A Weekend of Gaming Part 2 - WFB 'Its How You Use It'

Next weekend, Saturday March 8th is a small friendly tournament at Next Dimension Games using Adepticon's 'Its How You Use It' WFB Tournament guidelines. For those that don't know, the 'Its How You Use It' format is 1000 points, which in WFB is generally considered - "not a lot".

One of our regulars at NDG, Josh Raymond, was looking to get in a warm up game to see how his Warriors of Chaos might fare in the 1000 point arena. Originally we were going to play the game at NDG, but I couldn't swing the bus fare, so he graciously offered to make the drive out to my place.

Now its important to note that the last time my Tomb Kings hit the tabletop was 2 years ago at Adepticon's 'Its How You Use It' tournament that year. My knowledge of 8th Edition is pretty abysmal and I felt really guilty making Josh stand around for an hour while I made my army list and asked him a million questions. Finally, after muddling my way through making my list I was ready to go. I would be fielding a Tomb Prince, a Level 2 Liche Priest, 19 Skeletons with Hand Weapons and Shields, 19 Skeletons with Spears, 10 Skeleton Horsemen with Spears, 3 Carrion Birds, and 2 Screaming Skull Catapults.

The ensuing conflict was surprising to say the least. Early on in the game Josh charged through a forest into my Skeleton Cavalry on my flank with a unit of Chaos Warriors and a Chaos Gorebeast Chariot.

My Cavalry draw a combined charge through a forest. I ultimately lost the combat but it left his big unit of Chaos Warriors wide open.

Meanwhile my Skeletons with Hand to Hand Combat Weapons and Skeletons with Spears glared vacantly towards the oncoming Chaos Warriors. My Cavalry were quickly destroyed, but left a perfect target for my Skeletons with Hand Weapons as you can see the tempting flank in this shot.

These two units made a lot of 2" moves this way or that way to always be in the idea position to deal with Josh's forces.

To reduce the threat to my own flank, I hurled Screaming Skull after Screaming Skull into Josh's exposed units and Chaos Warriors and Gorebeast Chariot (proxied with a normal Chariot) fled the scene allowing my Skeleton Warriors and Carrion to beat up on the Chaos Warriors.

Catapult view of the fleeing enemies. You've got to love "Skulls of the Foe".

 Multiple times the Chaos Warriors, Gorebeast Chariot and Chaos Hounds were forced to panic and were kept at bay consistently the latter half of the game. It was a hard day to be a Warrior of Chaos.

Heading north to Kislev, Troll Country, or maybe Norsca. Regardless, they decided the deserts of Khemri were not for them.

All told, I played a solid game. My memory of WFB tactics is still solid and I made sure to make his charges difficult and to take advantage of his own exposure which helped win me the day. Though, my fighting skill was pathetic. The only thing that saved me was my constant use of charging two facings at the same time. It wouldn't have been enough though if it wasn't for my Screaming Skull Catapults which honestly won me the day. They started off slow the first couple turns, but later in the game the scored direct hit after direct hit absolutely punishing his lines. It was glorious, but not easily repeated. It just happened to be my day in the sun.

I really appreciate Josh coming over to get a game in. It reminded me that I genuinely miss playing WFB and that I should play it more than I do. two years between games is far too long.

-Nick

Shameless plug, if you haven't checked out the blog for the miniature board game I'm developing, go check it out. Its called Broken Contract.

A Little New, A Little Old

For the last couple of weeks I have had Warhammer on the brain. Scott got talking about doing Skaven so I dragged out my Empire models and one thing led to another. Last week I posted a photo of the first model I completed this year. I didn't talk much about him, I was just so eager to get his ugly mug up on the blog. As it turns out, he wasn't done after all. After "completing" him I went through a huge crisis of faith in my red scheme. You see, back in the day when I started my Marienburg army I was really determined to paint them quickly. So the red was originally Scab Red with a Red Gore highlight and Red Ink in the recesses. You see, back 10 years ago we didn't have GW's current range of Washes, and the Ink's really left whatever area they touched with a bit of shine. When I pulled out the Militia figure with the Catachan head and red coat, I re-did the red in an effort to mute the original shine, so I painted over most of the coat with Mechanite Red, mixed Mechanite Red and Scorched Brown to paint the recesses, and then I highlighted with Blood Red. The end result was this coat here:

He looks pretty good in the photo but I thought he looked a little flat in person. So then I started experimenting with a ton of combinations of washes and highlights to find what I really wanted. I tried washing thinned down Bestial Brown into the folds which gave a smooth but very dirty look that I ultimately rejected. I tried painting the red areas Mechanite Red, and then highlighting with Blood Red and then Bleached Bone. I followed this with multiple layers of Baal Red Wash. At first I thought it was too shiny so I ended up rejecting that scheme. I sort of regret it now. It was very rich and had a lot of depth.

