Saturday 30 April 2016

More Painted Fings

My Productivity Is Reaching Epic Proportions! 

Weirdly my painting is matching my gaming so I'm still Inquisimundaing the hell out of my model collection.

Scavvys

I have finished five Scavvys for my scabrous horde. Old Tomb Dogger, the previous ganger leader will shortly be making way for the new improved Scavvy gang leader, one that is not married to his sister! These Scavvy sculpts are really nice, with lots of dirty rags hanging off their weapons and what not.

Scabby Topknot


Friday 22 April 2016

Skullduggery in The Underhive!

Interrogator Jenna Persuivant strode into the small apartmentium in a hab-slum on Lower Skunkton. the other members of the group were ready and awaiting orders. The group were eager for action. Jenna simply said 'target acquired.' she went on 'a dataslate containing vital blueprints must be recovered from subsector SV1298Q. There may be hostiles also trying to obtain said plans. Arm yourselves!' . As one the group grabbed their gear and started filing out the door.


Necromunda  Jim, But Not As We Know It!

As is my wont, I have jumped from one game system to another without a by your leave. This time it's Inquisimunda. Not the most well known or even played game by GW. It is actually an offshoot of Necromunda but with the emphasis on small warbands of Inquisitor Cells, Mutant Mobs, Ecclesiarchy Delegations and many more besides. Using the *NCE version of the rules and with the ability to use several Xenos races it really is up my alley! To download the rules go to Yaktribe Community and get reading! for my inaugural gang I decided to go for an Inquisition Cell, led by Interrogator Jenna Persuivant (as this is a skirmish level game, big guns like Inquisitors themselves are far too busy to show up) and here motley crew. They are Ordos Xenos (radical) which means they hate aliens but don't mind using their stuff and also having one in the **gang. My opponent Pat has a goodly amount of Squat models (very oldskool) so he formed a gang of Squat Void Pirates - just like pirates but with the word Void in front of them. They are actually a fun choice as they can have multiple races and a good selection of weapons.

The Mission

As I wanted to keep the game simple and also make it not so much an out and out gang fight the scenario was using gang fight rules for purposes of bottling etc but I placed an Imperial Rhino in the centre line of the board, the objective being simple - any ganger that spends a full turn doing nothing and making a successful I test grabs the terribly important dataslate and wins the game. Of course stopping your opponents more homicidal warband members from chopping you up is the tricky part.

The Battlefield

Below is a picture of the board just after set up. The valiant Inquisitorial group are at the bottom with four models out of shot to the left (intending to use the Necromunda scenery) with my heavy and ganger in the centre by the zombie pen, and the gang leader, Wyrd and general hangers on to the right by the big toxic chemical pool. My overall plan was to position my heavy in cover centrally making a large 'no fly zone' whilst two or three groups use cover to enfilade the abhuman scum winning the day. Although I placed some Spiker plants they weren't being used as such because I couldn't readily get hold of the White Dwarf that contained the rules. The table being played on is my table tennis ***table, and I think the blue gives it an alien world type vibe.

Battlefield ref;45325620/X#1

The Warbands

My as yet unnamed warband has the following elements:
Interrogator Jenna Persuivant, armed with a bolt pistol, knife, sword.
Acolyte Tefal, level 2 ;wyrd, Cursed Luck, Cast Glow, Dominate, autopistol, power maul, knife.
Acolyte buxom, lasgun, knife.
Acolyte Hellion, autopistol, knife, 2 x swords.
Acolyte Shades, autogun, knife.
Acolyte Ensign, autopistol, knife.
Disciple Bangs, heavy stubber, knife.
Tech Adept Derric, Plasma gun, knife.
Recruit Spazz, laspistol, knife.
Recruit Chubbs, autopistol, knife.
Recruit Greylocks, stub gun, knife.


Left to right (back row) Buxom, Hellion, Ensign, Tefal, Jenna, Derric, Shades
(front row) Chubbs, Greylocks, Spaz and Bangs.

