Recon Haul

I had a fun look round Recon, the early December Wargaming show in Pudsey. Previously it was run by the Wakefield and District Wargames Club. Now The Pit Gaming Shop runs it. I'm not sure what difference this makes, though I noticed that some of the regular traders were absent.

I went with a very clear list of wants; 6mm scenery for my Fantastic Battles dwarves to fight over, the latest Clash of Kings book, and a pack (or two) of Reaper Bones ghouls/ghasts for my D&D collection.

Well, best laid plans and all that. Still, I came away with some nice Oldhammer stuff, something for the 10mm Fantastic Battles in Middle Earth collection and my son got a great piece of roleplaying scenery.

The classic Citadel Skullchucker, it even includes the pile of skulls, an often lost component

Beast of Nurgle, sadly missing one leg

The Eagles are coming!  10mm 3D prints from Explode the minis

Lovely stagecoach for D&D, and also ideal as an objective for many skirmish games

It was also great to catch up with various gaming friends, and I admired some great looking games.  This Aliens game was probably the best looking, complete with dropship!

In all, a great show, and I had lots of fun.  I bought a realistic amount of stuff for painting, and got some nice out of production minis.

Final regrets?  A couple.  I could have got a classic dwarf organ gun, though it was missing a couple of parts.  It was more expensive than the Skullchucker, and I already have a war machine for Team Good in my Oldhammer project, albeit for elves.  There was also a pack of Black Tree Design orc boar riders, quite Oldhammer in style, but these are not hard to get hold of, and it was the Beast of Nurgle or them.

Chillcon 2022, and MDF Generators

I recently went to Chillcon in Sheffield. It's a great show, and it was good to see it back after several years absence.

I got Clash of Kings 2022 (Mantic's annual update and re-jig for King's of War, notable this year for the brand new army lists for Halflings and Riftforged, lightning themed orcs).  I'm certainly not looking for a new army at the moment (I've still got those Trident Realm minis to paint, for one thing) but it's always nice to see the game growing.

Otherwise I got little else apart from some MDF terrain from Blotz.  A pack of 28mm Generators and a 28mm Turbine/10mm Shield Generator.  I'm planning on using both sets for several games.  They will make great terrain/objectives in the 10mm Sci Fi games and also in Star Wars skirmishes.  They do rather resemble a certain Shield Generator on Hoth.  They may even look good on a Deadzone table or in a Firefight battle.

In the past I've been disappointed with some MDF terrain.  It can be a bit flat looking; blocky and lacking in depth and detail.  Well the generators certainly don't look flat.  They are simple to build (the instructions are on the website) and they've made the most of the materials to give a nice chunky piece that certainly doesn't look like sheet materials.

They've also been designed so that none of the little tabs left from where pieces attach to the frame are on surfaces that show.  They can easily be removed with a light sanding, but it's a nice touch all the same.

The finished generators 

147mm x 197mm of Generator goodness

I couldn't find my Gorilla Woodworking glue, but Strong Craft glue seems to have done the trick.  I used clips to hold the various sub-assemblies together while the glue dried, and I found that I could work on the fin section while the arch section was drying.  If I get another set I'll work on all four at once, indeed, I built the last two together, which saved a lot on drying time.

Painting wise I mostly copied the suggestion in the instructions, black undercoat, heavy drybrush of Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal, followed by highlights of VGC Chainmail Silver.  I picked out details with, and painted the various 'power' bits with Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue highlighted with Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue and finally VGC Glacier Blue.  I added a little drybrush of a mix of the Magic blue and Glacier Blue around the vents to look like a glow from the power coils, or whatever they are.

The examples on the website have gold or bronze to accent the fins and other raised details, I chose red for this, simply VGC Red Gore with a highlight of VGC Blood Red and just a touch of VGC Fiery Orange.

I'm sure that many other colour schemes would look good; Hoth style white for instance, and I may get another pack and experiment.

Next to a 28mm Star Wars mini...

...and with some 10mm Sci Fi minis.