Ultimately, though I went for a tried and true scheme. My 40K IG army was Blood Red with a Brown Wash, and then Blood Red, Blazing Orange, and Fiery Orange. Unfortunately they look very dirty and very orange, so I wanted to sort of get away from that. Instead I used that same basic idea but with the improved paints that GW has released. The final scheme is Mechanite Red with Devlan Mud Wash painted into the folds. All the raised areas are touched back up with

Mechanite Red to ensure a solid coat where it should be. Then the raised areas are highlighted

with Blood Red and Blazing Orange. It's a pretty generic red scheme but it works. Here are the 2 schemes side by side. The scheme that ends in Blazing Orange is on the right. The scheme that ended in Bleached Bone and several layers of Baal Red Wash is on the left. I'm sure I'll adapt that scheme on something somewhere along the way.

I've been productive. Way more productive than usual. Since the January 1 I have finished 5 models. They are actually from two different units, and three of the Spearmen are roughly identical. I added a feather to one and made sure all of the shields are different. I'm pretty happy with how they are coming out aside from the skin. I spent a decade deliberately not painting human faces so I feel like they need some work. I think the army is going to look pretty good when it all comes together. I have another 100 models to refine my techniques on. Here are the 5 completed models. I haven't determined if the bases will have Static Grass ultimately so the bases are sort of plain for the moment. They are display case quality though, so for our purposes they are done.

Finally I wanted to end with some models that I unearthed while getting pumped on Warhammer. Twelve years ago when I worked for GW - shortly before 6th Edition, I was feverishly working on some Bretonnians. The funny part is that I never completed any Knights. I converted a bunch of figures that didn't have a model in the original Bretonnian book and that didn't make it into the new book, and for some reason I painted a crap load of siege equipment even though I didn't have the models to field it. Ah, to have what seemed like limitless hobby time and resources again so I could do whatever whim that struck me. Anyway, here are the only 5 Bretonnian Spearmen I completed in 1998 along with 2 of the 5 mantlets I completed. Maybe I'll mess around with them a little or maybe I'll hold off until they get their next book. We'll see.

Nick: 5

Scott: 0

7th Edition I Barely Knew You

Three years ago the 7th Edition of Warhammer was released. I remember going in to do a sleep study and bringing my brand new pristine copy of the hard cover book with me. It was a sleep deprivation study so I read quite a bit of it for those 3 horrible days. The problem is, I never did much else with it. Nerd Night gents, Anton and Chad, each started collecting armies at various points. Anton was accumulating Goblins and Chad had some Ogre Kingdoms models. Still, between the two of them I think I only ever got in 5 or 6 games total of Warhammer in the last 3 years.

Our group is pretty obviously immersed in 40K and Scott and Eric have stuck to those guns all along. It just makes sense to get the most out of one system I guess. In fact, even with as many games of 40K as we've played in the current edition, which is countless, we still have only gotten in a couple Apocalypse games and no Planetstrike games. We still have a lot more 40K to play to get the most out of this edition is what I'm saying.

One of the frustrating things about the Games Workshop hobby is getting the timing right. People scream and cry that its been years since their Codex or Army Book has been updated. The Tomb King's Army Book came out in 2002. I've barely touched it. At this exact moment I don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of it and I'm in no hurry to replace it. Conversely, my Dark Angels Codex is only a few years old and it was the first of the "stripped down" Codex philosophy that they built back up on over the last 2 years to make a superior product. Ultimately, the end result is that though my Dark Angels Codex still does the job, it kind of sucks compared to similar armies and since I've played it to death I wouldn't mind it getting an update.

What I'm getting at is that for the immersive player, the release schedule often doesn't feel fast enough and for the casual player it feels like it moves way too fast. If they released a new edition of 40K in 2010 or 2011 I wouldn't sweat it too hard - I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this edition already. Warhammer on the other hand, I've only played a couple of games over the last 3 years and I've effectively paid like $10 per game when you think about the cost of the rule book and how much I've used it. Its kind of a shame.

I know its heresy in certain circles, particularly amongst the most rabid players and younger types who think 4 years is a lifetime, but I kind of wish GW would slow down just slightly. We're going to see a new edition of Warhammer next year and my binding still creaks when I crack open my mint condition hardcover rule book. I hear rumor that the impending new edition of Warhammer will have the same sort of Expansion support that this edition of 40K has. I support this line of thinking. I had some fun with Warhammer Skirmish two editions ago and was always excited by the idea of the n--aval rules that appeared in the General's Compendium that I sadly never purchased when it was around. Take your time GW and milk the latest editions for all they are worth. Why not make it a 5 year cycle, two editions a full decade, and keep cranking out cool expansions to keep things fresh?

Regardless, I'm undaunted and still screwing around with updating my Tomb Kings. I have 20 Skeleton Warriors with hand weapons and shields now in the display case that weren't there previously. I'll be adding a front rank and five more basic infantry to make it a unit of 30 over the next week as well as completing an update on a unit of 5 Light Skeleton Horsemen. It only makes sense to end with a pic: