Christmas scenery update

Almost a post a day at the moment after the modeling session! But we must not overdo this of course! What's to show then? Painted buildings that is!
I painted my building and plaza. Also finished the wharf and dock pieces and painted them. Besides that I had some only black coated buildings lying around and decided to paint them as well. I was busy anyway!
This is the current result. My quirky tower building is almost done. Needs some wood finishing only. The flock has ten done to represent the occasional green plants here and there and needs not much aside from some color. I might go for some posters plastered to the walls. Oh I am busy making a half roof as a first experiment. Might go for a red or blue tiled roof here!

Next up is a half temple-ish building that was made by Ludo (a year ago?). I finished the paint job and added some snow for a change.

A picture of well...a plaza... nothing more nothing less but always handy to have lying around for one scenario or another!

THis small derelict shrine was not made by me, but don't know the origin actually. Also from a hobby session ages ago. Finished the paint job and added the greens. Might need some more color in the form of pots and cases or whatever.

Ah yes...the wharf... out of the box wooden wharf, only needed the stone docks and stairs to connect it with the rest of the scenery. A small ramp I added to get those barrels rolling onto the ships was all it needed actually. Painted 4 water sections to go. THey will need the water treatment, but I have to seal the edges first in order to pour the resin I use for water on it and not spill everywhere!

To finish this photo session off, an overview when these pieces are all connected together. THey look good, but will look better when finished and connected to the rest of the scenery waiting in my gamers deny: the attic!

Scenery building day

It is Christmas and the last couple of years I planned a day of building scenery mostly for Mordheim, but now more and more for all our games. THe turnout was a bit less then last years: we were with the 2 of us! Some people have these activities called work they want to attend rather then spend a day with us with our favorite past time: the miniature war-game hobby!
Anyhow we were with the 2 of us and started with a visit to the local garden centre where now all Christmas scenery was for half price! We bought a pile of trees and a great looking harbor deck!
The place was swarming with guys wanting to expand their christmas scenery, but we were looking for war-games terrain. This resulted in some interesting discussion you can imagine. How can you use a set of christmas singers in the scenery? Of how to put the whales blowing water in the harbour of the city of Mordheim? :)
After that we went to the local hardware store for MDF sheets that act as a base. We found out that professional sawing the sheets is for free if you have a customer card. So we asked the guy to make us as much 20x30cm pieces (since these are the "house" measurements of our scenery) and we got a pile cut with so much accuracy it was too much to bear. All these time we were sawing ourselves and always have some half centimeter off here and there and now a nice pile of 12 sheets with exact measurements for only 4 euros! What a bargain!
Off we went to start building. We both stockpiled cast plaster stones and pieces to build some real buildings! We also drink the white stuff as you can see!


Arjan built a nice piece for his dungeon and an intricate piece of "arch"work! I made a quirky building with a lot of tower add ons and stairway pieces. Also built me 4 pieces of water with the wooden docks fitting to a stone part with a nice ramp and stairs. Also one plaza was made as well. Still some painting to do now, but the black and grey highlighting always goes quite fast. This should be possible to finish this holiday week.

Progress: Carpathia warband, werewolves

Christmas updates, this time of year is great for painting progress. I've actually planned days to do painting and in between the loose hours as well. This should be great for showing progress as well, expect some multiple posts between christmas and new year.
For now I was busy with the Chaos in Carpathia war band, my werewolves. The 2 ladies were already up here but now they have bases and the werewolves and henchie wolves are done.



2 victorian ladies are up next. One with a rapier and one with a hand gun. Should fit in nicely with the victorian scify setting!

painting progress

Once in a while all parallel running painting projects are finished. At that point I start up new projects and maybe a little more then I can chew. On the other hand there is always time needed to dry or get more inspiration and then it is good to have a couple of projects running. For example painting a dark elf sorceress on a cold one next to a regiment of dwarf warriors. SOmetimes ideas from painting one follow up in the other painting scheme or whatnot. In the case of dwarfs and dark elfs it is maybe a bit hard to stomach but still.

