Waking Dead

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately…

What you’re looking at is my first painted Warmachine figure: Kommander Sorscha from the Khador faction. The pictures are, as usual, pretty shit; I really need to invest in a camera. Having said that, I’m pretty chuffed with her to be honest, especially the snow on the base. I still need to tidy up her face a bit and dot her pupils in, but ostensibly she’s finished.

Back to Games Workshop: last night I got back on track with my Empire and started to paint up the BSB. I’ve finished him (barring his pupils – need to invest in a fibre tip pen really) and I’ve started to paint the banner. No idea what I’m going to do yet as I’m crap at freehand, but I figured I’d oultine something in fibre tip and fill it in with paint. Can’t see me painting freehand really… I’ll try and take some pics of him tonight anyway.

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So here’s what I’ve been working on.

First up is an Empire Pistolier champion, painted up in Talabheim colours. Interestingly I’ve gone for a slightly darker look to the traditional red and white, particularly as the white is much more of a cream colour (using Bleached Bone highlights over a Graveyard Earth base). Now, I’ve always been pretty rubbish at painting horses but I’m really pleased with how this one turned out. The picture doesn’t really do it justice, camera phone and all that, but I’ve started to try and do some blending. I’m still not really good enough to attempt true wet blending, so this is dry blending using built up layers of highlights, but its effective enough for me. And before anybody says anything I know I haven’t smoothed out the join on the horse’s neck, but these are tabletop standard and not showcase standard, and I’ve got 2000 points to paint so ya boo sucks to you!

Secondly I’ve got some Handgunners, again painted up using the same take on Talabheim colours. These are also magentically based using the tape and steel paper combination I talked about in my previous post. I’ve used the modular movement trays from Game Workshop again, but I’ve been trying to save the corners for bigger trays (this is a 20mm x 200mm gunline base). I’m going to cut up some of my older trays to get the corners for this and fill in the gaps with Green Stuff. Once its sprayed up black it should sit nicely with the bases. Anyway, I’ve got to finish the rest of my Pistoliers this week then I’ll get cracking on painting the rest of the Handgunners. After that? Probably the two wizards in my list to give me a break from painting alternate red and white patterns!

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I’m currently putting together my Empire army at the moment for this year’s Fantasy campaign. I bought a couple of the new modular movement trays and have been busy hacking them up and magnetizing all my infantry. Don’t know if anyone has seen this sort of stuff before, but I highly recommend it for your fantasy gaming!

Trevor Holland’s Magnetic Displays

I bought a few A5 sheets of steel paper, and the 20mm magnetic tape. The tape is awesome as its exactly the same width as an infantry base, so you can basically stick a figure onto it, then cut the tape, roll another bit out and carry on.

I’ve painted up 5 Handgunners for my 10-man gunline, 3 Pistoliers and a horse, and a mortar and crew. The army weighs in at 2000 points for the campaign, but I reckon I’ve got about 4000 points in total. Don’t think I’ll be painting all of them in time for the Summer though…

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(This is a long post with a bunch of pictures – you have been warned!)

We arrived in Nottingham at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon on Friday and, after we’d dropped our bags off at the hotel, we headed into town for a pint and something to eat. The mood was jovial, positive even. We joked about the three teams’ final positions and myself and Mark made a prediction – we’d finish in the top half of the table.

We couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. Facing a double Tau Empire army that on paper looked very good, we ended up completely annihilating them in what was a very one-sided battle. They didn’t do anything wrong per se, we just did everything right. The one-two punch of the Exorcists was just too much for their Infantry-reliant army to cope with. Final score? 1800 to us, 113 to them. With such a massive victory margin we were giddy with excitement about getting on the top tables. In fact, when we came to look at the next round’s fixtures, we were on table one!

When you’re on the top tables, the mood is very different. Most people are there to win, and win at all costs. We were there to win of course, but we were more interested in having a good time. Our opponents weren’t quite as serious as some I’ve faced in the past, but fielding Tau Empire and Eldar was setting your stall out, and there was a definite edge to the game. What really threw us though was when our opponents declared that we had an illegal list…

After checking and double-checking, they were right. Whilst the rest of the games were getting underway, we were busy re-writing our list to make it legal. Having already lost 10 VPs for playing with it in the first game (taking our total of 32 down to 22), we were well and truly rattled. The battle eventually underway, we were put to the sword almost immediately. After three turns things were looking bleak. Then, after a few lucky shots with the Hammerhead, we started to turn it around. By this point it was too late, but we clawed back enough points to not fall victim to a massacre. The final scores put a distance of 400 points between us, but at least we’d avoided getting butchered.

