Tom's Boring Mordheim Blog

Banner up, people!

2010-11-18T09:05:00.001Z

Hi guys,

A friendly visitor pointed out that I provided banners for download, but never actually explained how I applied them to models... lazy me.

So, to remedy that, here's a quick tutorial on how I used my banners. Hope that helps!
(click to enlarge)

Speedpainting Space Marines #13 - Techmarine

2010-10-04T18:12:00.001Z

Latest addition: A techmarine (courtesy of ebay). This model is normally available through direct mailorder only, and I think it is one of the coolest in the Space Marine range.

The puritiy seals are still missing, but other than that I think my speedpainting scheme worked well here too.

Enjoy!

Speedpainting Space Marines #12 - Dreadnought, Dreadnoughter, Dreadnoughtest

2010-10-03T20:37:00.001Z

Hey guys,

A friend of mine recently drew my attention to an ebay auction for 2 "Assault on Black Reach"-Dreads, which were going for an extremely good price and so I couldn't resist.

I also recently bought the Blood Angels Codex, because I did not own any up to date Codex for my Space Marine army and decided that playing my custom Chapter "The Caliphate" as Blood Angels may be a little more interesting that going with the "vanilla" marines.

Plus, I have always wanted a dead cool Furioso Dreadnought stomping around at my command :)

Here I saw a chance to convert at least one of these machines from a standard issue "Assault on Black Reach"-Dread, by ordering a separate RIGHT powerfist arm from Bitzbox and replacing the "hand" with the one from the second dreadnought.

Without further ado, my PLASTIC Furioso Dreadnought (converted) and my "Tank Hunter" Dread with lascannon and missile launcher.

Enjoy,

The banner poles were made from toothpicks. The banners can be printed out here.

All three dreads!

500g of lead

2010-09-27T21:26:00.002Z

Hi guys,

Just a quick update to show you a model that I painted for a friend of mine who has recently started an orc army.

After having been away from the paintbrush for so long it's amazing how one still remembers all the moves :)

This guy was painted in a rather quick 3 hours (the standard on his back is not entirely done but other than that I think my friend Pat now has a fieldable general to crush my poor wood elves...)

Hope you like my version of Gorbad Ironclaw

Stuff For Sale!

2010-09-11T15:08:00.009Z

Hi guys!

shipping is on me (free) worldwide!

So if any of the stuff below looks interesting to you, just pop me a line, I would be happy to hear from you!

ITEM #1 Dark Elf Army book for WHFB (7th and 8th edition)

€10

ITEM #2 Red Blok Army for AT43 - SOLD

~~14 Krasnye Sodaty (nicely based, partially painted)~~
~~1 Sergeant Tymofiyeva (based & painted)~~
~~1 "Urod" Assault Strider with Colonels Odin and Manon (2 extra infantry miniatures) (based & painted)~~
~~3 Spetznatz Kolossus Battlesuits (based & painted)~~
~~+ Free full color army book included!~~

ITEM #3 Warhammer army book EMPIRE SOLD

€10

Payment

I accept bank transfer or PayPal

Shipping/Postage

Shipping is free worldwide for all items!

Please contact me under list.thomas[at]gmail if interested, I am looking forward to hearing from you!

Scratch made Painting Station

2010-08-01T20:32:00.000+01:00

Hi guys!

A friend of mine recently started Warhammer (no doubt lured into it by the release of the new 8th edition of WHFB) and I thought I'd make him a little present - his imminent birthday being a perfect excuse.

I decided to make him his very first painting station, and thought it would be nice to share some pics. Enjoy!

Cutting out holes for water pots

Here I am making the handles on the sides of the tray. I cut out two holes and then joined them by carefully cutting out the middle section.

1 done, 1 to go

Eeeet voilà! :)

I glued and screwed the parts together for max stability. I also smoothed all edges with sand paper. The overall result is really nice I think . Total cost: €4 (and that's counting glue and screws) + 2h assembly time.

Dipping sauce

2010-05-23T16:44:00.003+01:00

There isn't a hobbyist that hasn't at least once encountered this problem: after a while you own more unpainted miniatures than you can realistically hope to paint in your lifetime.

I am no exception to this rule, as I have amassed quite a lot of miniatures over time, most of which have too much sentimental value to give away, and yet I have never gotten round to paint them (completely/at all).

My old half painted collection of orcs and goblins. This was my second army and I had a lot of fun with it. The models are not exactly brand new (most of them 5th and 6th edition WHFB). In there are roughly 30+ boys, 16+ orc archers, 2 chariots, 2 catapults, 3 Stone Trolls, 10 Wold riders, 10 Boar Riders and 30 night goblins with fanatics.

I am a rather consciencious hobbyist, and seldom does a purchased miniature wait for its paintjob, but considering the eternal problem of miniature quantitiy versus available painting time, one is hard pressed to finish every project one starts.

Yet I do not like to give up on projects. I feel that too much effort (and money) has (usually) gone into them to just let them rot in a drawer somewhere... for more than a few years :)

My space marines are a prime example for this. I think it was really worth the (reasonable) effort to completely remake them. It's incredibly satisfying to see a pile of bits coagulate into brand new army - and what's more, a pretty big one!

"But how do you deal with those heaps of plastic? Where do you find the time to paint them?" I hear you ask.

A technique that has been around for a while now is "dipping". Like most people I first came accross it when I saw Fanatic Army Painter's "Quick Shade" products. At first, my artist's soul was offended. "That's not painting!" it cried, outraged.

But having thought about it a little, it started to kind of make sense. It is the quickest and easiest way to get many many minitaures done and onto the field of battle. Don't get me wrong, from an artistic point of view, the result is still nauseating. However the efficiency of the procedure is rather compelling. Plus: you have to admit it is a pretty clever idea.

So I decided to give "dipping" a try myself. And what better army to try it on than a massed, dirty horde of orcs?

Here are my results and thoughts.

My shading solution is nothing more than regular "satin" or "matt" wood finish, rosewood shade. It's very cheaply available at your local home improvement store (around €6).

I diluted it with a little bit of water (you may want to try matt varnish as a better alternative) until I felt that it was the right thickness. I sacrificed two orcs in the process, but that's ok. They may be a little to dark but no-one will notice that if they are in the back of the regiment.
Despite being called "satin" the wood finish is a little bit too shiny for my taste. Dilution fixes that well enough to be acceptable.
I then painted my mini with simple colours. You just need to make sure to do a rather neat paintjob. I used VGC Camouflage green for the skin, VGC Leather Brown for the leather parts, VMC Off White for the teeth and bone. You can use any other acrylic colours that you normally use! (e.g. GW Snot Green, GW Snakebite leather and GW Skull white)
I based the models normally with sand
Let them dry completely.
Dipped them in the wood finish using clippers to hold onto their base.
Shook off the extra liquid into a cardboard box.

Let dry for an hour.
Done!

Here's an example of my test miniature:

Another nice feature is the relative stickiness of the wood finish while it is still wet. I sprinkeled some grass flocking onto the bases, and let dry. Saves white glue and time and looks perfectly natural (not visible on picture)!

If you feel so inclined you can even go back and pick out some details like the teeth if you feel they have gotten too "flat" from the dipping: works brilliantly.

Overall I have to say I am pretty satisfyied with the result. Of course, it is a method of last resort for me, and looks 10x worse than a "properly" painted miniature, but if it allows me to get my orcs out of their box and onto the table in little time, and that they look acceptable at arm's length, I think it's a pretty good deal.

In particular for people who enjoy gaming more than painting I think this is a very cheap, effective and viable option to be considered.

Speedpainting Space Marines #11 - Land Speeders

2010-04-14T11:19:00.001Z

Hey guys!

I almost completely repainted my old (Ravenwing) land speeders a long time ago, but had to put painting completely aside for the last couple of months.

Yesterday I had some time and decided to quickly finish them up, that is, add the weathering.

The 3 land speeders are the final piece in my (now completed! Yay!) Space Marine army. Technically this is not completely true, since I still have 10 bikes that would like to get converted from Ravenwing to my new desert colour scheme, but I doubt that I will have the time to do them any time soon... so for now I'll call it an army and be happy and satisfied with what I have.

Here are the pics, enjoy!

Below you can see the un-weathered vs. weathered land speeder. I still need to do the weathering on the 3rd model.

Doing the weathering is actually extremely easy, quick and a lot of fun. As with all my other space marines, I used a 1:1 VMC Tierra Mate + Black mix to make the chipped paint (I used a medium brush and randomly stippled paint onto every spot that I though would have suffered attrition by heavy duty - you can see that I have started doing this around the cockpit of the left speeder). Then I used the same mix, and carfully drybrushed it horizontally on parts of the speeder that I felt should have been exposed to exhaust smore etc.
That's it!

"The Caliphate" Space Marine Chapter BANNER FILES FOR DOWNLOAD!

2010-03-17T20:25:00.006Z

Hey guys!

As requested, here are the banner files (.jpeg) that I made for my custom Space Marines Chapter for download!

If you feel like joining my chapter (for which I still need a cool name, so don't hesitate to write your suggestions as comments!) feel free to print them out and use them on your minis. Our chapter can use all the new battle brothers it can get ;)

Enjoy!

Tom

[UPDATE]: Thanks to Gert, I now have a name for the chapter! They shall henceforth be called "The Caliphate". Should you choose to become one of my battle brothers and join the chapter, feel free to add your tag to the Chapter's name. e.g. "The Caliphate of Gert".
The only condition I pose for joining, is that anyone who joins the chapter uses the above banners on his models and has fun playing! -Tom

Speedpainting Space Marines #10 - Land Raider Tank

2010-01-03T11:42:00.000Z

And here we have the last model in this series of posts for now: the Land Raider! Every Marnie player probably owns one :)

Enjoy!

I added some extra fuel barrels to suggest that this land raider is intended for long trips accross the desert.

Unfortunately I lost the right projector light, so I had to come up with a solution to fill the gap. I added a shield with the chapter's insignia. Not the most elegant solution but better than a gaping hole.

Speedpainting Space Marines #9 - Librarian

2010-01-02T10:42:00.000Z

Hey Guys!

Here's the librarian I was telling you about. I spent quite some time on this model (so this one doesn't really count as "speed painted"). I took the time to try and increase the contrast on the chipped armour by adding small beige lines to the dark brown spots I had made.

I found it to be more difficult than it looks. Manageable, but you need patience and a steady hand. I found it hard to get my white lines thin enough, but I suppose that one does get better at it over time.

I also tried out a non metallic metal (NMM) effect on the power sword. It is the first time I tried this and I think I was lucky because it turned out quite nicely. Actually, once you get it, NMM is pretty easy to do (I spent quite some time staring at NMM miniatures to figure out where to put the light and dark shades). However the name of the game here is patience: if you want to stick to speedpainting, forget about NMMs. So I won't be doing this for all models.

Turns out the only thing to remember for NMM swords is the following:

Pick a dark and a light side
On each, paint a gradient (*) of the same colour, but keep the overall hue darker on the dark side and lighter on the light side.
What makes the NMM look "metallic" is sharp contrast borders between the light and the dark bits. Try to get this as clean as possible.
Add a light edge everywhere to enhance this contrast (see 3)

(*) "How do I paint a gradient?" I hear you ask. One method is to build up layer by layer, darker and darker (or ligher and lighter) by classical layering. Of course, this is not perfectly seamless, but does look so at arm's length.

The other method is to use blending. This is done by painting successive layers on (like for layering) but while the paint is still wet, so that your different hues "merge" together somewhat, creating a more seamless gradient. Ideally, when blending, you should have several hues (dark --> light) mixed and ready (or as I do it: actually have a gradient on my wet-palette!) and then build up your gradient on the miniature.