Ok what is the status?! 16 dwarfs put together and have their base. THey are awaiting a black spray base coat. Next to that I am painting a dark elf sorceress on a cold one as already mentioned. The cold ones are a bit of a new "collection" so to say. I started painting my second and got the idea of painting only cold ones with dark elves on them. Maybe starting a Mordheim war band with them, maybe painting a couple more dark elfs and waddayaknow?! a dark elf army is born. :)

For some of the other games we bought some rules for at twohourwargames I'm painting a werewolf war band and related henchem. First up painted and done are two ladies that will join my werewolf gang. They are a bit dark gothic and just the style we want for Chaos in carpathia. Sort of a scifi victorian style setting and this will just fit the bill.

The werewolves are already undercoated and a couple of regular wolves were ordered and in. This war band will soon be born since the war band does not contain a lot of members.

They only need a base and they are done. Still looking for the right base. Maybe I'll just go with the bricks my dwarfs are set upon. Fits the scenery nicely for one.

Mordheim still going strong

We are still playing the game. The blog might tell you otherwise but last weekend we had a good old fashioned game of Mordheim. Three war bands battling it out in the city of Mordheim searching for treasure.

Actually this was a scenario we already played a while ago. Then we had the Luggage (disc world) also attending. This time it was plain and simple searching the treasure and killing each other.
In the field were my trusty dwarfs, some halflings and a new kid on the block: Inquisitors!
The game started with the Dwarfs and the inquisitors squaring of in a narrow alleyway. Massacre commenced and in the meantime the halflings were prying open the treasure chests. That is not that easy when you are as small and a little weak.

The inquisitors were taking the upper hand at the start, but my sturdy dwarfs proved their hard heads worthy and they stood fast battling it out. The pesky Inquisitors were dropping like flies all of a sudden and the first route test took them running of the battlefield!
The halflings (cowards as they are!) were shooting their arrows at the dwarfs. This was no worthy foe to loose more men against in such a way and the dwarfs took of as well. They already had found some treasure and were happy as they are.

The 2 thunderers proved worthy of their guns this battle, shooting at very long range with one shot an inquisitor to death. What a marksmen they are!

Planes! Wings of War here we come

And now for something completely different. Since we are moving towards a new phase in hobby life I too got hooked on some good old WWII stuff. In this case it's the planes! We were busy looking out for the game Wings of War I got my hands on a 1:144 messerschmitt on ebay. Not knowing what I know now: 1:144 early war WWII planes are not to be found! The scale is just not made anymore! They can be found but very difficult! They have to be out there!
Her for some results on the painting of the first plane!


And the plane belly-up! I painted the plane in the camp scheme with the yellow nose and wingtips. The decals were so old it took a full day to get them from the papers.

When looking for planes in the 1:144 scale (early WWI) I stumbled upon the reveal mini kits. Fun kit that is put together in no time and preprinted. Only it is very basic preprinted and only just the correct scale. Actually I can't find the scale but compared it to the 1:44 messerschmitt and it compares.
For the mini kit I bought a Fokker DRI triplane, not really early WWI but a fun plane. Also found the Hindenburg out there. Scale does totally not compare but again fun as a background. I might paint them to give them a more detailed look as opposed to the plastic shiny look they have now. But for a couple of eures nice to give them a try.
Now where are them 1:144 early WWI planes when you need em!

First game with samurais

In between Mordheim games and WHFB's we decided to plan an evening playing a new game. After we went to Crisis'11 in Antwerp, new games, war bands and miniatures we were inspired. Now it was time to play Red Sand Blue Sky the Samurai version. After reading some posts on this blog we took up the idea as well. RSBS lends itself perfectly for converting it to a samurai version.

We played this game for the first time and we were with the three of us. All having one samurai in the field to make it less confusing.
The Japanese garden I made was of perfect size. With small stones we denoted the different zones of the RSBS arena. We chose to make a simple samurai based on the two sworded gladiator. Now all samurais were quite similar only difference in weapon being 2 swords or a 2-handed sword. Furthermore the difference was in the dice rolls and division of attribute points of course. This was for us enough for now since we were learning the rules of the game as well.
I think it worked out well actually. It took us 2 hours to play this version the first time including making the samurai rosters. No campaign just a simple fight to the death. Good for the first time.
I think we will be creating our own samurai rosters and the major change in the rules being the fighting styles. We just have to create some fighting styles for samurai and the game is as good as converted. Campaigns can be played just the same not having gladiator schools but samurai families/schools and we're off! Next games will be play testing our own created samurai fighting styles which of course will be posted here.
Good fun this new game and when more familiar with rules can be a quick game to start or finish a gaming evening!

