Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Back on the air!
Wow has it really been this many years since a blog update? The primary reason for this being that the site was being blocked at work; on a whim I just thought I would give it another try and lo and behold I was able to get to it and here we are! Awesome lol.
Anyway, what have I been up to since my last ADHD post - well the lack of any sort of ability to focus on any particular genre of gaming has continued, although most recently I have been able to lock down getting some ASL Starter Kit boardgaming done at the store against Flames of War Rob, and I think he has been coming to appreciate the interactivity of the ASL sequence of play (especially when compared to FoW, which goes back to the old days of Panzerblitz and the infamous 'Panzerbush' tactic). I've also been able to get in a game of GMT's Saratoga game from their BAR line against another primarily minis gamer which also went well and was enjoyed by both sides of the table; hopefully we will return to that system to in the near future. Otherwise I am still struggling to find any impetus to paint minis; instead I have found myself returning to my original gaming focus of historical boardgames (started boardgaming in 1978; dabbled in minis from time to time but never really got into them in a big way until I moved to the US in 2001). Right now I have been renewing my collection with some of the impressive new boardgames that have come out since my boardgaming 'sabbatical' and I am having an absolute BLAST lol. Currently looking for something to break out and actually get *played* rather than just looked at; top of the list right now is Compass Games' Red Storm Over The Reich (primarily because it's already punched and cornered - cutting out counters remains the biggest bugbear with boardgames, but still a lot easier to handle than assembling and painting minis lol), with any luck I can get this on the table this weekend while my wife is out of town.
In other news I've also been procrastinating horribly over reading up Starfinder for my weekly Tuesday night gaming group; having hunted down copies of everything released so far (not easy since it's popularity appears to have taken Paizo completely off guard) I just don't have the energy to read the entire 500+page book which as the group's GM I feel obligated to do lol. Instead the group has agreed to go back to our Pathfinder campaign so that way at least all I need to do is read the adventure and not worry about starting an entirely new system. Quite looking forward to getting back to some fantasy and after some discussion last night I think the gang are too.
Anyway, with luck I will be able to keep this blog updated now that I have access to it again ;)
Thanks for listening!
Friday, January 22, 2016
Gaming ADHD - a serious issue for me!
Well, it's been a long time since i updated this blog, not least because I can no longer access it from work lol. Hopefully this year I will try to update it a little more often, although a lot will depend on the below...
I am currently experiencing Gaming ADHD. There, I said it. Actually, I've always had it as anyone who has known me for any length of time can attest - I have the attention span of a gnat, especially when it comes to picking any one particular subject to game and sticking with it, and ESPECIALLY within the last year or so. Within the first couple of weeks of 2016 alone I have gone from working on (or at least contemplating working on) 28mm Pulp to 15mm Fantasy to 15mm SF to Epic 40K to Battlefleet Gothic to Full Thrust to Warhammer 40K to Warhammer Fantasy 8th to Warhammer Age of Sigmar to Frostgrave to Infinity to Dropzone Commander to 28mm Old West to 25mm Ancients to 15mm Napoleonics. And this doesn't even include the multiple times I've strayed off the miniatures path completely and thought about doing RPGs or Board Wargames (my first gaming love lol), each of which suffers from a similar issue of 'lack of focus' with multiple titles/periods/scales vying for my attention.
It's actually becoming a real problem and it's VERY frustrating to me to constantly find my mind wandering from whatever I am trying to work on at that moment to something else. I guess I'm just looking for that 'holy grail' project that will wholly absorb my attention to the point where I no longer think about anything else besides 'getting that done'. In fact it's gotten so bad that I've taken to telling people at the club where I game not to get involved with any project where I am the sole other player as chances are I will not be able to see it through. Now I've been able to maintain focus in the past, which is why I am the proud owner of 10,000pts of Imperial Guard, 6,000pts of Tyranids, 6,000pts of Beastmen, multiple full fleets of starships for the two starship game systems mentioned above, several thousand points of Russians for Flames of War etc. I'm just not sure where I lost my way.
A part of me wants to blame Games Workshop for being simultaneously the most complete and yet most loathed miniatures gaming company out there. They are the crack pipe of gaming and I constantly teeter on the brink of relapsing and breaking out my GW stuff again (most recently just this week!). While they were still producing Warhammer Fantasy Battles we had a good solid run at the local store where I game, with a solid core of players with fantasy armies that if anything was growing. Then the End Times campaign began, and while there was a lot of initial excitement the rapidity with which they churned out models and campaign book sets became overwhelming, then within six months of starting - they destroyed the entire campaign setting and came out with the less-well received Age of Sigmar. Now I don't mind playing AoS but it is NOT the mass fantasy battle game I fell in love with. Of course there's no reason not to just ignore what GW did and keep playing fantasy anyway but it's a lot harder to attract people to a dead system. 40K lost me with the unbelievably fast transition from 6th Ed to 7th Ed in less than two years, followed by a period of crazed expansion that saw multiple codexes being released every month! Again, if I only played one army this would not be a problem but among other issues I am a collector and a completist and if I get involved in a game I simply HAVE to collect at the very least all the books for it. 40K simply priced me out just on the books alone, without even taking into account any miniatures!