Now on 23 VPs, we were back down the tables to face our next opponents. Who just so happened to be the Chaos and Traitor Guard of our friends and practice bitches, Mike and Chris. This then would be a grudge match, as we’d only beaten them once before in our practice games. On the day, however, they were the ones to bottle it. Mark and myself played a tight game, knowing their tactics inside out, and exploiting the scenery. Despite not destroying their Demon Prince, we still finished with 1157 to their 828. That victory put us on 54 points and carried us back up the leaderboard for Sunday’s opening game.

Day two started us back up in the top 25% on table fourteen . Our game was to be against a double-Eldar list that featured a whole bunch of Jetbikes. After completely forgetting about the Instant Kill rules on turn one after assigning a wound to my Inquisitor and consequently losing his whole retinue, I realised it was going to be one of those games. Too many bikes, too little time to deal with them all. The final score made it 1249 to our 741 – another loss.

Taking only a single VP from our last game dropped us back down to the mid-twenties. The army we were to face looked like it had been clawing its way up the tables since Saturday morning, being a very odd mix of Imperial Guard and Ultramarines. The Marines were fine, but the Guard were using a very odd setup, despite the inclusion of a Leman Russ. Despite them getting unlucky with a few rolls on the first few turns, our superior firepower really paid off, although the Russ only got popped on the very last turn. In the end it was a massacre – 1180 to 452 – and put us on 85 points going into the final game of the weekend.

Once again, it was double-Eldar, but at least they had some infantry on the table. By this point both me and Mark were knackered, either through lack of sleep, alcohol consumption, or just too many rules-headaches. Our opponents weren’t faring much better, but neither of us was really concentrating in this game. In the end they won fairly comfortably, but it was close until turn five. After losing an Exorcist and the Hammerhead in one turn, we didn’t really have much left to claw it back. I didn’t bother writing the points down, suffice to say it was a solid win to them. Our final VPs for the weekend, then, were 86.

Grabbing our friends after the game, we chatted about where we’d all ended up: our predictions from Friday night seemed to be about right. Without the 10 point penalty on Saturday we would have been on the same points as Chris and Mike, but they just edged it. Si and Jamie also finished about 10 points behind us, so we all ended up in roughly the same position. The official results will be posted in the week, so until then I have no idea of our final finishing position. Top half and I’ll be happy.

You can find all of Mark’s pictures of the event here.

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Well, I’m all packed and ready to go. Apart from a minor rebasing panic and the constant worry that we’ve overlooked something and our army will somehow be illegal, I think we’re in pretty good shape for the tourney. The army currently enjoying their pre-battle meal and ritual branding in my kit box is:

Witch Hunters
1x Inquisitor Lord w/ Auspex, Psychic Hood, Retinue
- 2x Gun Servitors w/ Heavy Bolters
- 1x Gun Servitor w/ Multi-Melta
3x Inquisitorial Stormtroopers w/ Hellguns
- 2x Inquisitorial Stormtroopers w/ Plasma Guns
2x Exorcists

Tau Empire
6x Fire Warriors
3x Stealth Suits
1x Crisis Suit w/ Burst Cannon, Missile Pod, Targeting Array, Hard-Wired Multi-Tracker
2x Piranhas
1x Hammerhead Gunship w/ Rail Gun, Smart Missile System, Target Lock

Overall its two 500 point forces that combined must make a legal 1000 point force. We’ll suffer a -1 Leadership penalty for any of the teammate’s units within 6″ because we are distrustful allies, but this shouldn’t be a massive problem. The Tau force has nothing less than S5 weaponry, with the Hammerhead packing a 72″ S10 AP1 cannon, plus an independently firing Smart Missile System (24″ S5 AP5) that doesn’t require LOS. Stealth Suits are also incredibly nasty as they can jump forward 6″ to be within firing range, let loose a barrage of shots, then jump back 6″ to put them out of the enemy’s range!