WIP: The librarian was painted like all the other marines, with my "speedy" routine. I just spent more time fiddling with the details on this particualr miniature.

Speepainting Space Marines #8 - Devastators

2010-01-01T11:00:00.000Z

Speedpainting Space Marines #7 - Dreadnought

2009-12-30T11:41:00.000Z

Speedpainting Space Marines #6 - Tactical Squad

2009-12-29T11:37:00.002Z

Aaaah... tactical marines. The backbone of any army. Jacks of all trades. The models that make every 12 year old go "I want to collect those!" and GW's most powerful tool for sucking 12 year olds dry of their pocket money.

Let's start with the flamethrower marine. The teeny tiny pepsi can of gasoline on the regular flamethrower model could never EVER hold enough flammable fluid to even light a cigarette. As if this wasn't ridiculous enough, GW thought it would look good idea to model a little skull&bones on the can. Go figure...

I wanted to have my flamethrowers (1) stand out as such (2) look like half-plausible weapons and not like super soakers.

So I devised these thingies that look somewhat like gas canisters, and added a little bit of greenstuff that looks like tubes feeding the flame-gun with flammable liquid.

The canisters are in fact a sawn paintbrush (the brush had the right diameter and was wasted anyway), the valves and stuff are from an old SM backpack, upside down.

Flamer #2

10 out of 20 painted marines total

Enjoy!

Speedpainting Space Marines #5 - Predator Tank (WIP)

2009-12-28T11:35:00.002Z

Hey guys!

I hope you had nice holidays. Here are some pics of my predator tank. I decided to go for the max-out on lascannons option, to make him as big a threat as possible to ennemy armour (this made the most sense to an utter 40K noob like me).

It does come in cheaper than a devastator squad and he can move and shoot, which should be a plus.

I chose not to put an entry/exit point on top of the turret, but instead put a missile there, because the geometry of the turret is so awkward that no human being with an intact spine could squeeze through (as GW would have us believe).

Why WIP? Because the lights are still missing.

Speedpainting Space Marines #4 - Terminators

2009-12-24T11:31:00.000Z

Merry Christmas & happy holidays everyone!

Okay, so here's my last post before Christmas, but there will be plenty more after, so keep checking back!

What could be more fitting for Christmas than a bunch of big fat Space Marine Terminators? Okay, admittedly, almost anything would be more fitting, but the point is that here are some pics of my assault terminator squad + captain in power armour, and I hope you guys will like them.

Enjoy!

I decided I wanted no bald heads in my space marines army and so I decided to give all baldies (the assault seargent is the only exception) berets. Green berets. That I sculpted with green stuff. Incredibly creative, isn't it?

The power sword is still not completely done. I need to work out the non-metallic (NMM) effect more. There will be a post with my librarian with a finished sword to give you an idea of what the final product should look like. And of course the captain wears a green robe, because beige and green are the chapter's colours... I have just decided.

"Is that arabic on the banner?" I hear you ask. Why yes it is! I decided that my marines would use the arabic alphabet (may be even speak some araboid language) because I was tired of this bullshit pseudo-latin that GW tosses around ("exterminus" here, "terminatum" there *gag*)

If there is sufficient demand, I will upload the banner files (.jpeg) that I made for my chapter, so that those of you interested in having their own marines join my chapter can print them out and do so if they wish. The more the merrier!

I have replaced the original terminator shields (see WIP shots below) with chaos warrior shields from WHFB from which I filed off the chaotic detail. Instead the shield now sport my chapter's symbol... a "Delta". By the way, I still need a name for the chapter, so if you have ideas, don't keep them to yourselves!

The completed squad, ready to deal out 21 attacks, strength 4-8, ignoring armour saves. Yay.

WIP terminators, before the wash.

Speedpainting Space Marines #3 - Vindicator Tank

2009-12-23T11:40:00.000Z

Speedpainting Space Marines #2 - Assault Marines

2009-12-22T11:24:00.000Z

Speedpainting Space Marines #1 - Scouts

2009-12-21T10:44:00.002Z

Here is the first post out of about 10, in whichI will show you my progress through my "Space Marines Speedpainting" project. The idea is to re-paint my old Space Marines Army (roughly 2500 pts) to tabletop quality.

Today: Scouts!

Enjoy.

The Space Marine Revival

2009-12-20T12:04:00.013Z

Hey!

I have been wanting to repaint my old space marines for a while. I used to collect this army when I was a teenager and it has been sitting, half finised, in a box for almost 10 years now.

I am not a huge fan of 40K to be honest, but with a full army at your disposal, just waiting to be re-activated under your command (i.e. paintbrush) it is hard not to let the 40K bug bite you.

At the time, I used to paint them as Dark Angels (i.e. dark green) because I was never too fond of flashy colours (except for the "Sons of Medusa" chapter which looks hilarious).

If I repainted these space marines I wanted them to:

be anything BUT dark green
have weathered armour: I have always wanted to try that :)
ideally be a custom chapter of my own making (i.e. NOT Dark Angels)
be based in a way to suggest an environment unlike any of my other armies
above all be QUICK to paint, since I have very little time

After some thought, I decided to go for a desert theme. A Mars-like red desert to be precise.

And after some dabbling with different colour schemes, I found a way to get a decent result on the model and the base in very little time.

I might post a step-by step walkthrough tutorial of my colour scheme if I have some time. In the meantime, my recipies can be found at the end of this post for those you interested.

Here are some WIP pics. Enjoy!

WIP shot of the army (some models missing: predator tank, 3 land speeders, 12 bikes)

The "original" color, before revamping.

First try of creating a banner for my custom chapter, with Phosotshop.

Basing

GW Dark Flesh
Brush GW Dark Flesh + VMC Amarillo mate, increasing Amarillo Mate as you go
Add a little VMC Arena Oscura to the above mix and drybrush lightly to accentuate

Metals

Paint with boltgun metal (that's right, paint, not drybrush)
Apply heavy GW Devlan Mud wash

Greens (like lenses, power weapons etc...)

VMC U.S. dark green highlighted with VGC Camouflage Green

Skin

VMC Dark Flesh + Brown (GW Graveyard Earth or VMC Tierra Mate)
Add increasing amounts of VMC Dark Flesh
Wash GW Devlan Mud
Again VMC Dark Flesh
VMC Dark Flesh + VMC Basic Skintone

Marines

Spray Black
Basecoat VMC Tierra Mate + 30% VMC Orange Brown
Drybrush with above mix adding increasin amounts of VMC Arena Oscura
Drybrush pure VMC Arena Oscura
Wash recesses with VMC Orange Brown
Weathering armour (chipped paint) with VMC Tierra Mate + Black.

This is my "poor man's" solution for quick weathering: it is done by using an old medium-sized old brush and randomly adding step 6 mix to "exposed" bits of the armour, like edges and knee-caps, that are likely to have taken more punishment in combat. Don't over do it, better too little than too much. To get a better contrast, you can highlight the "chipped off" bits you have thus created with VMC Arena Oscura (warning: time consuming).

Example of highlighted vs non-highlighted chipped paint:

Stay tuned for more in the future!

Interview on Svenn and Tewfik's Blog

2009-11-20T22:59:00.003Z

Hey guys!

Last week I was interviewed by Svenn, co-author on a pretty cool Mordheim blog that is gaining more and more influence (and respect) in the online Mordheim community.

Head over to the excellent Svenn and Tewfik's Mordheim Table blog for the full interview!

Cheers,
Tom

HORDES mini review

2009-10-11T10:13:00.017Z

Hey guys!

Don't we all like to expand our horizon? Even in tabletop related things, I believe this is a good thing to do.

So a while ago I decided that it might be a good idea to look into something different than the standard GW "8-stats-hit-wound-save" gaming system. I got interested in Privateer Press's Warmachine/Hordes "engine". After salivating for a while over (most of) the Hordes range and reading the quick start rules , I decided to give it a shot, buy the rulebook and make a small army.

I wanted to give you my first (and later) impressions, from the perspective of someone coming from the GW side of things (like most of us I guess). Below you will find a brief review of HORDES that may motivate you to give it a try aswell.

I want to make clear, that by the time of this review is written, I have not yet had a game of HORDES. So I have no gaming experience with this system. I have however read the book from A-Z and like to think that I have a rather decent overview of it by now.

Enjoy!

This is a biref review of the Privateer Press game HORDES
(that's right, spelled in CAPITAL LETTERS for some inexplicable reason)

What is Hordes?

Hordes is a tabletop wargame that allows you to play skirmishes to medium sized battles. It feels a little like Warhammer 40K I guess, in that it favours "squad-like" formations over rank-and-file setup (however there is something called "tight-formation" that allows certain units to build phallanxes for example).

The model count is low compared to Warhammer. Usually 20 - 50 models are enough for a medium to big sized force. The models are a little more expensive than GW's (not for long probably) and 99% of them are metal.

It does NOT have a RPG element.

The idea behind HORDES

According to Privateer Press (PP) HORDES is the "feral twin" of WARMACHINE. Both games are set in the "Iron Kingdoms" - a full metal fantasy setting (some call it Steampunk but I beg to differ) - where improbable steampowered constructs coexist with magic and exotic races. HORDES takes place in the "countryside" if you will, that is, outside of the "civilised" world, that is, in the wild. Hordes and Warmachine are compatible and can be played against each other (utilise the same basic game "engine").

Every HORDES army is lead by at least one Warlock which can telepathically control so-called Warbeasts to do the fighting for him/her. In addition to that, players may field units (squads) for support and additional versatility (e.g. Javelin throwing infantry). The game revolves around 2 ideas:

1) Tactics (army composition, placement, movement, planning ahead, optimising...)
2) Resource management

As the Warlock "forces" Warbeasts to fight (or perform other actions) they build up Fury (points). These Fury can be syphoned off by the Warlock and used as the "currency" to cast spell and/or heal wounded Warbeasts. But there is a catch: force your Warbeasts too much and they may go over the edge and go into frenzy... which makes the Warbeast uncontrolable and may damage your own troops.

Overall the game seems to boast the following features:

1) it is very fast paced and encourages fair powerplay. It's all about optimisation and hitting as hard as you can. All 4 factions are offensive in some way and there are no "mass" or "shooty" armies.
2) I makes heavy use of markers as there are plenty of "upkeep" effects.
3) Resource management of "Fury points"
4) The element of luck seems to much more controlable than in the GW systems (which is a relief I think) by the ressource component. Players may spend Fury to improve ("boost") important rolls.

HORDES- The gaming materials

All you need to play HORDES is the rulebook called "HORDES - Primal". It contains all the rules AND all the army lists ("Codexes" for those of us suffering from Games Workshopitis).

It is very reasonably priced, 200 pages full color and available as soft- or hardback.

The writing is ambivalent: the fluff part is marginally better than what GW produces, which is to say, slightly above bad. I personally am no fan of background fiction that focuses solely on action scenes and haemoglobin spillage. I find these things incredibly boring to read, and tend to skip large paragraphs if not everthing. Nevertheless I have read through most of the HORDES fluff to get a feeling for the factions.

The writing in the rules section on the other hand is very good. I think the rules are explained in a clear and understandable manner, with good diagrams and examples.

Front cover of my HORDES rulebook (~€15). Contains all the rules and army lists you need to play. 200 pages, full colour. There are 2 expansions to the basic rulebook that add new units, campaign rules and more background.

Back Cover of "HORDES - Primal" the core rulebook.

Miniatures come in these beautiful boxes.