I think they work well for both scales, and, although I didn't have any to hand, I'm confident that the 20mm Star Wars minis will look good too.

Building and painting these was a pleasure, I recommend these for very useful Sci Fi scatter terrain.  Excellent value, and all round nice pieces of scenery.

EDIT; you can see these terrain pieces with some 20mm minis here.

10mm LotR Wargs Speedpainted

For Friday's game I wanted some more Wargs. I had the minis unpainted, but my 500pt army only needed one company, so that's all I had finished. 

I also rather liked the grey/black colour scheme I used in the latest batch of Warg Riders, so I decided to go for something like that for future Wargs.

But I only had a few evenings to get them done. I wondered if Speedpaints might be the answer?

I used the Warg Chieftain as a test model, and the results were sufficiently encouraging that I finished all thirteen models.

The Wargs were given an undercoat of Gray Vallejo Surface Primer, then I used Army Painter Speedpaint Gravelord Grey on the belly, legs, flanks etc.

Once this had dried I used APS Grim Black on the back, upper flanks and top of the muzzle.  

This was close to what I want, but I went over with another coat of Grim Black, This time just along the spine and muzzle. 

This gave a bit too dark a result (the Speedpaints do sometimes intensify in shade as they dry) so I gave a very light drybrush of Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal over the back, ears and muzzle.

I finished off by dotting in red for the eyes and a touch of white for any teeth that show, but they looked a little 'flat' still.  My son suggested a touch of light grey on the tips of the ears, and that seems to finish them off nicely.

Basing etc. was as normal, but I didn't want to risk suing my normal coat of gloss painted on as I feared it would reactivate the Speedpaints.  A light spray of varnish sealed the paint, allowing me to finish off normally.  In fact, if you look closely at the account of the game, you'll see that I didn't quite finish the basing; this took a couple of short sessions over the following days. 

These may not be my best work, but they are plenty good enough for a quick paint job.  I realise that I have one company of mostly brown wargs, and three of dark grey/black.  Eventually I'll do another three companies of the brown, and one of the dark, but they'll do for now.  Perhaps Isengard uses slightly different colour wargs to Mordor?  Anyway, I think they fit in well with the rest of the army.  

I'm not sure how well Speedpaints would work on most of the other minis in this army: besides, I have my tried and tested method for the orcs and warg riders and I am pleased with the results.  I may just try the Speedpainting some Mordor Trolls though, I have a few more of those I could do with getting on the battlefield to deal with those pesky Def 5+ troops.

Assault on New Candia City

Our second game the other day was a quick 10mm Sci Fi game. I've had a couple of games previously, so I certainly had the advantage. It was Bodvoc's first experience of this game, so we had fairly small forces with a variety of different troop types (previously I have used two identical forces).

Minis-wise we were using mostly my collection of old WizKids Mechwarrior - Age of Darkness minis.  These were sold in the traditional random box and were a variant of Battletech.  I was given a lot of them many years ago - tried the game once, and put them away.  However, they are ideal for this new game, once rebased.

The scenery is very much improvised (Yoghurt Pot City?), but I intend to greeble them up a bit and get some paint on them.  There is one card building from Dropzone I believe, that I was given at a show, and I have some resin cast bits, including the transmission station, that I bought many many years ago.

The scenario was an invasion.  My forces had to drive out the defenders, preferably as quickly as possible.  Apart from holding the city, Bodvoc had a transmission station (the small building in the centre) which he had to keep out of my hands.  We also were trying to destroy each others' HQ.

The attacking force had the better tech; the vehicles were faster than the norm, the infantry was armoured and they had a combat mech.  The defenders had managed to militarise a couple of industrial walkers, but the infantry was unarmoured.  They did have a couple of tanks with 'tank buster' guns though (which I came to dread as they seemed remarkably accurate against my large De Schmidt* tank).

The start of the battle, the defenders are holding back, hoping to drive off the invaders

Defenders

Attackers

The defenders take cover in the city as their opponents advance

At the end there are too few defenders to hold the city.

