Watching the deniers, and the twitchers bathe in the Lake of Hali
25/07/2015
Reposted from Potholer54:
A good explanation of why not to take the word of the talking heads on the goggle box, but instead invest your time in looking at the real science that points towards AGW theory.
22/07/2015
One of the other little projects I have on the go is helping replace the local shop and Post Office. Today saw a key milestone in that project which helps explain why I’ve been a bit busy of late.
We raised over £50k from local people (no grants), to purchase a new portacabin to be the home of the new P.O. and shop. It was delivered a day early, today.
We installed it on the village hall car park – we’ve had to knock down a wall, and will be lowering the kerb for access.
It arrived on the loader the wrong way round, with the windows facing towards the neighbouring house, not onto the car park, and we (the management committee) were a bit baffled as to how they were going to turn it 180 degrees – only two men.
They knew what they were doing.
Hovering, like any Dalek would like to, the portacabin was lowered down – all 40 foot long and 12 foot wide.
The “legs” were then added on to support slabs and the entire thing levelled out. A minor problem when we couldn’t get the door open because of the flexing of the thing was solved easily enough.
Empty low loader and crane being winched back in.
Great big empty portacabin, ready to take the shelves and racks we have acquired !
Cheeky Monkey looks in.
The low loader’s driver nonchalantly reverses out on to the main road – like any car would try and argue with that !
Only a month before we are open for business.
Sorry for the non wargaming digression, but those BYakhees who come play at the Big Games will now be able to pop outside of the hall and get their food and drink much easier. Due to some clever planning by our architect, we have only lost 2 parking space in the hall car park as well.
Now back to small projects. 😉
19/07/2015
Byakhee Stu has come up with some more goodies…
Just to keep up with the hobby-fu going on back here I’ve attached some more photos for you which you may or may not want to use.
Duh ! Given my output, everyone else is putting me to shame so here they are:
There is a regiment of skeleton warriors using Mantic models for a change. That’s right I got Frantic with Mantic. Some of their stuff is okay IMHO and to combat the cost demands of WFB I was changing over to alternative manufacturers for rank and file and just using GW for character or specialist models. The unit pictured is from the End Times and is one of Neferata’s units rather unimaginatively called the ‘Un-named Legion’ – hence the plain shields and lack of any heraldry, they are like that in the book so I’m not being lazy :).
What I would say in Mantic’s favour is that they seem to be more robust. I say this because whilst taking these photos the rear rank fell off the movement tray onto our concrete path but none of them were damaged. If they had been GW skellies they would have been in peices.
The other two images are the plastic Wight King – which I’ve always loved and Krell. If anyone has read the End Times they will know that Nagash summonded Krell to babysit Neferata and give her some martial support. Neferata is a schemer but her wily seductive ways aren’t much use on a battlefield. Also Nagash did not trust Neferata one bit and with good reason, Neferata only ever looks after Neferata.
Next up will be some Mantic ‘Revenants’ which to my mind act as Grave Guard and be Krell’s Legion of Doom (I am sure they were a WWE tag team..)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
18/07/2015
Here’s a battle report or two from Byakhee Stuart for Age of Sigmar:
t might be worth mentioning that we’re only occassional gamers – which is partly why AOS has ticked a few more boxes with us than with regular WFB gamers. That’s my get out clause anyway 🙂
So here we go:
It was good actually but we got a bit confused and got the combat sequence all very wrong. I have since played an enjoyable demo game in the local GW store.
First observation, it’s very, very different.
Second observation, it’s very, very simple compared to WFB.
Third observation, it was fun.
This chimes with other AAR I have read on the ‘net.
Okay the game with my Son (15 and has been playing dwarves since he was 11), was fun. The freedom to pick what you wanted to put on the table was nice and for the first time ever he wheeled out the anniversary White Dwarf – the one with Grombrindal being held alot by Josef Bugman and Gotrek. Previously that would never have happened due to points restrictons. I put out a fairly tepid Undead Legion with 20 warriors with spears, 10 achers, 10 zombies, a Tomb King, a ‘Death Wizard’, some Morghast Archai and some Verghast big bat flappy scary things and Grumpy Moira, a banshee. Cam fielded some 10 Irondrakes, 20 warriors, 20 Longbeards , Anvil of Doom and a Volley Gun. I was somewhat outmatched BUT crucially I could ‘raise’ new units per magic phase – which I did several times.
The hero phase, movement, shooting and magic is simple. Close combat is where it went wrong.