And all miniatures come with colour stat cards. I used to think that cards have no place in tabletop wargames, but I now think I might be wrong. Having stat cards in front of you while playing, should makes it SO much easier to look things up quickly, than having to flick through an army book and having your opponent tap his feet with impatience.

Here's a WIP shot of one of my Druids of Orboros.

Conclusion

I think HORDES boasts a refreshing and new playing concept. The rules are clever and the ressource managment element makes it very interesting. The fact that you can spend points to alter certain rolls should make the luck-component more controlable (and less frustrating at times). On the other hand, it also favours the more experienced player and requires some getting used to. The actual game mechanics are thought through and require no charts to be memorised (like the GW wounding chart for example). 2D6 are rolled per model, an ability score added (Strength for example) and the result must exceed the opponents score for a successful hit & wound in one. The difference indicates the number of hit points lost (a normal trooper has 1HP). For close combat one must beat the opponents Armor score, for ranged attacks one must beat the opponents Defense score. This system does not require 3 rolls per model (hit, wound, save) but does all in one. The downside is that you must roll 2D6 for each model individually. This is somewhat counterballanced by a low model-count though. I also like the evenness between factions: no need to create races that have hugely different stats, no need for heavily shooty or close-combat armies. Differences are all in the special abilities. There are many ways to build each faction, and while some excel at blunt force or denial or speed, at the end of the day, all factions are close combat. This gets rid of the frustrating "campers" (like my wood elves in WHFB for example).

Overall I think HORDES is a refreshing new approach to tabletop wargaming, especially if you come from the GW angle. It certainly plays very differently and may be a little difficult to get into at first, but I definitely do not regret the buy (although I still need to get my Circle of Orboros fire-baptised).

Summary of Pros and Cons

Pros

Interesting gaming concept (Warlock + Warbeasts + Units)
Ressource management on top of tactical layer
Luck can be somewhat influenced via "boosting" of rolls
Healing of multi-HP models
Beautiful models
Low model count
Stat cards
Models have A LOT of special abilities: allows for unlimited build combinations/tactics
Cheap rulebook (although if you consider buying expansions this is nullified)
4 factions are easier to ballance against each other than 15 (see GW)

Cons

Attacks need to be made one by one (2d6). This does not allow "speed rolling" unless you use different colours and clarify beforehand.
Models have A LOT of special abilities that need to be kept in mind.
Expensive miniatures
All factions are rather exotic and may be a little harder to relate to at first than the GW "stereotypic" factions.

Link tip

http://battlecollege.wikispaces.com/ offers good tactical articles of all available PP models.

Outlook

PP has announced the second edition of HORDES to come out mid-end 2010. The new edition will probably simplify the model's point-cost system. There will be new miniatures but most importantly there will be a Rulebook and separate Army books. This will significantly increase the price.

Dark Elf Hapies movement tray

2009-09-27T10:49:00.003Z

Hey guys!

Due to commission work, I didn't get around to work on my own models at all during the last 6 months, but I got a chance to make a scenic movement tray. The idea, again, was to suggest a rugged, stony, mountainous landscape from which the harpies take off (and thus justifying the - admittedly - a little extravagant basejob I did on them :)

There will be lots of snow added.

Enjoy!
Tom

Gierburg Painting Logbook #5

2009-09-25T19:45:00.001Z

Hey, guys!
The fifth update to the Gierburg painting log is out!

GO TO GIERBURG PAINTING LOG #5

Gierburg Painting Logbook #4

2009-09-20T17:42:00.003Z

Hey, guys!
The fourth update to the Gierburg painting log is out!

GO TO GIERBURG PAINTING LOG #4

Gierburg Painting Logbook #3

2009-09-06T19:00:00.005Z

Hey, guys!
The third update to Gierburg painting is out! Follow the link below to check it out.

GO TO GIERBURG PAINTING LOG #3

Mohsar the Desertwalker

2009-09-01T21:14:00.000Z

I recently painted this model (Mohsar the Desertwalker for the game HORDES by Privateer Press) for my friend Matt. I just thought it would be worth putting up a post about it, since it was up for sale until recently.

Hope you like it!

Interview with Yitu

2009-08-31T21:28:00.002Z

I was recently interviewed about Mordheim related stuff - along with Cianty - by Yitu, a german blogger. The interview revolved mainly around Border Town Burning (so I am not even trying to steal Cianty's thunder ;) but there were a few questions in there for me aswell.

If you feel like giving the interview a read, feel free to head over to Yitu's website.

Cheers,
Tom

Gierburg Painting Logbook #2

2009-08-31T09:52:00.005Z

Hey, guys!
The second update to Gierburg painting is out! This time it's about a tavern. To see more...

GO TO GIERBURG PAINTING LOG #2

Gierburg Painting Logbook #1

2009-08-31T09:34:00.007Z

Hi, guys! I was recently invited by Chris "Cianty" Templin to join his Gierburg project as a painter. Needless to say, I was thrilled to seize the occasion. I will be documenting my progress over on Cianty's Tabletop Wargames Blog, so please feel free to head over there to read more.

A (very) brief introduction to Gierburg

For those who may not know what it is: Gierburg is a tabletop game that is currently being developed by Chris "Cianty" Templin (the guy who also gave us the amazing Mordheim supplement Border Town Burning), revolving around a great variety of skirmish-size missions in a cloak and dagger setting with subtle (but undeniable) elements of magic and mystery.

What sets Gierburg apart from your run-of-the-mill hack-and-slash tabletop skirmish game, is its use of combat and its character-based setup (which involves RPG elements). Combat is a tool amongst others that players need to use wisely to reach their mission objective. Hence, characters in Gierburg have a variety of skills, feats and attributes that are equally important, depending on the challenges they face, not necessarily related to fighting, but also to moving, sneaking, diversion, talking etc...

GO TO GIERBURG PAINTING LOG #1

Monster Magnet

2009-04-28T18:28:00.012Z

Don't you love it when you paint up a regiment with a lot of passion, spend hours upon hours shading and basing, only to have your models fall over 1000x during a 60min game?

I don't.

And that's why I wanted to try magnetizing my WHFB regiments. There are several ways to do that (buying individual magnets, magnetic paint etc..), but I chose to give pre-cut magnets and ferromagnetic foil a try, because they seemed the mose elegant solution.

I found this nice little online shop called Magnetbases.de, who ship at reasonable rates (~€4 within Europe which can be considered more than honest, compared to all these crooks who "offer" shipping at €10 and more).

The owner, Magnus Schwekendiek, is a nice fellow who will answer all your questions about size, compatibility, shipping etc...

On top of that, you get a small discout for ordering 3 or more base sets of the same type, e.g. if you buy 3 or more 2x5 20mm base sets, the price drops from €1.60 per set to €1.44.

This can save you a euro or two when you are basing more than one regiment of 20 men. Instead of buying 2 sets of 4x5 bases, just buy 4 sets of 2x5 and cash the discount.

This is what the bases look like. The ferromagnetic foil is included. Bases are pre-cut and have a "sticky" side, which makes then very user friendly to apply to the models.

Just peel off the protective foil, stick the magnet to your model, and put the model on the magnetic foil. Done. I glued the foil to movement trays for increased stability.

(I apologise for the unfinished models!)

Here you can see the magnetic foil I glued to the movement tray.

The magnet is roughly 0.7mm thick and does heighten the model a little. I had concerns about this at first, before buying the magnets, but they were quickly dispelled. The additional height is far beyond anything noticable. I'd be more concerned about the paintjob than about that :)

Aaaah! What a feeling of relief! No more shifting and falling models! BTW, this ALSO works with metal minatures... pretty amazing.

So if you have been hesitating to get magnets for your models, I can REALLY recommend this stuff. One of the most useful features for tabletop games.

Below I listed 6 advantages of magnetic bases, which make them more than worthwile in my eyes:

1) Protection. The models stand in place and do not fall over - which happens VERY readily during games. On top of that it abolishes this little annoying phenomenon of knocking over light plastic miniatures as you are placing more onto the tray, during setup.

2) Transport. You can actually transport the regiment as a whole! It also makes moving the regiment from its shelf onto the battlefield and vice versa a 100% safe undertaking. Especially for standard bearers, which tend to have a high center of gravity and fall over easily (rest in peace Questing Knight standard bearer).

3) Price. At around €2/ set there really is no excuse for not getting these. If you consider that some people are buying GW plastic "hills" at €25 *shudder*, you would like to advise them to save their money and buy magnetic bases instead.

4) Not so easy to make yourself. I am a big fan of only buying things you cannot manufacture yourself. So scenery is out. You cannot easily make magnetic bases yourself, so there is your reasonable buy.

5) Feel. The magnets and metal foil add a little extra weight to plastic regiments, which adds to this "old school" feel that I know from my early days, where all miniatures were metal. This might sound silly, but it does feel so much cooler to push around a "heavy" block of "massive" infantry, rather than something that feels like 20 LEGO figures...

6) Standalone. You do not necessarily need movement trays to glue the foil into! Although it is recommended as it adds a lot of stability, you can move around your miniatures on the battlefield with them standing only on the foil.

I hope this will inspire some of you guys to give magnetic bases a try,

Cheers,
Tom

Chicken wings

2009-04-25T20:56:00.004Z

I got asked how I made the wings on my plastic conversions of harpies.

You know what they say: an image says more than a 1000 words, so I made a little image tutorial that should answer that question :)

Enjoy!
-Tom

(click to enlarge)

Happy April 1st 2009!

2009-04-01T21:43:00.001Z

Ah, the joys of Photoshop CS2.

HAPPY FIRST OF APRIL EVERYBODY! ;)

Mordheim PC game - Screenshot surfaces!

2009-04-01T00:01:00.007Z

Big news!

A WIP screenshot has just surfaced on the internet, of a PC game adaptation of the tabletop game Mordheim! The game will be called "City of Corruption" and it is apparently in late alpha, so there is no release date or system requirements yet, but I guess we can expect it to come out around Q3 2010.

So... will the PC version see eye to eye with its tabletop counterpart? Leave you comments!

Shady business

2009-03-24T23:15:00.005Z

I had some spare parts. To be exact, I had 5 Corsair cloaks, a few left over Daemonette heads, some Wood Elf parts and some more Corsair arms.

So I figured, why not make a small unit out of these?

My eye fell on a pretty useless one indeed: Dark Elf shades (only surpassed in uselessness by Shades with great weapons). But since it was all going to be made from bits, I thought, I might aswell give it a try.

So here is another WIP project that patiently waits to get painted :)

Enjoy

I did not feel like using wood elf cloaks AGAIN, since I have done so already on my Dark Riders (soon to be revealed) and my assassin. So I used Sea Dragon Cloaks... I think it was not a too bad decision after all. It looks okay I think.

I added a little bit of detail with Green Stuff. Since my Dark Elf army is winter-themed, I thought thick scarves were in place here.

A few inaccuracies in equipment: I did not have any Repeater Crossbows, that Shades should normally carry. I only had some Repeater Handbows (rule wise, the R-Crossbow's little brother)... but who cares really?

Dark Elf Harpists, nay... Harpies

2009-03-13T20:48:00.007Z

All right, out with it!

Like almost every collector, I have quite a lot of unpainted miniatures (mostly conversions) and virtually no time to paint them.

So instead of hoarding pics of my unfinished projects on my hard drive, I might aswell start sharing WIP pics (with no guarantee that these projects will be completed anytime soon).

Here is a little project I have started a while ago, but, like many others, is currently on hold. For some inexplicable reason, I felt the urge to make some harpies for my tiny dark elf collection, because it sounded like a cool challenge to try and top the "original" GW models.

So I got myself a little box of the newly released Daemonettes, since I thought the models are just PERFECT to represent harpies (with a little conversion of course).