We had to finish after four turns, but it was clear that the defenders had lost the city, so Bodvoc decided a tactical withdrawal was wise.  I'm sure my familiarity with the rules gave me the edge though, and it was very much a tutorial game.

We both had fun, and Bodvoc left with a good handful of the minis so hopefully we will be trying this again.

* I don't know any of the Battletech background, or what the significance of the names is, but they are convenient labels.  I must come up with some new names though.

Let Rohan Look to it's Horses. 10mm Lord of the Rings Fantastic Battles

I got a couple of games in with good gaming buddy Bodvoc today. The first was another one of our 10mm Lord of the Rings games. As host I came up with the scenario, and I thought of something involving orcs raiding Rohan for horses around the time the Fellowship were heading south (they didn't take part, but it was an excuse to try out some rules for the Witchking as we know he was in the area).

I spent a lot of time thinking of various scenarios involving a chase across the board, rules for controlling wild horses and random movement of the same.  Then I checked Nic's latest document on the Facebook group, and realised the Reive and Retrieve scenario pretty much did what I wanted.  So with a bit of colour text (and an increase in points as Bodvoc had some new Rohirim to show off), to battle.

The two forces face off, herds of wild horses grazing in between them

The Rohan army

.

and the hordes of Mordor

.

Both sides advance towards the herds.  Rohan captures the first herd

The view of the early battle from the Rohan side

Mid game the Mordor troops are all over the place.  Shooting (and Resolve loss due to a lost company takes it's toll).  In return, the orcs struggle to hit anything.

Again, the view from the Rohan side.  The defenders seem much more organised.

The Rohan cavalry slowly advance, picking off the orcs as they go.  

Nearing the end the orcs have finally started to bring down some of the Rohirim, but have lost all chance of capturing any herds.

I don't have any pictures of the end phase; I was busy enjoying the triumph of Rohan.  It was very tense, in the last turn the Witchking was charged by several companies, including the Rohan general.  Both leaders went down (though the Witchking will, of course, return), causing both sides to break in the same turn.  At the count, Rohan had two herds, with another two running free, so had won.  Sauron will be looking for different mounts for his most trusted captains in future (though the Witchking hardly merited such reward after his performance in this game).

I really enjoyed the game, despite struggling to make any headway against the enemy.  At the end I was surprised to have broken the Rohan army; Def 5+ is really tough, especially since in this scenario all companies were single companies, no multiple company units.  The orcs' main strength, their numbers, was hard to bring to bear, and I failed to hold on to any of the captured herds.  Irregular infantry make poor herders with the -2 to Melee (and +2 to the opponents) when attacked.

My main mistake though was the Witchking.  I included him partly as a nod to the passage in the book placing him near the Anduin (Spoilers - Legolas shoots the flying mount) but mostly to experiment with how I thought he should work.  I tried a character company with a mage lord on a dragon with flying, fearless and terrifying.  Being a character company meant he never got to use curse as he was always moving.  terrifying proved ineffective against Res 6 elite cavalry, though the -2 to melee was nice, it offset their ferocious charge and master of horse somewhat.

Next time it might be a dragon with passenger, though that does risk the Witchking being taken out on that pesky double 6 roll.

I must point out that Bodvoc played a far cleverer game than I did.  His deployment alone helped him capture two herds early on.  

Fantastic Battles in Middle Earth - Two 500 pt Games

I got a couple of games of Fantastic Battles in against Bodvoc and one of his Sad gaming chums recently.  We used our Middle Earth army lists and played a couple of 500 point games to familiarise ourselves with the rules.

As host, Bodvoc had devised a couple of scenarios, both of which featured wandering hobbits.  In the first game the hosts of Rohan clashed with a band of orcs.  The two hobbits were hiding somewhere on the battlefield (indicated by the MDF tokens - each one had a 1 in 6 chance of hiding the hobbits, automatically if it were the last one searched).

My orcs suffered badly from the Mishaps, three units taking damage due to sickness before the battle commenced.  The Rohan host merely had one unit arrive late.

