Ogres vs Vampires

Since I started playing my new ogre army I have learnt a lot in Ogre tactics. First set of games was all about learning how to play what units and how to divide my attention to the battle field. Actually I also learnt a lot on the 8th edition WHFB ruleset. Still we are forgetting rules and I keep forgetting abilities of my precious Ogres but we have come a far way since then. Still the ogre army has many possibilities and since I am painting a lot of members for the army that is also input for choosing troop types for the roster that I am going to play. This time it was the gnoblars as a general theme for this battle. I am busy painting 90 gnoblars (and have another 10 ready to round it of to 100) and have a set of 70 that I found play worthy. Also the first horde unit I am going to field with 8th ed. With the big block of gnoblars I was going to field the scraplauncher as well to have a gnoblar themed army but I was facing vampires and went for more ogres to crush skeletons. I fielded a block of 12 ogres with a bruiser BSB and a set of 6 ironfists with my butcher. These were the hitting power and the gnoblars the anvil. Supporting this I had 2 sabretusks and a gorger for stray units/delaying tactics/warmachine hunting. To top it off 4 leadbelchers to shoot the rest to pieces. What I was facing here were 2 units of skeletons with a vampire each. some groups of war hounds, a set of dread knights and a black coach. None too big an frightening units but still tough enough to tear through in one go. The battle started with the ogres lining up for the charge and on sabretusk tearing through a set of hounds completely shredding them to pieces. The black coach started with a big gulp of magic and directly advancing on the chart. I found out one of the sabretusks was too far out and had to head back over the battlefield, the rest pretty much placed good enough. The gnoblar unit of 70 was a bit difficult to maneuver but all in all not a bad start. Second turn had more interesting stuff going. My leadbelchers shot a volley to the knights but did not do much damage. The black coach managed to gobble up almost all the magic and was fully charged at the end of turn 2! Also the coach charged the sabretusk and with max. impact hits, shredded the big cat to pieces. My ogre unit charged a group of skeletons and really cracked some bones, slaying one vampire in the proces. What a result! Turn 3 got nasty for the vampires. The coach charged into my ironfists and the other skeleton unit as well since they were frenzied by some blood tower nearby. The coach managed only 3 impact hits not doing much and the skeletons were unable to hit very much. The ironfists however almost maxed the amount of to hits and also to wounds. Very impressive dice throwing against all statistics. The black coach did not managed to hit very much with very little impact hits, it was ethereal and flying and whatnot so I couldn't hit it back. The result of the skeletons combat part for this unit was so good for my part having the BSB there as well I won this combat breaking the black coach! The dread knights were charging the group of gnoblars in the meantime not knowing the all the traps set by the trappers in this horde of gnoblars. already some horses tripped and fell taking their riders with them, the rest managed to delve into the unit but the amount of gnoblars was overwhelming. In no time all knights were done for. If 10 of the gnoblars died no one noticed in the melee of green skins. The gnoblars tore the knights apart leaving not much but bones and even these were picked up for clubs. We looked at the rest of the table and threw some dice for some of the left over units to see if the VC went somewhere but it was to no avail. The flow of events was set and the outcome was inevitable: a win for the ogres. The battle was good with some epic dice rolls deciding the game. However I got a good feeling on the block of gnoblars and it is true that 8th ed needs horde units to swing victory to your side. I saw the need for swift cavelry and therefore need to paint up those mournfang cavalry quickly!

BTB: Sewer Fighting

After a long drought the ground in the city of Mordheim was cracking and crumbling. Weeks of blazing sun did not much good for the dirt caked street. The river Stir was just a meager treacle through the city en the sewers were running dry. Because the ground was becoming more and more brittle some cave-ins happened in the centre part of the city. Just along one of the derelict watchtowers the grounds were split open to give entrance to the sewer system of Mordheim.
The sewers were rumored to have many a treasure but also to house hideous and dangerous creatures who eschew the light. This time of the year, the sewer system should contain many a wyrd-egg. The cave-in and the presence of the eggs was an ideal scenario for some warbands to get down there and start up a fight.
In this case four warbands flocked to sewers and got stuck in.
- A band of Halflings was making their debut in Mordheim. Roaming the countryside they were pulled towards Mordheim for fame and riches.
- A group of undead was slithering through the filthy sewers as well. Common place for these night dwellers and therefore no surprise they were present.
- Possessed are always present if a slimy egg or two can be found. If running through some sewers is what it takes, they don’t mind.
- Last but not least the dwarf treasurehunters found their way to a sewer entrance. Cave fighting and underground navigation being one of their specialties, this was going to be an easy job.

