Scott come over today for a WHFB rematch at 2,000 pts. His daemons versus my shiny Bretonnians. My force was similar to last time with 40 longbowmen and trebuchet in the foreground:


And 3 lances of knights, I also had a strong contingent of heroes and the lord:


We rolled for a pitched battle and the terrain ended up like this, dominated by linear obstacles and a pit that churned out random spells at the far end:


I deployed strong on my right flank with knights, bows and trebuchet, and hoped to refuse my left with the men-at-arms holding back the daemons as long as I could:


Facing my strong right were his flamers, gumbies and the bad doggies:


While the angry red guys and the daemon prince were on my left. Turn 1 saw him cautiously advance while I held my ground and faced the menace. I wanted him to move into charge range before punching forward, hoping that the pressure of longbows and trebuchet would keep him moving forward:

Men-at-arms face the prince:

Turn 2 was supposed to be my big one, with all 3 knight lances charging. But it was a fucking disaster. Two of three charges failed, a damsel miscast, and the trebuchet misfired...



Turn 3 saw the daemons continue to advance,


and a nurgle thingy charged my stalled knights of the realm, fortunately we won on combat resolution and there was a nice self-immolating break check that left him in a puddle of goo:

Turn 3 I completed the charges, the one successful questing knight charge destroyed one unit of flamers, but the second hopped along the bushes of the far board edge and fried both of my units of archers right off the board on single shots. Hot dice..

Meanwhile, on my refused left, the men-at-arms proved to be resilient and went toe-to-toe with some bloodletters for a while:


Until they were rear-charged by the daemon prince and ran for the board edge over a burning fence, incurring even more casualties. Fortunately, the pursuing bloodletters also caught their scrotes on the burning fence and somehow came up short in the pursuit. But there were only two of them left by now, and we rallied and turned to face in the next turn.



On the right, my grail knights eventually destroyed the gumbies, but the realm knights were defeated by a combo of bad doggies and angry red men

The last turn saw my surviving knights and characters facing his surviving angry red men and dogs. At this point I had high powered characters at the core of these units and felt optimistic. He charged my questing knights and my tooled-up paladin with a 2+ ward save against flaming attacks took on the skulltaker. What happened? He got two killing blow hits and I failed the 2+ ward save. Go figure, that was the game for me. On top of that, we nerfed a pile of easy armour saves against the flamers and the grail knights were roasted as well. The lady just wasn't with us today.


So we conceded. By this time my resident daemonette of Slaanesh had returned after an afternoon of swimming with the kids and was giving me dirty looks for not finishing up in time to make an easy-bake cake with the 5-year old nurglette.

Reinforcements and new stuff

I managed to get some painting done over the first part of the holidays, finishing off another unit of old school Knights of the Realm. I kept the liveries simple, unlike the higher level knights, but tried to maximize the diversity of colours:


The standard bearer is an old metal Errant Knight who fits in just fine:


The musician is a conversion from Empire knightly orders parts, in this case the horn blower would have to remember to raise his visor before sounding the charge:


These two are my favourite heraldry/colour combinations, the last knight is a lovely lavender (Sir Poof?) that doesn't quite come out under the camera:


This year Santa blew my Christmas allowance mostly at the GW store. My WHFB armies have so far been constructed entirely from older models obtained by barter or very cheaply in lots on Bartertown, so this is an indulgence I rarely allow myself. Santa brought me the new WHFB box set. I plan to do the High Elves for WHFB, and will combine the models in here with some old archers and spearmen I got from Bob, plus the Phoenix Guard box that arrived under the tree. The sticker shock on these guys is just silly (10 plastic models for $49!), but they are simply beautiful. The skaven models in the box set are interesting, I was going to see if I could trade them but I think I will keep them and do a HOTT army of ratmen. the composition and model number are perfect for a cool and diverse HOTT army. Also in here are a Citadel game mat and some blisters of reinforcements to finish off my Bretonnians, including a lord with great weapon (to lead my Questing Knights), a blister of damsels (much needed magic-bint support) and some Pegasus Knights, fluffy but very pretty and fun to play with.


Happy Holidays everyone!

Chaos Daemons versus Bretonnians, 1800 points

Last night Scott and I played a very close game of WHFB with our new armies. We managed 1800pts which is a pretty good start. It allowed me to field everything except the lord on hippogriff, who I think does not match up against Daemons very well anyway.

My left wing comprised full lances of 9 Knights of the Realm (KOTR), 8 Questing Knights with Damsel (QK) and 7 Grail Knights with general and standard (GK). Key to the battle was the General and his wargear. Knowing Scott was fielding a kick-ass Skulltaker with S5 flaming attacks, I tooled up with fire-resistance and vows that allow re-rolls against stronger characters. So if I drew him into a duel, he could not hurt me while I could make Daemon kebabs at my leisure.

My right wing comprised 2 regiments of 20 peasant longbow, the trebuchet and a unit of 20 men-at-arms with a paladin on foot to stiffen morale and melee.

Scott moved first. On my left wing he advanced a unit of flesh hounds with Karanak along the board edge. I underestimated this unit and it almost cost me the game. On my left I was more worried about his flying Daemon Prince (followed the hounds then hid behind a tower out of trebuchet sight on the first turn) and unit of flamers (very scary, 6d6 S4 flaming attacks). The flamers advanced quickly towards my knights, perhaps too quickly. In his centre was a big unit of 25 Bloodthirsters with the Skulltaker. They advanced towards my GKs.

On the right, he advanced a unit of 25 horrors which look like lumps of pink chewing gum but churn out offensive spells, and on the right board edge was another unit of flamers that advanced towards my bows and trebuchet.