Pat's Void Pirates consisted of:
Captain leader Connery (Eldar), Wyrd level 1; Unerring Aim, autogun, chainsword, knife.
Randall quartermaster (Squat), Wyrd level 1; Ground Swell, shotgun (scatter & manstopper), knife.
Gilliam ganger (Jokaero), Wyrd level 2; Trigger spasm, Cast Glow, Mind War, autogun, knife.
Wally ganger (Eldar) autogun, knife.
Strutter ganger (Tau) autogun, knife.
Og Swabies (Tau) autogun, knife.
Kevin Swabies (Squat) autopistol, knife.
Brian Swabies (Squat) autopistol, knife.

As you can see, I have numerical advantage but there's a lot of Wyrdness going on in there!

The Game

The first few turns were cagey enough, I ran my heavy, lasgun armed acolyte and Chubbs the newly recruited bullet catcher into the scatter terrain in the centre. My Tech Adept, and two acolytes went left, accompanied by another recruit - Spazz, whilst Tefal, Hellion and Greylocks went right to avail themselves of my rather natty walls over there. After a bit of pondering Jenna decided to move centrally to advance up with Chubbs to get the goodies in the Rhino. Pats warband was split into three groups, four fighters including the Eldar leader moved to intercept my group on the left (whilst avoiding the heavy stubber) a group of two were placed centrally to raid the Rhino when the opportunity arose and a further four went right to also avail themselves of the aforementioned natty walls. This was a total united colours of Benetton type deal, with a Tau, a Jokaero and two Squats going that way.

My close combat/annoying psychic team.
My putting the heavy stubber on overwatch was a bit of a buzzkill for the Pirates as no one wanted to come out to gather the info in the Rhino. some shots were exchanged on the left where two of my gang were hit, but neither were wounded. On the right Tefal was also hit by the Tau, not wounded and to make matters worse the Tau's autogun ran out of ammo****. This was rather annoying as Tefal - in his infinite wisdom had moved out of range of Hellion & Greylocks so he couldn't even attempt to escape pinning next turn.

My heavy bravely hides behind a new recruit, Chubbs.
In my turn both Derric & Spaz rolled under initiative to escape pinning and kept running towards the bulkhead where the Emperor's righteous fury could be rained down on the conga line of Pirates sneaking up along the large building in the centre. Below them two more members tried popping off shots that missed due to range and cover issues. I was this turn I realised that plasma guns on full power aren't all that when I put a flesh wound on the conga lining Squat . The Eldar pirate captain proved to be annoying with his psychic power that makes his shot automatically hit! Spaz got hit and not wounded again! Derric wasn't so lucky he got shot and fell off the gantry hurting himself. Over on the right Tefal was once again hit but not *****wounded! Hellion and Greylocks were now getting into beating up abhumans & Xenos range. Meanwhile Jenna and Chubbs were getting quite close to the Rhino.


Peek A Boo!
Pat blew away poor old Greylocks and miraculously missed Hellion. Gilliam, the Jokaero tried to Mind War her too only to have the alien ape blow his own mind and putting himself Xenos down. The Emperor protects! Chubbs ran to the Rhino, whilst Jenna moved forward to a covering position. Also in my turn Hellion charged in and chopped up her Squat opponent Randall, neatly dodging his Ground Swell ability. Tefal violated the next Squat's mind making him turn round and shoot the another pirate! Sadly the Squat's underlying stubborness shone through only giving him a flesh wound.

The centrally positioned Squat shoots his mate. 
Pat had to stop Chubbs so he charged a pirate into him and at the same time sent another pirate to ransack the Rhino! Hellion continued to lead a charmed life despite being very close to some angry space dwarfs! The conga liners failed to hit any more of my troops in cover. The model that charged into Chubbs rolled a 1 for combat and Chubbs managed 4 hits on him. Chubbs butchered his opponent forthwith. Jenna charged into combat with the pirate rummaging around in the Rhino. In my shooting turn the heavy stubber took down a flesh wounded Squat. Jenna dispatched her opponent and all Chubbs had to do to win the game was pass an Initiative test which he obligingly did. Game over, dude!