Sometimes I actually contemplate withdrawing from regular gaming at the club but the two problems with that are that I am the primary organizer for the club, and hell I *like* the camaraderie of hanging out with my fellow gamers. All I can do is continue to look for that elusive project that will be able to hold my attention for longer than a few days and hope that I recognize it when it does! In the meantime I guess I will just flail away a few days at a time with a range of projects and move them along a few figures at a time. Even just now while writing this blog entry I've been thinking that "I really must try and finish that 25mm Caesar's Gallic Wars project that is already so far along....oh and that 15mm Napoleonics project that is similarly fairly well along" even though the likelihood of still feeling this way 24 hours from now is extremely slim!
Anyway, enough rambling/whining, time to wrap this up I think! If you happen to actually ready this, feel free to comment - over the next few weeks I hope to add some pics of whatever it is that I *do* end up working on lol. Wish me luck!
Bob
I am currently experiencing Gaming ADHD. There, I said it. Actually, I've always had it as anyone who has known me for any length of time can attest - I have the attention span of a gnat, especially when it comes to picking any one particular subject to game and sticking with it, and ESPECIALLY within the last year or so. Within the first couple of weeks of 2016 alone I have gone from working on (or at least contemplating working on) 28mm Pulp to 15mm Fantasy to 15mm SF to Epic 40K to Battlefleet Gothic to Full Thrust to Warhammer 40K to Warhammer Fantasy 8th to Warhammer Age of Sigmar to Frostgrave to Infinity to Dropzone Commander to 28mm Old West to 25mm Ancients to 15mm Napoleonics. And this doesn't even include the multiple times I've strayed off the miniatures path completely and thought about doing RPGs or Board Wargames (my first gaming love lol), each of which suffers from a similar issue of 'lack of focus' with multiple titles/periods/scales vying for my attention.
It's actually becoming a real problem and it's VERY frustrating to me to constantly find my mind wandering from whatever I am trying to work on at that moment to something else. I guess I'm just looking for that 'holy grail' project that will wholly absorb my attention to the point where I no longer think about anything else besides 'getting that done'. In fact it's gotten so bad that I've taken to telling people at the club where I game not to get involved with any project where I am the sole other player as chances are I will not be able to see it through. Now I've been able to maintain focus in the past, which is why I am the proud owner of 10,000pts of Imperial Guard, 6,000pts of Tyranids, 6,000pts of Beastmen, multiple full fleets of starships for the two starship game systems mentioned above, several thousand points of Russians for Flames of War etc. I'm just not sure where I lost my way.
A part of me wants to blame Games Workshop for being simultaneously the most complete and yet most loathed miniatures gaming company out there. They are the crack pipe of gaming and I constantly teeter on the brink of relapsing and breaking out my GW stuff again (most recently just this week!). While they were still producing Warhammer Fantasy Battles we had a good solid run at the local store where I game, with a solid core of players with fantasy armies that if anything was growing. Then the End Times campaign began, and while there was a lot of initial excitement the rapidity with which they churned out models and campaign book sets became overwhelming, then within six months of starting - they destroyed the entire campaign setting and came out with the less-well received Age of Sigmar. Now I don't mind playing AoS but it is NOT the mass fantasy battle game I fell in love with. Of course there's no reason not to just ignore what GW did and keep playing fantasy anyway but it's a lot harder to attract people to a dead system. 40K lost me with the unbelievably fast transition from 6th Ed to 7th Ed in less than two years, followed by a period of crazed expansion that saw multiple codexes being released every month! Again, if I only played one army this would not be a problem but among other issues I am a collector and a completist and if I get involved in a game I simply HAVE to collect at the very least all the books for it. 40K simply priced me out just on the books alone, without even taking into account any miniatures!
Sometimes I actually contemplate withdrawing from regular gaming at the club but the two problems with that are that I am the primary organizer for the club, and hell I *like* the camaraderie of hanging out with my fellow gamers. All I can do is continue to look for that elusive project that will be able to hold my attention for longer than a few days and hope that I recognize it when it does! In the meantime I guess I will just flail away a few days at a time with a range of projects and move them along a few figures at a time. Even just now while writing this blog entry I've been thinking that "I really must try and finish that 25mm Caesar's Gallic Wars project that is already so far along....oh and that 15mm Napoleonics project that is similarly fairly well along" even though the likelihood of still feeling this way 24 hours from now is extremely slim!