Below you will find some WIP pics of my conversion attempts!

My special thanks go to Alan Preuss, for his generosity. He provided me with A LOT of plastic dryads, which partly found their place in my wood elf army and were partly used for this project.

I hope you enjoy these few modest pics ;)

My 6 plasitc harpies... in the making.

I wanted the bases to reflect the harpie's role in combat. The massive "stone" formations should suggest that Harpies are there to overcome difficult/impassable terrain.

I also imagine them as dwelling in caves, somewhere high up on mountains (who cares what the Dark Elf Codex says, the fluff in there is abysmally unimaginative and badly written anyways :).

The bases are pieces of bark I scratched off a tree. I made sure to take it from the very bottom of the tree and to only remove loose bark to avoid wounding the tree too much. No trees were harmed in the making of these bases! :)

The wings are a bit of a challenge. I don't know if this will work, but so far I am optimistic. I cut out rough wing shapes from cardboard and attached it with a pin/hole system to the torsos.

The bodies are Chaos Daemonettes. The hands are transplanted from Wood Elf Dryads. I added some thumbs where neede as dryads often only have 4 fingers. I think they make pretty cool talons (albeit a little disproportionate).

I intend to reinforce the wings by adding green stuff detail.

[EDIT]: Here's a little tutorial on how I made the Harpie's wings.

Six inches of enchanted wood - Part 2 of 2

2009-02-07T15:41:00.003Z

This is the finished wood, ready to be set on the table!

Oh... that reminds me, I need to make a table... hmmm.

Enjoy!

Six inches of enchanted wood - Part 1 of 2

2009-02-03T21:02:00.011Z

What is the only Warhammer army that has a piece of scenery as a "unit"?

Exactly. My beloved Wood Elves. If you take a look at p.18 in your Wood Elf Army Book (everyone owns one, right?) you will discover the Woodland Ambush rule, which allows the Wood Elf player to place a 6" wood anywhere in his half of the table after scenery has been placed and before deployment.

In other words: I get to build a small wood to carry around with my army.
I am sorry, but you can't get any cooler that that :)

The trees are from Woodland Scenics. Here you see the base which I carved out of styrofoam.

Of course any Wood Elf-specific piece of wood (especially one that magically appears before each battle and can potentially be moved around during the fight by spells) need wardstones.
Making wardstones: This is pretty easy. All you need is a lighter and a metal tool of some sort with a pointy end. Heat the tool with the flame and quickly carve the desired shape into the styrofoam. The heated tool should last for approx. 5 seconds, which is more than enough to trace a quick spiral.

Don't worry about the metal getting all black and covered in molten styrofoam. Just take a damp towel to clean the tool and melt away the styrofoam residues from the tool.

I made some roots out of green stuff (I did not go into too much detail, because of lack of time and because most of the roots will be covered with foliage later anyway).

That's it for now!

I don't have a lot of time on my hands currently to do any painting, so the Wood Elf projects will just keep piling up until they get painted. But everything will get painted eventually...

See you next time!

[EDIT]: I forgot to mention that this piece of scenery is a first step towards re-vamping my very old WHFB table into a decent "rural" setting (as opposed to "urban" Mordheim) for games of Border Town Burning, Empire in Flames and WHFB.

Magic girls

2008-12-30T17:04:00.005Z

Hey!

After a long silence I finally have something new to share. I had a little spare time (Christmas holidays) and got a chance to speed-paint 2 minis between wrapping presents, buying a christmas tree and doing all the (cool) celebrating.

Another quantum leap towards the goal of seeing my (dauntingly big) wood elf army finished one day.

Here are two wood elf spellweavers!
I hope you like them!

As requested here are the colours I used.
I use mainly Vallejo paints so I added the approximative GW equivalents in brackets for those of you who use GW paints. When there is no direct equivalent to the Vallejo Paint I suggested a mix of GW paints.

Key:
BeBr = Bestial Brown
BlBo = Bleached Bone
SnLe = Snakebite Leather
SuYe = Sunburst Yellow
GrEa = Graveyard Earth
ElFl = Elf Flesh
DaFl = Dark Flesh
FiOr = Fiery Orange

The Brown parts

1. Vallejo Tierra Mate (BeBr)
2. Highlight with mixes of Vallejo Tierra Mate (BeBr) with increasing amounts of Vallejo Arena Oscura (BlBo).

The Yellow Parts

1. Vallejo Uniforme Inglés (SnLe)
2. Highlight with mixes of Uniforme Inglés (SnLe) with increasing amounts of Vallejo Amarillo Arena (BlBo+SuYe).

The Skin

1. GrEa
2. Highlight with a mix 1:1 GrEa+ElFl
3. Wash with GW Devlan Mud and let dry (!)
4. Highlight again with mix from step 2, i.e. 1:1 GrEa+ElFl
5. Highlight some more with 1:2 GrEa+ElFl
6. (optional) Highlight with pure ElFl

The diamonds

1. mix 1:2 FiOr+DaFl
2. Make half-circular highlights with mixes of DaFl with increasing amounts of FiOr until you reach pure FiOr.
3. (optional) Place a pure DaFl arc oposite the pure FiOr to give some more depth.
4. Place a little dot of white on the darkest (top) part of the diamond to simulate the reflection.

I hope that helps!
Don't hesitate to ask me here or on the forum if you have any more questions.

Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald - Part 3

2008-11-07T00:35:00.004Z

There he is, the finished Treeman built from scratch!
Enjoy.

Golden Tom results are out!

2008-10-15T17:09:00.005Z

Congratulations to the winners of Tom's Boring Mordheim Competition 2008!

Golden Tom
Moonlit necromancer
by footofadhesivetape

Silver Tom
Dragon Monk on Temple Dog
(for Border Town Burning supplement)
by Cianty

Bronze Tom
Magister casting Dark Blood by UnderBheit

Head over to TBMF for more pics of the winning entries, an overview of the jury's votes and to catch a glimpse of all the other fantastic entries!

Golden Tom 2008

2008-10-05T20:05:00.002Z

Tom's Boring Painting Competition
has closed!

Thanks to all of those who have entered!
Expect the results after october 10th 2008.
Good luck!
-Admin Tom

Chaos in Cathay

2008-09-06T10:26:00.009Z

The very first Border Town Burning review on the world wide web.

The unofficial Mordheim supplement Border Town Burning by Christian "Cianty" Templin, Stu "Werekin" Cresswell and friends has been in the works for over four years, and is eagerly awaited by Mordheim gamers all over the world. A week before its official release, Tom's Boring Mordheim Blog was the first to be invited to take a look behind the scenes of the most anticipated Mordheim supplement of 2008.

Exclusively on TBMB you will be able to read about what exciting stuff awaits you within the pages of Border Town Burning before it hits the web! Admin Tom has read the Mordheim supplement for you and offers an exclusive review of the exciting new setting for your Mordheim campaigns.

Exploring new spheres

Border Town Burning is set near Cathay, the far East region that lies behind the World's Edge Mountains, whose snowy spine shields the Old World from the Dark Lands. The first pages of BTB offers insight into a letter of Remino Hauser, a merchant on his way to Cathay and into the personal journal of Hans Hierbach, a travelling Sigmarite preacher, whose descriptions of the foreign, secretive and rich land of Cathay set the stage for the extraordinary mood of the rulebook and raises questions that tickle the reader's appetite. Do the elves have contact with Cathay? If so, for how long have they known about Cathay? Are they the ones responsible for smuggling Topum into Mareinburg? What lies beyond the city of Sen-Quoi which, by imperial decree, no Old Worlder is allowed to trespass to the East upon penalty of death?

In BTB we leave the sinuous, torch-lit streets of old Mordheim to breathe the chilled air of the borderland steppes between Cathay and the Northern Wastes, where barbaric tribes devoted to the Gods of Chaos dwell.

"From this point on, reality continues to break down [...]. Even the landscape itself is hostile, as the mutating, ever-changing effect of Chaos has scarred the lands permanently. A lack of landmarks makes map-making extremely difficult and something that can be seen in the distance one day can be gone the next. A traveller might even think they have been going east for many days only to find that they have been going west, north or not moving at all."
- excerpt from Border Town Burning

What's new?

BTB is much more than just an expansion to the "core game" Mordheim. It unites new background, new warbands, new skills, new equipment, new dramatis personae, new hired swords and most importantly a brand new narrative campaign system in one supplement. In addition to introducing new and exciting features, BTB also partly relies on successful and approved rules from Empire in Flames and the article Blazing Saddles for mounts.

With a new setting comes a full package of new rules. Players will have a choice of 6 new warbands to lead into battle, namely Marauders of Chaos , Merchant Caravans, The Restless Dead, Battle Monks of Cathay, Black Dwarfs and Ogre Maneaters. It also includes the Norse Explorers which have been re-edited from the Lustria supplement. Of course all the original and official warbands from the basic rulebook remain available, and entirely playable in BTB. Although this supplement can be used for one-off games in an exotic setting, it develops its real flavour when played in campaign mode - its designed purpose. Unlike the core game, BTB provides specific agendas for every actor in the campaign and an enticing background with entwined stories.

Another new feature are unlockable scenarios. These only become available as the warbands progress through the campaign and it is the order in which they are played that tells the story.

Furthermore BTB introduces the campaign points (CP) system. Each warband has its own objective throughout the campaign, and collects CPs for completing incremental steps in it. (like playing a game, winning a game, taking out a rival/minion of chaos etc...) . The new rosters in the BTB rulebook provide little boxes that are checked one at a time. As in the known XP-point system, every time a player reaches a thick CP-box, he may check the campaign achievement chart, giving subtle advantages like slightly reduced recruitment costs due to fame, exploration re-rolls and such. Unlike XP however, CPs are gained by the warband as a whole. Campaign points are two things: first, an indicator of progress through the story and secondly a currency! Indeed hired swords costs money and CPs in Border Town Burning. A warband wins the campaign when it achieves its objective before the others, i.e. when all CP boxes are checked.

Story

In BTB Chaos is brewing but this time it's not about wyrdstone. A barbarian Chieftain is striving to become a Champion of the Dark Gods and raise an army to lead against the civilized peoples of the Warhammer World. However one does not become a Choas Champion over night, and so the aspiring champion has to locate four arcane artefacts that will grant him the power to become a Lord of Chaos. Unaware of this, adventure parties venture into the Cathayan region driven by rumours of these ancient magical items worth a fortune. The good news is, all factions - good and evil - are playable! Whether the players choose to go in as marauder chieftains yearning to become Lords of Chaos, as Cathayan Monks fighting the threat to their homeland or simply treasure hunters profiting off the confusion to get their own piece of the cake, they will play a part in orchestrating the campaign. Let it be said here, that there is no obligation to choose any of the above listed factions in the mentioned constellation. The beauty of BTB is that it works with any set-up of warbands: all good, all evil, all neutral or a mix thereof. However it goes without saying that the most enjoyable BTB experience will come from the latter.

Border Town Burning gaming table by Cianty.

Release date and installments

The Border Town Burning rulebook is split into six installments which will be released on a fortnight basis, boasting 144 pages in total of brand new material that allows you to explore an entirely new and exotic setting with your gaming group. Of course, the BTB sourcebook also provides us with a beautiful and inspirational gallery.It was kicked off on sunday august 31st 2008 with the first intallment out of six: "Background and Merchant Caravan".

Every two weeks thereafter a new installment will be published. This will allow players time to assimilate and enjoy every one of the chapters and ease them into this new setting. Background and Merchant Caravan has already been released and the next installment is scheduled for September 14th, 2008.

