.



Fight for the crater! Sven and his Wolf Guard attempt to get a Slay the Warlord VP!

...my favorite pic from this game, right before the Dreadknight dove into the fray!

The Dreadnought said as this picture was being shot "Watch me make this Grey Hunter squad disappear..."

Bird's eye view of mid game carnage.

...and he did!

In fairness, those damned purifiers or whatever they are called just would NOT DIE!!! I shot so many things at that unit, and by game's end I think half the squad was left. Anyway, that last GH squad and that unit would be trading bullets for the rest of the game. By this point you can also see that the IG flyers had arrived, one went over to harass my Long Fangs (probably their worst performance in many games I think) and unload a Vet. Squad into the ruins where the Lions where holding onto the relic. On Kushial's flank he as storming the field pretty hard, but he did lose a Landraider (I want to say it was to a basilisk hit?).

Lions and Wolves hunt down the rest of the Grey Knights...

 The Relic is lost....


The last stand of the relic holder...looks like a firing squad doesn't it?

 ...however the Long Fangs and Lions would tear into this unit before they could claim The Relic!



The Lone Wolf finally sees some action in this game!

 My Lone Wolf assaulted and broke an IG unit. The pic above shows the last guy about to flee the table. The Lone Wolf would run clear across the table, kill these guys, and then lose a turn in the woods as I totally forgot he was there! Perhaps he was bloodletting? Or snacking on IG flesh? Or doing what dogs tend to do when they spot an awesome tree. Who knows! But that blunder would prevent him from finding his death in battle...


Die tank, die!!

 The Lions claim the Relic, while my surviving Grey Hunters try running up to assist.




Another squad get The Relic, and is shot to death!

 The purifiers or whatever those guys were shoot the Lions to death, along with a barrage of fire from the two IG flyers. My surviving Long Fangs failed to bring either of those damned things down! But they refused to leave their post either.

Game ends, and no one has The Relic!

End game, no one has the Relic!

GH & IG Deployment zone at game's end.

 Awesome game... oddly enough, I don't recall the VP score. I believe Kushial and I won by a point. I think we killed both Warlords, I had mine still alive (though with a wound), I think Kushial's might have lived, and we both had Line Breaker and my Lone Wolf awarded them a point by not dying. We got first blood as well. Truth me known, it doesn't matter, we all wanted that Relic and we had a lot of fun failing to get it! LOL


 Fun game, we all had a total blast! It was challenging for all of us, but that made it fun for all too.