Treachery and treason, there's always an excuse for it

The last few weeks our no-we-re-not-a-club-club played quite a few games of the Triumph and Treachery multiplayer variant of good old Warhammer Fantasy. This add on to the rules allows us to play games of warhammer with

• small armies (so even the found again box of old minnies will do)
• a random number of players (it's alway hard to find the time)
• all in the same game...

One surprising observation is that the game is actually balanced, in a very randomly almost story telling way. Back stabbing, breaking treaties and pacts and intense battles take place on the battle field. And all the while generals and deamon keepers are having a good time (and drinking beers :-)

Key feature IMHO is the way T&T improves standard warhammer by having a more 'interactive' way of playing. The order of play in a round is determined randomly (by cards). Even more important is the way that during a players turn the opponents stay/become involved by the choice of the 'enemy of the phase'. Each phase (movement, magic, shooting, close combat) the operative player chooses one (and only one) enemy whose units can be charged, harassed, shot and fought in that phase. All other models become de facto scenery and are 'safe' in that phase.

This combined with event that cards that can interrupt the 'normal' order and chaos of a warhammer game, makes for a very hectic and alternating battle. Players have to deal with the possibility of a long latency between manoeuvres or in contrast, two turns in direct succession that must be converted into success...

What do we play with then. It all started out with a mad idea for 5 players to start a sort-of-escalation-league. The deamons were beckoning and we decided all to take on one deity with one player being (literally) undivided. 500 points was our starting value and this being ideal to play some small skirmish like games. At the first evening of gaming everyone showed up! Eek! So many games in a row and/or parallel does not fit in one respectable evening gaming. T&T was taken from the shelves and the first game was on the way. The skirmish like setting combined with T&T proved very playable. We played this setup many times now and upped the deamons to 750 pts. Still good play!

Then we got better and the games with 5 or even 6 people took us only 2-3 hours to play! Wow! We also found out a lot of cards from T&T weren not played due to the fact they targeted warmachines or shooting phase. With all deamons and only 750 points this was not really happening.

Exactly the time to introduce other warbands that have been slumbering in the cupboards for a while! Dwarfs, beastmen, ogres and skinks entered the fray. Now gaming was even more diverse with 3-4 player T&T 750-1000 pts games. It keeps the " balanced"  feel as mentioned before. The randomness makes a lot of fun gaming. The introduction of other races in what started out as deamon-escalation-league proved longer and more complicated gaming and thus more challanges, more reading of the rules and longer game nights! :)

Now 3 weeks in a row, friday night was game night and many a WHFB battle was fought with the T&T ruleset. I attended 2 of these 3 games and they were in a setting where we had 3 and 4 players present. 1000pt games they were and with a diversity of armies. I played my Ogres once and in the last battle my dwarfs were present. Being the only one there with warmachines this was directly the focus of attack and I got only 1 shot off!

Interesting to see what tactics work in T&T settings. With the dwarfs a tanked up dwarf lord on shield bearers managed to kill of all monstrosities that were beastmen or skink equivalent. Is a lone super character a good option then is the question that arrises? I still think that good units in these small amount of points can win you the game since maneuvarability is a good asset in these treacherous environments. With all the cards that can be played you're never sure your plan will work out as planned!

So treachery and treason are great ingredients for multiplayer games of WHFB for us. Great fun and continuously new situations to encounter and cope with!

Panthera pardus

Finally my Flames of War Panther are finished! Just in time to support my good friend Tom at the tournament next saturday. And off course just in time to kill off my T-34's and JS-2 when we batttle it out at this tournament....

Originally (and in the long run they will certainly be used for that) they were intended to support my 'legion of the damned' dutch waffen ss army. And in the first battles of this army they actually fought, in mono-color mittel gelb bare skin.

The idea was to give the Panther are worn out and 'dirty' look, in the process of loosing their winter fur... 

I find it's hard to create 'realistic' damage, dirt and soil in this scale and imho it's a bit overdone.But I had a lot of fun doing so :-)

New game board

Yes I went for the realm of battle boards (only before I found out of the existence of battle mats, but more on that later!). How to paint this set with not too much effort.y dwarfs are stone based so would also go nice with snow I'm guessing. I bought some good paint, bright blue (icy) and white and went to town with it! First all sheets are painted blue (took me an afternoon and week of drying). Then first layer of partly drybrush white since all the ice is covered mostly in snow. Now we have Icy blocks and icy skulls and lots of snow. Looks good on the battlefield in my opinion.