Conclusion

With Border Town Burning the development team has delivered a one-of-a-kind and highly creative supplement for our Mordheim games that convinces through incredible professionalism and flair. With four years in development and playtesting it constitutes a very solid system and can be thus be trusted like any official release, if not more so.
When reading this sourcebook it is nigh impossible not to picture endless steppes, monasteries in snowy mountains, steaming pits of chaos, dim lit caverns hiding riches in their bowels, Cathayan monks doing spin kicks, ogres riding into a charge on the back of mighty rhinoxes.

It feels almost ubiquitous to say that if you are already a Mordheim player playing this supplement is a must. No wargamer worth his salt can afford not to play and enjoy Border Town Burning. It will bring not only a breath, but a blizzard of "fresh" air into your gaming experience and guarantee infinite replayability through a clever design and a rich setting. It will inspire and motivate you to explore new visual styles and ideas for your models aswell as spark myriads of new ideas for those of you who like to design new scenarios, quests and campaigns.

To those who may not play Mordheim yet, all I can say is that this is an offer you cannot refuse. An offer to join into a fantastic and fun world of Mordheim that has just been expanded to a universe by the talent and effort of a small team of bright young people.

Conclusively I would like to thank Cianty - gamer, painter and designer extraordinaire - and his great team for their effort and incredible dedication in bringing this brainchild to life, in a friendly and professional atmosphere. This is what the hobby is about and this is how it should be.

Thank you for your time.
- Admin Tom

Want to know more? Download BTB here!
http://www.bordertownburning.de.vu/

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Four (final)

2008-08-07T00:50:00.009+01:00

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!

Chapter Four - Kings of the Hill

The last scenario we played was a "King of the hill" type of scenario: we determined an elevated area, consisting of two buildings, in the center of the board, and the objective of the players was to occupy that
area with as many warriors as possible.

Boehm placing the last piece of scenery near the objective:

Close-up of the objective: any model standing in the red area after 6 turns brings in 1 Victory Point for
his team:

For this game, we decided to form three teams:

Team 1: Admin Tom (Witch Hunters) + Matt (Possessed)
Team 2: Boehm (Dwarves) + Erkwin (Reiklanders)
Team 3: Tortiou (Reiklanders) + Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)

Lanyssa Ryssyll and Tortiou, starting to the south of the table, divided their strike force:

Admin Tom and Matt, forming an unusual and rather surprising team of Witch Hunters and Possessed (yes we know, fluff wouldn't normally allow it, but did it for variability's sake), started to the North-West of the table:

They were almost face to face with Erkwin and Boehm's team, which showed up to the North-East:

One of Erkwin's marksmen covers the advance of his teammates:

At this time, the central position is still unoccupied:

Team 2 on the move!! (I just love this pic!)

Tom's and Matt's warriors decide to rush towards the south... but soon encounter some light resistance from
Tortiou and Lanyssa's team:

Two flagellants and Karol ambushing Lanyssa's binge-drinking dwarf:

Matt pushed his luck a bit too far, and charged the whole Team 2 with a single model (the now-famous Krackatoaaar):

Needless to say: the poor Krackatoar (in the centre of the picture) received volley after volley of arrows,
and finally expired and met its maker:

One of Tortiou's archers takes a firing position:

Erkwin's marksman watching the scene from a safe distance:

Even though Krackatoar just bit the dust, Matt keeps smiling!

As the end of the game approaches, Team 3 decides to rush inside the objective area:

Don Salchichón, Tortiou's hired freelancer knight, charges Matt's possessed and tries to hinder the advance of Team 1:

The close combat taking place between Team 1 (Tom+Matt) and Team 3
(Tortiou+Lanyssa) involves flagellants, Karol the possessed, two dwarves and Don Salchichón. Despite his strong armour save (3+), the Knight is put OOA by Karol right after his charge. Lanyssa's two remaining dwarves manage to hold their position for one more turn, delaying Tom and Matt and allowing the rest of their teammates to occupy the building.

Captain Tortiou's Reiklanders, storming the objective area:

Meanwhile, Team 2 (Boehm and Erkwin) uses the occasion to enter the area from the North:

Three Reiklanders from Erkwin's team manage to climb on the northeastern corner of the objective area:

The showdown is inevitable: the two teams clash in the centre of the objective area, inside the ruins. The fight is brutal, violent, bloody.

Who will be the King of the Hill?

The objective area at the end of turn 6:

Captain Tortiou manages to kill one of Erkwin's champions with a well-aimed headshot from his duelling
pistol:

At the end of turn 6, the objective area was occupied by:
-Team 2 (Boehm + Erkwin) : 10 warriors
-Team 3 (Tortiou + Lanyssa Ryssyll) : 10 warriors
-Team 1 (Matt + Tom) : 1 dog

Thus, the game was declared a draw between Team 2 and Team 3.

However, both teams were given +1XP for their leaders because of the spectacular showdown!

Tortiou and Erkwin vehemently discussing the fight during the post-battle sequence:

(actually, they are just posing for the picture... )

This is how Tom's Boring Mordheim Meetup ended. After this game, we all went to the city centre of Vienna to have a nice lunch (with beer!) in a nice tavern. We all had some excellent goblin steak roasted à la viennese (only 13gc)
but Matt wanted to sacrifice the waiter to the unholy Khorne so we were actually asked to leave.

Matt getting ready to take on a huge "Speckbrot":

Tortiou discussing "sniper" rules for Mordheim with Boehm.

And here's a last shot of the whole Boring Meetup 2008 crew (munchin' away at those delicious 50cm breads )

Conclusively I would like to say that this Meetup was really awesome, not only because the games all went smoothly and were fun and interesting, but also because every single participant was cool, nice, and geekishly crazy!

Thank you Erkwin, Matt, Boehm and Lanyssa Ryssyll!
And of course a big "Cheers mate !" to the incredible Admin Tom who moved heaven and earth to make this Meetup possible, and without whom all these games would never have taken place... respect, mon gars!

And finally thanks to you for reading all this!

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Three

2008-08-04T19:54:00.010+01:00

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!
*trumpets sounding in the distance*

Chapter Three - Street Fighters

The second game we played was a pure, simple and brutal street brawl. Again, we decided to form alliances and thus two teams were opposed. Each team (comprising three warbands) had to start from one end of the street and the scenario objective was to advance as far as possible towards the other end of the street. We roughly defined an "Area of Victory": after 6 turns, for every model standing in this Area of Victory, a team received 1 Victory Point. For every model beyond this Area of Victory, the team received 2 VP (but as you will see, the battle was so fierce that no warrior made it past the 1VP area...)

I made a little scheme to explain the objective.

Here you can see the limits of the street (red lines) and the Area of Victory (red area)

Same as before, but from the opposite point of view:

For fun, we also added some Wyrdstone counters. Just like the previous game, we rolled to determine the teams. The results were:

Team 1
AdminTom (Witch Hunters)
Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)
Tortiou (Reiklanders)

Team 2
Matt (Possessed)
Boehm (Dwarves)
Erkwin (Reiklanders)

The table is set... the teams are ready... let the show begin!

Two leagues, both alike in dignity,
In fair Mordheim, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean!

Boiling with anger, the combined force of Witch Hunters - Dwarves - Reiklanders (Team 1) started on the south side of the street. As you will probably notice on the pictures below, Tortiou decided to hire the services of a Freelancer Knight to assist his Reiklanders...

Here you can see, from top to bottom: Tortiou's Reiklanders, Tom's Witch Hunters, and Lanyssa's Dwarves:

To the north, moving silently but consumed with rage, were the mighty Dwarf - Reiklander - Possessed alliance (Team 2).

Matt's Possessed are pushing forward to secure the middle of the street, followed by Erkwin's and Boehm's warriors:

Near the fountain, you can spot Matt's mighty
Possessed, among them Gnobo (to the left) and Krackatoaaar (to the
right) who continued their serendipituous killing spree:

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"

A lonely Beastman securing the first wyrdstone counter. Behind him, Boehm's halfling cook takes a firing position:

The first two close combats of the game, between a
separated Freelancer (from Tortiou's warband) and Matt's unstoppable
Krackatoar; and between Tom's dog and Matt's terrifying Gnobo:

To tell the story of Matt's incredible close combat fights during this game would take too long (and he'll probably be glad to write about it himself) (*hint! hint!*) Let's just say that Lady
Luck was on Matt's side... and thus, both the Freelancer knight and Tom's dog were killed in this action.

After a few turns, the middle of the street is being approached by many warriors: Team 1 is rushing on the footbridges, whereas Team 2 takes cover behind a city wall (Team 2 is hidden in this picture):

At the end of the 6th turn, after a big brawl in the middle of the street, Team 2 had the highest number of warriors standing in the Victory Area. Team 1 had been too slow or had had too many warriors killed in the battle. Thus, Team 2 (Matt, Boehm and Erkwin) was declared the winning team!

Admin Tom and his boyz, after the fight:

This was the end of the first day of our Big Meetup (11th of July). The next day, another fascinating scenario was played, with an unexpected twist... but this will be told in Chapter 4 - The Last Chapter!

Be sure to also check out the extra feature available on TBMF soon! An excerpt of the private journal of a very famous Hired Sword...

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter Two

2008-07-31T18:41:00.004+01:00

Tom & Tortiou proudly present

Live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive

1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!

Chapter Two - Wyrdstone hunters

The first game we played was a wyrdstone hunt: wyrdstone counters were placed on the board by the players successively, rather far away from the table edge and not too close to each other. To spice up the scenario a little bit, we also decided to place Victory Point-counters (I suppose WarbossKurgan didn't know he was the one who put that idea into Tom's head), each counter being worth 1, 2 or 3 VP. These counters were meant to be carried by warriors just like a wyrdstone counter. The speciality of these counters however lies with the fact, that the number of VPs they are worth was written underneath them and revealed only after the game!
We decided to also award 1 VP per kill, to balance the game for slower warbands.

Boehm and Erkwin placing the counters:

two teams of three warbands each were rolled for:

Team 1
Admin Tom (Witch Hunters)
Lanyssa Ryssyll (Dwarves)

Erkwin (Reiklanders)

Team 2
Boehm (Dwarves)
Matt (Possessed)
Tortiou (Reiklanders)

We started on randomly determined table edges, so the teams were actually quite scattered all over the city, some being sandwiched between the enemy! Matt and Boehm started close to each other, and so did Admin Tom and Lanyssa Ryssyll. But Erkwin and Tortiou were cut off from their allies and dangerously close to ennemy models.

Erkwin's Reiklanders are deploying...

Everybody's getting ready for the big battle:

Tortiou's Reiks are warming up:

Admin Tom is showing off (as usual :P)

Tom's Witch Hunters are lighting the torches and sending the dogs to the front line

An isolated Reiklander archer (Erkwin) covers his teammates

Lanyssa Ryssyll (his back to us) moving his dwarves towards a wyrdstone counter, while Matt and Boehm discuss a joint operations strategy, closely watched by Erkwin (the actual positions of the player reflect the location of their respective warbands on the board):

The first close combat between Matt's Possessed and Lanyssa Ryssyll's Dwarves... and the amazing debut of Krackatoaaar's killing spree.

No one - except for Matt, one would assume - was ever sure how to spell Krackatoaaaar's name correctly (Kraktor? Gragtoooh?), but it was a lot of fun to burst into that "sound" every time Matt's warrior went into a rampage... In fact there was yelling of "Kraktooooooor!" in almost every close combat phase :)

The tension mounts as both teams are now in possession of approximately the same number of wyrdstone counters and VP counters.