The Witch Hunters (which I’ll be playing) are there mainly for the Exorcists, each one firing D6 S8 AP1 missiles up to 48″. True, you can end up firing only one missile from each, but at maximum that’s twelve S8 AP1 shots hitting the enemy! The Stormtroopers are mainly there to fill in the required Troop slot, but Plasma Guns can do some damage – mainly to yourself. The Lord has a pretty solid Retinue, although being Heavy weapons they can’t move and fire. What I normally do is plonk them as far forward into cover as I can and wait it out. The Multi-Melta can be devastating against vehicles, but a 24″ range means not getting to shoot it until maybe turn three.

And that’s it really; we’ve tweaked and tweaked this army, far more than we did last year, and in fact completely changed the Tau force on Wednesday night. We’ve had no practice games with this new army, so we’re basically just going to wing it. No guts, no glory eh?

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Its been a while since I’ve posted but I promise you I’ve got a very good excuse. OK, I haven’t, but you weren’t bothered anyway. I’ve been locked out of my site for a while now due to some problems with my anti-spam software, but now that’s all sorted I can get back to posting.

On the gaming front its the Warhammer 40,000 Doubles Tournament in Nottingham this weekend, at Warhammer World no less. Apparently this will be a lot better organised than Conflict North, and with it being over the course of the weekend, each game has a two hour time limit instead of one hour. Myself and Mark R will be taking a joint force of Witch Hunters and Tau, with some nasty little surprises in store for our opponents!

Away from Games Workshop I’ve actually took the plunge and bought the Warmachine and Hordes main rulebooks. Some of you may remember a post from a while back regarding Warmachine, but its taken me this long to actually go out and drop some money on it. I’ve decided that this year I’ll put together a small battlegroup and hopefully play a few games of something different.

Actually, speaking of the new year, I’ve made some plans already. First of all our gaming group has decided that since we concentrated so much on 40,000 last year, this year we’re going to go Fantasy. To this end I’ve decided to go ahead and paint my massive Empire army. I reckon it should take me a good six months, so we’ll see what happens after that. I’ll also probably assemble and paint my Khador battlegroup (once I’ve bought them, obv.) during the first half of the year.

One last thing: I picked up the Dark Angels limited edition army deal over Christmas, so that’s my new 40,000 force ready. Of course this means that I’m selling my Elysian Imperial Guard army – and lo and behold they’re up on eBay! A bargain if I do say so myself…

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So, I went to Games Day on Sunday, and had a thoroughly geeky time. Lots of cool stuff to see spread across three halls at the Birmingham NEC. My friend Si took a whole bunch of pictures but he’s not sent them to me yet, so here’s someone else’s shots instead:

Images from Games Day 2007 at WarSeer

In terms of all-new exciting stuff on display, there was plenty to look at. The big event of the show is the soon-to-be-released Codex: Apocalypse, dealing with 3,000+ point battles. I missed out on getting my hands on the rulebook (they sold out in the first hour) but did see enough of it to get excited. The GW design team were running an 80,000 point battle (!) all day long between Orks/Chaos and Marines/Eldar/Guard; the terrain was both massive and awesome, using a set of islands connected by bridges that was about the size of your average living room.

There’s plenty of new models out for Apocalypse, but nothing too exciting. The best new models were scattered across the floor, and can be seen in the link I posted above. The new Reaver titan from ForgeWorld is suitably impressive, and due to cost around £500 sometime around Christmas – start asking Santa now. There was some new Chaos Marine minis, including some Slaaneshi demonettes and a brand new Juggernaut that doesn’t look like a sit-on lawnmower any more.

Rules-wise the big push was for Apocalypse, but they also had the new Ork Codex for 40k (which I didn’t get chance to look at) and the new High Elf army book for Fantasy. This in particular looked very cool, and the miniatures they had on display – particularly the Chrace Chariot – also looked nice. There’s a summary of the High Elf rules in the following thread… I can smell the Brie from here:

High Elf Rules from Games Day 2007 at WarSeer

The reason I didn’t pick up the Apocalypse book was that I was queuing to get a copy of the new Talisman board game. Not only was I one of the lucky few, I also got a special Games Day adventure card for it, and had the cover signed by Ralph Horsley and Jeremy McHugh! I’ve had a brief look at the new version and everything looks familiar but much prettier – looking forward to giving it a spin some time as Talisman is one of my favourite board games.

There was also plenty more to see including the new Squad Command game for DS (which looked like Dawn of War – very impressive graphically) and of course the Age of Reckoning MMORPG. I also got a chance to meet Rick Priestly, John Blanche and Jervis Johnson – although I got a little star-struck and didn’t actually talk to them. Bless.