I came up with the winter theme, since my Ogres are also winter based! My dwarfs are stone based so would also go nice with snow I'm guessing.

I bought some good paint, bright blue (icy) and white and went to town with it! First all sheets are painted blue (took me an afternoon and week of drying). Then first layer of partly drybrush white since all the ice is covered mostly in snow. Now we have Icy blocks and icy skulls and lots of snow. Looks good on the battlefield in my opinion.

Full battlefield overview here! Some snowy trees to finish the setting of!

While gaming the paint held nicely. I might go and add some more white in order to get a thicker layer there as well but other then that: great stuff!

 Skulls are painted blue with white highlight as well. I am thinking of making them skull colored but they might also be covered with ice water.

Details of just finised snow tiles


 A nice dicebag from the dicebag lady to complete an awesome gaming table!

Flames of War: Italians

I already posted some stuff on my first steps into FoW, but since the blog has been silent for some time, I thought it a good moment to get back into the saddle with my ventures on FoW. I am active with twitter and my mini's but now the pictures are auto synced to google and direct accessible in blogger! Good stuff and easier to post posts!

What have I been doing then on the FoW front. I am collecting Italians for some time. Mostly little tanks to create a carri army. This is mid war period. All of sudden a tournament popped up that was only a stones throw away from my home. Ideal to get some real battles in and finish my army. Only point being, this tourny turned out to be late war! OK, new army list: paracadutisti, loads of infantry and all new paint work. How did I fare?

First up I installed my airbrush setup so I would only have to sit down and spray. This helps a lot when wanting to airbrush. If you have to get everything out of closets and clean up space to set it up, you are don't have the spirit any more to use it. And indeed I got behind my spray booth and sprayed the base color on the italians with shading and highlights. Only faces, guns, packs, canteens, etc. to pick out and your done! Oh, and basing! Easy....right.

 Well basing was covered with sandy paste from vallejo. Still took a lot of time to do, because you have to be careful with not toughing those lovely painted mini's! Also touching up on the footing of the mini and covering its base was a session in itself!

Painting and toughing up took me days! Every night a session painting only 160 pairs of boots, and next only canteens, etc. etc.!

 And then I found more! And I needed more to get a good and full paracadutisti army list (actually now the list is finished I think I might need more!!!)

 Painting away and making bases. I am going to use these awesome Lancia models as 88's anti aircraft fire in my list. They look so good!

 Mortar teams, machine gun teams, they are all there and under way of basing here! Now all finished and ready for battle!

 Yes, finally one the first battles testing the list, not everything is based here but playable!

First battle didn't go well, I lost but found out I missed 300 points in my list so that would make up some troops I needed actually in this scenario.
Meanwhile I have been playing 2 other test battles with a good list last one, and won those 2. All is looking well, I am getting a feel for the FoW game system. Lots of rules looking up though and forgetting my Italian special rules like Avanti and Heroismo! :) Only 2 weeks to go until the tournament! I am ready!

Mordheim: Battle for the temple

It was Friday night Mordheim Night. 6 players were initially lined up to visit my place and play a hefty game of Mordheim. We’re playing once every 4-6 weeks now regularly for a couple of years. A couple of months ago we decided to pick up the Border Town Burning campaign again and have been playing it with loads of fun. A list of 6+ war bands entered the competition and more often than not the Mordheim nights are visited by these 6 players! We’ve split up game play so 2 or 3 player games were run simultaneously but also 6-player games have been seen on the gaming table with loads of fun.

Large multiplayer Mordheim game interaction
I think 6 player Mordheim (or 4+ player for that matter) Works really well because you can all set your own agenda and try and work towards it. Since everyone has its own agenda you tend to bother each other less than in a 2 player game. In a 2 player you of course have your own agenda but it becomes clear quickly what your opponent is going to do.  Therefore it is easy not only to work towards your own agenda but is also easy to work against your opponents goal. Always fun to block plans and wreak havoc  at the same time to see your opponents frustration grow.
With more than 4 players it is more difficult to spot all other goals and even more difficult to work against all these goals. You cannot split up that much with your war band. In large multi player battles you see that opponents quit quickly find each other and multiple battles within the large battle occur. All in all a large multi player field is not much different than separate parallel game sessions.

