AVBCW: Motor Quadricycle of Death !

27/11/2014 1 Comment

For my barfday, Byakhee Rich got me a present, though I suspect he had ulterior motives as he dropped some hints.

Yes, a Motor Quadricycle of Death ! From Zinge Industries. They seem to do a lot of WH40K inspired bits, but as they note on the page this vehicle is inspired by the WW1 German A7 tank.

Rich had built it for me and undercoated it black. Hmm now which AVBCW faction uses a lot of black ? And does that faction have a commander who has a reputation for lots of tanks, armoured cars and stuff ?? 😉

Rich had built it with rotating wheels, moveable HMGs and moveable hatch.

This popped into my head for some reason ! 🙂

Here’s a second one I bought afterwards, in its basic kit form. It turns out a bit of work had been done to allow all the moveable parts, as Rich commented:

If you bought wheels rather than tracks, that’s heavy engineering so you’d better let me do it. Holes drilled through the hull sides, brass rod axles, milliput and grinding tools for that bit !

So I have dropped it off with him.

To encourage him to complete this task of engineering, I painted the present green and slapped on some MHC transfers, so the MHC can go zipping round the Malverns in this strange vehicle, no doubt built at the Morgan Car factory in Malvern Link.

The MHC logo is a transfer, and is about 5mm wide, so a perfect circle isn’t going to happen and looks fine when placed on a table and observed at several foot’s distance with a Mk1 eyeball.

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Mordheim: Buildings 1

25/11/2014

In the Mordheim game in october, I found a building that I’d simply glued on to the artists mounting card and not even bothered to paint it.

I hastily painted the base before the game started. I then revisited it and over the lasty month in amongst all the other projects, games and life’s issues proceeded to jazz up the base.

I used some model railway ballast and some 1/35th scale bricks I had.

The building was from the Blood on the Streets supplement pack fort Mordheim, chopped up and re-orientated, and I’d used the basic plastic corner pieces and windows. So I did a simply wash (GW Nuln Oil) followed by a highlight of grey to pick out the details (skullz !).

The paving stones were just thin card chopped up, again washed with brown and green washes (again GW whatever the latest names are).

And then a final highlight.

Looks a lot better.

Filed under Mordheim

WHFB: Wipeout ! Lessons Learnt

21/11/2014

Ok, so I got caned by the dwarf alliance and their insufferable organ gun firing line.

Even running pell mell at them still resulted in a huge number of casualties.

So lessons learnt:

  • Iron Curse Icon was useful in minimising the number of casualties for the Silver Talons, but that is a one off commodity.
  • At least the CoK got into combat by being more aggressive and not hiding.
  • Having two units (of 8 and 6 respectively) helped distract and split the enemy fire. Something learnt from Richard’s Empire heavy cavalry.
  • But they need to be better supported, the Orc hordes were not right for that.
  • Dark Riders in units of 10 are too expensive and still too fragile. Maybe units of 6-8 again like the CoK will make them more dangerous and allow me to afford more units.
  • Though the are Rare choices, a small unit of Warlocks with their ward save (4+) might have ben a useful add on.
  • I didn’t invest a lot in magic, and that paid off.
  • Similarly a radical pruning of magic items from the Heroes and Lords made a lot of sense.
  • An interesting set of rules have been made on Druchhi.net to help deal with organ guns, some of them are a bit beardy.
  • But beardy tactics were used in the Challenges during combat which I will have to remember.

On a slightly diffverent tack:

  • I have at least one PAINTED unit of all the Dark Elf options (except the Scourge Runner, and the new CoB).
  • This enables my adversaries to predict what I will bring.
  • As I have so far only played one army, my enemies are gaining knowledge faster than I, as they play different armies from different games.
  • Anthony & Jim admitted my smaller double unit of CoK was a surprise.
  • As I am constrained by the PAINTED units I have, this leaves me less room for surprises and variation in my army.
  • The conclusion is therefore to make duplicate units of what I have so I can surprise my enemies.

Best paint up some duplicate units like those CoK I had Richard pin for me.

Useful lessons, and as you can see, BlackJack came back for a second shot at sleeping in Anthony’s green bag. 🙂

Filed under Warhammer

WHFB: Wipeout ! (Part 2)

20/11/2014

So things are not looking good…

I charged in the remaining CoK and the General, in a last ditch effort to make them useful.
the Siulver Talons closed in on their victims.