Anyway, enough rambling/whining, time to wrap this up I think! If you happen to actually ready this, feel free to comment - over the next few weeks I hope to add some pics of whatever it is that I *do* end up working on lol. Wish me luck!
Bob
Thursday, May 8, 2014
15mm Painting Pics - finally finishing some long outstanding projects!
As a quick aside from the battle reports, I wanted to put up some pics of the recently completed armies I assembled for Hordes of the Things. These are Chariot Miniatures figures from their Undead and Lizardmen ranges; I started both of these armies over a decade ago and for the last dozen years or so they have waited patiently in hibernation for me to dust them off and put paint to brush once more, and this April/May I was finally ready to do so. On the whole I'm really pleased with how these came out (especially the War Turtles of the Lizardmen) and I have since expanded the skeletons significantly with some 'standard' units of blades, archers and spears as well as the Lizardmen with a unit of mages (this most recent stuff isn't pictured here but will be at a later date).
I also took the opportunity to finally base up some painted 6mm figures (Irregular fantasy and Baccus Romans) I've also had floating around for many a year; since the whole point of 6mm is to get armies that actually look like armies, I went with the 25mm basing standard (for HotT/DBA) to help make the units look bigger - I think they came out pretty well overall!
The desire to work on the smaller scales has continued to grow, and right now my focus is on 'finishing' the 6mm Irregular Elves to the point where they are a playable army as well as finally get some paint on my 15mm SF that has also been gathering dust for a long time now. It's interesting to see what is available out there now in these scales, certainly the 15mm SF has really taken off in a BIG way with some very impressive models and ranges from a variety of manufacturers. Fantasy also has a massive range of options.
Next up in addition to the above is a plan to add at least two more DBA armies to my collection - way back when I painted some Late Romans and Early Goths that have been my 'go to' armies for a quick throw down game of DBA for a long time (so long that they no longer match the army list in DBA 2.2, they were made for 1.0, though I'm hoping to correct this in the near future) as well as Classical Indians and Early Myceneans, which although they LOOK great actually don't game that well together being from two completely different periods of history. So, to correct this I'm going to put together a Alexandrian army and a Hittite one (to match up each of the other two respectively) which I am hoping will see them actually take to the table for some gaming action after a long absence.
I'm also excited that in addition to the Flames of War there is also some interest in doing some games using the above scales from several Club members - I can't wait! Maybe we will be able to try one of the campaign games from either HotT or DBA if we can get enough players/armies together, certainly I already own most of what I will need to make up the armies. Time will tell!
I also took the opportunity to finally base up some painted 6mm figures (Irregular fantasy and Baccus Romans) I've also had floating around for many a year; since the whole point of 6mm is to get armies that actually look like armies, I went with the 25mm basing standard (for HotT/DBA) to help make the units look bigger - I think they came out pretty well overall!
The desire to work on the smaller scales has continued to grow, and right now my focus is on 'finishing' the 6mm Irregular Elves to the point where they are a playable army as well as finally get some paint on my 15mm SF that has also been gathering dust for a long time now. It's interesting to see what is available out there now in these scales, certainly the 15mm SF has really taken off in a BIG way with some very impressive models and ranges from a variety of manufacturers. Fantasy also has a massive range of options.
Next up in addition to the above is a plan to add at least two more DBA armies to my collection - way back when I painted some Late Romans and Early Goths that have been my 'go to' armies for a quick throw down game of DBA for a long time (so long that they no longer match the army list in DBA 2.2, they were made for 1.0, though I'm hoping to correct this in the near future) as well as Classical Indians and Early Myceneans, which although they LOOK great actually don't game that well together being from two completely different periods of history. So, to correct this I'm going to put together a Alexandrian army and a Hittite one (to match up each of the other two respectively) which I am hoping will see them actually take to the table for some gaming action after a long absence.
I'm also excited that in addition to the Flames of War there is also some interest in doing some games using the above scales from several Club members - I can't wait! Maybe we will be able to try one of the campaign games from either HotT or DBA if we can get enough players/armies together, certainly I already own most of what I will need to make up the armies. Time will tell!
Flames of War - Late War Russians vs Germans
Following the 40K Carnage game, despite winning the game I found I was rapidly losing interest in GW generally (their current business practices annoy me) and 40K specifically (I don't like where the current game is at, and the confirmed reports of a new edition less than two years after the previous one were the last straw). The answer lay in returning to the world of 15mm miniatures; the first game I did since that decision was a 1500pt Late War battle using Flames of War, my Russians vs Ethan's Germans. I took a standard Strelkovy Battalion with armor and artillery support while he took an Armored Panzergrenadier Company with artillery support and a lone Tiger-I. We setup the table using some JR Miniatures roads, the GF9 Russian Battlefield in a Box set plus various hills, fields and trees from the terrain box.
