Warhamner: Warclouds Tournament Report - The Plan

Hey Folks, 

It was a busy weekend on the social Calender and after six "dinner  engagements" Lady Elizabeth Bennett relaxes in her coffin, well pleased with how the proceedings went. 

Surely not all were a resounding success (Lord Darcy's manners have been known to be lacking on occasion, and he is short of temper alas) but she is well fed and enjoyed her "conversationals" held with a range of prey. 

Elizabeth (on the right) showing her displeasure that anothe lady wore the same dress to the dance

A great weekend was had at a Warclouds with the Vampire Counts double team my little bro Nathan and I took doing pretty well - this will be a long post and I will break it into three parts, 

The Plan

The Plan goes Wobbly (Day 1)

Stick to the Plan! (Day 2) :)

The Plan; VC Double Team "Pride and Predation" :) 

 

Nathan and I decided to take double VCs, mainly as this is what we had but also for all the synergies we could take advantage of with the magic lore, like raising each other troops and healing out Heros/ Griblies with the lore attribute. We also went for less combos, a reasonable number of troops and enough magic to get us through. All up we only had four magic items...in 2400pts total. 

Nathan took a Necrach (IE Magic Heavy) list;

Lazareth - Master Necromancer, lvl 3, 4+ Ward and Dispel Scroll, Master of the Dead (Raise skellies abive starting sizes)

The Vampire with no Name - Vampire, lvl 1, Beguile (entrances enemies) Extra hand Weapon, Heavy Armour

Elvis - Wight King, Heavy Armour, Shield, Barded Skeleton Stead 

39 Sword and Board Skeletons - Horde with Vampire

19 Spear Skellies - Necro Bunker

9 Black Knights - fully armoured up and with Elvis

2 Bat Swarms 

While I took the list I have been play testing. 

Lord Darcy - Strigoi Ghoul King, Dreadknight (+2 Weapon Skill taking it to 8!, but has to challenge) 

Lady Elizabeth - Vampire, Dreadknight, Lvl 2, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield 

39 Spear Skellies - Elizabeth's Guard

27 Ghouls - Darcy's Manservants 

2 single Spirit Hosts

Black Coach

Plan was to soak damage on the two skellie hordes and coach and use the Ghouls and Black Knights as the hammers, plus the coach if it lives. Spirit Hosts tarpit while the bats support the knights by giving always strikes last to the enemy, so the knights strike first. Vampires give combat support to the hordes and a bit of magic, Master Necro buffs/ raises the hordes and slings the odd offensive spell. As long as our magic phase didn't let us down we should win wars of attrition...

Overall this worked. Mostly. Except for when things started to go to hell in the hand basket...

Coming soon - Part 2 - Warclouds first Day

Cheers for reading the wall of text :)

Cheers

Jason 

Warhamer: Vampire Counts Warclouds Army Done

Hey Folks,

Got this done at the last minute as usual! 

Will post a tourney report with photos and the list later, but for now here is the 1200pt army complete :)

Lord Darcy and Lady Elizabeth's Retinue

Shades of those who displeased their hosts with bad manners at the dinner table 

Lord Darcy and his Servants

The Bennett Family Conveyance. Yes, it can fly... :)

Cheers

Jason

Warhammer: Vampire Counts Vampire and Skeleton Unit Complete

Hey Folks, 

Finally finished the first unit for my Vampire Counts

Figures are Mantic. I've gone with a classic Red and Black with Skull Motif to evoke that old school Undead feel. All the skulls are hand painted. 

Theme wise the Vampires are of the Von Carstien Bloodline (however the males have all suffered "accidents" or gone mad and devolved) so the rich dark red works. 

I have also attempted a verdigris wash for the armour, which dosnt show well but I'm happy with it :)

Speaking of Vampires, fresh from her resurrection after a nasty near staking by a Brettonian Lance! 

I love this model. It's full of intricate detail and it was very fun to paint. My iPhone wouldn't auto-macro close enough but the skin has a grey base with a slight flesh tone, suggesting she has just fed. 

Overall pretty happy and this is a third of the army done points wise. 

Cheers

Jason

Battle Report: WHFB Vampire Counts vs Brettonians

Hey Folks,

Popped over to my mate Issacs place last night and he hosted a game between my Vampire Counts and another mate, Gareth's, Knights of Bretonnia in a 1200pt game of Fantasy

The Bretonnians are a heavily Fuedal French inspired army with lots (and lots) of knights. In fact Gareth had; 

Mounted Paladin (Hero) General

Mounted Paladin Battlestandard

Foot Paladin

12 Knights of the Realm

12 MORE Knights of the Realm 

20 odd Peasents with Halberds 

So three units - all lead by Heros...and mostly heavy lance armed knights who, while still only human are significantly better than my hordes of the Undead

I took, 

Lord Fitzwilliam Darcy, Strigoi Ghoul King 

Elizabeth Bennett, Vampire

39 Skeletons with Spears

23 Crypt Ghouls

20 Zombies

Terrorghiest (a gigantic flying undead bat that can scream so loud you die...) using my Uber Varghulf model (it's about the same size!)

Deployment was Simple

From the undead lines - Terrorghulf on the left flank, then Zombie fodder, Ghouls with Lord Darcy and Elizabeth leading the Skeletons with a river anchoring the right Flank. Gareth deployed a Lance of Knights (special formation: 3 wide ranks with each model able to attack along the sides...which in this case is 9 knights fighting. it's awesome except it has very vulnerable flanks) on either flank with the Peasants holding the centre.