Lanyssa Ryssyll meticulously analysing the situation:

The jubilant jumping Erkwin exulting after his Champion gives the coup de grace to Boehm's reckless dwarf Beardling:

Undeterred, Boehm's enterprising dwarves continue to advance towards the fighting:

On the other side of the table, Tortiou's Reiks are desperately trying to counter Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarves and Tom's witch hunters by firing volley after volley of arrows...
without no luck:

Erkwin's packed Reiks are slowly progressing:

"Do you think he can see my warrior?" -"Yes he can!" -"Mmmh, maybe yes, maybe no..." -"Let's ask the referee..."

The whole game balance changes as Tom's Witch Hunters and Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarves finally reach the little plaza at the centre of the board and grab the remaining pieces of wyrdstone.

This is the last pint of Lanyssa Ryssyll's dwarf called Vue-Troublée (Blurred-Sight) before being shot by one of Tortiou's archers. Soon after this, Lanyssa Ryssyll routs, but manages to keep one WS counter while fleeing.

Erkwin's Reiks overwhelming one of Boehm's dwarves:

Last action heroes: Tortiou's Reiks heroically charge Tom's witch hunters behind a corner... resulting in two Reiklander going OOA
(one being Captain Tortiou himself, bitten to death by a dog):

Tom's Warhounds proved to be one of the surprisingly effective units in this campaign. Twice they were charged by Reiklanders (and well armed ones on top of that) and both times the warhounds were the ones taking their agressors out.

The game ends with Erkwin's Youngblood picking up another WS counter at the last second. What we did at the end is count the points for each team, giving 1 VP per wyrdstone counter, 1VP per kill and 1, 2 or 3 VP per VP counter picked up. Now was the time to reveal how much VPs each counter was worth. Actually, both teams had taken possession of roughly the same number of VP counters, but luck favoured Erkwin-Tom-Lanyssa's team: when we flipped the VP counters over to see how much each counter was worth, Erkwin and his teammates got more points than the other team!

Here you can see Erkwin's VP counters flipped over:

The results:
Team 2 (Tortiou - Matt - Boehm) only totaled 11 points, whereas Team 1 (Tom - Lanyssa Ryssyll - Erkwin) totaled 18 points.

Team 1 was declared the winning team!

All players at the end of the game, during the post-battle sequence:

After that, we went out to have some food, but quickly returned for the second game... more to come in Chapter 3!

Boring Mordheim Meetup 2008 - Chapter One

2008-07-31T17:58:00.006+01:00

Coming up next, live from Vienna, Austria, a TBMB&TBMF exclusive:

The incrrrredible, the amaaazing, the flabberrrrgasting
1st MORDHEIM MEETUP Battle report!

Chapter One - Preparing the game, meeting the guys

The days before the Big Meetup, many tasks lay on Admin Tom's shoulders: preparing the scenery, buying truckloads of snacks & drinks, transporting important stuff from his place to the gaming venue, adjusting lighting, cleaning, fetching eager gamers from airports and trainstations... that's why he ordered respectfully asked me, his fellow slave good friend, to help him complete these adventurous quests.

This is Admin Tom (hallowed be thy name) placing the buildings on the gaming board:

That's me, Tortiou (yours truly), doing the same as Master Tom to put up a good front::

The city (of the damned) taking shape:

Finishing the last building... just in time:

On the day of the Big Meetup, finally, the guests arrived! From left to right: Lanyssa Ryssyll, Boehm, Erkwin, Admin Tom, Tortiou, and Matt!

The guests are here, the board is ready... the Battle can begin!

End of chapter One - To be continued...soon!

Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald - Part 2

2008-07-09T17:39:00.006+01:00

I am waiting with painting the Treeman, because I want to finish all the modelling before I proceed to picking up my brushes. That's just how I like to do it.

So I thought I'd show you WIP pics of another wood elfy thing I have been doing in order to complete my (hopefully one day) 2000pts Wood Elves WHFB army.

Although this is again a Warhammer post, I think it can't be wrong to post it, as it is of interest to everyone who likes modelling and converting! :)

Today's Menu: Wild Riders of Kournos. A special unit choice for wood elf players. The rules state that these guys are Forest Spirits with all that this implies (special save, cause fear, immune to psychology etc...)

You know what I am about to say "I don't like the GW model so I built my own..." But you're not quite right this time unfortunately. I think the GW models look okay... for a regular cavalry unit. But they most certainly do not suffice to represent the wrath of fear causing forest spirits, stampeeding out of a dark enchanted forest to the sound of horns blowing to the Wild Hunt, ready to tear apart the invading foe.

So here it goes. My own interpretation of "cavalry-like" forest spirits... that are scary. Mommy! :)

Enjoy!

Hard to see on this pic, but the standard (the tree trunk) has little greenstuff glyphs on it. This will be more evident once painted.

PS: A big thank you to DeafNala on the Forum who so generously donated ALL the parts that I used for these conversions!

Expansion Pack

2008-07-02T00:58:00.000+01:00

As Nico has announced a looong time ago, he has realised the painstaking but heroic task of expanding our gaming table. Yay!

"This city is too small" he declared, and got to work with his knife and pen.
A bigger table also offers more possibilities for a larger number of players, and I must say that I felt our experienced warbands were in dire need of more space lately :)

Nico draws lines on the table with a marker to determine where the larger lines of cobblestone will run. Many hours of sudorific "stone-carving" (with a pencil) ensued...

A week later: Nico with the finished (unpainted) new gaming board in the middle of the table. Is this the same t-shirt Nico, or just one that looks REALLY similar?!

Now that Nico did all the carving (each single cobblestone was carved by hand) it is my job to paint this baby. Thank you Nico!

Today I painted the board. Perfectly in time for our International Mordheim Meeting on July 11th - 12th.

Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald - Part 1

2008-07-01T23:27:00.007+01:00

A few months ago I showed you how I built 2 trebuchets for my little bretonnian force. I do also own a little wood elf army (which is still under construction) and I thought, if the brets get big fat eye catching centerpieces for their army, it would be only fair for my Wood Elves to get at least one.

But what's big, heavy, super cool and does a lot of damage in a Woodie army?

There's only one candidate: a Treeman!

So it is written, so let it be done, I'll build myself a Treeman from scratch. As for the trebuchet, I find the GW metal model to be ridiculously small (for a unit that supposedly causes terror and costs nigh 300pts!) and expensive.

Here are some WIP pics up to the basecoated model awaiting its paintjob.

Enjoy! :)

An elf uses the protection of his much taller "friend" to take a few well aimed shots at the foe.

The whole model was built around a metal wire "skeleton" I made.

A pic of the base. Hard to see here but I sculpted some mushrooms growing on the tree trunk aswell as a rune stone.

Manchester: Battle Report - Game 2 of 2

2008-05-05T18:15:00.004Z

Game 2: Treasure Hunt

No sooner had word got out, that a magical artefact was stashed-away somewhere near the docks, than all the warbands active in the town descended on the harbour and started turning over the houses.

Pugwash’s Pirates had poor luck from the moment they got into port, Their launch pulled alongside the Hogwasha’s cutter and they crossed onto the Orc boat. But when they tried to board the Hogwasha over the broken gangplank from the cutter the lead crewman lost his footing and slipped into the water below! To make matters worse he grabbed the man behind him and pulled him off balance, he clapped onto the man behind him and so on. pretty soon four pirates were thrashing around in the docks!

Slippery Jack, the Squigtapus, sensed their struggling and darted towards them...

~ ~ ~

The warbands searched building after building until an ill-advised shout of celebration from a Dark Elf in the Wizard’s Tower echoed across the bay! The Wreckers Guild and the Sneakers were closest to hand and, like all the other warbands, made a hasty rush towards the Wizard’s Tower.

~ ~ ~

As the Halibuteers ran across the Walled Garden Mino the Goblin started hurling abuse at Fishman Marlin’s back, for some real or imagined slight. The Orc thought it was Sprat being so insolent and cracked the poor Goblin’s skull! Mino realised that he had got away with it by the skin of his teeth and kept his mouth shut from then on.

The Squigtapus furiously lashed out at the floundering pirates and the scurvy-addled buccaneers fended off its tentacled terrorising and the cabin-boy Roger (who was still on the cutter) managed to injure the sea-spawn and it fled to the deep.

Backstabba Sneak took down Fishman Big’Un Makrul with a carefully aimed sling stone.

~ ~ ~

As the two Orc mobs sprinted through the Shambles towards the Wizard’s Tower and the loot they converged into a single yelling, bawling, roaring mass. A great column of aggression that swarmed through the Gatehouse archway and crashed into the Dark Elves. Oooog the Shaman clubbed Uhrial in the chops and the Unpronounceable dropped like a sack of taters. One of the Boring Boyz knocked Delmah down with his shield and stuck him with his sword.

A Wreckers Guild henchman took deliberate aim with his harpoon gun and fired. Kap’n Hadduk was hit in the leg and fell, skidding to a halt face down in the dirt in the garden. The Halibuteer’s bad luck continued as Bleak Sneak’s sling stone knocked out Marlin the Fish-Orc.

The Dark Elves, overcome by the Orcish onslaught, dropped the artefact and it was scooped up by Garen Sneak - the leader of the Skaven Sneakers. He took one look at the advancing green horde and fled for his life, clutching his loot.

~ ~ ~

The final straw for the Dark Elves was Squiggy-Squig mauling Lhunaru, this sent them running for their lives. As the Halibuteers reached the far side of the Walled Garden Dagon the Troll took repeated hits from the Wreckers and the Skaven. His regenerative powers coped for a short while but finally a harpoon thudded into his back and he fell heavily.

~ ~ ~

Sneer Sneak took a heroic diving leap from a third floor window, hit the ground rolling and carried on running as if nothing happened! Marlin stood agog at this feat of gymnastics so Backstabba took advantage and stabbed the gawking Orc in the belly.

Murlok the Shaman and a couple of Fish Boyz veered off for the Cod and Cutlass and the Shaman blasted Awkward Davis, a crewman of Pugwash’s Pirates.

~ ~ ~

Prospero coldly aimed one of his finely crafted pistols at Mino the Goblin - who spotted the gun and squealed and turned to flee, only to be shot in the back. While Pintelli dealt with the prone Fish Troll. In the street between the Cod and Cutlass Barnabus fenced with one of the Backstabba Sneakers, after a few brief passes the Wrecker kicked the Backstabba in the knee and ran him through as he toppled over.

In the bar of the Cod and Cutlass Makrul the Fishy Big’Un smashed one of the pirate’s pressed men in the teeth with a steel scaled gauntlet.

Slicer Sneak knocked one of the Wreckers down and was about to finish him off when the Orcs caught up with them, the Boss of the Boring Boyz kicked him out of the Warehouse doorway.

The fight for the Artefact hung on a knife-edge as Uggg smacked Sneer Sneak with his stone-headed club, while the Ugggs took on and bested a pair of pirate crewmen near the fountain.

The Artefact rolled along the street unattended as the Orcs swarmed through the Gatehouse archway. Prospero looked around furtively then picked up the precious thing and stuffed it into his pouch. The Wreckers fell back in good order as the Skaven squeaked and squealed in fear - the Orc horde was upon them!

As the Wreckers disappeared with the loot Makrul made a lone rush along the jetty towards the Hogwasha but Pugwash and two of the dripping-wet mates stood in his way. With a loud explosion and a cloud of smoke the Fishman crashed onto the decking.

~ ~ ~

The Wreckers Guild won the game and got a random Magical Artefact.

Manchester: Battle Report - Game 1 of 2

2008-05-01T21:32:00.015Z

Here, as announced, the battle report from our first game in Manchester, beautifully written in his delightfully entertaining manner, by the one and only master-scribe Warboss Kurgan.

Thank you for the great report WBK!