The battle was great fun.  From my point of view things didn't go well.  Loosing my general in his first fight was a blow that cost me dear; combined with the earlier Resolve loss due to disease, the Trolls didn't survive long in melee, and their Heavy weapons would have been useful cracking the tough armour of the horse-boys.

It was sheer luck that the Wargs found the hobbits, and, presumably, dragged them back to Isenguard.

With nearly all the Orc force wiped out but with them capturing the hobbits, we called it a draw.

After Mishaps

The host of Rohan.  Not a lot for 500 points

Initial moves.  The Wargs suffer some missile casualties. 

The two forces approach

Just before the clash in the centre

The orc general falls, but the rest of the horde holds - just

The big clash

The trolls are killed and the orcs continue to take casualties

While on the flank, the Wargs find the cowering hobbits

All that remains of the host of Rohan (nearly all of it) and all that remains of the orcs (none, apart from the wargs above)

The second game had a similar storyline.  Frodo and Sam (and presumably Gollum, though we had no mini for him) were unlucky enough to be 'sneaking' around the area where a Gondorian force clashed with a Mordor force.  As before, the tokens represented possible hiding places.

I controlled the Gondor force this time, and it was my first experience with them.  After having faced an all 5+ defence last time, it was good to turn the tables on Bodvoc and Ian.

I used the Rangers' Ambush tactics to try and reach a token at the start, but the Mordor force, being much faster, was able to reach more tokens sooner.  The trolls recovered from turning up late and eventually found the hapless hobbits hiding out in the large ruin on the flank.

I took far too long readjusting my line in response to some well placed flank moves by Ian's Wargs and Warg Riders, but eventually, weathering a hail of arrows, I managed to make contact with the orc units. 

In a repeat of the first game, Bodvoc managed to kill my general, frustrating.  However, the higher Gondorian defence paid off, and, though battered, the Gondor force broke the Mordor force.

The start of play, the trolls are late

The rangers explore the ruined tower on the hill, finding nothing of interest.  The Gondorian lines advance, while their archers investigate more ruins

Slow advance, apart from those fast Wargs in the woods

The trolls search the ruins, and find Frodo and Sam

The Gondorians are unsure where they priorities lie.  The orc battle line, or the Wargs and Warg Riders now menacing their rear

As the Orcs approach, the Gondor Archers take aim at the Warg Riders and wipe them out

 

Then smartly turn to face the main fight.  The Spearmen clash with the Orcs

The loss of the General causes his unit to break, but the other regiment wipes out their opponents.  The Orc army is broken

Once again the forces of Darkness captured the hobbits, but were themselves broken, so we called it another draw.

We all had fun, the scenarios were simple enough that we could easily focus on our objectives, but added a lot to our enjoyment.  The lists seemed about right.  Bodvoc designed the Rohan list, and they were as scary in melee as they should be, especially with the 'Master of Horse' tactic.  Defence 5+ is a tough nut to crack for most troops, which meant the Gondorians held out nicely against superior numbers.  Formed infantry does seem to move slowly though.  

10mm 3D Printed Ruined House

I've finished another of the excellent ruined 'Arkenfell' buildings printed by telford3dprinting.  I chose this particular building as it comes in several parts which I thought could easily be used as smaller, separate ruins.

The whole ruin as one building

And another view

From above

One part, the half round section, is meant to be separate in any case.  The other towers and buildings look fine on their own.  Only the base is a bit odd without the upper levels, but this, I think, is due to the flat tops of the walls.  It would be easy to cut these so they looked properly ruined, though this would mean the upper sections would no longer fit.  It's good enough though, and certainly gives a good bit of table coverage.

The three sections as separate ruins

and another view of the sections

The base section, a little level where the upper sections rest

but good enough.

The painting was pretty much the same as the Ruined Tower here. Colour wise there's a bit more interest on this model from the wooden floors and the roof tiles.  

I have some small neodymium magnets which I will use to give the sections a bit more strength when used as a single ruin.

I really like this piece.  It goes in to my slowly growing 10mm LotR terrain collection.  I'll definitely get some more of these pieces, perhaps an in tact tower next?