A gobbo worth more than it's weight in stones...

My former neighbor is a dental technician by trade and offered me to cast (heaps and heaps of) stones using my Hirst molds. As a 'thank you' I built a small watch tower using some of these nerd bricks, manned by this Goblin.

C{z/h}eck this..

Finally some movement in the Flames of War department: After some disappointing attempts to paint Czechoslovak roundels myself, I started searching for alternatives. Luckily I found Black Lion Decals, a Dutch(!) company that produces decals and let's you order your own as well (at a reasonable fee).

In the meantime some serious reinforcements for my army arrived: Ten T-34 models of the Plastic Soldier company. These models use the same scale as the 'normal' Battlefront models and have the nice option of coming with two turrets each, allowing you to use them as the /76 or the /85 model.
The picture above shows on T-34/85 with a Czech roundel attached. The model needs some finishing, like dirt and battle scars. Hopefully I will find some nice paints and tools for this last job at the Crisis Event tomorrow.

The second picture shows four of my T-34's: The two on the left are Battlefront T-34/76's, the two on the right are two examples of the Plastic Soldier /85 variant. All of them off course with Czechoslovak roundels(!).
With some minor(?) work left, I now have a 'legal' late war Tankovya force. Time to go to battle!!

Red Sand Blue Sky: painting the samurais

With the three of us we've bought two sets of samurais and we ended up with 4 models each. I started to paint the first one in the color theme: red and black with gold features.

This something completely different than painting fantasy figures. Also very refreshing in painting approach and I found out stuff that I can use for fantasy painting. For example the dragon on the back of the kimono pas simple and easy to do but gives a lot of character to the mode. Painting flesh is something that should look more human skinned and is a challenge. All in all I think the first steps in painting samurai came out nicely.
I decided to put them on a simple round base with simple sandy cover to keep it tight with the japanese garden terrain I made.

The next samurai has already some paint splashed on so I will give you the first work in progress picture as well. Again the same colors but now reversed. The other 2 samurai carry armor and more battle gear so they will be a lot different then these two, but that is for the next post!

New dwarves here

Yep, I've been busy finishing some projects lately. A couple of dwarves were waiting the final stages of paint and matt varnish for protection. It's been done. They were already on the battle field but not in this finished state. Now they can shine in their own pictures in stead of in the fray on the battlefield.


First up are the hammerers. Command group and a couple of em. They blend in well with the theme of the rest of the army. The beige and red colors come back in all regiments making them fit together easy. A lot of metal and gold details on these boys to make em look good and hammery (if that's a word?)


Next up are there lads that form the command group for my thunderers. Good looking models, nice pose for the standard bearer, calling commands and the champion with his brace of pistols. He will also do good in my Mordheim war band I'm guessing. Purely as a character he fits there nicely (overprices because of the brace of pistols, but fluff is something you can't buy of course)

Red Sand Blue Sky: Samurai version

Besides gaming, new games are in the pipeline. After finding some cool blog posts on several cool tabletop boardgames that can be played quick and do not involve huge amounts of miniatures we bought the rules for Red Sand Blue Sky(check the site out: Two hour war-games has more cool rulesets, buy your own mini's and go!). Originally this game is for playing with gladiators but after reading this post on the possibility of playing it Samurai style we decided to go for it.

I built me a game board that should resemble a Japanese garden. With the cherry tree and specific placing of stones and nice lined gravel it really resembles what I had in mind. The sand you see, is a mixture of fine sand and watered down wood glue (PVA glue). WOrks like a charm! I thought the sand would still come off and my house would be all over after playing with it once, but it is rock solid! Good stuff.