Enjoy the new pics! :)

You can also read the Tales of the Cod & Cutlass thread with and about this report on the forum. It contains some extra (juicy) background and even a map!

Game 1: Occupy Vercuso

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy!

Vercuso: a harbour on the eastern edge of Sartosa, the Pirate Island. It used to be a seedy, disreputable and downright dangerous place but it has gone downhill recently.

During the invasions and subsequent wars much of the town was ruined, many of the houses were stripped for timber to make ships (ironic since most were built from salvaged shipwrecks!) and nearly every part of the town was ransacked, looted and generally ruined.

The most famous tavern in Vercuso is the Cod and Cutlass, on the quay-side in the docks. Even though it is now a ruin the tavern still acts as a focal point for much of the activity in the town. The presence of massive amounts of Wyrdstone (fragments of the shattered Bloodfane) draws dozens of small warbands to search the ruins, hoping to find enough to make their fortunes.

~ ~ ~

A strong stench of dead fish wafted through the harbour district. As the morning mists were burned away by the rising spring sun, Murlok the Shaman shaded his eyes and squinted down the street. The rest of the Halibuteers waited impatiently, gathered around their leader, Kap’n Hadduk. In the distance Murlok could see something moving and he pointed it out to Hadduk – just a glimpse but someone rushed from ruined building to ruined building. A few seconds later and three more figures scampered across the street about a hundred yards ahead.

“Dis is da place Kap’n” muttered the Shaman.
“Well we ain’t the first here but we gotta make sure we have control of the port. We can’t let them bilge-swabbers and chum-buckets think they can just do whatever they like!” said Kap’n Hadduk.
The Halibuteers grinned and nodded silently in agreement.
“Roight, let’s go!” said Hadduk and jumped up, the Fishmen followed him as he ran into the Shambles.

~ ~ ~

Shouts and cries rang out. Swivel-gun, handgun and pistol fire echoed through the town. The ringing clash of steel on steel filled the streets. Seven warbands ringed the Cod & Cutlass; all intent on being the dominant force in this vital area. Control the docks: control the town!

The Pirates team

Pugwash’s Pirates: A band of scurvy dogs lead by Captain Kharn.
The Wreckers Guild: Pirates from Marienburg equipped with underwater breathing apparatus.
The Sneakers: Skaven Assassins and Wyrdstone hunters.
The Unpronounceables: Dark Elf Corsairs

The Orcs team

Kap’n Hadduk’s Halibuteers: The Fishmen of Sartosa
Ug Ugg Uhg-ug: Savage Cave-Orcs from a time before history.
The Boring Boyz: Orcs from the Great Forests of the Empire

~ ~ ~

The Halibuteers split up; some climbed the walkways over the Shambles while others headed for the Gatehouse. The Boring Boyz left a couple of Sentries in the Wizard’s Tower and headed north for the Pie Shop while the Unpronounceables headed south for the Pie Shop. A fight was definitely going to start there!

The Sneakers occupied the Revenue House, scampering over the wall into the back yard and looked greedily towards the Sailmaker’s Shop. The Eshin Sorcerer was a little incautious and was fried by a jet of green lightining from Oooog, the Savage Orc Shaman who, along with the rest of Ug Ugg Uhg-ug, had camped in the Sailmaker’s Shop and was looking rabidly towards the Revenue House!

Pugwash’s Pirates boarded the Hogwasha and surveyed the town from her raised forecastle. Their swivel-gun could reach almost any point they could see and they planned to make its existence felt! The Wreckers Guild emerged from the water, having walked to the town. They headed south for the Shambles leaving a few harpoon gun armed Wreckers in cover at the harbour-side to watch their backs.

The Squigtapus (known to some as “Slipery Jack”) moved silently through the dark waters. It was hungry and sensed the chance of a tasty lunch.

~ ~ ~

Suddenly it got really bloody, really quickly! With a squeal and a roar the Sneakers and Ug Ugg Ugh-ug fell upon each other in a ferocious frantic melee: Hythe the Sneak, angered by the death of his Sorcerer leapt on Ugg and impaled him with a fighting claw in the dank street between the Revenue House and the Sailmaker’s Shop. In revenge Ugga-Ugg delt Hytje a terrible blow with his club. Garin, the Skaven leader, skewered Uggg as he burst into the Revenue House.

The Unpronounceables reached the Pie Shop and coldly dealt with Squiggy Squig –a the first of the Boring Boyz to get there.

As Murlok the Fishman Shaman climbed the broken wall of the Gatehouse, accompanied by two fishy hench-orcs, the Boring Boyz decided not to contest it (much to the annoyance of one of the Boring Boy’s Goblins who made his feelings clear in a tirade of foul language and abuse aimed at hi mob!). The Fish Troll stood still and dribbled a bit and Chum, the smallest Halibuteer, also took offence at something and stopped to scream high-pitched insults at his fellow Fishmen.

The Wreckers moved quietly and efficiently into the Shambles and took up firing positions overlooking their sometime allies the Fishmen.

~ ~ ~

The fight for the Sailmaker’s Shop and the Revenue House got even nastier! Oooog the Shaman zapped Bleaksneak with a blast of green energy, Uggg clubbed Sneaky Sneak to the ground with a furious rain of blows and Garin knifed Ugga-Ug (a Savage Orc Big’Un) in the back. Ugggg was pounced on by Backstabba Sneak as he finished Sneaky but it didn’t go Backstabba’s way - Ugggg made short work of the unfortunate Skaven.

With a howl the Boring Boyz rushed the Pie Shop in vast numbers and a whirling and confused fight erupted: A Goblin spiked Urial in the kidneys with a spear, then Mathiew the Dark Elf sliced up a Boring Boy Big’Un but another Goblin chopped the back of Mathiew’s knees and brought him down in revenge. Lhunaru’s superior sword-work overcame the Boring Boyz’ Boss.

In the Shambles Joss Merlin of the Wreckers Guild unleashed a hail of magical silver darts at Kod the Halibuteer, who fell from the wooden rofftop walkway with an indignant cry. Prospero took careful aim at Kap’n Hadduk with his duelling pistol and felled the fishy Orc Boss with a single shot. Murlok and his mates reached the top of the Gatehouse and took cover behind its stone walls. The Orc Shaman prepared a magical defence in case anyone else tried to get in, but no one dared try to winkle them out. Makrul the Fish Big’Un scrambled into the Cultists House through a window.

~ ~ ~

Chum the Goblin scurried along the ladder between the Shambles’ roof and the Cultist’s House window and dived to safety as a hail of harpoons and pistol bullets zipped past his fishy tail.

The Boring Boyz made a mess of the Unpronounceables while the Skaven leader Garin was strangled by a frothing Ugggg! A Goblin drove his squig-prodder into Lhunaru, a Boy pushed Dalva down and stamped on his head, and the remaining Boring Big’Un punched Naggairo to the floor and the Boring Boyz made short work of the fallen Elf. The Dark Elves were dealt with…

~ ~ ~

The Wreckers took possession of the Cod and Cutlass and made a big show of looting the bar, while their shipmates got ready to board Da Hogwasha: the pirate crew had left just the swivel gunner and his mate on-ship; the big gun sent a cannonball hurtling across town and narrowly missed Dagon the Troll. The rest of the Pugwashes followed the Wreckers towards the Cod and Cutlass licking their lips thirstily.

The Sneakers fell back to lick their wounds, having been finally driven out of the Revenue House.

~ ~ ~

The Wreckers slipped over the gunwales of the pirate ship to outnumber their allies, Pugwash’s Pirates, on board. But the pirates didn’t care as they took the Cod and Cutlass from the handful of Wreckers and were further distracted by the death of Kharn, their captain, at the hands of Oooog the Savage Orc Shaman.

Dagon the Fish Troll was on the receiving end of a barrage of fire from both the human pirate warbands but managed to survive it all unscathed. The rest of the Halibuteers kept their heads down – and who could blame them with the swivel gun roundshot and Wrecker’s harpoons lobbed in their direction every time they so much as poked a flipper into sight! Ug Ugg Uhg-ug took possession of the Revenue House and the Boring Boyz set to loot the Pie Shop and look through the maps, charts and logbooks stashed in the Warehouse.

~ ~ ~

Pugwash’s Pirates: 1VP (The Cod and Cutlass)
The Wreckers Guild: 8VP (The Hogwasha)
The Sneakers: 0VP
The Unpronounceables: 0VP
Kap’n Hadduk’s Halibuteers: 10VP (Gatehouse 6, Cultist's House 4)
Ug Ugg Uhg-ug: 9VP (Sailmaker's House 2, Renvenue House 7)
The Boring Boyz: 8VP (Warehouse 5, Pieshop 3)

~ ~ ~

Het bezoek van Matt in Leicester

2008-04-29T17:53:00.014Z

Today Matt (yes, the one from the forum) came to visit me for a few hours in Leicester, my temporary headquarters.

We went to the local GW store, where we had 2 very nice games of Mordheim on a somewhat improvised Empire in Flames-ish board.

The battle saw my orc warband clash with a Reiklander warband in a mercyless wyrdstone hunt. In this game, out wyrdstone shards were actually red dice, not because we forgot to bring along proper counters of course, but because.... of magical...reasons.... that you wouldn't understand.

Matt places his Reiks (we used bretonnian archers because matt did not have enough marksmen)

I get the second turn and send my squigs forward.

Unfortunately Matt is unlucky with his shots, and misses all of them.

To make things worse for Matt, my orcs shoot (!) down 3 of his warriors in the first 2 rounds. Be he keeps his smile and prepares his next move...

He does it again: A 6 to hit followed by a 1 to wound... even Matt's massive "lucky die" seems jinxed.

And the orcs kill another poor human with "Fire of Gork" cast by the Shaman. That's right! It's the VERY FIRST TIME THAT I AM ABLE TO CAST A SPELL! Wohooo! :)

Matt! Behind you!

Meanwhile my orcs run forward and seize 2 wyrdstone shards. Things are starting to look grim for poor Matt...

Even a double 1 on my animosity test which sees two idiotic goblins fight each other instead of the enemy cannot change the tide.

After 6 turns, the orcs are declared winners and the Reiks are routed from the field.

Game 2: Once more, the green tide does what it does best. Bashin' 'eads. This time Matt is controlling them and facing me, commanding his Reiks.

I try to build up a barrage of arrows, while I send 3 "runners" to go get wyrdstone shards. Sounds about right for Reiks...

This time, the orc's casualties are high. Apparently it is my luck day... I keep rolling 5s and 6s to wound resulting in a silly amount of critical hits.

But Matt is not easily discouraged. He sends runners out himself, and sends a goblin after one of my guys.

Almost... there...just a few more... *aaaarg* An orc arrow smashes into the poor reiklander's chest, killing him instantly.

The arrow barrage shows first results. The goblin that was chasing my Reiklander is shot from the ladder, and rolls down to the bottom. But he scrambles to his feet, and runs up the ladder once more, decided to get that piece of wyrdstone...

...only to be shot down AGAIN! :) This time the poor creature is killed for good by 4 Reiklander archers and a hard fall.

On the other side of the table, Matt slaughters my archers covering the runners retreat. Although he had heavy losses, his orcs refused to rout.

Even as the orc boss, killing another human, but overwhelmed by Reik captain and archers, dies, the orcs stand fast.

The humans are not as courageous. The prefer to fall into a "tactical retreat" and abandon the field to the greenskins, swearing to be back for revenge...

And thus the final score is 1:1 between Matt and myself.
Good game, dude!

