Tuesday 7 April 2015

Boredom and getting back at it

I spent the majority of the long weekend at home in bed. Following my awesome game VS Nick I returned home and really started to feel sick. It must be the Chaos Gods turning against me for my failures!

I did manage to scrape about 2 hrs of painting time in over the last 3 days. I find that I really need to paint every day, even if it's just for 15 minutes. It helps keep me in a routine and maintains my brush control. What I did paint used a technique that I saw on YouTube. Basically it's dry brushing Brass, Gold, and then Silver followed by a Nuln Oil wash. It renders a really weathered/aged looking metal. The Black Knight still has a long ways to go, but I'm happy with the result so far.

Saturday 4 April 2015

A long long time ago...

Today my friend Nick and I started a narrative campaign. Essentially we plan to play 3 or 4 linked games that grow in point size as we go forward.

Our campaign takes place during the time when Archaon was searching for the Relics of the Everchosen. This shift in the time period allows us to play plenty of fun games without ever having to venture into the murky lore of the End Times! Archaon is currently searching for the Slayer of Kings and believes that it may be in the Sky Castles deep in the Mourn Mountains.

The lead of the story is Torvek Ogrebeater. This Chaos Knight was the son of a Chieftain who challenged Archaon. After watching his father mercilessly slaughtered at the hands of the would be Everchosen, he pledged his warband to Archaon. Now with Archaon's force turning south, Torvek has the chance to return to his old stomping grounds and do what he loves to do, beating Ogres. Archaon does not trust Torvek and has sent Kruptal the Twisted to keep an eye on him.

Our first game involved a Chaos scouting force running into 2 Ogre hunting parties. Played on a 4x4 table the Ogres had 800points line up against 1200points of Warriors. Starting on T3, the Ogres started to roll for reserves as the 2nd hunting party started to show up, they all had the Ambushers special rule.

Nick won the roll to go first and set up for a 2nd turn charge. My force was primarily the Chaos Knights and 2 blocks of marauders and 2 warhound packs. Kruptal had 12 Warriors of Tzeentch with him. I thought that the Tzeentchian Anvil would hold up to a Mournfang charge and allow the group of Khornate Marauders to counter charge. I was wrong, the Mournfang absolutely destroyed me. It was really rough. Plus we named this area of the map the Forest of Tears. Everytime we had to make a dangerous terrain check we failed 1-3 of them. I think the dangerous terrain checks claimed more wounds that my entire army did. In the end Torvek took a cannonball in the face but we rolled and said on a 3+ Torvek was just dismounted but would return to get his revenge. Kruptal ran away at the first opportunity and tried to betray Torvek. From now on units containing Torvek and Kruptal treat each other as distrustful allies. One of the Ogre Hunters was named One Eyed Willy because out of 4 shots he missed all of them! How else wouldyou explain his lack of depth perception?

At the end, even though I got tabled, the game was a blast. We laughed at our terrible dice rolls. And I was happy because Torvek made it into one unit of Bulls and smashed their champion like a boss! As a reward for tabling me, in out next game Nick gets to deploy normally and I have to use the Dawn attack style deployment to show that my scouts failed to return with accurate intel and the Ogres got the jump on me. But don't worry, I'll have my revenge. After the next game we will be using some of the Warhammer'd scenarios to get read for that event!!

See the Sky Castles in the Northeast?
Deployment done. I was feeling pretty confident. 
100% painted armies on both sides of the table
Kruptal is ready to stick that knife in his back
Top of T3, the 2nd Hunter and the Lead Belchers show up. 
This is gonne hurt
Top of T4, only Torvek and his knights remain
Oh wait, I've been tabled? Damn that Sky Cannon!!

Friday 3 April 2015

I actually played a game??

Today I actually managed to play a game!! That never happens! It was a really good game too.

For the last 2 years I have been hearing about the Warhammer'd tournament. In the Calgary area , this seems to be the event to go to because everyone that I've spoken to says it's amazing. After getting the OK from my wife (happy wife=happy life) I'm now getting ready for this event. With 14 weeks to go from this morning, I've got some work ahead of me.

Back to why I played a game. My friend Brad and I both want to attend Warhammer'd, and to try and do our best we've decided to start practicing now. We played a Pitched Battle scenario with 2996pts per side. I took a really mobile army that included a Keeper of Secrets, 6 Screamers, 2 Heralds of Tzeentch on disk, Beasts of Nurgle. Basically if it wasn't core, it had M6 or highers. Playing against a castle up Dwarf army I felt very in control for how the game played out. I need to find a way to make the army hit harder. At the end of 6 turns Daemons scored 831 VPs to the Dwarves 773. I call that a draw!

What I really need to do is decided whether I want to play Daemons or Warriors. Either way, it's Chaos.

So many stunties in one place!!
End of Daemon Movement Bottom of T1
(Chaos Knights as Proxies of Seeker of Slaanesh. For shame!)
So gray! That must be why they're stubborn
Oh look, the Daemons moved so fast!
Left side! Strong side!