We've ordered our samurais at Perry miniatures. Painting them just started so only basecaoted miniatures on the battlefield to show you the size.

Of course the game for gladiators we also will be playing, the arena is already made (look at this post on our blog). 4th of november it is Crisis in Antwerp, Belgium were we are heading: gladiator miniatures are on the wish list!

Sigmarites Cleansing Mordheim campaign

This is the first scenario of a short series of our own Mordheim campaign. A couple of games lead to a big end game. Each of the preliminary games lets you earn benefits for the end game. Choose one side with your war band: good or evil.


First battle: Foresstad Goblins
Sigmar is gathering minions to cleanse Mordheim for once and for all of all the filth occupying the derelict and devastated city of Mordheim. We are speaking the imperial year 2025, more then 25 years after the comet crashed down in the city. It has been long enough according to all followers of Sigmar. The acolytes are gathering enough crowd and forces to rid the city of all evil.
These plans are widely known to all inhabitants in the city and in no time around the city as well. The woodland village Foresstadt is known to be gathering all sorts of greenskins to block the plans of the Sigmarites. A nearby trade village along the river: Kindwater is said to receive all kinds of goods concerning the cleansing of Mordheim. Also in the mountains in Oberstone some evil forces are gathering and said to protecting some holy relic needed for sweeping through Mordheim.
All these cities and villages around Mordheim have something to do with the cleansing plans of the Sigmarites. Good and evil forces are gathering and plotting for the big day: midsummer year at the start of the turning of the sun festival.
First threat is the orcs and goblins gathering at Foresstadt. The city is swarming with the greenskins. The little buildings there are have to be burnt down in order to rid the village of the evil threat. Villagers are seeking refuge in their homes and need to be rescued first of course.


Setup: Put d6+3 buildings as the Foresstad village. Warbands setup at the edges of the village

The village is infested with orcs and goblins to represent this the following rules apply:
1 goblin leader + d6 goblins are roaming through the streets: random movement and cannot move of the board, will charge when in range.


Each turn throw a d6 on a 1 or 2 the equavalent goblin warriors appear and on a 3 an orc appears near the goblin leader. They will move with the leader each turn. Up to a max of 1,5 times the warband members in the biggest warband present.
Each building can be entered to:
-rescue/slay a villager (cost 1 turn no movement)
-set the building on fire (1 turn no movement)
-always roll d6 on a 1 a random encounter happens (see BTB random encounter list)
XP can be earned by:
+1xp for a rescued/slayed villager
+1xp for a building set on fire
+1xp for killing the goblin leader/escort the goblin leader of the board
+1xp for the winning leader
+1xp for surviving

Surviving warband wins (multiple warbands may win if they are of the same allignment and all warbands of other allignment are off the battlefield).

If the forces of Good win: for the final cleansing battle they gain the use of trap doors during that battle
If the forces of Evil win: They get the help of a goblin shaman during the final battle.

The battle report
Three war bands are taking part in this battle (each of the scenario's is devised in a way always multiple war bands can take part): Dwarfs, Goblins and WitchHunters.



The dwarfs take the entry road into the village to see if they can free some villagers and take out a couple of green skins. The WitchHunters enter the city from a hill side and struggle to enter the city quickly. The Goblins on the other hand, found out a rivaling war band is taking over the town. Of course this Gobbo war band wants to have the riches and is out for a good reckoning with Goblin boss in Foresstad.
In no time the Goblins found each other. From all streets reinforcements arrive but the goblin boss is soon in combat.
In the meantime the dwarfs are still strolling along the road to enter the town and the witchHunters let loose a couple of rabid dogs!



The fighting between the Goblin war bands is well along the way when some Dwarf thunderers take aim to shoot at some gobbo's. Some WhitchHunters enter the fight but meanwhile the Goblin boss is already taken and the rivaling war band is running of with him. The Dwarfs and WhitchHunters have a small skirmish. The Dwarf slayers demonstrating their skill against 5 WhitchHunters the battle is already reaching its end.
The Goblin war band won the fight. The Goblin war boss was taken and one way or the other: Goblins won!