Before entering the sewers all warbands were equipping themselves with lanterns or trusting on night vision and familiarity with dark tunnels. Some of the Halflings were stumbling about a bit. The one with the lantern was having a lot of difficulty with the dark surroundings. He was blinding himself with his own lantern. The other Halflings were faring not a lot better. Shooting range was not something to trust on this battle.
The dwarfs however were running along the sewers as if it were the long underground passageways they are used to. Detecting some slimy possessed in the distance they moved stealthily in their direction. The cunning possessed however were just luring the dwarfs in their direction only to run around a corner through a massive oak door and slamming it shut.

Now it was a game of push and shove. The massive slayers readying their shoulders for smashing through the door, got little resistance of the tiny possessed. The door smashed in a and the onslaught began: shyshy and two plague bearers got the full taste of dwarf axes. The dwarfs already familiar with the possessed were wondering where flyface son of flyface was. Was he still suffering from the bellywound he took last battle?

While all this rummaging around was going on one side of the sewers, the other side was getting crowded with Halflings and undead. The Halflings found their way through one sewer only to encounter the beasts of the dark. Some zombies were blocking the way. Shooting is the thing of Halflings and in this case it was shooting at very close range at the mass of rotting flesh before them. A couple of ghouls went down eventually, the Halflings were holding their ground greatly against the undead.

The fighting between the dwarfs and the possessed was taking a gruesome turn when the dwarf engineer went down and the dwarf noble with 2 slayers had the greatest difficulty of getting shyshy out of the way. What luck that flyface son of flyface was not present due to his bellywound.
After fighting in the sewers the dwarfs went above ground in the watchtower to search for treasure. The cunning possessed that were not luring the dwarfs to closed doors were already above ground to search through the ruins. They employed an ogre for some brute force, not counting on the fearless slayers! Loki was hacking away at the ogre and after some heavy blows he split the ogre in two! What a massacre!

The rest of the possessed were weighing heavy on the bloodied dwarfs. It was time for the dwarfs to take their treasure and make for the tunnels again to shake of the pesky possessed.
It was a good evening for a good fight. If only flyface son of flyface could have been present, but he was suffering from a bellywound…


Did I mention that flyface son of flyface had bellywound and did not take part in this battle…?

BTB: Rat Race

It was in the dew of the morning that the slayers woke up hearing the skitter of little paws. Was it little paws ... or just paws running around they wondered. Bjorgir was a bit on edge because there was little to eat the last couple of days. In the blasted region of the city they were in now, nothing but derelict houses and a faint drizzle all day. You could get quite glum about this, especially with an empty belly. The skittering noises made him think of rats...rat-on-a-stick! A smile grew on the face of Bjorgir and poking his fellow warband members awake a plan formed in his head.

The Magister looked at the runes and smiled. Some days ago he had successfully summoned a lesser demon out of the warp to extend his warband. In exchange for this blessing of the Plaguefather a shibboleth had to be executed. And now the target was near...



The two slayers were very eager to get some rats and were out in no time. But they were not the only ones out there! Just around the corner some Possessed were slithering around with their mutated bodies also looking for food. Also hoof noises could be heard now so some beasties were about also. The beardlings were muttering amongst themselves that the undead wouldn't be far away either. Sarr said: "A perfect morning for a massive fight around some scrawny little rats". Dru and Crumble agreed and were getting ready to face a heavy day.



Locating the dwarf had not been very hard; obviously they were hunting for rats and not very secretive about their whereabouts. However, those pesky rats were hard to ignore, two of them were even attacking. On top of that a loose chaos hound had appeared and attacked Frogface, who (off course) was not up to the task of fighting a meager hound.

But now father Nurgle was really smiling at them! Their price was approching fast (for at dwarf that is)! The aberration, the false blackblood, the requested sacrifice was actually charging them!!

Then everything happened very fast. A rat darted by and the two slayers were loose! Charging into the rat and hacking it to pieces. The rest of the warband were huddling around the corner to check for more. There were more rats running around, a lot more rats you could say. They were so fast it was difficult to tell how big they really were. In the meantime, the rats as the beastmen, undead and possessed were running around and chasing rats.



One particular big rat was boring down on the necromancer of the undead pack! This was a rat of abominable size. The beastmen were charging into the graveyard for some rats with their rabid dogs leading the pack. One of the dogs strayed a bit and ran around one of the pillars of a ruined temple to find a big hammer of the possessed warband leader in its way. With a big squelching sound the dog found its end right there: Not only the rats were meeting their fate.



Nurgly the Magister had by now killed a rat and finished off the stunned chaos hound. Flyface was literally sniffing out the carcass of the abominable rat. He found a wyrdstone shard, yet another sign that the true Chaos God was smiling at them.

But not all was going well. The false blackblood dwarf was a formidable fighter and had more and more dwarfs were joining the fray. And it were the followers of Chaos that were suffering. Several henchies were taken out of action or laying knocked down and both the Possessed were down to their last wound.