All in all, if you like your wargaming, this was a grand day out. The scenery on display in the Arena from GW staff and gaming clubs was amazing, and I even had a look at some (semi) proper war-gaming in the form of Warhammer Historical.

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Well, it appears that Waking Dead has been down for a while and for that I can only apologise. I’ve just finished porting everything across to a new externally-hosted server thanks to the wonderful people at BlueHost. This means (hopefully) zero downtime, as well as a whole bunch of cool new features that I will start to add over the coming weeks and months.

First of all I’m thinking of porting the character archives over to a Wiki-based system. At the moment there isn’t really much content in the archives so it seems like as good a time as any to do this. Having a Wiki framework to work from will make adding content much easier, and I can open it up to the whole roleplaying group so I don’t end up doing all the donkey work!

Anyway, we’re back up and running now so you can all get off my case…

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Update: The table link was out of date, so I’ve now updated the link with the correct file.

Beastmen vs. Skaven

The Skaven were spread out over a wide area searching for warpstone shards. Only four remained near the rallying point, a large statue of a man-breeder. Suddenly a loud blast from a Beastman horn startled the ratmen. “We must flee!” squealed Sher the Nimble, “there are many, many beasts, we must go find our pack brothers.”

“No, no, our kin are spread out, we must hide here and wait for them,” said Ikspark the Mad.

The four Skaven moved quickly behind the statue hoping the Beastmen would pass them by but luck was not with them; the Beastmen hounds had picked up their scent and were leading the rest of the pack towards them.
Suddenly there was some movement amongst the nearby gravestones, a decaying hand could be seen thrust through the earth, and then two, then a whole corpse hauled itself to its feet and began to move towards the Beastman. Two other zombies followed in the same direction. The Beastmen must have been unnerved by these unexpected enemies as their charge lacked its characteristic aggression. Only one zombie was felled and in return a hound was beaten unconscious.

The Skaven took this opportunity to make their stand, each Skaven attacking a Beastman in the first wave. All managed to survive the initial assault apart from Sher who had his head neatly pulled from his body and the contents greedily gulped down by the Beastman.

Now some Skaven re-enforcements arrived but they were still too few for a direct assault, only a third of the warband were fighting. Luckily Skabb was now in the fight and decided to assault the Beastman leader trying to dishearten the enemy. His attacks struck home but could not get through the chieftain’s thick hide. Then the mighty Beastman’s club connected with Skabb’s head; he would surely have been killed had he not managed to get a fighting claw up to absorb some of the impact, however he was still knocked out and no longer able to fight. Corpin the Twisted leaped at the chieftain and dug both fighting claws into his leg. The Beastman howled in pain and sank to the ground, his legs unable to carry his weight any longer.

Now more zombies clambered out of their graves and attacked the Beastmen. Meanwhile Ikspark had made his stand in a narrow gap between a mausoleum and a row of open graves. He struck a Beastmen on the back of the head causing him to overbalance and fall into an open grave. One of his companions then struck Ikspark on the shoulder and he found himself face down in a grave as well. The two combatants climbed out of the holes and faced each other once more, Ikspark getting the upper hand, knocking the Beastman unconscious with a deft swing of his staff.

There were now only two Skaven left able to fight, and they moved quickly away from the relentless Beastmen in the hope that more re-enforcements would arrive. But still they did not. The Beastmen were now losing enthusiasm for the fight, the zombies were taking their toll and chasing two Skaven around a graveyard seemed like futility. Angrily the Beastmen withdrew from the battlefield, leaving the bewildered Skaven thanking the Horned Rat for his mercy.

Marienbergers vs. Witch Hunters

The Witch Hunters had just finished scouring the graveyard for any relics they could save when a band of Marienbergers came into view. A few uneasy glances were exchanged before the leaders of both met under a flag of truce.

“We have searched these ruins and there are no items of value,” said Ulrich von Helfenstein, “if you wish to search for yourselves then you are welcome, but be swift for the unquiet dead are said to roam this graveyard since the temple of Morr has been re-occupied.”

Jack smiled; he knew that the Witch Hunters would not have been looking for the same “value” in items they came across, searching this place may yet turn a profit. “My thanks Sir, we will conduct our search, may good fortune follow your band in its endeavours.”

As the Witch Hunters turned to depart the ground split near them and zombies began to clamber from their graves, their eyes shining with an unholy light.