On the left, I retreated the KOTR and pivoted to face his flesh hounds, hoping to hold them off long enough to win in other quarters. I hit them in the flank with a good missile spell, but they have highly respectable magic resistance (Doh!). They eventually got the charge on my KOTR and ground them to bits and ended the game in a position to sweep across my back edge.

However, my QKs managed to make a charge onto his flamers and pulped them badly. Following this, they were charged frontally by the Daemon Prince who eventually defeated them.

The key to my plan was the GK unit. After hitting his bloodletters with the trebuchet to soften them up (crunch!) I got a charge in. The GKs did a heap of damage, and his Skulltaker was forced to use a nerf sword in a hopeless challenge against my lord. Eventually combat resolution (ranks, plus banners) and my armour/ward saves carried the day and the bloodletters were no more. The GK then turned to face the Daemon Prince. In this encounter, I challenged the Daemon to a duel with one GK every turn to minimize his damage and let combat resolution (ranks + banners + rear) grind him down.

On the right wing, his horrors twice miscast and suffered from bows and trebuchet fire, and were basically whittled away to nothing. The second flamer unit advanced along the right board edge and dueled the other bow unit until I managed a charge with the men at arms. Again, combat resolution (ranks + banner) carried the day and they were snuffed out.

We called the game with his flesh hounds poised to charge my bows and men at arms, but the GK unit was largely intact and would have handled them okay. Call is Bretonnian narrow win.

Grades for performance on my side:
KOTR: "F" they were pulped, might have managed one hit. Lesson learned: Knights must charge, and ideally multiple units in mutual support.
QK: "B" they steamrolled the flamers and held off the Daemon Prince just long enough.
GK: "A" Rock hard, 2 lance attacks each, ability to challenge, basically a unit full of champions.
General: "A" the game, basically. Next time I will need new tricks...
BSB: "A" essential to combat resolution, and CR is how to beat Daemons. Their weakness is their lack of numbers, so they can be beaten even if they kill us 2:1 if we have numbers and support in the right place at the right time.
Bows: "B" they were effective at drawing his fire and causing attrition. Range 30" is really useful.
Trebuchet: "A" I came very close to bagging a major character or two. The high S hits are great against daemons.

Overall: About a B-. I need to make better use of KOTR. The weakness of this army (among others) is the large flanks of the mounted units.

Daemons:
Flesh hounds: "A" they kicked my ass, I underestimated these guys, fast, hard hitting and resilient.
Karanak: "A" he kicked special ass...
Daemon Prince: "B" formidable but on his own is doomed.
Flamers: "F" I was worried about the number of shots these guys can put out, but the S4 flaming attacks are easily saved by knights, badly outranged by bows, and they are easy meat in melee since the units are small and lack ranks & standards.
Bloodletters: "B" these guys can hit hard, must reduce their ranks before charging in. Fortunately their toughness 3 and lack of armour makes them vulnerable to missiles.
Skulltaker: "F" this time, he got trapped. Next time I might not be so lucky....he's a killer.
Horrors "C" never really felt threatened by these guys, only level 2 and their spell ranges are short.

Overall GPA: about a C-plus. But I think this was partly situational, and partly a learning experience for Scott. I won't get away with sneaky tricks next time, maybe...

Lord on Hippogriff

The lord on hippogriff took about a week, nice model. I now have a pretty balanced force with Grail, Questing and Realm knights, artillery, bows and a few men-at-arms. Plus now, a kick-ass lord on fearsome beast. But we are up against daemons of Chaos next week. So I'll need to dig into the bag for some dirty tricks.





And an obligatory cat-sleeping picture:


next up: I dunno. I've decided to ask Santa for the Island of Blood set since I have enjoyed painting WHFB so much over the last bit.

Over the weekend I finished a little gem of a model, the 1/72 Zvezda Trebuchet. It is a large sized model, so perfect for 28mm. I converted/co-opted bits including some Zvezda Royal Infantry for crew, and an Empire engineer serving as an advisor in the Bretonnian artillery regiment:


Here is a closer shot of the crew:


And with a couple of kniggots for scale:


I also completed a unit of standard knights of the realm, these are older edition so nice and simple to paint and put together. I got these in a swap from Bob with transfers from Scott (thanks guys!):



Up next: Lord on Hippogriff...should take forever or so...

Questing Kniggots

This lot of 8 Bretonnian Questing Knights took almost 2 weeks to finish, probably most detailed minis I have ever completed. They have pretty well scuppered my chances of getting 2,000 minis painted in 2010. I hope they don't suck...



Apparently, it is important to bring furniture on quests...


The standard has lots of detail bits, including scrolls and badges




Next up: maybe some old-school knights of the realm that I picked up in a swap next. They will be a piece of cake after these monsters.

Grail Knights

I completed a few mounted Bretonnian kniggots over the weekend. First there is a generic Brettonian lord


And there are 6 Grail Knights, the hardest bunch of the Bretonnian muster. Two strength 6 attacks on the charge, immune to psychology:


These are really beautiful models. I like the raised shield design since I could never paint medieval heraldry freehand. I can barely pick these out. Here is the leader, I've done him in Saskatchewan Roughrider green:


Up next: men-at-arms (i.e. peasant fodder)

Bretonnians begin

I have made a start on my Bretonnians for WHFB. Like my Empire army, it will have a decidedly retro look. So far I have completed 40 peasant archers and Morgiana, the fay enchantress. Not exactly enough to make anyone quake yet, but the Grail Knights are next.


The archers are from an earlier edition, there are only two poses but I like that. I also like the way they look and feel...chunky:

The Fay Enchantress is a kick-ass magic user character mounted on a formidable steed. She points out around 500 so will not get on the field until the army reaches 2k or so. She has an amphibian familiar that Silvaron must be careful not to step on!