Half of the rat pack were now getting nervous with so much mayhem around them and were sprinting of the table. Another two rats were caught in a fight, but the rest escaped. The necromancer was having some big trouble with the big rat facing him.
Meanwhile Loki the bigger slayer flattened the rat with one mighty sweep of his axe. Looking around in a battle craze he saw some movement around the corner and blindly charged into it. The possessed over there were caught by surprise and were getting slaughtered. This was one mean slayer! Everywhere the possessed hit the slayer the blood spraying around was even inflicting wounds. Some of the possessed had that same skill and in moments 5 possessed were surrounding the slayer and damage was dealt very hard. Luckily the rest of the dwarf warband was around to try to help out Loki. It could be questioned if this was, what a slayer would really want, especially since Loki was truly in his element. Some disgruntled shouts from Loki to Bjorgir were also getting the concentration away and the battle swung towards the possessed. Loki was paying too much attention to his fellow warband members not to take out HIS enemies, letting him die his much wanted heroic death, that the possessed landed some blows. Still the tough slayer did not go down, and it was becoming very close. Some of the possessed were chopped away only to be replaced by new foul plaguebearers and whatnot. Loki was doing his best but his mind was not completely to it. The possessed were actually looking to flee of the field or this entire battle to end. Their wishes were not being granted by a necromancer, who was still fighting that giant rat.



The Magister resisted the urge to flee; this task had to be completed or else... He felt chaos powers pour away as a Plabuebearer was sent back to the Chaos courts by the black blooded Slayer. The Magister grawled and rushed in himself, with him the rest of his minions too attacked the dwarfs.

Then it was too much for the big orange crested fellow, too much blows at once, not able to parry them all, Loki went down. The rest of warband wanting revenge, swung in this melee but the possessed although wrung through a grinder, were getting new vigor by slaying the slayer and were really bearing down on the dwarfs. It was soon that the dwarfs saw they were no match and ran of the battlefield with only one rat to share.

A green light lit up the ruins around the small square were some hours ago the dwarfs and possessed had met. Now the mutilated corpse of a slayer was surrounded by the strange shapes of his opponents. A dark liquid, much much darker than normal dwarven blood, was leaking on the ground. Floating above the body was a strange shining bulb, that grew into a crack, a passage toward the courts of chaos. For a moment a bellowing laughter could be heard accompanying a Plaguebearer striding through.

"Father Nurgle is very pleased with your deeds, master magister" Hissed the Plaguebearer. "He sends you this" The minor demon continued and handed over a putrefied, rusted axe. The Magister looked at the warped piece of metal and smiled, recognizing the axe as the one the slayer had barried in the killed Plaguebearer.

We player the Rat Race scenario found on the Wargame Weaver site. A very nice multi player scenario which really fits the Border Town Burning settings and is good fun to play (Thanx Jim!). Minor nitpicks/recommendations: Use random movement (or the Border Town Burning monster rules) instead of the 12" movement for the rats.

Outside gaming

Our last game of Mordheim with the six of us we've played outside. The temperature didn't drop below 25 at night zo ideal situation to put the tables out and play. No problems with cramped gaming tables and whatnot and enjoying the weather as well! Some around neighbours were indeed checking out, what was going on with the bunch of guys debating around tables with scenery, measuring and moving miniatures and debating loudly over it, calling for the rulebook more often then not!

Our BTB campaign was played outside this time. For the "Horrors of the Underground" the table wasn't big enough so they played on the ground. I believ the Possessed went in the underground with every intention of finding some chaos stuff. Behind them a starting marauders warband stepped in the dungeon, found an egg and ran out again. Al done in mere minutes! It took more time to set up everything then to play the scenario here.

The lost caravan scenario's is already heavily discussed on this blog and a game of a starting Dwarf (another!) warband agains some undead was played. Quite gruesome ending for the undead I believe (although they were dead to begin with!).

BTB: Avalanche

Note: pictures to be added!

The first real scenario's are going to be played for our Border Town Durning Scenario. The beastmen and the the Blackbloods are entering the dungeons with the Horrors of the Underground. Myself put my Dwarf Treasurehunters against Ludo's new Undead warband in the Avalanche scenario.

The avalanche scenario is a quite scary one for the dwarfs. you don't know from what table edge the giant avalanche will come. Dwarfs are fable for their adventure skills but running away from an avalanche is not their cup of Bugmans (or stein for that matter)!

The scenario we put out had some sparse terrain items like rotten trees, a graveyard a small road and one abandoned inn. Not much room to hide against gale force winds, blizzard conditions and the bitter cold. Sturdy dwarfs as they are, the treasurehunters pushed through the snow towards the abandoned building with the rumble of an avalanche from one side! They directly started moving away from the deafening roar of the avalanche. The engineer all of a sudden spotted a foul undead necromancer approaching fast from out of the graveyard. He takes his perfectly engineered handgun and from a large distance with the first shot kills the necromancer instantly.