The battle report
Ah well, enough for introduction ranting, on with the battle report of the Battle for the temple. We ended up with 5 war bands playing since one fell asleep at home! J

We decided to line up the table with the temple at one end and the starting position of the war bands all at the long end of the table lined up next to each other. A sort of sprint starting line! All war bands lifted their ladders, ready for the starting queue and started running! A set of hedges and bushes were in the way (dangerous terrain test!) and then it should be climbing up the temple as fast as possible. For each war band this should be the basic plan and with 3 ladders in each unit movement was somewhat challenging. All kinds of different movement rates made the distribution of ladders a science in itself! Does the big Ogre get to carry the big ladder or should 2 dwarfs carry it since their movement was reduced to begin with.  Maybe just average your movement out and have the fast moving models as bodyguards around it? Maybe use the Ogre bodyguard actually as a bodyguard or would that be silly?
All kinds of tactics could be followed here, in the end you need your ladders to get up to the 3^rd level of the pyramid and claim the prize, if no war band routs in the mean time of course! So there we have it, a starting line with war bands, a temple at the far end, a bunch of ladders and some difficult terrain in the middle J GO!

For me the tactic was to let my Ogre bodyguard not act as one and let him run with the big ladder towards the temple. He should outrun pretty much everyone, except for the other Ogre war band of course. The rest of my war band (Marienburg mercenaries) were there only to wreak havoc amongst the other war bands in order to delay everyone in getting to the temple.

 
I started shooting at the nearest target being some Nurgle dudes. My marksman shot at point blank range right through one of these fellows killing him instantly. The slayer in my war band was not to be restrained and charged the nearest group of undead. He was in such a rage! Swinging his axe around it inspired the dwarf treasure hunter to  get into close combat as well as the rest of the war band to get into combat with one of the nearest enemies.

Other war band tactics
The other war bands (undead, Carnival of chaos (Nurgle), Ogres, Witch hunters and Marienburg mercenaries to be complete) were starting to run (or limp or crawl or lurch) towards the temple as well. Some small skirmishes broke out here and there. The Ogres were running towards the temple just as my bodyguard did. They were running along the other table edge out of reach of my Ogre. I got over the hedges with no problems but the other Ogres turned out to be more engaged with ladders and each other instead of jumping the hedge.
The Carnival of chaos started to take revenge for killing their fellow war band member and with a nice aimed barf attack my marksman went down and out. I started fighting amongst the undead some more, taking down more and more of those rattling bones. The ogre bodyguard reached the temple and was making up his mind for climbing the first level. At the same time at the other end of the pyramid the other ogres reached the base as well. The other war bands were still struggling to get their ladders in one piece forward and more undead fell down.

View from the Carnival of Chaos (Sacha)

Scenario 62 – Ladder chase

Since we were with 5 players and there was no way to divide the rectangular table in equal parts with the temple in the middle. So we decided to start from one table end and race to the other side of the table where the three story temple and treasure was.

One other change we made to the rules was that you could still run if an opponent was within 8”, it was a chase after all. That and we had to deploy within 2” to 4” of each other.

We started out from 30” and rolled for the starting positions. I rolled a 3 which landed me dead smack in the middle. Flacked on one side by Arjan’s Undead and further away Ludo’s Ogres, and on the other side Tom’s mercenary crew and on the far side Ruud’s witch hunters of chaos.

My ladder teams looked like this: Two tainted ones with the sprint skill with the biggest ladder up front. Two plaguebearers and two Brutes with the small ladders behind them.

Nurglings on the flanks to run interference and my movement 3 carnival master at the back as support.  

I badly wanted to win a scenario for once, so my whole focus was on getting to the temple as fast as possible. That strategy got shot immediately when Tom won first turn and killed one of my big ladder carrying tainted ones with a point blank range head shot.

In my turn my other tainted one exacted revenge by killing Tom’s engineer with a vomit attack in the face.