I took out some stunties, but at the end…then there was one…

But the general held his ground for another couple of rounds, as the Silver Talons chewed their way through the dwarves.

The Orcs finally got into the fray.

The Orcs steamed into their next target.

The Silver Talons were side swiped by the Dwarf BSB, whom they did at least defeat in short order. Even if the dwarves had turned out be more difficult to deal with so I zapped them with a hex spell.

Whilst the Orcs went for their next target…

The Black Orcs steamed into their target as well.

The Silver Talons finally defeated the dwarves, and came back on the table, as my general was defeated.

So a total wipeout, other than my BSB and about 11 Talons and a Sorceress that was all I had left.

Filed under Warhammer

WHFB: Wipeout ! (Part 1)

18/11/2014

Four of us had a game of WHFB, 4k per side with each player having 2k for their army. Orcs & Dark Elves vs two sets of Dwarves. Byakhee Jim had been on e-bay a few months back and had a new army to field.

I forgot to take photos of the initial set up, but managed to get the first photos mid way through the first turn. By then, Anthony’s dwarves had decided they Hated us (the DE & Orcs), but we had got the drop on them.

I’d moved a lot of vanguard Fast Cavalry up front, as both Dwarf players had what was essentially a gun line with oodles of Organ Guns.

My Dark Elves steamed in ahead of the Orcs – magic standard. I saw no point in sitting there and being pounded into the dirt by organ guns and a trebuchet.

And my small CoK unit moved up on the flank trying to catch up with the Fast Cavalry.

Dwarf Iron Guard facing the wrong way…we let them off… 😉

Both of the Drago-Copters did bombing runs for the first time, and then flamed my Dark Riders on both flanks…

My CoK were blasted by an Organ Gun but continued on regardless, as were the Silver Talons.

The massed Orc ranks plodded on. At least we had no Animosity nonsense this time.

Unfortunately, the Orc Wolf Riders got a side swipe from the Dwarf Hammerers and their General, which along with the Dragocopter rolled up that flank pretty much.

k, not looking good, 6 CoK + Sorceress, vs ~20 Hammerers + General. Gav’s Orc HLord on Wyvern had been severely by Jim’s cannon shots as well.

BlackJack in his move, spotted the unattended green bag of Anthony’s and set up residence.

More to follow…after I’ve done the council budget !@!

Filed under Warhammer

Eins, Zwei, DIY

15/11/2014

No updates for a couple of days because all my projects are 90% done but haven’t had time to do the last dry brush effort or add the transfer. And that’s when the natural daylight is good enough to do anything and the garden fence isn’t about to take a trip into my neighbours’ gardens.

Then there were the Council issues…

And then Byakhees went out to see comedians and for the second time (for me) Henning Wehn. Plenty of fun on motorways ensued, but we did at least get to see 2/3rds of the show. Still not one for the faint hearted.

I did however even manage to get some figures from Richard he’d pinned.

A bit (!) blurry, but my plan is to mount these older metal miniatures on the new plastic Cold Ones to make a distinctive second unit of CoK.

Now me being me, those aren’t all the CoK that he’d pinned for me, and I should have some more piccies tomorrow for our latest WHFB game where I will deploy some miniatures not shown yet. 😉

Oh ok, I’m completely wired and wide awake after a 1.5 hour drive to Cheltenham and back and am winding down ! 😛

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Film: Desolation of Smaug (Extended)

11/11/2014

I got the extended version on pre-order middle of last week and watched it twice (hence lack of posts last week), it has an additional 25 minutes of footage for the film, and again this is scattered throughout the film itself and there a fair number of discrete new scenes.

Beorn gets more of a look in, with the scene from the book of Gandalf introducing the Dwarves in pairs which is a light moment. Mirkwood also gets more air time including the river.

Thrain_

Thrain turns up in scenes at Dol Guldur. Again, not part of the original Hobbit book itself, but alluded to, and then fleshed out in more of Tolkein’s voluminous writings.

There are extra bits in Lake Town which are good in further establishing the Master of Lake Town as a venal preening fool, but thankfully not more stuff at the Lonely Mountain itself.

