Arcane Ruins (Sprues)

Just a quickie, and without wishing to showcase a GW product, well except that its good value for money…

The entire set is quite large, as can be seen by the depth of the box (28mm frost grave figure for scale).

You get three of these spurs to make the trilathons. (Hah, beat spell checker)

These have the ruined upright columns on, plus the decorations of various skulls, skulls with horns, and demonic faces.

One set is not enough to turn these decorations into useful gaming markers, but two sets might just be enough – skull makers for those wavering units for example.

Next ups should be some actual figures I’ve painted.
(Quelle Horreur)

Building a Stairway to Heaven

Another item in pieces that the move unearthed and has propelled me to complete. The third arcane fulcrum for the WHFB supplement Storm of Magic, the Eternity Stair.

Now OOP, and for good reason, its a lovely piece of scenery but does require a lot of work to build.

The two parts of the understaffs fit together fine, but the stairs on top did not – not by a long way as can be seen.

This was resolved with a bucket of near boiling water, and some muscle power to bend the plastic stair piece into shape.

Once bent into shape, the stairway was glued down with my usual mix of generic and super glue, and then held in place for 48 hours with rubber bands wound tightly round the edifice.

Once set, the entire piece had to be green-stuffed to fill ion the remaining gaps, which took about 30 minutes !

the piece was then undefeated black, and painted using my usual colours.

I had thought about the understaffs figures being slate grey, but decided to make it more “magical” I’d paint it a ghostly blue, which IMHO has turned out well. Took 5 layers of successive dry brushing but never mind.

This has also set a template for some of my ethereal undead I have planned.

Like the spiral staircase, the stairway has room for a few figures mid flight on it.

Now all I need is some treasure to put at the top…

State of Denial – Fault Lines

Reasons why scientists had to take to the streets to defend their work, and the rational foundation of our society from ideologues.

The climate change deniers are simply using the same tried and trusted methods of the creationists and tobacco lobbies.

Don’t fall for it.

Arcane Ruins

All that Agrax Earthshade is going somewhere, and its mostly scenery. One of the items I brought with me was a pile of assembled and undercoated Arcane Ruins by GW.

The kit is actually quite versatile and you get ruined versions of the uprights.

There’s three telethons, a single pylons and the base.

I painted them all in Foundry Slate Grey, with various brasses by GW for the details.

I’ve got another set on order so I’ll photo that at the w/e, with all the pieces.

I’ve kept the pieces separate to allow access to the inside.

One was unimpressed, viewing it from one’s latest throne !

Never enough

To stave off insanity, I’ve been busy with the paint, and rummaging through the several boxes of paint pots I have.

Of course, the one pot of paint (wash) I wanted is nearly empty and I’m busy painting scenery, scenery pieces and lots of brown stuff.

So I popped into GW, and stocked up !
I have a big order of scenery coming in so I’m not going to mess around.

B&Q were also visited for more paint in tester pots.

Treasures of the tower of Babble

Some scenery for Frostgrave Mordheim and WHFB.

One of the Storm of Magic scenery pieces for WHFB, that has been lying in pieces for too long.

Ideal for Mordheim and Frostgrave. Quite complex to put together (the central column was four pieces for instance).

The move unearthed a statue from the LOTR Ruins of Osgiiath set, I did them up for AVBCW but this one escaped so has been done for fantasy gaming.

From a Foundry Greek pack of stuff a pile of loot, I imagined this would be a pick and mix treasure option, where figures could take one item and then randomly roll for it later.

Two of the Frostgrave – Forgotten Pacts treasure items – a demon’s skull and a horn with gold.

Lots of more of these treasure items to come as I am hoping to clear these out pronto !

FG: Battle on the River

The second scenario of the Thaw of the Liche Lord campaign.

JP had done up some whavrves, and some sunken ships.