Conclusion

Well that went pretty well. I have to admit Pat did some awful dice rolling in that game, namely at least 4 failures to wound at important times, and an unsuccessful mind war with a +2 modifier. The post game phase wasn't any kinder as he ended up with 5 injuried fighters. 2 Old Battle Wounds (Randall & Vermin), leg wound for Og, Kevin died and probably most telling Gilliam the Jokaero was captured! I got off lighly, Greylocks and Derric rolled on the injury table - Greylocks now hates Connery and Derric got a full recovery. Experience wise I managed to get 3 advances for Chubbs (Catfall, Evade, Sprint) and one for Hellion (Sprint). Income was pretty sparse. As it was now midnight in the real world we didn't roll on the rare trade charts (even if we did neither of us had disposable income) and called it a day.

Jenna Persuivant's band returned to their apartmentium with the unconscious Xenos. Bringing a neural psionic inhibitor was standard operating procedure. The NPI would be implanted on the Jokaero's skull making it unable to use it's Wyrd powers. Ultimately an ideal solution would to coerce this Xenos to the warband, this would take both time and Throne Geld. In the meantime a thorough examination of the dataslate would hopefully provide clues to the whereabouts of the weapons designer. 


What Now?

In game terms Jenna's mission was a success, even more so as they have captured a Jokaero Wyrd. If the Wyrd can be subverted then I will save up to buy a Jokaero as my token alien for the warband. That is of course, if Pat's Pirates (not their real name) don't make an attempt to spring him (or her). Returning to the mission, the dataslate contains incomplete plans for a highly advanced weapon system that if the complete blueprints were to get into the slimy ******tentacles of an enemy of the Imperium could spell the doom of countless millions! Pat Pirates are probably even now, knee deep in alien floozys drinking their fill of Space Rum and plotting horrible Void Pirate revenge. So next thing to do is see who's available next week to take on my unnamed warband.

Thanks for reading.

Monday 18 April 2016

What I did on my Holiday. AKA The Battle of Hangover Hill.

Once again I headed over to sunny Essex for a weekend at my buddy Matt's house. The purpose was ostensibly for a 40th surprise birthday party but there was a lot of drooling over models and a lovely big 6000 point game of Warhammer 8th edition with a hangover to be played. So without further ado here is the Warhammer Porn!

A rather large scratchbuilt standard on a Palanquin jockey.

More Daemonics!

Undead made to make your mouth water!

Yes, three steam tanks and two war wagons.

Mucho Empire Characters.
The picture below has one of my favourite models in it, and it was scratchbuilt by Sculptureman himself! It's like a big chaos creature mated with a toilet and an unpleasant offspring was the result. Also some Forge World Ogres and GW Nurglings occupy this photo.

Forge World Chaos Ogres and a scratchbuilt Chaos Spawn

More Daemons.

Dark Elves and Chaos cocktail.

More Undead and a little bit of Empire
Sadly my iPhone photos really don't do justice to these models. It really is a joy to go over there and gawp, slack jawed and all the pretty things. Matt has extensive (more like humongous) armies of Undead, Empire, Dark Elves, Beastmen, Chaos Daemons and probably a few others that I've forgotten. Until such time as Matt decides to document his collection this will have to suffice.

The Battle of Hangover Hill

The following collection of words are based on a rather enjoyable game that was played the day after the 40th birthday party. Matt took 6000 points of fabulously painted Dark Elves, I took 3000 points of Skaven and my accomplice Barry took 3000 points of Orcs & Goblins. *Barry was also charged with bringing all the luck, as he is notoriously fortunate, particularly on the gaming table. As I mentioned before, I was badly hungover and in that state my brain functions weren't at their best. My army list comprised of a Grey Seer on a Screaming Bell, Plague Priest on a Furnace, an Abomb, Doomwheel, 2 units of Gutter Runners and loads of Clanrats, Slaves giant rats and Plague Monks. there was also a BSB in there too. What I didn't **bring was the Storm Banner, a cheap-as-chips Warlock Engineer with Doom Rocker and/or Death Globe or any of the other dastardly Skaven stuff that some non-Skaven players bitch about. I did remember to pack a Plague Banner though. Barry took some ***Mangler Squig's, Doom Divers, a massive unit of Savage Orcs and Grimgor Ironhide with a hefty unit of immortals plus assorted Goblin units.
Matts army consisted of (****as far as I can remember): 3 units of Witch Elves (the largest horde had a Cauldron of Blood in it, just to make it even more appealing), a big unit of Sisters of Slaughter, 2 large Executioner units, 25ish Blackguard with Kouran, Morathi, 10 Doomfire Warlocks, some Shades 2 chariots and some chaff hunting Dark Riders. There was also some crossbowmen and a Kharbydiss.