Surprisingly he played very conservatively; his Tiger stayed mostly at the back while my T-34/85s cowered behind the hill/tree line on my left. Fortunately while this was going on the rest of my army were able to destroy all his halftracks and force his artillery from the table; luck certainly wasn't on my side though with my only unit losses coming from a Rifle Company that failed it's Rally test, failed the Commissar reroll and then shot the Commissar before running off the table! I also failed to range in my artillery three times which would have caught the Tiger under the template and the hail of shots I fired at it from the T-34s all bounced off the front (as a result of this game I proceeded to assemble and prime a unit of three ISU-122s which should have the firepower to make a dent in it! Just need to paint them now lol). Anyway, this was a very fun game, neither of us was especially competent with the 3rd Ed rules but we managed and the emphasis for us both was just enjoying the experience.
Between this and a recent game between Ethan's Germans and Chris' Americans there is growing interest in Flames of War at the club, with several onlookers asking about the game. We are trying to see if we can get it in at the store but what initially seemed to be a much more reasonable company to deal with than GW (their literature said there was no required stock level or ongoing stock check every week) turns out to have been untrue, with it now looking like the store will need to get in over $1,000 worth of product just to open the account and with regular stock checks - despite the interest, this is primarily a comic book store we play at and there is NO WAY this is going to fly. Oh well Battlefront, looks like you shot yourself in the foot there as there were several of us (including a couple of newbies that have definite armies they want to collect, not the generic stuff BF is insisting the store carry) that would have ordered a nice amount of product direct from the store if they had been able to place special orders. Your loss!
Surprisingly he played very conservatively; his Tiger stayed mostly at the back while my T-34/85s cowered behind the hill/tree line on my left. Fortunately while this was going on the rest of my army were able to destroy all his halftracks and force his artillery from the table; luck certainly wasn't on my side though with my only unit losses coming from a Rifle Company that failed it's Rally test, failed the Commissar reroll and then shot the Commissar before running off the table! I also failed to range in my artillery three times which would have caught the Tiger under the template and the hail of shots I fired at it from the T-34s all bounced off the front (as a result of this game I proceeded to assemble and prime a unit of three ISU-122s which should have the firepower to make a dent in it! Just need to paint them now lol). Anyway, this was a very fun game, neither of us was especially competent with the 3rd Ed rules but we managed and the emphasis for us both was just enjoying the experience.
Between this and a recent game between Ethan's Germans and Chris' Americans there is growing interest in Flames of War at the club, with several onlookers asking about the game. We are trying to see if we can get it in at the store but what initially seemed to be a much more reasonable company to deal with than GW (their literature said there was no required stock level or ongoing stock check every week) turns out to have been untrue, with it now looking like the store will need to get in over $1,000 worth of product just to open the account and with regular stock checks - despite the interest, this is primarily a comic book store we play at and there is NO WAY this is going to fly. Oh well Battlefront, looks like you shot yourself in the foot there as there were several of us (including a couple of newbies that have definite armies they want to collect, not the generic stuff BF is insisting the store carry) that would have ordered a nice amount of product direct from the store if they had been able to place special orders. Your loss!
Friday, May 2, 2014
40K Carnage game (March 2014)
Having dropped the cash on the Carnage dataslate (complete waste of money, btw - unlike the Warhammer Fantasy 'Triumph & Treachery' multiplayer expansion which is *excellent*) four of us got together to play a multiplayer game last March. We ended up with Tau, Tyranids, Orks and my own Imperial Fists on the table. The Tyranids kicked things off strongly by infiltrating two small units of Genestealers into strong positions, and then the Hive Tyrant somehow absorbing an entire turns' worth of Tau firepower without taking a single wound! The Fists and the Orks exchanged some fire before the Orks decided to take their chances with the Tyranids while they were otherwise occupied.
As the battle progressed the Marine flyers came on and forced off the Tau Broadside team before being torn to piece by the Hive Crone; the Orks proceeded to do a number on the Tyranids (fairly surprising to all involved!), the Mawloc popped up in the middle of the Tau and between them and the Marines forced them into defeat. Then on literally the last turn of the game the Terminator squad finally appeared with the Fists commander, deep struck perfectly right on top of the objective and basically were immovable by anything that came at them - they managed to ground the Hive Tyrant then blow it away with twin-linked Bolter fire. Good game but I was very lucky to get the win!