The scenario involved the war bands battling over the frozen river and the half sunken boats therein…and one of the Liche Lord’s minions…

Starting as I meant to continue, I lost initiative and one of my Ranger went down to a well placed arrow from Thaddeus’ marksman.

whilst Thaddeus collected treasure, he also drew the attention of a wraith. Now Thaddeus crew are short on the old magic weapon front…

So a wall was hastily summoned to protect the raiders.

At the other end, despite Holbron’s Push spells, Thaddeus’ minions reached the sunken ship and the treasure.

In the previous game, Holbron had found some Boots of Leaping, and so cunningly used these to avoid the slippery ice, and the Treasure Hunter gifted with them, leapt into the boat, and got his head cracked open for his trouble.

using Fleet feet, I’d managed to get an Archer to one of the few treasures in this scenario, only to find Blue Petter menacingly close.

the Wraith pounced on the armoured ponce…but Peter now has a magic weapon, and the wraith was dealt with.

As was my Archer…

Having taken some pot shots at Thaddeus and kept his lackeys at bay, my warband inched forward in the face os the odds.

The Liche Lord’s minion emerged from the ship, and promptly got attacked by a swarm of Thaddeus’ warband.

..as did Holbron by Fluffy VI, luckily a combination of Knight and Wizard put the mangy hound down.

At this point, with no treasures, out numbered and a bit of clock watching by me the player, I concluded a strategic and hasty retreat was needed.

So after the success of the previous game, to an ignominious flight in this one.

Here’s JP’s take on events.

Both JP and I concluded, more cover was needed, but this would have only delayed my defeat so I’m not hiding it as an excuse.

FG: Total Eclipse (Part Two)

Jp was now starting to get his warband beaten a bit, and it didn’t help with darkness descending that his Marksman carefully positioned high up at the back was now out of range, so he moved his forces forward to grab the last treasure chests.

His Blue Peter knight had dealt with the Rangifier and was slowly clanking back towards the action.

Having despatched his war hound, I started eying up seizing some more treasure – both of us had three items each.

Thaddeus put a stop to my schemes with a Wall spell.

Mirror mirror on the wall whose the ugliest of them all ?

Thaddeus summoned another demon, represented by a Moonbeast, I’ll let you guess which has the ugliest mug. 😉

Meanwhile, Thaddeus tried a flanking move, with his Apprentice and a couple of archers and an infantryman.

One of my thugs went down and my Captain went into combat.

I charged The Black Knight into combat to support the Captain, only for the Knight to succumb to a mind control spell and promptly set upon the Captain. Luckily for me, JP’s dice rolls did not result in any damage, and the Captain then put the Infasntryman out of action.

Gideon my Apprentice, cast a Dispel spell, requiring an 18, and got a 19 on the dice, so this released my Knight back to my control. Just as well as Blue Peter turned up, with yet another demon in tow. (The Moon Beast had been shot dead by archers)

Luckily this combat ended in me winning, and escaping with the loot.

Though both of us had escaped with the same amount of loot, I was declared the winner due to the huge pile of casualties on JP’s side, ISTR nearly half his warband was out of action by the end.

A very good game that swung back and forth, probably more than my write up indicates.

Here is JP’s take on events.

The use of Will based spells has also started increasing, and I got lucky with the dice rolls on this, but it’ll be something Holbron will watch out for in the future.

FG: Total Eclipse (Part One)

JP wanted us to start the “Thaw of the Liche Lord” campaign, so as what I thought would be one of my parting shots games wise, he hosted me at his place for the first scenario.

Holbron’s warband set up.

Versus the abomination Thaddeus (who is EVIL, and must be destroyed) and his servile minions.

I picked up the first treasure, and triggered a skeleton to wander on to the table…right behind me…

And then I picked up a second treasure, to trigger a Ghoul turning up, again behind me. Brilliant start to the game !

And of course, the Skeleton and Ghoul went into combat in the Creature phase, against Holbron, an archer and Gideon the Apprentice.

Luckily, Hobron has a Magic sword, so despatched the Ghoul, and then the Skeleton was similarly dealt with by the archer and Gideon.