The echoe of the shot is reverberating through the valley and after some seconds a new rumble can be heard over the already present avalanche noise....a new avalanche is triggered. Now it comes from the other side closing in the warbands in a very narrow funnel.
The giant avalanche is suddenly approaching rapidly towards the building in the center of the field encapsulating the Undead Vampire. The last thing he heard and saw was a dark rumble and lot of white. The dwarves start hacking away at the remaining undead who are now in a very tight spot. The next turn the undead route with their vampire and necromancer of the field. The dwarfs narrowly escape the avalanches of snow and actually take home a lot of weirdstone. These mountains are a good trove for dwarfs "mining" for weirdstone.

And so it comes to be alive....

After the last massacre with the dark elves I decide to go back to the roots once more. Skipping the pirates, adventurers and other sort of elves, I went straight for the dead. No tomb kings/guardians for me. No lich lords and creepy scorpions, but plain old dead. A vampire, necromancer, zombies, ghouls and dregs!

As I gave my last mordheim-vampire away to Arjan,Ihad to find an alternative. Somehow I stumbled upon a charging banshee, and so an idea was born.

I took out my green stuff and started cutting and modelling away. This banshee was flat-handed, so could not hold any weapons at all. Time to model some thumbs! That wasn't easy at all, but somehow I do like the end-result. I also gave her a nose and filled some holes in the skin (that sounds dirtier than it actually was ...). Result:

More pictures will of course follow soon.

West Gate House: Mordheim and chopping trees

Silence lay down in the city of Mordheim. During the day all creatures of the night are out of sight. At the west gate house a lumbering Oak tree is swaying in the wind. Or is it swaying to hit passersby to keep it from coming any closer. It is rumoured to hide a big treasure of some sort. how this tree became the protector and how a tree became a protector is all subject to the 2-tail comet striking down. This evening the slayers venture out to investigate this Oak tree and it's treasure. After a night quaffing ale this is just the activity to get out and about. While approaching the west gate house and the aquaduct, the tree is already visibible. It looks menacingly gnarly in this twilight (link to scenario)

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In the disctance hoof sounds and some loud adventurers group can be heard. More are about this night to venture around this tree....

The slayers group up and make their way across the city slowly and carefully. You never want to miss out on a good fight somewhere to seek your doom (or find good treasure for that matter!). In the meantime the adventurers in the distance found some trouble to the sounds of it. The scraping and lurching noises of some foul undead have been encountered apparantly! A vampire is just the thing for the slayers! They have a record of getting rid of these suckers! It is too far of for now to start running towards the melee (maybe only some zombies, no glory in dying at a loose zombie bite there is).

It appears the tree is moving about lightly, but it could also be looks decieving. Was it moving towards the well to get some of that yellow foul smelling water? Upon approaching the big Oak, it is not alone over here! Some small saplings are in the way. Just the thing for some dwarf slayers with big axes! In no time they start chopping away at these no good in-the-way branches.
At the other side of the aquaduct beastmen arrive to also find some sapplings. In stead of lifting a hoof or nibbling these branches the beastmen find themselves attacked by these woods ad a fight starts here as well.

The adventurers and undead are more busy with each other then with trees and the slayers find a free way to the big Oak tree which is now swaying violantly with it's big branches. One hit from these will nock you right out of your Mohawk!
5 Slayers charge the big fellow and start chopping. Since this is a big old gnalry tree it can take some hits. The slayers get 2 big cuts in right away. The tree starts fighting back! This is nog little defensless tree mind! This is heavy stuff. From the other side beastmen pour in for a claim to chop down this piece of wood! The slayers are carved of better wood then these beasties since the beastmen get swatted away quite easily by the tree. The slayers dodge and parry with all axes and might they have. After a while they get some more chunks carved out of the tree and it starts to topple, but not just yet! It is still harrassing the dwarfs with big branches that can flatten a man! This is a glorious battle and all slayers want a piece of this, this could be a glorious death (although from a tree....).

After more rounds of hacking away one of the slayers with a monstrous double handed Gromril axe hits THE spot with all his might, this is the final blow and the Oak tree goes down. What a fight what a tension, but they did it.
In the background some noises of fights between adventurers and undead die down and the beasties also find this a good moment to look for trouble somewhere else in the city of Mordheim.
The night now really comes in and it is a good moment to end all this and find a good ale somewhere. The slayers are till somewhat in batlle frenzie but one of the clansman is clear of mind to remember this was all about some treasure.....what about this and some digging and rummaging begins....