After this I ended up, between all the events I already mentioned in my previous post and the avalanche of stuff coming out of GW, getting very disillusioned and deciding to take a break from GW. Next up - Flames of War and DBA/Hordes of the Things :)
As the battle progressed the Marine flyers came on and forced off the Tau Broadside team before being torn to piece by the Hive Crone; the Orks proceeded to do a number on the Tyranids (fairly surprising to all involved!), the Mawloc popped up in the middle of the Tau and between them and the Marines forced them into defeat. Then on literally the last turn of the game the Terminator squad finally appeared with the Fists commander, deep struck perfectly right on top of the objective and basically were immovable by anything that came at them - they managed to ground the Hive Tyrant then blow it away with twin-linked Bolter fire. Good game but I was very lucky to get the win!
After this I ended up, between all the events I already mentioned in my previous post and the avalanche of stuff coming out of GW, getting very disillusioned and deciding to take a break from GW. Next up - Flames of War and DBA/Hordes of the Things :)
Random musings on a bad year so far....and a new beginning
Been a while since I updated this blog so I'm going to throw out a few random musing here concerning the current state of my gaming and other stuff. Following the previous blog entry covering the big siege game last Hurricon I continued to play Warhammer Fantasy, and once the new Dark Elf book came out I dusted off my old school Citadel all-metal army and proceeded to wreck some face at the club - this is a nasty, nasty list! I even picked up some of the new (incredibly expensive, even for GW) models and assembled them but somewhere around here I lost interest in painting caused by worry over the increasingly poor health of my Dad in the UK. This situation unfortunately did not improve and my Dad passed at the end of January, which was something of an emotional hammer blow as I got my love of painting and military history from my Dad and anything I painted I always loved to show him and get his opinion and commentary.
After this no matter what I tried I couldn't generate hardly any enthusiasm to pick up a brush; this culminated in an abortive attempt to paint some 28mm Perry French Napoleonic figures using the Army Dip method in an attempt to speed things up (this has previously worked really well for both my Beastmen army and my Warlord Games ECW Royalist army). However, they looked so bad when I was done that I ended up stripping the paint off them and throwing them back in the box until such time as I feel able to break them out again (it was at this point I made the decision that whatever I painted I wanted to achieve results that "I would be proud to show my Dad"). The general lack of interest in doing anything hobby related lasted for a couple of months; I would break out some minis, look at them, ponder doing some painting then ultimately just put them away again. In an attempt to kickstart things I broke out the 40K and played a couple of games with my Imperial Fists, winning both the games I played, however I still couldn't build any enthusiasm to paint anything new to add to my armies. I also played and very much enjoyed some Flames of War, with my Late War Russians (actually Mid War Russians dragged kicking and screaming into a Late War list) beating a fairly static Late War German Panzergrenadier list. Then about three weeks ago the completely unexpected and sudden sickness of one of my dogs (who we ended up having to put to sleep after a diagnosis of a ruptured spleen) dealt us another emotional bombshell; a combination of all of the above emotional trauma, the avalanche of new printed material issuing forth from GW on a seemingly weekly basis plus the increasingly ludicrous prices being charged by GW led to me turning away from GW completely.
Since then and over the last few weeks I have found myself embracing the much more reasonably priced and unbelievably wide-ranging world of 15mm figures instead. Now, regarding 15mm figures, I'd been painting and playing with these on and off for many years over the last couple of decades, however over the last few years they had fallen into disfavor due to their perceived small size (from my own painting perspective and aging eyes) and the glitz and glamor of Games Workshop and their graphically impressive models and books. Since picking them back up, though, they've experienced something of a renaissance in my gaming life and right now I'm busy working on several 15mm (and 6mm here and there, I just love how 6mm armies LOOK on the table) different projects simultaneously. I've even managed to get some of the guys at my local club interested in doing 15mm and 6mm fantasy and there are several folks working on Flames of War armies right now.
In summary, right now GW is out of the picture for me (definitely 40K, although the possibility exists that I could be talked into a game of Fantasy again) and 15mm is in. I hope to load some pictures of some of the games described above soon and get this blog moving again....time will tell!