As the darkness descended, Thaddeus’ capture of some treasure triggered the third wandering monster – this time a Rangifier behind his warband.

Moving into the centre of the table to grab some loot, the war bands finally met each other in combat. My knight dealt with a Zombie that Thaddeus had wrenched back into an unholy semblance of life, only for Thaddeus (who is VERY EVIL, and must be destroyed) to conjure forth a demon.

Thaddeus’ minions having been thwarted from getting the treasure chest as my thug scuttled away, turned their attention to my knight, and surrounded him with the Captain (Lady in Red) and Barbarian to back up the demon.

The Captain went down first.

The wounded Demon then bit the dust/snow.

And for a hat trick, the Barbarian perished at the tip of my Knight’s sword.

Three down, more to go. Both JP and I were very surprised at this turn of events !

As my knight model had only been undercoated black with a bit of silver…we started calling him….THE BLACK KNIGHT.
Originality is not our forte.

By now the heavens were darkening as strange things happened in the city.

To be cont’d…

WHFB: The Last Hurrah ! (Part Two)

So the Savage Orcs that had broken through on my flank, did the decent thing and piled in to the Silver Talon spears.

Or rather, some of them piled into combat, as more florid friends the pink flamers zapped them beforehand.

Both sides got stuck, as I slowly ground down the Savage Orcs for the next two turns.

Meanwhile…

Nav gave Richard pause for thought as the Goblin Wolf Riders piled in to the blue Screamers.

The screamers defeated them in combat but failed to catch them on the follow up.

The winds of magic were with us, and as a result, another unit of Pink Horrors turned up.

So Richard slapped them down behind the enemy lines in preparation for making greenskin sandwiches.

A bit like this. The goblins had failed their charge due to animosity, so the Pink Horrors and flamers were sent in from all sides after the wolf riders had been finished off.

Back on my flank, a combination of magic, flamers and RXBs whittled down the main Orc Fyrd unit. The large goblin archer unit meanwhile lost casualties moving through the bog and did precious little damage on the shooting phase.

Despite the best efforts of my dice rolling (Fav’s are the small white dice [size isn’t everything], mine are the large purple dice).

the huge goblin horde was being whittled down, and more gradually and in a non dramatic way so were Eeza Ugezod’s Black orcs who were pummelled almost into oblivion with magic, flamers and RBTs for three rounds.

The charging goblin archers released some fanatics, fortunately with little damage to the flamers or RXBs.

But this was followed by the crunch moment when both the remaining Orc Fyrd and goblin archers closed in for combat with the DE RXBs, the flamers and RBT crew.

At the same time, Nav charged Harboth’s Black Mountain boys into the main melee, along with EEza Ugezod’s remnants.

the not very impetuous spider riders launched an attack. It reminded me of Austin Powers:

Henchman Sailor: [approaches warily]
Nigel Powers: Do you know who I am?
Henchman Sailor: [nods]
Nigel Powers: Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I’ve killed over the years?
Henchman Sailor: [nods again]
Nigel Powers: I mean, look at you. You don’t even have a name tag. You’ve got no chance. Why don’t you just fall down?
[henchman falls down]

As this was pretty much the end of the battle, the Lord of Change waded into combat (apparently it was a magic user combo).

To everyone’s surprise, including mine, the combination of flamers, RBT crew and RXBs defeated the Orcs and goblins, and ran them down, crushing Fav’s flank entirely.

ironically, this left my Black Guard twiddling their thumbs all battle,, the Silver Talons had by now defeated the last Sacvage Orc and were similarly left hanging with nothing to do.

To finish off the job, the Lord of Change defeated and charged down Eeza Ugezod’s Black Orcs, just as the goblins were wiped out and the flamers moved in to crush Harboth’s lot.

Victory went to the very strained alliance of dark Elves and Tzeentch.

Most importantly, a good time was had by all, with many terrible dice throws, surprising combat results and so on.

Now all I have to do is buy a new house, and retrieve from storage all my figures for a re-match, which will probably be Xmas time. 🙂