Both bands formed up on opposite sides of the Undead. The Witch Hunters readying their hand weapons and the Marienbergers knocking bolts and arrows. Several of the zombies fell in the initial attacks, their decomposing bodies providing little resistance to the men’s fierce blows. Many times the Undead were simply thrown back into their graves only for them to climb back out again.

Whilst the killing started as good sport, the fighting was ceaseless; as soon as one group of zombies was destroyed two more would rise to take its place. As the bands became fatigued so the fighting became more desperate with several men falling. The close combat tactics favoured by the Witch hunters inevitably lead to them taking more casualties. Eventually they decided enough souls had been returned to rest and both bands withdrew from the field. That evening the Marienbergers were declared the victors, Jack having beaten Ulrich four times out of five at the biscuit game.

More importantly they revealed to each other their plans for the upcoming fight with Vantor; they would form an allegiance to make sure his twisted soul engine would not stay in the hands of the ruinous powers.

Two updates in quick succession! I’ve included a link to the current table below, with only one round left to play… hopefully we should be having this game on Sunday. Expect a full write-up shortly afterwards.

Link to Table

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Undead vs. Beastmen

The vampire cast his gaze across the deserted courtyard. Three battles he had fought and three times he had been forced to retreat, each time his hunger for living blood growing stronger. Now as the Beastmen moved into view ahead of him the need was almost unbearable. Normally the thought of taking Beastman blood would have repulsed him – it was far from sweet – yet now his fangs were fully extended and his followers were ready to fight. Suddenly there was movement from the gaol and a huge beast emerged, surrounded by some pitiful followers. The monster was horribly mutated with something resembling a third leg swinging beneath it as well as an extra arm that ended in a menacing claw. The vampire turned his attention to this new threat, his necromancer gathering the winds of magic at his side. Suddenly a volley of glittering silver arrows shot into the air and slammed home into the chest of the approaching beast. It let out a pitiful whimper and fell to the ground, dead. The vampire gave a wry smile as his necromancer sent more silver allows towards the gaoler’s minions and more fell. The mage had angered his leader by showing little skill in the previous battles, now it looked like he would make amends.

Having disposed of the Gaoler and his henchmen the Undead repositioned to face the approaching Beastmen, now almost in range for a charge. Some ranged fire from the Undead downed a Beastman before the two bands came together in the middle of the courtyard. The battle that followed was a pure bloodbath, momentum waned back and forth, the Undead with an early advantage but the Beastmen fighting back with great courage. Casualties were high on both sides although most were mere henchmen. Both sides were on the verge of routing but in the end the vampire’s need for blood was greatest and the beasts could not stand. They retreated from the field and finally the vampire could feed, the black Beastman blood spreading warmth throughout his emaciated body. Now his band would rest and prepare for the final battle with Vantor.

Witch Hunters vs. Skaven

Skabb deployed his forces away from the gaol; there was an evil presence and a strange concentrated smell of warpstone that he didn’t like – something was lurking in ambush. Now the Witch Hunters came into view, it seemed that they had no perception of the danger they were in – either that or they had no fear of it. As the Witch Hunters moved forward a huge mutated beast moved through the gaol gates, brushing them aside as if they were paper. Surrounding the beast were lesser beings, also driven mad with mutation but less powerful in stature. They turned towards the men just as they charged. These Witch Hunters impressed Skabb, they did not fear this beast and more than that seemed to be enjoying the slaughter of the mutants. Skab realised an opportunity when he saw it, “Forward, now, now, quick, quick!” If he could reach the Witch Hunters before they dispatched the beast then the ratmen would have superior numbers and be able to drive the men off.

As fast as they could scurry, Skabb’s band raced through the streets. The beast’s minions had all fallen but the leader still stood, surrounded on all sides by the frenzied men. Upon seeing the ratmen approach the humans sent some missile troops to guard their flank. Skabb pressed on and finally got his band into a charge position. He sent the giant rats in first whilst the rest of his slower companions caught up and regained their breath.

The Witch Hunters finally slew the beast with a victorious roar and turned towards the Skaven.

“Kill, now!” cried Skabb and his minions advanced to meet the manthings’ flank guard. Against so many they could not hold and several casualties were taken. Some Skaven also fell but Skabb cared not, he had the numbers to sacrifice. Finally the men who slew the beast were ready to assault the ratmen but they were now too few to prevail. Their leader called them into an organised withdrawal. Skabb could see the hatred burning in their eyes as they retreated and he felt fortunate.

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