Gaming Arena Nov 2025 Aftermath - Part 3

This is a continuation of my tournament report from the event at Gaming Arena in November 2025. You can find the previous part here, or go back to the start here.

Game 3 - Close Quarters (Domination, Strategic Locations (2), Break Point)
Thomas Smart - Vampire Counts

Before Tom had pulled his army out, he asked me how many magical attacks my army had. I had to admit that I had none, and then rather sheepishly asked if he was using Vampire Counts, and how many ethereal units he had. Turns out the answer to both questions was... Yes.

• Master Necromancer (Level 4, Necromancy) with Spell Familiar, Sceptre Of De Noirot, Cloak Of Mist & Shadows
• Necromantic Acolyte (Level 1, Illusion) on Mortis Engine
• Necromantic Acolyte (Level 1, Illusion) on Mortis Engine
• Tomb Banshee
• Tomb Banshee
• Wight Lord with Battle Standard, Charmed Shield
• 28 Grave Guard with Great Weapons, Drilled, Full Command, Charmed Shield, Drakenhof Banner
• 23 Zombies
• 23 Zombies
• Black Coach
• 6 Hexwraiths with Hellwraith

Right. So Hexwraiths, a Black Coach that can turn itself ethereal, 2 Banshees, an ethereal Master Necromancer, and he had the ability to turn something else ethereal with a spell as well... I had one magic missile that I would struggle to cast, and... a couple of units with some rank bonus and banners. This was not going to go well.

I had no idea how I was going to approach this game. I put the Outriders on the flanks, but they couldn't really hurt most of the things that mattered, and 3 Necromancers were likely to raise back the rest in a hurry. I put the Steam Tank in the middle, in the hope of bogging the Grave Guard.

Gaming Arena Nov 2025 Aftermath - Part 2

This is a continuation of my tournament report from the event at Gaming Arena in November 2025. You can find the previous part here.

I had already successfully avoided losing all of my games at the event, so now I could get on with the serious business of crushing hopes and dreams. Exactly whose hopes and dreams remained to be seen...

Game 2 - Drawn Battlelines (Strategic Locations (3), Baggage Train)
Lachie Mulcahy - High Elves

• Prince on Star Dragon with Full plate armour, Seed of Rebirth, Opal Amulet, Sword of Might, Dragon Helm, Pure of Heart
• Archmage (Level 4, Elementalism) with Sea Guard, Lore Familiar
• 27 Lothern Sea Guard with Shields, Full Command, Razor Standard
• 6 Silver Helms with Shields, Standard Bearer, High Helm
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers with Cavalry Spears, Shortbows, Skirmishers, Harbinger
• 8 Dragon Princes with Full Command, Loremaster's Cloak, War Banner
• 5 Shadow Warriors with Ambushers
• 10 Sisters of Avelorn with High Sister (Bow of the Seafarer)

The diagonal deployment saw Lachie hide his cavalry behind the hill near his table edge. The Sea Guard were in the forest and the Star Dragon might have been behind it, but then Lachie got the first turn and things shifted a bit. The Sea Guard teleported out of the forest with Travel Mystical Pathway, meaning they weren't wasting a turn of shooting by marching.

Gaming Arena Nov 2025 Aftermath - Part 1

As foreshadowed in my previous post, last week I attended a one-day Old World tournament at Gaming Arena. It was an opportunity to bring out all the Nuln stuff I have been painting, using the City-State of Nuln army list. My army was basically thrown together with a focus on using as much as I could of the things I've been painting. As a result, I knew the army was not really going to tick all the boxes. I made no effort to prop the army up with magic items, and even my general was waving around a pistol in combat instead of a proper weapon. That was OK, I was sure this would in no way come back to bite me...

• General of the Empire with Full plate armour, Pistol, The White Cloak
• Captain of the Empire with Battle Standard, Full plate armour, Great weapon, Shield
• Empire Engineer on Empire War Wagon with Grenade launching blunderbuss
• Master Mage (Level 1, Daemonology)
• 24 Nuln State Troops with Halberds, Light armour, Full Command
• 5 State Missile Troops with Handguns, Sergeant (Hochland long rifle)
• 5 State Missile Troops with Handguns, Sergeant (Hochland long rifle)
• 24 Nuln State Troops with Halberds, Light armour, Full Command
• 5 State Missile Troops with Handguns, Sergeant (Hochland long rifle)
• 5 State Missile Troops with Handguns, Sergeant (Hochland long rifle)
• 5 Outriders with Sharpshooter (Grenade launching blunderbuss), Musician
• 5 Outriders with Sharpshooter, Musician
• Empire War Wagon
• Empire War Wagon 
• Great Cannon
• Great Cannon 
• Steam Tank 

The plan for the army was to try to shoot things a bit, annoy characters with lots of Look Out Sir rolls from the Long rifles, and hope that the blocks of Halberdiers and War Wagons could save me from whatever got too close. I did not expect this plan to work especially well.