WHFB:Dwarfs vs. Warriors of Chaos

Dwarf rangers reporting a spawn of chaos roaming the vicinity of the karak brought the dwarfs in a discussion on going out to battle the group of chaos warriors accompanying it. The dwarfs in Karak Grzzak were not a big society and only just started mining in this desolate part of the mountains. Hopes of a good vein got a small group of fortune seekers towards the far mountins.

After a lot of grumbling the dwarfs of Karak Grzzak took to war against a deamon host of Chaos warriors. This dwarf army very much represents the starting dwarf society of Karak Grzzak. Small groups of different kind of troop types got together since they are not that big yet in the karak.

A game of WHFB it is then: dwarfs vs. warriors of chaos and 1250 points. I’m still trying out a lot with my dwarfs and painting up different types of troops. These are ideal games to try out stuff with my dwarfs and 8th edition WHFB.

My opponent now put in a magic user, that was a first time in our WHFB games so far. I got around not putting in a runesmith with anti magic runes since it takes a lot of points and in these amounts of points it is not worth the points. SO magic against me en no heavy anti magic back, how would this work out? Is my theory correct? At the end of the battle it was. 2 spells against me, not too bad each turn, 1 I could dispel almost any time and the other while it was in play, I could dispel my next turn. No worries there.

The ragtag dwarf army I field was the following:
16 Dwarf Warriors with GW
10 IronBreakers
8 Hammerers Full command
10 Miners Full command
13 Thunderers Full command
5 dwarf slayers
1 Dwarf Lord
1 Dwarf cannon
1 gyrocopter

The lord went with the hammerers in order to have a big attack block. I pumped up the lord with enough runes to give him extra attacks, no return armours save etc. A real killy unit icw the hammerers.

The Chaos army consisted of:
1 lvl 2 Chaos Sorcerer, Mark of Nurgle
15 Warriors of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
6 Ogres of Chaos, Mark of Nurgle
Chaos Warshrine
Chaos Spawn
Marauder Horseman
In retrospect it would have been so much smarter to use a unmarked Sorcerer, which would have been cheaper and could have used a new 8th edition magic lore. Oh well...

We played a scenario where the break point was calculated with the amount of banners in your army. When this comes below 1 in our case, you lose the battle. This was not known up front so I was lucky to field a lot of banners :)
I fielded the Warriors and Ironbreakers with the cannon on one side of the field and the other side got the rest. The battlefield was riddled with swamps rivers and a forest leaving the mid section occupied with all sorts of evil doing, my dwarfs did not want to entry. The Warriors of Chaos were bold as ever and entered the swamp, direcly losing one of its evil beasts. The forest proved not so lucky for the group of six Ogres. First they took a hit of the cannon killing two. On top of that my 5 slayers entered and killed some right off!



The magic of the Chaos section was not spectacular and each turn a dispell was easy (even without a runesmith or runes of spellbinding). In fact, the wizard killed more followers of Chaos than Dwarfs when a spell casted with total power resulted in a dimensional cascade that caused major damage among the chaos warriors!

The warriors of chaos were quick to move to my hammerers and thunderers. The thunders loosed some voleys bellowing the black clouds of smoke. They even mentioned to kill one or two warriors! Then the Hammerers joined close combat with my Dwarf lord and a massive onslaught followed! At the end of the battle The Hammerers and lord were victorious! The Chaos general and warriors left to a small clumb of warriors easily wiped out. All other chaos virmin was taken care of with the gyro and the cannon (a group of warhounds and a chaos sponge!)


Last hope for Chaos: A desperate all out attack on the left flank! The Ogres already down to two (Slayers and Cannon), the Warriors thinned out mostly by the Gyrocopter and a wounded Spawn. This assault failed definitely after the last remaining warriors were broken....

What a massacre and what an onslaught....for Chaos that is. My group of Dwarf warriors and ironbreakers were only running around the field to get to some hand2hand but not reaching any. The rest of the dwarfs were enough to take care of things. Even the miners after entering in turn 2 did not see any action!. Just luck in all or was it the best of tactics? Only more battles will point out what has won me this battle!