Bob
After this no matter what I tried I couldn't generate hardly any enthusiasm to pick up a brush; this culminated in an abortive attempt to paint some 28mm Perry French Napoleonic figures using the Army Dip method in an attempt to speed things up (this has previously worked really well for both my Beastmen army and my Warlord Games ECW Royalist army). However, they looked so bad when I was done that I ended up stripping the paint off them and throwing them back in the box until such time as I feel able to break them out again (it was at this point I made the decision that whatever I painted I wanted to achieve results that "I would be proud to show my Dad"). The general lack of interest in doing anything hobby related lasted for a couple of months; I would break out some minis, look at them, ponder doing some painting then ultimately just put them away again. In an attempt to kickstart things I broke out the 40K and played a couple of games with my Imperial Fists, winning both the games I played, however I still couldn't build any enthusiasm to paint anything new to add to my armies. I also played and very much enjoyed some Flames of War, with my Late War Russians (actually Mid War Russians dragged kicking and screaming into a Late War list) beating a fairly static Late War German Panzergrenadier list. Then about three weeks ago the completely unexpected and sudden sickness of one of my dogs (who we ended up having to put to sleep after a diagnosis of a ruptured spleen) dealt us another emotional bombshell; a combination of all of the above emotional trauma, the avalanche of new printed material issuing forth from GW on a seemingly weekly basis plus the increasingly ludicrous prices being charged by GW led to me turning away from GW completely.
Since then and over the last few weeks I have found myself embracing the much more reasonably priced and unbelievably wide-ranging world of 15mm figures instead. Now, regarding 15mm figures, I'd been painting and playing with these on and off for many years over the last couple of decades, however over the last few years they had fallen into disfavor due to their perceived small size (from my own painting perspective and aging eyes) and the glitz and glamor of Games Workshop and their graphically impressive models and books. Since picking them back up, though, they've experienced something of a renaissance in my gaming life and right now I'm busy working on several 15mm (and 6mm here and there, I just love how 6mm armies LOOK on the table) different projects simultaneously. I've even managed to get some of the guys at my local club interested in doing 15mm and 6mm fantasy and there are several folks working on Flames of War armies right now.
In summary, right now GW is out of the picture for me (definitely 40K, although the possibility exists that I could be talked into a game of Fantasy again) and 15mm is in. I hope to load some pictures of some of the games described above soon and get this blog moving again....time will tell!
Bob
Monday, October 7, 2013
Massive Warhammer Fantasy siege at Hurricon
Just over a week ago, four of us made the pilgrimage to South Florida's Fall wargaming convention, Hurricon, put on in Orlando by the HMGS-East chapter - it would usually be a larger group but real life interfered with several folks' ability to attend sadly. Anyway, we decided to forge ahead with the game anyway as so much work had already been done and what I hope to show below is my (poorly photographed; I blame my aging phone) chronicle of the battle.
The forces: on the side of order, there were approximately 6,500pts of Dwarfs with about 2,500pts starting in the fortress while the remaining 4,000pts came on as the relief force, while on the side of Chaos we had 6,000pts of Beastmen (three hordes of Gors and Bestigors, five chariots including two Razorgor chariots, five shaman, a giant, ghorgon, cygor and jabberslythe, six Centigors including Ghorros, nine Minotaurs plus a flying Doombull and assorted Ungors, Warhounds etc) accompanied by 2,500-3,000pts of Orcs & Goblins (including Grimgor). For siege rules we ended up using a hodge-podge of rules beginning primarily with the rules used from an old White Dwarf (featuring a Dark Elf siege of a Bretonnian fortress) and augmented by select rules from Blood in the Badlands and the old 6E siege rules - they mostly worked well but were I to run another big siege game like this I would definitely have to iron out some of the kinks for a smoother game.
The set-up: The Orcs and Beastmen set up first, with the Beasts taking the left and the Orcs the right. We played on a double-wide battlefield (12' x 6') and there was STILL barely enough room to set everything up; several units were double parked until the first turn when we could maneuver them out into the open. We also had to be careful to consider the relief force which would come on via either one or both of the flanks (it should be just one flank 'realistically' but there were so many Dwarfs in the relief force we decided to let them split things up).
The initial dwarven garrison was fairly small and surprisingly without a massive amount of shooting; I think it had one cannon, one organ gun and maybe 2-3 units of shooty infantry (ironically the relief force on the other hand was loaded with war machines). The remainder was in rock hard melee units that waited in the courtyard for the attack to begin.
The lords of the fortress survey the forces arrayed against them, "Gandalf style".
Prior to turn one the attackers rolled 2d6 for each siege tower to see how far they would move (during the game itself siege towers moved as fast as the unit pushing them, but with no marching allowed) - sadly our rolling was pretty unspectacular with the Orc tower moving 6" and the two Beastmen towers moving 2" and 5" respectively!
The dwarfs began turn 1 with some fairly unremarkable shooting since most of the attackers were out of range, then the attacker's line surged forward, the units on the flanks maneuvering to screen out relieving elements as long as possible.
