The slaves from Border Patrol at Ekeren

 At the end of september I played in the TSA's 500 point The Old World event, Border Patrol at Ekeren.

 

And amazingly took home the second place...

 

That also means I managed to win some games along the line, and as such two more figures are added to my unit of "trophy slaves".

 

 

The first is from the Dwarf opponent, who sported a bright green clothing with a beige trim, so we went to do our best to copy this as usual, using a model from Northumbrian Tinsoldier's line, Thella Strongbranch.  And yes, she has a beard...

 

 

The other opponent I defeated was a force of largely unpainted Bretonnians, except for a unit of his archers.  To that end, as they had a red clothing, blue pants and black bows scheme, I went for an archer myself and painted him up in the same colours.

 

And so the slavery unit has grown some more with trophies taken from the battlefield. 

TSA Escalation League 2025

For Fish and Empress, may Sigmar protect her wet clam!

 

So, an Escalation League for the The Old World?  That sounds like a perfect venue to get those "correctly based" forces ready this year.

 

So I signed up last november when it was announced, and decided to go in there with my Empire.

The goal is to start small and even unpainted, slowly building up your forces as you go and giving them some more paint.  By the end of the League as such, one should have ideally a fully painted, full game points worth army.  The downside is, I will have to play with unpainted models at some point as social life and work don't allow for intense day long paint sessions.

  

Having nothing painted of the force, and doubting whether to take Empire or Wood Elves, I opened a poll in the TSA whatsapp group for the League and let the people decide, so it ended up as such with a Marienburger infantry heavy force.  That means, first items on the shopping list are Warlord Games Italian Wars landsknechts, as that is a nice and cheap way to bulk out the force core, carrying both halberds and handguns.  For the colour scheme, I'm going for yellow (beige) clothing with red and blue detailing, and of course at one point a tank will be inserted into the force.  Because just bloody cool!

The plan for cavalry was only light skirmishing cavalry though, like Pistoliers, as I can't see the merchant force having religious knightly orders.  Further variation will come in the form of some "off race" units to counts as, like Halflings, to give a more ragtag feel of an army bought for battle instead of trained.

So, let's look at the progress over the course of the League!

 

For the starting 500 points of the League, I went for mostly the bulk of the units I want to expand on initially.  This means just troops without command, whom will be added as soon as the extra points for the second round come in, namely at least 150 points for the month + any bonuses gained in january.  There is also some sort of points exchange system in the League, but I decided from the get go not to use this in order to keep playing with the core.  So making good use of Warlord Games Italian Wars range for cheap Landsknecht models, the bulk was build, as well as an old wizard model to lead for now.

 

And as pairings are made at the beginning of the League, to allow easier planning for having the battles played, I will be facing the following armies in sequence:

 

Round 1 - Jason - Empire of Man

Round 2 - Patrick - Orcs & Goblins Tribes

Round 3 - Dundie - Wolves of the Sea

Round 4 - Kristof A - Tomb Kings Royal Host

Round 5 - Ortwin - Kingdom of Bretonnia

Round 6 - Bart - Empire of Man

Round 7 - Steven - Beastmen Brayherds

Round 8 - Antonio - High Elf Realms

Round 1 - January

The army - 494 / 500 points

Remaining points: 6

 

The force as such started out with a level 2 Jade Wizard using the Elementalism school and carrying a Dispel Scroll, Wizard's Staff and Shroud of Iron.

For Core, there where three units: 2x State Missile Troops of 10 models each, one with crossbows and one with handguns.  These where joined by a small block of 12 halberd armed State Troops.

Rounding out the force from the Special section are 12 Greatswords.  And just for the fun of it, I took one of the Endless Spells from AoS I had in my bitzbox to create a vortex should I roll Summon Elemental Spirit on my spells.

 

 

Battle Result: Victory, granting 30 bonus points

Bonus Target Battle: 30 bonus points

100 % Painted: 30 bonus points 

Round 2 - February

The army - 740 / 740

Remaining points: 0

 

Using my fresh and bonus points, the first order of the day where command groups for both the Halberdiers and the Greatsword units.  Furthermore, I added a crazed naked Dwarf chick called Jinxie to the force in the form of a mercenary Doomseeker, who comes with Runic Tattoos of Wrath for an extra attack, making sure she has 3 and potentially 7!  

For the remaining points, I brought in a "true" general for the force, in the form of a Captain, using the classic (and excellent) Imperial Noble figure from Warhammer Quest, armed with a pistol, light armour, Biting Blade and Talisman of Protection.

Battle Result: Defeat, granting 10 bonus points

Bonus Target Battle: 30 bonus points

100 % Painted: 30 bonus points

Round 3 - March

The army - 960 / 960

Remaining points: 0

 

Bring in the cavalry, or at least the light riders of the Pistoliers to have some added mobility to the force with a unit of 6 of them.   A second unit of Handgunners also joins the ranks, while all three missile troop units now got light armour.