Manchester United

2008-04-26T21:59:00.021Z

Today was a great day. A really great one. Without doubt one of the greatest for my humble blog, for I got invited to Manchester to meet the Flame On crew (for those of you who are forum members, you know them as WarbossKurgan, blessed knight and zelophahad amongst others).

I left Leicester at 6:40 am and arrived in Manchester 3 hours later, where Saul (a.k.a WarbossKurgan) kindly picked me up from the train station and introduced me to the gang which gave me a very warm welcome, making me feel at home immediately. Who wouldn't feel at home with tea, biscuits and an amazing Mordheim table? :)

Manchester's Oxford Road (I believe)

L.t.r: Tom, Joe, Tim, Spectator, Spectator, me, Phil, Lee and Saul

We had a great gaming day, loads of fun and had time for 2 scenarios featuring 7 players each!
Of course Phil (aka Zelophahad), Saul (aka Warboss Kurgan) and I joined forces to form a green tide of 3 orc warbands to take one the 4 other "pirate" warbands, including Dark Elves, Skaven and Humans. Needless to say, we must have rolled 100 animosity tests that day (of which I managed to get a 6 after the dreaded 1 THREE TIMES, lol!).

In the first scenario, there were counters scattered in buildings (one per building) around the city, each worth a certain amount of victory points (written underneath the marker). The objective was to be in control of as many buildings - i.e. "markers" - after 6 turns. At the end the VPs were revealed and the winner determined.

The second scenario was a treasre hunt. Roll a D6 for every building you enter and spend a whole movement phase in. On a 6 you found the treasure and have to hold out until the 6th round. If all the buildings but one have been searched without finding the treasure, it is automatically in the last building.

Below you'll find pictures of the Flame On's team magnificent gaming board and get a few impression of what our gaming day was like. A battle report by Warboss Kurgan might follow.

But for now, here's a small selection "en vrac" of some the 200+ pictures that were taken that day. It was really hard for me to make a selection, and I tried hard to cut it down, but I really could not make it less than 75 pics :)

So there is plenty of footage available. Make sure you take your time.

Enjoooooy!

Phil's and my own orcs make acquaintance. In the background you see Phil's bretonnian warship. It's much bigger than I imagined it from the photographs!

Movement phase.

Admin Tom & Saul

A victory point counter. What number is underneath?

Lee's (amazing) pirates emerge from the water and rush towards the nearest building.

Here's Lee moving his hiumies.

Phil's savage orc shaman.

WBK takes the his second (or was it third) building and hopes that his VP counter will turn out to be worth a lot...

A massive close combat rages between my orcs and Tim's Dark Elves. I progressively manage to send more and more troops in, until even the highly trained elves are submerged.

A victorious WarbossKurgan! LOL! The counter yielded 6 VP but combined with his other 4VP that makes Saul the winner of the match (and hence the biggest, meanest orc on da table).

A defeated Dark Elf (Tim) and a glorious Orc Boss (Admin Tom) shake hands after a very tight and exciting close combat that lasted 4 rounds.

I was even allowed to hold WBK's famous "Admirul" miniature :)

And he held aloft Excal.... the rulebook?

Heavy Cavalry

2008-04-05T16:05:00.009Z

Every piece of artillery needs proper protection. This is best achieved by heavily armoured, kick-ass, armoured bretonnian knights.

Here's my very first bretonnian regiment! I wanted to make them look "teutonic": hence the black cross on white background and a few gold elements.

I hope you like them!
Take care!

PS: Now I know why there are so few Bretonnia players... the models take 100 years to paint! Don't let the "simple" colour scheme fool you.

[EDIT]: Added 2 pics of the Paladin (i.e. Hero)

Potato field artillery: Part six (final)

2008-04-05T12:47:00.012Z

There it is! Behold: the completed trebuchet! *pride*

Unfortunately I cannot show the second one because I don't have it here at the moment, but I might do a re-edit of this post and add a few pics in the future ;)

I speed painted the crew, so please don't go looking for too many details as I kept them very basic so that I can get them over with as fast as I could (I did not paint eyes... shame on me). At one point I even tried to use ink-wash on their faces (a method which I dispise by the way) to go even faster... but that looked so horrendously crappy, that I finally ended up painting their faces my "normal" way.

I will let this be a lesson to me: No matter how fast you want to finish you minis, NEVER EVER use ink wash on faces. It looks disgusting even if you are in a hurry... yak!

All right, enough lecturing. Enter, the pics! Click to enlarge.

Potato field artillery: Part five (update)

2008-03-17T02:21:00.003Z

Because it was so much wor.... erm "fun" to build my trebuchet, I decided to make it a double feature.

Please put your eyeballs on the twins Arty and Larry (Arty + Larry = "Artillery"... get it? Hihihi).

There will be a last part (number 6) with the full painted crew. But that will take a while since I will wait to get home so I can make better conversions for my crew (I have more bits at home).

I just can't help imagining those firing flaming projectiles across a night sky towards a besieged Jerusalem in 1099

Let the siege begin!

Potato field artillery: Part five

2008-03-16T02:07:00.005Z

Trebuchet painted! Now all that is missing is the crew :)

I chose a "teutonic" heraldry. Bretonnians are usually portrayed as "french"-ish knights. I wanted germanic looking knights, to break with that Games Workshopesque cliché.

(I have actually started painting some bretonnian knight miniatures, but I won't reveal those until the full regiment is painted :P )

Enjoy!

Potato field artillery: Part four

2008-03-15T21:26:00.004Z

There is a wonderful thing called "modular movement tray".

I bought a pack of it and used it to make the base for my trebuchet. Oh and I also found someone at the local GW who agreed to share a box of Bretonnian Men-at-arms with me! So I was able to build the crew! Wohooo! :)

See you soon!

Potato field artillery: Part three

2008-03-06T23:07:00.005Z

Added sling and cranking mechanism. NOW it starts to look like a trebuchet :)
I am currently desperately looking for a way of getting hold of just 8 bretonnian men-at-arms to build the crew, so if any of you have some left they are willing to trade/sell, give me a sign ;)
Enjoy!

The wood elf model is just for scale. That is what I call a proper sized warmachine ;)

Potato field artillery: Part two

2008-03-05T02:18:00.004Z

The coutnerweight is done. I scultped it from putty and built a little suspension mechanism to attach it to the throwing arm.

Potato field artillery: Part one

2008-03-02T23:23:00.010Z

Isn't the Games Workshop Trebuchet ridiculously small?

Yes it is. And too expensive for my taste too.

I always wanted to build a warmachine from scratch, and trebuchets have a charme that is undeniable. Trebuchets (from the french verb "trebucher", to "fall over") appeared in both Christian and Muslim armies around the Mediterranean in the 1200s. It could throw 140 kg projectiles at high speeds into enemy fortifications. Nasty things such as "greek fire" and disease-infected corpses were flung into cities.

Anyway, here's the first part (of 2 or 3) that follows my progress through the construction of such an awesome device... at a 1:35 scale, that is.

(My trebuchet is just a model that is aiming at looking more realistic than the GW version, but it won't actually fire chewing gum balls across the room.)

Concept sketch.

The base. A 1m stick of balsa wood costs around €0.30. With 2 pieces (and a little effort) you have enough to make a whole trebuchet. That comes A LOT cheaper than buying the GW model at €30!

I figured gluing the beams in place would not be solid enough. So I made a little "hole and pin" system to allow for more solidity. After all it is a wargaming miniature, and will be touched/moved around quite a lot.

The 2 first beams and the throwing arm are in place. The arms moves around a "toothpick" axis.

I added some green-stuff details (such as shields). In order to make nails, I just made green stuff "sausages" which I cut into thin slices. The slices can be glued onto the model to simulate the nails used by bretonnian engineers to build their trebuchet. I also cut out streks of cardboard, which will serve as the metal braces that hold the beams in place.

This is as much as I got so far. Now i will have to add the couterweight, the sling and the cranking mechanism. Stay tuned ;)

Ready, set, BASH!

2008-02-20T21:34:00.008Z

Hi guys!

It's been a while since anything worth mentioning has happened "gaming-wise" as I have been very very busy lately.

However a few days ago I was browsing through the GW store in Leicester (just to see what new scenery they had done) when the store manager asked me if I wanted to take part in an "Ork Trukk Race".

Here's a little report of ourfun, yet VERY short "race"... you'll see why if you read on :)

GW-trukk #1, Tom's Trukk, GW-Trukk #2 - Bring it on!

Each player was allowed one trukk and up to 10 orcs. The objective: race one lap... and/or prevent the other from doing so. Fouls allowed :)

First round. GW palyer #1 gets the first turn and speeds past my boys, while firing with all he has. The lucker rolled three 6s in a row, resulting in my trukk blowing up without having raced an inch.

My boys survive the explosion, but they are now on foot.

A burst from GW player #2's flamer, kill 2 more of my boys. Talk about bad luck. But my boys respond in kind and let rip at Player 1's trukk, returning the compliment and blowing it up aswell.

GW player #1 does not look that happy anymore, hehe :)

He charges GW Player #2's trukk. But he fails to do any damage.

The ensuing close combat sees a dead GWPlayer #1's Boss, eliminating him from the game.
GW Player #2 finishes my poor boys off with his flamethrower.

So in the end, no one ever raced more than 12 inch, but instead the race turned into a head bashing orc-barbecue.

Final ranking:
1st: GW Player #2
2nd: Tom (yeah!)
3rd: GW Player #1

Wardancers

2008-02-09T16:54:00.001Z

Just got these 3 "mail-order only" super-agile wardancers from GW mailorder.

We'll see how they'll turn out :)

I'll post my progress.

Cheers!

A city to remember

2008-01-03T17:35:00.000Z

Erkwin - one of our forum members - has found and shared a link with us which shows pics of what probably is the best Mordheim gaming board of all times.

To quote our friend Erkwin by his painfully accurate formulation: "Prepare to cry guys, I nearly did when I saw this."

Click here to feel weepy.

Kudos (and respect) to Wolfgang, the author of this breathtaking Mordheim city.

Treasure Island

2007-12-28T23:39:00.001Z

Two days ago we played a little friendly (i.e. non-campaign) "treasure hunt" game with Tortiou while we were waiting for some guests. The objective was for the warbands to search every building for "the treasure" which, once found, was to be carried back to a winning zone.

Every time a model enters the first floor of a building that has not been searched, the player rolls 2D6. On a 12 the model has found the treasure while searching the building.

If all the buildings have been searched but one, the treasure is automatically in that last one.

That's a lot of buildings to search.

Cheeeeese!

The Reiks and their elf (aaaargh!) take positions.

The Reiks are still out of arrow range... I am happy... for now.

Great! Finally a photograph that documents the very thing that makes me grind my teeth in helpless agony and drives my cold sweats: Nico's expression when he takes aim at my warband with one of his best marksmen.

The elf fires. And fails to wound. Lucky me...

Two can play at this shooting game. My Crossbowman sends a Reik to the ground.

That's right! I can shoot too! :)

Nico's (new) elf sprints along a bridge...

...and is greeted by a bolt from my captain's crossbow that throws her to the ground.

Nico's troops rush forward... What?!

The impossible became possible that day: Nico actually approached my troops with the clear intention of getting involved in a close combat! I could not believe my eyes, and frankly, was caught completely unprepared.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to finish the game (our guests arrived) to see what would have happened to the poor overwhelmed Witch Hunters. But since I knocked 2 of Nico's models down I was declared "winner" of the game... if there can be such a thing as a winner.

Good game dude!

The ivy house

2007-12-28T11:28:00.000Z

I found time to complete the building I started a while ago. Here are the pics (courtesy of my friend Tortiou)! I hope you guys like the latest addition to our Mordheim table.

Cheers!
Tom