We played on an 8' table to accommodate the plethora of painted models and we set about rolling dice for table edge and whatnot. Matt lost the dice rolls giving him table edge and setting up second privileges and who places their infiltrators first (all Barry's skill), also the whose vanguards vanguards in the vanguard, but we lost the who goes first roll. Can't win them all I suppose*****. The Spider Riders (that I forgot to mention previously) vanguarded up to the woods in the vanguardery phase, effectively stopping the Dark Riders doing it.

Turn One

Matt's first turn was a bit cagey (let's face it, most first turns are). The army advanced at a reasonable pace, Morathi scooted behind the tower and proceeded to try to cast Soul Drain all game******. I think the Dark elf male mage blew up in the crossbowman unit killing 3 or 4 of them. The Opal amulet, sadly worked on him though. The Dark Elves shooting phase wasn't overly bad -a couple of wounds on the Abomb, a Mangler Squig and maybe 13 points of dead skaven. One fun thing that happened was when the Brolocks attempted to cast a spell I Sivejir's Hex Scrolled them turn the super mobile fast cavalry into movement 1 donkeys.

Our turn was equally cagey with me advancing just enough to provoke some very long charges I angled my Plague monks in such a way as to be able to charge either the smallish unit of Witch Elves or the Executioner unit. The Spiders Riders on 'my' side of the table advanced up to completely block movement of the Dark Riders and Cold One Chariot. The Goblins, Savage Orcs and Immortuls all ambled up with a total lack of animosity. I tried to cast Howling Warpgale but Matt was having none of it. Barry's Goblin cast Itchy Nuisance of the Sisters of Slaughter severely limiting their movement. I let Barry take most of the power dice as each free die he gets from popping mushrooms is very irritating for the opponent. Our shooting was pretty ineffective this turn.
  

Turn Two

There were a few Dark Elf charges, namely a unit of Dark Riders and chariot into the annoying spider riders, they fled (like any self respecting goblin would) allowing a redirected charge into my Giant Rat unit. The smaller of the two witch elf units in the centre charged my Slave bus. The witch Elves on my right charged the Abomb. Had I a musk gland, it might have squirted a bit, but luckily I don't so it didn't. The best part was when the large unit of Witch elves failed a charge. A unit of Dark Riders did a lot of fast cavalry sneaky stuff to get all up in my warpfire thrower team's grill. On the goblinoid end the Dark elf advance was stalled by the imminent appearance of 3 goblin fanatics if any of the highly expensive Executioners went near them. Soul Stealer killed a few more Slaves (so what!) in the magic phase and I think that was it. To my amusement the Brolock that was a toad remained one. I think the Elf male wizard miscast again, killing a few more crossbowmen then dissappearing into the warp! In the shooting phase I had to say goodbye to my weapons teams due to vindictive Dark Elf bullying. A Mangler Squig was cut down in his prime also. Combat went ok, the Witch elves destroyed the Slave unit overrunning past the amused Doom divers. The second Witch elf unit inflicted a couple of wounds on the Abomb who in turn took a rank off them. The Rats vs the chariot and Dark riders ended well enough as my rats withstood the charge and due to steadfast looked good for another turn or two.