Battle Result: Win (forfaiting of my opponent), granting 30 bonus points

Bonus Target Battle: 30 bonus points

100 % Painted: 30 bonus points

 

Round 4 - April

 

The army - 1195 / 1200

Remaining points: 5

 

Roll out the guns!  As we are now over the 1000 points and can unlock the war machines, we duly did so.  The models are from the Highland Miniatures 3d print range, and adds some serious ranged threat to the force. The final points where spend on The Gleaming Pennant for the Greatswords. 

 

 

Battle Result: Loss (forced to forfeit), granting 0 bonus points

Bonus Target Battle: 0 bonus points

% Painted: 0 bonus points

 

Round 5 - May

 

The army: 1380 points

Remaining points:

 

Time for tanking, as with the points now available (and some magic items reshuffling due to a League rule) the Steam tank has joined the army.  The model, another Highland Miniatures figure, just breathes Marienburg with it's little landship look. Unfortunatly, due to having to forfeit the previous round, the pictured Pistoliers needed to go to war without command, the light armour came off the missile troops, and some tinkering needed to be done in the magic items department.

But unfortunatly I didn't get to play this round either, due to medical issues of a personal, family kind on which I'm not elaborating to much, I was forced to drop out.  One of the things with these Leagues is that you need to schedule your battles a few weeks in advance.  But due to the situation on the homefront, this just wouldn't be possible for a serious period of time.  It wouldn't be fair for my opponents, like with the previous round, to keep them "hostage", then not showing up at the last moment...

 

And so that is it for the Escalation League.  In the end I finished in 11th place, and with a fully painted Empire of Man army of 1380 points above, not to shabby at all!  With additional units already been painted up for round 6, and the options of magical items and banners, it would end around 1650 points in those few months, so indeed not to shabby at all.

 

Only a shame it never got to see any decent action on the battlefield on the level of my big war machines, to which I really looked forward using... maybe some left or right pick up game if all gets back on the rails again...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chaos Dwarf Deathshrieker Rocket

 Next on the line of units to complete for the 2k tournaments in november and december, the Deathshrieker Rocket joins the fray.

 

Well, basically because I still need to strip my 4 classic metal ones, this was a 3D printed model to be based for TOW as such.

 

I pianted the model as usual in my dark blue and gold scheme, while basing it on the The Old World sized bases, so that I don't have to mess with trays for my artillery.

 

The deathrocket is a mainstay in the artillery line of the Chaos Dwarfs, blasting holes in the enemy rank and file troops with ease.

 

Now to start working on the next unit for the tournaments... 

 

 

Chaos Dwarf Magma Cannon

 With a couple of 2000 points tournaments still coming up in the final months of 2025, I decided to paint up some war machines I had lying around on square bases.

 

Because well, most I have are still on round bases from T9A.

 

The first as such is a Magma cannon, a model I had lying around from the excellent Fabelzel line of models.  I didn't have the crew though, so I build some by bashing together some extra Norba Miniatures bodies I had left, and some Mantic arms to go with them.

 

While the cannon itself is a bit on the small side compared to the Forge World train, the model needs to be based on a 50x75 mm square, so actually it suits it nicely for this purpose.

 

A nice little project, now to paint up some more units for the tournament... just because I can. 

Warhammer The Old World tournament: Border Patrol at Ekeren

 Awright, so after all I do get an The Old World tournament in this year, and it is a fun little small force affair.

 

Border Patrol at Ekeren is a tournament for small 500 point forces, with some additional rules in the rulespack involving army building to prevent min / max builds a bit.

 

Characters and units may not exceed 150 points, only a single character with 25 points of magic items can be taken, 0-X units per 1000 points become 0-1 choices, you need two units minimum not counting swarms or war machines etc, max 2 Core of the same choice and 1 time for each special or rare unit... those are the biggest things in a nutshell.

 

And that required some serious puzzling, as the Chaos Dwarfs aren't cheap, and as such I could only bring small units of around 10 Dawi Zharr every time to remain within the points limit.   

 

The Army

 

 

Rothgar Obsidianbeard, Infernal Seneschal with  Darkforged Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield and Hellshard 

 

11 Infernal Guards with Heavy Armour, Shield and full command group

 

10 Infernal Guards with Fireglaives, Heavy Armour

 

12 Hobgoblin Cutthroats with Shield, Champion and Standard Bearer

 

10 Sneaky Gitz

 

So that made up exactly 500 points, and got me 4 units, though limited rank bonusses due to well, expensive Dawi Zharr.  The plan will be to get the combat unit with the Seneschal up fast, supported by the Hobgoblins.  In the meantime the Gitz and the Fireglaives will need to harass and knock off hopefully one or two ranks from the opposing main combat unit before the warriors hit home... 