You might know that you have to roll a D6 at the start of each turn to see who goes first. That’s new and more like LOTR. That was fresh and made the game unpredicatable. It’s hard to think two and three steps ahead when you know you might not get a chance to take the initiative. Well, on the basis of that we assumed naively that when it came to combat the player who’s turn it was got to hit first with all his units. That’s wrong.
I have since found out that this is incorrect. Crucially you have to choose which unit you want to ‘activate’ first and then your opponent gets to choose which unit to activate and fight in combat – not necessarily the one that’s just been beaten up. yes. That’s where you stop and think ‘who do I want to blat first, who is the greatest threat or who do I stand the best chance of wiping out next’
To explain. For example Cam charges his grombrinal unit with his Longbeards into my Morghast Archai. The stunties dish out the wounds and one of my Archai dies in a puff of ash. Now it’s my turn to activate a unit and kick some stunty butt. I could choose the one remaining Archai to seek revenge but I know he’s not going to take a battering again this turn. So I look to the other side of the table and charge my Tomb King and his unit of spearmen into a unit of Dwarf warriors to hopefully do enough damage to make them run away or severly deplete their numbers. I hit them and dish out a few wounds. Once I’ve finished blatting him there, Cam activates another unit and gets his Irondrakes to give my Verghast batty things a punch in the chops. And so on until everyone in combat has fought.
Then it’s a battleshock test or each unit that has taken casualties – bit like the old leadership test but both sides do it as there’s combat res as such. Crucially instead of the whole unit running away and being overrun some times – only a few models quit the field whilst the rest stay in combat. I think , for each unit, it is the number of casualties +D6 – minus the Bravery stat. So if I lost eight TK warriors in combat that turn and rolled a 4, that would be a total of 12 (I do maths me). From that 12 I take the bravey stat, which for a TK warrior is 10. That leaves 2. Therefore 2 TK warriors ‘run away/flee or my case clatter to the ground in a pile of bones. that means in total I’ve lost 10 TK warriors that turn ( 8 ‘dead’ and 2 ‘run away’). Your generals of course countermand and your rank and file can use his Bravery if within 12 inches. I think…
That’s how it should have been. What happened in game was me twiddling my thumbs waiting for a chance to do something in combat and when I did attack with my zombies I found they were crap – hitting on a 6 and wounding on a 6. Not happening.
This is an interesting set of comments and some nuances I had not really picked up from simply reading the rules.
It’s worth trying. WFB as we know is not going any further, so stick with 8th ed for the big games. But if you want a bit of fun AOS is the way forward. We were done in an hour and a half.
So a qualified thumbs up from an occasional games player. As i’ve stated before, I’ll give the game a go but am skeptical it will be the sort of game that I could enjoy during in depth prolonged battles – but we shall see.
15/07/2015
At last, I’ve finished painting a figure ! And not just any figure. From Mutton Chop’s range of figures the Weaselly Wretch with standard. 
I was really stuck for what flag the brigands should have and was stuck, so I asked around at the VBCF forum. 
Panzer Kaput (Pete Barfield) obliged and knocked me up this flag – a weasel foot print one side and a W on the other. 
I think it stands out quite well, and I have deliberately highlighted the elbows and knees of the bearer so they look like a very well worn suit. More brigands are nearing completion. Also… 
I built and then greenstuffed a load of cavalry. Hopefully I’ll be picking up the amended standard bearer arms on Sunday from Byakhee Rich. I hope to make a generic unit of 10 Cavalry, and a couple of command units for different local LDVs, one of which will be the MHC, andf the other to be announced. 😉
13/07/2015
The scenery I collected w/e before last was of course from the “DS1 – Dwarf Cannon” boxed set Citadel produced back in 1983.
This was a boxed set of one cannon and Dwarf crew, looking a bit like this:
(Image from The Stuff of Legends)
The set came with the standard (for then) plastic vacc form tray that held the pieces, and more importantly this tray had a scenery piece that formed part of the kit. Byakhee Richard managed to get hold of one of these base sections and traded it with me for some stuff. As the plastic (now over 30 years old and never robust to start with) we then decided that we’d get one of his work colleagues to make a copy of it so that I could then have a robust gaming piece. I have several of the dwarf crew and cannon that continued in production long after the box set was retired.
So after a lot of filler and putty later, one failed casting attempt, a new master was made.
The cannon (or bombard) fits snuggly in to grooves on the scenery base – Groovy !
Breaking my creative blockage I set toi work and finally finished off painting the piece this week.
Given the age of the original and the shallow detail it hasn’t come out badly.
Of course having done one up, I now have plans for more variants.