Who will win? Charging Plague Monks or Executioners with BSB?
As the forces of the lesser of two evils turn began I had some charges to declare. My Plague Monks into the Executioners, the other Slave bus into the Dark Riders and my small (20 or so) clanrats into the Chariot next to the Kharbydis. The Savage Orcs failed a straightforward charge into the big Witch Elf unit. A unit of squig Hoppers got into contact with the crossbowmen. The remaining Mangler Squig rolled something pathetic and failed to get into combat. My unit of gutter runners emerged behind Morathi hoping to poison her ass off the table. In the magic phase Barry continued his annoying magic assault on the elves whereas I played it cool only not casting anything at all. Our shooting phase did very little at all, inflicting one wound on Morathi and naff all else.Close combat was ok my Clanrats beat the chariot in combat only to have it stick around due to Matt's pesky BSB. The Giant rats held up the chariot and Dark riders for a turn. The I fought the Plague Monks vs Executioners, activated the Plague Banner and tore them a new one! Even with the BSB and Morathi's leadership the Executioners were routed which took the Plague Monks into the flank of the blackguard. Of course if I had started this combat first then the chariot would have fucked off too as there wouldn't have been a reroll, ah hindsight, we meet again. The witch Elves slew the mighty Abomb, only to have 3 rat swarms disgorge themselves in front of them.

So Much Frenzy in the Picture!

Turn Three

This was the make or break turn. with the Plague monks doing a number on the highly expensive executioner unit, Matt had to recoup some points. With that the other unit of Executioners charged the goblin shaman container (taking some wounds from running through fanatics). The Kharbidyss charged in to help the chariot vs the clanrats. The Witch Elf Abomb slayers charged the rat swarms.  The Sisters of slaughter charged the Black orcs and the big unit of Witch Elves avec Cauldron of Blood charged into the Savage Orcs. There was a tape measure fest deciding where Morathi could go and remain unmolested by skaven or greenskins*******. Shooting saw the untimely end of my would be Morathi assassins to pointy elven crossbow bolts. Magic didn't do much either as I recall. Then came the close combat whch had at least 10 units in combat there was going to be an awful lot of ASF rerolls! Most amusingly was, I thought the appalling damage done by the executioners on the Goblins (or the lack thereof). monumentally bad dice were rolled by the elves resulting in a fit and happy Shaman, Big boss and BSB! Also not enough damage was done to even break their steadfast. The Sisters were good, but didn't get any cigars for routing the Black orcs, as indeed they were the ones who fled! Witch elves vs the savage Orcs next, the ensuing cataclysmic murderfest ended in a draw despite well over 35 models took early baths. Over on the Skaven end the plague Monks caused bloody mayhem on the Blackguard and the only thing that stopped them fleeing was Kouran. The slightly less dramatic fight next door (chariot,Kharbidys and Clanrats) went badly for my lads but not enough for them to rout. The witch elves wiped out my free swarms overunning into easy charge range of the bell. The final combat (Dark riders, Chariot and giant Rats) ended as another draw and the packmasters (by means of attrition) were getting uncomfortably close to danger. 

A smallish unit of Witch Elves about to take some Death Frenzy love.
As the majority of units were in combat there wasn't many unengaged units, those who were (black orcs and Slaves) charged into combat to get some! The Black Orcs flank charged the ********Executioners, the slaves into the Blackguard. The Clanrats pushing the Bell ambled into the now presumable exhausted Witch elves. In the magic phase Scorch was cast from the Bell (killing 3 Brolocks including the Toadlock). They routed. Death Frenzy was cast upon the Clanrat unit, bringing the number of attacks up to a goodly amount. The only thing left on our side that could shoot was my Gutter runners and they plinked off a couple Corsairs. As I limbered up my dice throwing muscles for combat Matt conceded as he really wasn't in a position to win the game and we had to go off and get a *********curry! Handshakes all round then.

The rather big scrap in the middle saw the death of Dark Elf ambitions in this game!