Game 1 - Chance Encounter (Special features, Baggage train, Break point)
Nathan Shipley, Cathay Jade Fleet

I'm not going to lie, my summary of this list is very incomplete. I think it's all the units, but even with a full load of items on the Shugengan and BSB, the army is nowhere near the points. There must have been items and magic banners all over the place...

• Shugengan Lord, (Level 4, Illusion), Great Spirit Longma, Some array of gear including +1 spell
• Lord Magistrate in Sky Lantern (Iron hail guns, Sky Lantern bombs) with Armour of Meteoric Iron, Talisman of Protection
• Gate Keeper, with Battle Standard, probably other gear that didn't really come up
• 24 Jade Warriors with Shields, Heavy armour, Stubborn, Full Command
• 12 Jade Warriors with Halberds, Heavy armour
• 10 Jade Lancers with Drilled, Full Command, Ring of Jet
• Cathayan Grand Cannon with Ogre Loader
• Fire Rain Rocket Battery with Ogre Loader
• Captain of the Empire on Barded Warhorse with Halberd, Twice-Blessed Armour
• 6 Empire Archers with Scouts

Cathay! This was exciting, I wasn't convinced there would even be a Cathay army at the event given the army wasn't that old.

October Slow Grow (and other updates and photos)

October is over, and another month in the slow grow has passed. I have some progress to report, and a few extra photos to show how the stuff I've been working on is coming together...

First up, my contribution for October was 5 more Outriders and a Baggage Train/unit filler for the Halberdiers. I did start on another wave of Handgunners, but ran out of time (they're still not quite finished, despite being almost a week into November). Ideally the Baggage Train would have been a bonus thing for the month, given it's not really worth any points in terms of army growth. But I am working with particular priorities right now, which I'll explain further down.

My second unit of 5 Outriders, led by an old metal guy as the unit champion. I don't recall how I ended up with just one metal Outrider.

September Slow Grow

The slow grind of the slow grow continues. Sadly I don't have that much progress to report overall, but at least it's not nothing.

Me:

I'm quite happy with this month, not necessarily because I produced an amazing amount of stuff, but because I actually started taking steps to tackle one of the weaknesses in the appearance of my Empire army - its banners. I have an awful lot of unit banners (we're talking dozens, really) where the painting is limited to a single colour, or maybe a vertical or diagonal stripe. I've always lacked the nerve to tackle anything more ambitious, and as I've generally been focused on getting things usable on the table, a fancy banner has never been a priority. But I've also been aware that banners can really improve the appearance of an army on the battlefield, so I've probably idly promised myself that maybe one day I'd go back and do something about them. I haven't quite got to that point yet, but at least this month's banners are done properly (to my level, anyway)...

Painted banners! Unheard of!

August Slow Grow

Another month rolls by, and the slow grow continues... Well, it staggers on really. The collective effort has not been that great, but there are still a few things to show.

I actually did quite well this month. I got onto my target pretty early on, and it meant that I had the bandwidth to cheat that bonus steam tank into my growing Nuln army. That was a nice feeling, and it's led to me trying to get a running start on my September target as well. Anyway, here's the stuff I painted that actually counts:

My first Engineer mounted on a War Wagon. I might need to go back and do something to the barrel of the grenade launcher. It's a bit of a mess. But it could be one of those things that's really just a problem in the photo.

Another tank rolls in

This post isn't actually part of the Slow Grow that the group of us are currently undertaking (with varying degrees of success). Instead, this month my target felt quite under control, and I decided I could pull something extra onto the painting table.

I am getting to the point in the Slow Grow where I'm assessing my overall plans, and I feel like I'm about half way to what I'd like to complete before it's over. But Noakes then convinced me that Nuln should really have a Steam Tank, and that it should be one of those silly variants with more exotic weaponry (the sort that had rules in 6th edition, and hasn't been seen since)...

The tank wasn't part of my vision of being half-way to my overall objective, so I instead squeezed it in as a bonus for the month.

A 3D printed Steam Tank from Duncan Shadow. I happened to have these files already on hand, so it was hard to say "no" to Noakes' "helpful suggestions" (I had 2 Steam Tanks already sitting around, undercoated and ready to paint, but the demand that I do a particular variant meant that they got bypassed for a new print).