So as a film, it is better and actually more in keeping with the back history of Middle-Earth and the general plot Tolkein had, then the original cinematic release. Again it remains a film very much of its own and not a blow for blow recreation of the book as I have commented previously.

Bottom line, its worth seeing, and is good entertainment.

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Mordheim: Breakthrough

10/11/2014

Our second game of Mordheim was the Breakthrough scenario (number 4 on page 129 of the good book):

If the attacker manages to move two or more standing warriors to within 2″ of the defender’s table edge, they have broken through and he wins the game.

We diced off, and Jim was the attacker, myself the defender. Hmm, given that Jim had 13 warriors and three had the ratehr useful “Sprint” skill, and I only had 10 warriors and only one sprinter it wasn’t looking good…

I took the high ground, so I could reduce the board to a the smallest number of choke points possible. So the walkways you can see in the photo got kicked away by the henchmen in the first turn.

Though he’d left three pirates attempting to climb up the high ground by moving ladders around, Jim’s main thrust for the game was to mob me on the ground level.

Unfortunately for him, I’d left all my heroes, lying in waiting along that route.

Jim charged 6 of his warriors in, in two waves against my two defenders on my right flank, but then I countercharged two more heroes in against the second wave.

As I had equipped most of my heroes with Lucky Charms, I held the first wave of attacks, and then set about reducing the number of bilge rats fighting against me.

Not quite a scene from Minas Tirith, but the pirates managed to move a ladder in and climb up to attack my henchmen on the higher level. A combination of luck and good weapons defeated them, and two of the three barnacle bottom’d raiders were put out of action.

Meanwhile, my youngblood and henchmen/meat shield attacked his captain, with mixed results…

Meanwhile the main fracas was over, the beleagured two pirates seen here were quickly dispatched. This left Jim with about 7 models off the table and he failed his bottle test.

Jim was gracious in his defeat and commented:

In the 2nd Game, I was just soundly trashed. I blame my incompetence (I forgot a few stat advances that I had) plus Giles’ skill in the end I think I had 6 or 7 off the board. Ouch !

This imbalance was quite noticeable as I only had 2 off the table. How I pulled that one off against an experienced foe such as Jim I don’t know. The dice weren’t rolling in either one of our favour.

Still we had FUN, which is the key thing. ! 🙂

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Mordheim: More scuffles in the ruins

10/11/2014

Byakhee Jim agitated for a games session at short notice, and only Scott & I were available, and as Scott had some dodgy plumbing to sort out, couldn’t do more thsan a few hours, so we chose to do Mordheim.

So dusting off (literally) the scenery again, I set the board up.

I was again playing Marienburgers: Claes Von Geld Wealth Redistribution. Jim was using his Pirates masquerading as Marienburgers, and Scott opted for Middenheimers after I failed to find my Skaven.

Mordheim isn’t a very photogenic game, because the scenery is simply lots of dark burnt out ruins. Luckily, the figures as they are all individual, and in Jim & my case painted in gaudyn colours do help to stand out quite nicely. Sadly, as Scott was borrowing my (unpainted) figures he didn’t get that benefit.

So the first game was a treasure hunt between the three warbands – the loot was in a building found on a roll of 12 on 2d6 when a new building was entered.

Jim took the high ground and sent in his pirates against a henchmen of mine, who was supported by a champion.

The Pirates and Middenheimers fan out across the field of battle looking for the loot – as it happens, it was eventually found in the building bottom right. By the pirates. I did speculate as to whether the Middenheimers with 4 war dogs had any skills in terms of sniffer dogs…

And a scene reminiscent of Kitten Kong !

The three warbands were now stuck in, mostly Jim’s Pirates were squeezed by both of the other warbands.

The Pirates and Middenheimers had a pitched fight.

Whilst the pirates sent in against my lot came off worse, as I poured in more fighters.

And though I lost a youngblood, my captain put the boot in to another pirate.

The Middenheimers came off worst in their scuffle with the pirate, and having already lost their Priest, bottled it….so Scott left on time leaving Jim in dire straights.

Before Scott was barely off my drive, Jim failed his bottle test and ran for it leaving me with the treasure chest…11Gc and a Jeweled Sword…wow !

We then had another game…

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Go Figure

09/11/2014

wages

Filed under Uncategorized

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