Turns 2 and 3 were much of the same, as the dwarfs failed to roll sufficiently to bring on the relief force but the defenders went unharmed for the most part due to the virtual complete lack of shooting on the attacking side besides the occasional boulder being flung by the Cygor (whose other abilities were wasted by the lack of wizards on the defending side but I had the model and it looked cool so what the hell lol). The dwarfs were also for the most part able to shut down the magic phase despite the attackers rolling extremely well for magic dice plus getting at least five extra dice a turn from the Beastmen's herdstone AND at least two channels a turn :(
Several things did go well for the defenders though as they were able to bring down the siege tower carrying Grimgor and his boys plus a unit of Dwarf miners managed to get to the battlefield ahead of the rest of the relief force and come right behind the block of minotaurs pushing the battering ram towards the front door - only a hastily redeployed group of Ungor Raiders were able to block their path and hold them up long enough for a nearby giant to intercept.
Turn 3 (iirc) did see a successful aerial assault on one of the towers by the Jabberslythe and the Flying Doombull which shook the defenders.
The attackers meanwhile continued to doggedly grind forwards as losses from shooting started to mount. The relief force was still out there lurking somewhere and eventually showed up on turn 4, being fairly evenly split between the two flanks with both flanks receiving a veritable feast of artillery. The ungors screening the minotaurs unsurprisingly couldn't stand against the dwarf miners and ran away, but they had done their job and the giant was able to take over the fight against the guys with the pickaxes.
Elsewhere, the minotaurs reached the front gate and proceeded to smash it down with the battering ram, while Grimgor and his boys assaulted the wall directly without their tower and the Aracknarock Spider climbed straight over the wall and engaged the defenders within the fortress itself.
As the relief force moved on, both flanks of the attacking force met fire with fire with multiple chariot charges as well as a very impressive showing from the Centigors being led by Ghorros Warhoof (whose eventual demise served to enrage the rest of the beastmen army and boost their leadership by 1 for primal fury tests). In the center the giant fell to the miner's pickaxes but was relieved by the Chorgon who had made his way over while the minotaurs fought around their battering ram against the stalwart defenders of the gate. Over on the left side the horde of gors finally reached the wall in their siege tower, lowered the ramp and charged in, slaughtering dwarfs and taking control of the wall section. The jabberslythe flew to the next tower and engaged the organ gun crew that had been occupying it. Amazingly Grimgor and his boys were repulsed from the wall but quickly recovered and climbed straight back up there to re-engage a turn or two later.
By this time we were all starting to flag a little; the battle for gate had reached a grindfest in the challenge between the gorebull and the dwarven character, both of whom had flailed away at each other for several turns without being able to cause any wounds, while the thane's unit had disintegrated away around him he was able to keep going in the challenge (next time I'll reject the challenge and just run over the little bugger with the entire minotaur unit lol). The Gors on the wall were counterattacked from the courtyard but were more than able to hold their own and were whittling down the defenders every round. The Ghorgon was able to finish off the miners but they had proven to be an effective diversion and had managed to kill the giant and a unit of ungor raiders in the process.
At this point we called it; there was still one turn to go and the battle still hung in the balance but we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a close draw. Things were looking very bad for the dwarfs, though, they had 17 models left in the entire fortress and the relief force was not even close to entering the castle themselves; the west wall was about to be overrun by the bestigors in their siege tower and the jabberslythe and flying doombull were both free to fly around the fortress and engage whoever they wanted to. Two areas were being held by a single dwarf!
Anyway, once the game was done we decided it had been a blast and a half and it's definitely something I would like to do again although preferably with more shooting from my own army lol. One of the reasons I like to do these games is the sheer spectacle and this definitely scored on this point; I like to just sit back sometimes and look at the situation on the table and let my imagination run riot! Thanks to Colin (Orcs), Trevor (Fortress Dwarfs) and Jon (Relieving Dwarfs) for putting this game on with me, let's do it again next year!
The forces: on the side of order, there were approximately 6,500pts of Dwarfs with about 2,500pts starting in the fortress while the remaining 4,000pts came on as the relief force, while on the side of Chaos we had 6,000pts of Beastmen (three hordes of Gors and Bestigors, five chariots including two Razorgor chariots, five shaman, a giant, ghorgon, cygor and jabberslythe, six Centigors including Ghorros, nine Minotaurs plus a flying Doombull and assorted Ungors, Warhounds etc) accompanied by 2,500-3,000pts of Orcs & Goblins (including Grimgor). For siege rules we ended up using a hodge-podge of rules beginning primarily with the rules used from an old White Dwarf (featuring a Dark Elf siege of a Bretonnian fortress) and augmented by select rules from Blood in the Badlands and the old 6E siege rules - they mostly worked well but were I to run another big siege game like this I would definitely have to iron out some of the kinks for a smoother game.
The set-up: The Orcs and Beastmen set up first, with the Beasts taking the left and the Orcs the right. We played on a double-wide battlefield (12' x 6') and there was STILL barely enough room to set everything up; several units were double parked until the first turn when we could maneuver them out into the open. We also had to be careful to consider the relief force which would come on via either one or both of the flanks (it should be just one flank 'realistically' but there were so many Dwarfs in the relief force we decided to let them split things up).