Here’s my version of the crew and cannon painted up about 20 years ago !
Here’s the still available Human version of the cannon and crew, from Foundry who adopted the old Citadel Medieval/WOTRs lines.
I’ve ordered a set of these so I can have a nostalgia trip.
Now to paint up properly a dwarf creew for this piece ! I even have plans for them to be attached to another base with magnets so I can remove the bases entirely.
05/07/2015
Well there hasn’t been a lot going on here in the last month – the muse had left me.
Today I went to Shadespyre towers, and collected some resin scenery he’d had cast up for me, and then there is the prospect of a new CD arriving any day providing the French decide the chunnel can be re-opened.
Here’s the scenery piece:
More to follow.
Suffice to say the combination of some new decent music and an exciting piece to retro scenery has reinvigorated my will to live and be creative.
I’ve started painting again !
Guess what the scenery piece is !?!
04/07/2015
Well it looks like most of the rumours on the new version of “Warhammer” are true.
The core rules are FREE. Yes, the Evil Empire (GW), has dished out the core rules for free.
Here they are:
http://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Rulesheets/warhammer-aos-rules-en.pdf
All FOUR pages of them.
All units are described by “Warscrolls” which prescribe the unit’s abilities, these replace the army rule books, and again are FREE:
http://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/age-of-sigmar-compendiums
The GW website has been changed so that Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, replaces Warhammer. Therefore I think this is the new version of the game, it is not a stand alone game, nor an introductory game.
The Rules
No Points Values.
No limits on what you plonk on the table.
This is not a skirmish war-game, it mentions up to 100 models per side for games.
New scenery rules.
No base size rules.
No base to base rules.
Three basic scenarios or set up options listed.
Victory and triumph rules introduced.
New set of turn phases:
Rolls to hit and to wound based on the unit fighting, and makes no reference to the defenders stats (more later).
Spells, cast on 2d6, opposed on a 2d6 by a wizard within 18″.
The rules are exceptionally streamlined and simplified. No mention of arcs of fire/facing. No mention of wheeling units during movement. It all seems to be a direct straight line 360 degree from any point of the unit, from any model (any point on the model – not the base).
Shooting has no modifiers, nor does combat to hit rolls. Cover provides a +1 on your save against shooting.
Psychology seems to have been jettisoned almost entirely (though I have spotted fear being mentioned but no rules for it).
Stat lines
Forget WS, BS, S, T etc…all this is gone. To hit is based on a single simple roll which is dictated by your Warscroll stat line.
The new stat line is:
Even if the title of the stat is the same, forget comparisons, for example, Malekith on a dragon (Seraphon) has 14 wounds….yes 14 wounds !!!
The stat lines show that a model hits on a 3+ roll…that’s it….it does not matter who you are fighting against unless a special rule is invoked.
Warscrolls
Warscrolls are the replacement for the army rulebook units.
As far as I can see, and in the absence of PV, what you see is what you get. You are simply presented with a straight description. There are no weapons/armour/equipment/mount options. There seems to be no limit on what mix of units you deploy. This may however impact on Victory conditions.
Units are very simple, and named characters have unique items. This means there is no min/max options available.
Minor changes seem available depending on war host chosen.
They’ve really played around with what can be done – for example, the Dark Elf Reaper Bolt Thrower now can fire up to 12 shots !!!
There are also very silly rules – if for example if I deploy a medusa, and my opponent looks me in the eye I get a +1 to wound !
“The Mad Count: Marius Leitdorf is an exceptional swordsman, even if he is totally insane. If, during your hero phase, you pretend to ride an imaginary horse, you can re-roll failed hit rolls for the Averland Runefang until your next hero phase. If you actually talk to your imaginary horse you can re-roll failed wound rolls as well.”
“Braying Warcry: Red-hot rage festers in the savage minds of Wargors, their only desire to rend and destroy. You can add 1 to all hit rolls made for a Wargor if, before rolling the dice, you let loose a primal warcry. Your warcry must use no actual words, but angry grunts and raging snorts are encouraged.”
Fluff/Background
Still not on line, but the implication is that indeed the Old World is gone, and we have “Bubblehammer”. The “mortal realms” are mentioned and seem to be allied to the winds of magic, with a ninth one added – that of Sigmar. The Sigmarites are also introduced and are basically fantasy Space Marines.
The factions are also allied to two options – Chaos or Order. Dark Elves for example are allied to Order.
It will be interesting to see what the full rule book (96pages) have to say, and whether there is a bigger rule book on the way.
The Lost City of Carcosa 