The Brettonians all knelt to Pray to the Lady of the Lake. This gives up the first turn but gives them a 6+ ward save for the Knights, which increases to 5+ if hit by strength 5+. Given I had no offensive magic (chose Invocation for both my casters) I have Gareth the first turn anyway. Predictably they surged forward and the shot above is Brettonian turn two  after they cantered forward and I moved forward slightly. Meanwhile the Terrorghulf had landed beside the left Knight Lance and screamed 3 to death...then they crashed into my lines.

Here we see Elizabeth fighting the Paldin General. She leapt lighting fast and struck him a severe blow but was unable to pull him down before she was pinned to the ground with a lance. Poor Elizabeth - she will be back... Meanwhile the Zombies exploded in an orgy of lances, horse hooves and a massive combat res difference. Funnily the Lance fighting my Skeletons failed their fear test, even with the re-roll for the BSB but they still managed to win the combat, causing more skeletons to crumble.

Gradually being worn down...

Meanwhile the Ghouls, led by Lord Darcy surge forward and Darcy rips the foot paladin to bits while the Ghouls mash the Peasants. This is after Darcy "combat miscast" and killed 7 ghouls, 7 peasants, wounded himself and the paladin! The peasants run and are ruthlessly pulled down. And then eaten. 

Here we see the Terrorghulf working through the other Knight Lance. He has  been screaming them to death - and here has just eaten the Paladin Battlestandard. The Terrorgulf was wounded but due to the awesome magic lore got the wounds back when Lord Darcy miscast. 

Skeletons almost all gone...

By now the Skeletons are dead, the remaing Lance turns around and faces off against my Ghouls and Lord Darcy...

The Paladin, fearing to face Lord Darcy sends a Knight Champion to face him. Darcy rips him in half. 

The Paladin now steels himself to face Darcy. Darcy avenges Elizabeth and slices him apart...while the ghouls pull down the last of the Knights

Thanks for the game Gareth, bloody, brutal and quite fun! I must admit I do like the Strigoi at this points level. He is a mincer even with no upgrades other than Dread Knight (giving him Weapon Skill 8, but he always has to challenge). Zombies were, well, crap so will swap then out for a couple of Bat Swarms I think 

Cheers 

Jason 

Warhammer: Vampire Counts WIP and test Models

Hey Folks, 

I have been more productive than usual and now have 1200points built, based, primed and ready to paint. 

Crappy photo I know, and they are all primed grey, but this is;

39 Skeletons with Spears and full Command led by a Vampire

29 Ghouls led by a Strigoi Ghoul King (lord level vampire mincing machine) 

3 Varghiests

The Uber Varghulf

Painted up a selection of test models, all using a technique with a grey tone mix in each colour stage to get a faded undertone going on. They are also dipped at the post basecoat stage, and then highlighted up. 

Orange is the unifying colour but I'm not sure on it. Basing is GF9's wasteland set with Army Painter tufts. Didn't take too long so should be easy to smash out :)

Cheers

Jason

Warhammer: Vampire Counts Varghulf WIP

Hey Folks, 

Now I'm back into blogging I thought I would post today's WIP - a $15 Varghulf for my Vampire Counts undead army. 

Varghulfs are, according to the army book Vampires who have let their bestial nature run unchecked ,supplanting their personality, and have devolved into deformed ravenous beasts, swollen on a constant diet of red meat. 

They are also dead hard on the table, being tough, cheapish monsters with Regeneration. 

Now the GW model is pants, and also (as usual) expensive. I was wandering through Toyworld today and spied this: 

A Scheligh fantasy range "human bat". $30 but half price today! Score. The girl at the counter was a bit put out by it and thought it was odd :) 

In comparison here is the GW model: 

Now it's more than twice the size of GW model, but rediculously large centrepieces is kind of "my thing" :)  It wouldn't do to just plonk him down as is (though it's tempting to make the grognards squeal) so I decided to convert him a bit and give him some hair, to match my Varghiests (baby Varghulfs with less of a kill count) 

He is on a Chariot base...which is twice the size of a stock Varghulf's 50mm square but oh well! In case your wondering how big he actually is here is a size comparison with a Mantic Skellie (28mm scale) and a "proper" Varghiest

So he is HUGE, and not a large target according to the rules lol. Yes he will be painted. 

Cheers

Jason

Back in Action! Panzers, Fallout and the Undead

Hey Folks, 

It's been awhile sorry! I'm still beavering away at a few projects and will post updates as I get there. 

Recently we had to move out due to EQC repairs and as work had been very busy (Christmas - retail - enough said!) It's been somewhat challenging! 

First up I have a new work station :) 

So I should be a bit more productive now

I currently have three projects on the hop. 

21st Panzer Division Panzer and Motorised Panzergren Kompanies for FOW

Currently awaiting the models this is an army for Craig's Day of Days in Feburary. It's a team event and I'm going with Andy  (Andys Armies is his blog) 

Good army to try out the Airbrush on :)

Fallout Tabletop Wargame

As Jaime alluded to I have been scheming to get a tabletop version of my favourite computer game going. I have a lot of models and terrain underway for this (and so does Andy, his terrain is looking awesome) so will get pics up when it's organised. Jamie's doing the game rules while I'm working on the campaign side. 

Undead Warhammer Army

I have always been a fan of the Undead. I'm taking a ghoul heavy army as part of an undead tag team with my little brother (he's not that little now!) to Warclouds at Woolston in February. Here is were I'm at so far; 

So lots to do! Going to spray and dip :)

Will try to be a bit more regular with the updates! 

Cheers

Jason