From that point on my strategy consisted of running to the temple and catching whomever would arrive there to try and steal their large ladder. Most likely candidate were Ludo’s ogres, so my nurglings chased after them.  My brutes, plaguebearers and single tainted one raced to the front of the temple.

However by the time the nurglings were delaying Ludo’s support ogres and the bulk of my force were trying to climb over the hedge the game ended.

I ended up with a single experience point for killing the engineer during the game. My surviving heroes got an experience point, 1 campaign point for participating and 3 wyrdstone shards.

In hindsight it would have been better to adopt Tom’s strategy of going for experience points by killing then trying to win a single treasure. I guess that shows my newness to the game.

The end of the battle
At this time the undead war band took so much casualties, they routed the battlefield finishing the game. So actually nothing happened, no one reached the top to claim the chaos artefact, not too much casualties (aside from the undead), almost everyone survived in the end. Safe to say that my ogre bodyguard won the ladder handicap sprint for the temple but other than that it was lots of experience war all. The battle was fun however. Tactics were formed and a tactic of running towards the end goal was definitely something new in all the battles we played.

An evening of miniature nerding
The battle time was not too long especially when looking at 5 player multi Mordheim. On the other hand this Mordheim game night was ideal for discussing miniatures, painting, war games and whatnot. Everyone was discussing newly acquired games and mini’s, painting and scenery building techniques. It was maybe more of a miniature nerd evening with a beer on the side that game evening itself. And that is a good thing in my opinion, it is the one time your amongst fellow enthusiasts and you get to share stuff and as a bonus everyone understands what you’re talking about J

The quick and the dead

Small update: Finished this little lady; Mary Fearless.

When I saw her rules: "you shoot her, she starts shooting back! Whomever has the most successes counts has having shot that turn." I knew I wanted to have her in my Ash & Oak list. She has 2 funds, so she can buy the protection of the Ogre bruiser. Again this miniature was a pleasure to paint, and it costs less time than I usually spend on my GW miniatures. It's the lack of cluttered details, I think. Or maybe I should paint something else than miniatures covered in boils, sores and skulls. :) Mary Fearless to me is a bit of a contradiction; a female gunslinger, but part of the aristocratic faction. I tried to show that in the coloring. I choose red, white and dark blue for the dress, hopefully that comes across as aristrocratic. The boots, coat and belt are done in browns, I thought that had a proper western feel to it. The studio model is a blond yet in the artwork she looks like Eva Mendes, so I made her a brunette. In the background are the D10 dice to be able to play IHMS.

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

New kid checking in: After joining the group and working on my Carnival of Chaos warband since April (personal record), I needed to work on something else for a bit. Having discovered steampunk on Beasts of war in their Wolsung video, I bought two of these Micro Art studio miniatures to see if I like working with their models. To me the Wolsung miniatures are oozing character, which is a nice break cause the carnival of chaos miniatures are mostly oozing pus. Being more of a builder/converter than a painter and it is so refreshing to be working on a miniature that is not covered in straps, boils, buckles, pouches and skulls. Lots of large surfaces, but for instance the clothing is nicely structured with creases and wrinkles so it has a nice texture to work with. So painting is easy and fast and you can try to freehand a bit, which is something I usually don't do. But that's because mostly I've been painting beastmen and things covered in rust, blood and guts. It's still WIP, I need to finish up the base and varnish the mini, but I'm quite happy with this first mini so I wanted to show it off. About the miniature this is one of my favourites from the Wolsung line.

It's an Ogre Bruiser from the Ash & Oak club, a henchman catering to the wishing of the rich and mighty with some brass knuckles. For some reason he reminds me of an Irish bar-brawler, so the vest needed to be green. Googling Victorian clothes, I found many plaid and striped pants so that was a nice challenge to try out. The other miniature I bought is Mary Fearless, a hot little aristocratic lady who can shoot the lights out. She has two funds, so she can pay for the services of the Ogre bruiser. She'll be the next project after I finish my nurgle warband, which is hopefully the next update. Another thing I've recently discovered thanks to Ludo and Tom is that these miniatures can double for both Wolsung and In her majesty's name. So I should get good mileage from them. :)