And a few last words from the losing side :-)
The battle started out not that bad: The ogres made a feint move to the right before joining the major attack on the left flank. The marauder horsemen managed to threaten the cannon, only to be blown to pieces by a grapeshot. The downfall started with the cannon hitting the ogres in the flank, killing two and wounding one. Next came the shrine, failing a 'march test' I positioned it into the swamp to stay out of reach of two blocks of dwarfs, only to be taken by the Fimir(!). On top of this all was my miserable general.. He managed to kill a dwarf or two before taking down two ranks of chaos warriors by miscasting.. Like I said before:"Oh well..."

Secude and kill?

So, my army is coming along quite well. After the victory on Tom and his dwarfs (750 points), it was time to test the daemons on another army. Arjan and I settled for a 1500 point battle on a somewhat rainy wensday, over at arjans place.

Because I can currently only field 750 points worth of daemonettes, it was time to include another fraction. Luckily for me, Arjan has some really well painted nurgle daemons which I could borrow to test on the battlefield. In my mind, the swift but vulnerable slaanesh would match quite well with the slow but o-so-realiable nurgle daemons. Since GW no longer hold srestrictions as to which factions may work together (bye bye fluff?) I can easily mix anything in my armylist up. I will be playing Arjans chaos warriors (of nurgle...), so I decide to go look for swift elements and avoid facing him head-on. Recalling from the last time I challenged Arjan, he always brings along some warriors, some marauders en a couple of annoying chaos hounds. No shooting will be involved from his side, so I should be relativly safe. Casting is probably not out of the question, but should not be on tzeensch like proportions. All in all, I decided to go with the following list:

- 1 Herald of Nurgle with staff of nurgle

- 1 Herald of Slaanesh with the musk and torment blade

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 10 Daemonettes (full command)

- 20 Plaguebearers (full command)

- 7 Chaos Furies

- 5 Seekers

- 5 Seekers

- 3 Nurglings (or nurgling bases)

- 3 Fiends of Slaanesh

The original goal was to get as much of the army behind his lines, so I had at least the advantage of the rear charges. Those charges can win you a combat and since I was not to rely on my attacks, this was to be the best option.

The slaanesh part of my army turned out to be working pretty much exactly like expected. Fast movement all around, severly confusing arjan. The fiends and their stomp rule together with the magnificent 10" movement make up for a pretty tough fight. The are going to appear in all my armies from this day on. The seekers prove to be reliable and fast, but NO match for a nurgle lord, not even in the flank charge (magical attacks AUCH). The nurgle part was somewhat dissapointing. The nurgling bases are hardly a challenge for any unit. Plaguebearers might have a S and T of 4, but 4" movement and 1 on A, I and W means that they still cant hold up a decent fight. Especiallywith the low 3 weaponskill, which makes them not even a match for empire regulars. The herals however IS a promising man. It does cost yousome points, but it is hard to argue with a S, T and WS 5 hero! It does turn out I'd better put the herald in the regiment next time. Apparently they all regenerate when you do so, darn....

Unfortunately, none of us remembered to take pictures OR write a battlereport, so I can only publish my conclusions:

- It was a massacre, with both armies suffering great losses.

- Arjan won by a difference of something like 700 points

- It was really fun to do, and the match was pretty much undecided to the very last turns!

These are my lessons learned:

- Nurgle is NOT a good friend

- Never charge your surviving 3 daemonettes in an already doomed fight, hoping that rear bonus might be a turning of tides.

- Chaos warriors are tough.... really tough

- Lords are scary, even if they are called blob and ride a palaquin

This can only mean one thing though. If it is not nurgle who I must befriend, that leaves me two options:

- Khorne (hard hitting combat machines, made for destruction)

- Tzeensch (magical superiorities, made for long distance violence)

While khorne matches up with the speed of the slaanesh, it is more capable of doing great damage. Adding the magical resistence to that means that will bring more solid combat to the army. I could use that...

On the other hand, including tzeensch in my army means that my slaanesh can focus almost completely on the flank and rear combatting, leaving the magic and shooting to my fellow daemons. No real solid combat machine, but thinning the enemy units until the can be taken down by fiends and/or seekers. Flamers are a must have!

Owww .... decisions, decisions.....