The initial dwarven garrison was fairly small and surprisingly without a massive amount of shooting; I think it had one cannon, one organ gun and maybe 2-3 units of shooty infantry (ironically the relief force on the other hand was loaded with war machines). The remainder was in rock hard melee units that waited in the courtyard for the attack to begin.
The lords of the fortress survey the forces arrayed against them, "Gandalf style".
Prior to turn one the attackers rolled 2d6 for each siege tower to see how far they would move (during the game itself siege towers moved as fast as the unit pushing them, but with no marching allowed) - sadly our rolling was pretty unspectacular with the Orc tower moving 6" and the two Beastmen towers moving 2" and 5" respectively!
The dwarfs began turn 1 with some fairly unremarkable shooting since most of the attackers were out of range, then the attacker's line surged forward, the units on the flanks maneuvering to screen out relieving elements as long as possible.
Turns 2 and 3 were much of the same, as the dwarfs failed to roll sufficiently to bring on the relief force but the defenders went unharmed for the most part due to the virtual complete lack of shooting on the attacking side besides the occasional boulder being flung by the Cygor (whose other abilities were wasted by the lack of wizards on the defending side but I had the model and it looked cool so what the hell lol). The dwarfs were also for the most part able to shut down the magic phase despite the attackers rolling extremely well for magic dice plus getting at least five extra dice a turn from the Beastmen's herdstone AND at least two channels a turn :(
Several things did go well for the defenders though as they were able to bring down the siege tower carrying Grimgor and his boys plus a unit of Dwarf miners managed to get to the battlefield ahead of the rest of the relief force and come right behind the block of minotaurs pushing the battering ram towards the front door - only a hastily redeployed group of Ungor Raiders were able to block their path and hold them up long enough for a nearby giant to intercept.
Turn 3 (iirc) did see a successful aerial assault on one of the towers by the Jabberslythe and the Flying Doombull which shook the defenders.
The attackers meanwhile continued to doggedly grind forwards as losses from shooting started to mount. The relief force was still out there lurking somewhere and eventually showed up on turn 4, being fairly evenly split between the two flanks with both flanks receiving a veritable feast of artillery. The ungors screening the minotaurs unsurprisingly couldn't stand against the dwarf miners and ran away, but they had done their job and the giant was able to take over the fight against the guys with the pickaxes.
As the relief force moved on, both flanks of the attacking force met fire with fire with multiple chariot charges as well as a very impressive showing from the Centigors being led by Ghorros Warhoof (whose eventual demise served to enrage the rest of the beastmen army and boost their leadership by 1 for primal fury tests). In the center the giant fell to the miner's pickaxes but was relieved by the Chorgon who had made his way over while the minotaurs fought around their battering ram against the stalwart defenders of the gate. Over on the left side the horde of gors finally reached the wall in their siege tower, lowered the ramp and charged in, slaughtering dwarfs and taking control of the wall section. The jabberslythe flew to the next tower and engaged the organ gun crew that had been occupying it. Amazingly Grimgor and his boys were repulsed from the wall but quickly recovered and climbed straight back up there to re-engage a turn or two later.
By this time we were all starting to flag a little; the battle for gate had reached a grindfest in the challenge between the gorebull and the dwarven character, both of whom had flailed away at each other for several turns without being able to cause any wounds, while the thane's unit had disintegrated away around him he was able to keep going in the challenge (next time I'll reject the challenge and just run over the little bugger with the entire minotaur unit lol). The Gors on the wall were counterattacked from the courtyard but were more than able to hold their own and were whittling down the defenders every round. The Ghorgon was able to finish off the miners but they had proven to be an effective diversion and had managed to kill the giant and a unit of ungor raiders in the process.
At this point we called it; there was still one turn to go and the battle still hung in the balance but we were all pretty tired and decided to call it a close draw. Things were looking very bad for the dwarfs, though, they had 17 models left in the entire fortress and the relief force was not even close to entering the castle themselves; the west wall was about to be overrun by the bestigors in their siege tower and the jabberslythe and flying doombull were both free to fly around the fortress and engage whoever they wanted to. Two areas were being held by a single dwarf!
Anyway, once the game was done we decided it had been a blast and a half and it's definitely something I would like to do again although preferably with more shooting from my own army lol. One of the reasons I like to do these games is the sheer spectacle and this definitely scored on this point; I like to just sit back sometimes and look at the situation on the table and let my imagination run riot! Thanks to Colin (Orcs), Trevor (Fortress Dwarfs) and Jon (Relieving Dwarfs) for putting this game on with me, let's do it again next year!
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