Conclusion

Well I haven't played a game of Warhammer that big for a long time! It was a total blast. Tactically most of the things I tried to do went well, Barry's luck did it thing also. Matt had some poxy luck too. Our two units on either flank (my Giant Rats and Barry's Goblin unit) withstood a lot of damage, holding up things that I really wouldn't want creeping around my rear! Despite my army list being not overpowered (except perhaps the Plague Monk sledgehammer). Another thing that helped was me not having total control of the magic phase, the Goblin shaman got casting nearly everything he wanted too with near impunity due to him popping magic mushrooms all game. I suppose the biggest mistake I made was the order I did my combats in turn 2, had I started on the Executioners first I would have also routed the Chariot giving me a charge on the Kharbidys with my clanrats, not really game changing as it turned out but making me seem a bit less like a hungover dweeb. So now I can cross off winning a game of warhammer against Dark Elves with Orc & Goblin allies off my hobby bucket list. Who knows what is next? Find out in future episodes.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday 7 April 2016

Scenery WIP

This blog has been a wee bit quiet of late, and as one of those all too common "I'm not dead!" type posts, here is my *"I'm not dead!" post. So here is what i've been up to:

Two Blokes Standing by a Wall

I've decided that the best pictures are those with an immersive background and to that end I finally finished (well ish) some 40K type metal walls. simply they were two plastic drawer dividers that got chopped up and drybrushed then inked. I'm sure some inflammatory graffiti will makes it's way on there, but for now it's pretty plain.

"Ham sandwiches again, Harry?"

Terribly Dangerous Plants

I have nearly finished my polystyrene balls Spiker plants for the Underhive and beyond. Cocktail sticks, pva glue and flock. Simples. These pieces are multi functional as they can be used in death world jungles, the hellish under hive and as sentries in mad scientists secret lairs. I'm also going to make a couple of semi transformed models who are well on there way to plantdom. A liitle bit of highlighting on the spikes and were ready to rock n' roll.

Spikers hemmed in.

Underhive Holestead

Using a template from a 20 year White Dwarf was where I began making this building. The roofs are removable for added hideability of models. I sprayed it with a dull grey primer then a thin wash of rusty ink. Picking out the details will be easy enough but I want the building to be drab and uninspiring as in the 41st Millenium there is no home improvement tv **shows! Some of the rags/tarpaulins draped over the window frames may get some fancy flamboyant colours, like brown or a slightly different grey. 


Stolen Ork Vehicles

My Ash Wastes project has received a little advance with me putting a mixture of purple and yellow ink to these grey undercoated Orks vehicles. I was pretty happy with how they turned out to be honest. a small amout of detail picking out on tyre and such and they should be roadworthy in a ***short time.


Where All  The Wild Things Go

The two pictures below are my attempt at an underhive jail. lots more to do to it but it's coming along nicely I think. Features of note are the plastic sprue ladder and the pair of hands sculpted holding a set of bars at the back. Buttresses, a balcony and possible an outside privy are still in the cutting things up stage at the moment. A suitably drab paint scheme will follow.

The front of the Jail (or Gaol).

I'm pretty happy with how the plastic sprue ladder came out.

Bessie The Sump Mule

Bessie the sump mule came about from an idea I had for a character in an issue of the Slag Valley Bullett. Essentially a wandering underhiver has lost his sump mule (Bessie) and was an eyewitness to a gunfight between Scavvy's and a group of Delaques trying to affect a rescue mission (for captured gangers - not Bessie). So I decided to chop up parts of an old plastic horse to create a suitably mutated beast of burden. Some cosmetic enhancements (a lizard's leg, ****Skaven vent pipes and baggage) have hopefully made her all sci-Fi. with luck, Bessie can make her debut in a game in the not too distant future as a mobile and uncooperative objective in the style of a scavengers game. Of course I also have to make Purgative Jessop, owner of Bessie and the valuables she carries.
Bessie's Good side

Bessie's Not So Good side
So there you have it, a little bit of what's on offer at Casa Fat Git at the moment. Now alls I have to do is convince my group to play Necromunda/Inquisimunda in the near future. I'm leaning towards an Inquisitorial team but criminal elements seem like fun too. Watch this space!

Thanks for reading.


*As of the time of this post being posted.
** Praise the Emperor!
***to me under 5 years is a short time.
**** I'm bluffing I haven't a clue what they're called.