 

Now to see how the mighty Dawi Zharr would fare on this 4 round event!

 

Game 1 vs Dwarfs

 

We kicked off the tournament with a kin war against our misguided brethren, commanded by Novogord, who is actually one of my YouTube followers, how cool is that!  The battle went rather one sided due to an heroic result of my Hobgoblins, they where charged on the flank by his scouts, both sides missed all their attacks, and somehow he managed to fail his break test to leg it off the table, collapsing his flank.

 

This resulted in the Hobgoblins managing to flank his solid combat units that my warriors where tanking at the time, and the game ended in a 20-0 victory for the Chaos Dwarfs as the Dwarfs where eliminated and all objectives taken by the forces of Hashut. 

 

Game 2 vs Orcs and Goblins

 

For my second game, I faced Tsjagatai and his horde of Orcs and Goblins.  It was as one sided though as the first game, except it went in the other direction this time, my warriors and lord holding on to prevent being tabled myself this time.

 

 I missed most of my attacks, while he barely missed anything, and as my armour refused to help me, it quickly went downhill and a 2-18 defeat was my part. 

 

Game 3 vs Bretonnia

 

In the third game I stood across the plains to face TankyGabri and his Bretonnians.  I managed to "hold" his lance with my warriors after they charged over my Hobgoblins, my Sneaky Gitz and Fireglaives handling his infantry.  

 

 

When the Fireglaives then managed to charge his lance in the back arc, and a hefty -6 CR was his part destroying the last remnant of his army, the battle was won and a 19-1 victory was obtained. 

 

Game 4 vs Beastmen

 

Facing the TO in the last round, this was a bit of a special case battle.  We came in a situation that only got resolved hours later after flicking through rulebooks and all, and Steven was also the judge so he was called away at times.  

 

 

In the end, the battle ended in a draw as time just ran out.  We also decided to do some tinkering with this final scenario should it be included in smaller events again in the future after the feedback of the players.

 

The Result 

 

Well, incredibly, I somehow managed to end up in second place, in part due to the huge amount of points I raked in by tabling my opponents in my two wins.  This all put me on 2 / 1 / 1 with 66 points, including 15 bonus points for having the force painted, paid on time etc etc, ending only behind the Orcs and Goblin player that totally deleted me in round 2.

 

In third place came ChaosLord with his Chaos Warriors force, and so the trophies had all been handed out to the brave men, women and indistinguishable creatures brave enough to patrol the borders of Ekeren, in a very cosy and fun event.

 

Onwards to edition 2, these are good fun to get a feel in for some Old World (before the event, I had played a mighty 3 games, 2 of which where 500pts test games for the scenario's), as I wasn't by far the only one present that used this event to have a go at the rules and all.

 

Big thumbs up to Steven to organise this event, and until next edition! 

 

 

 

 

Objective markers for Border Patrol at Ekeren

 So, at the end of the month I'll be participating in the Border Patrol at Ekeren tournament, which is for small forces of 500 points.

 

Of course, my Chaos Dwarfs will be the chosen force, and as I was reading over the scenario's to devise my plans, I noticed something.

 

For the first two scenario's, you need respectively two and three markers of 20mm round size for the secondary objectives, which count as battlefield decorations.

 

Now, as I was clipping off the spare parts of the Gargant Spearhead, I had a few pieces that I put aside for terrain decoration, and then decided to use a few of them to make myself my own three markers.

 

The flattened goblin, the running human and the skeletal waypost are all excellent for this, so I took one of each and themed them to my basing style of my army.  So it looks the goblin fell into the magma, the human flees from it, and the post, well, just stands somewhere along the way...

 

A small and quick side project, but it just brings that little bit of additional flavour to the force... 

Hobgoblin Sneaky Gitz

 Well, the Chaos Dwarf force got a serious boost in recent weeks, as this is the second block of troops painted up.

 

The models, 3D prints from the Fabalzel range, make up a 16 strong unit of the scouts for the army, and as I needed 10 of them for the upcoming tournament, I just painted the whole batch. 

 

They really capture the feel of the metals, as Fabelzel does a great job on his creations.  And game wise in The Old World they are excellent skirmishing ambushers, but for some other gamesystems like T9A or older WFB editions they still operate as a rank and filed mob.

 

To that end, I also added a standard bearer, and put them on 20mm squares with an adapter for easiness sake of switching between game systems.

 

Now to work on the next unit, as I've decided to join two 2000 points tournaments in november and december, and I'm going to be adding some fresh units in the process.

 

Because nothing motivates as well to paint as tournament deadlines... 

Hobgoblin Cutthroats

 Roight, I finally painted up a full unit for my large Chaos Dwarf army, and this time it's some Hobgoblins.

 

Well, except it actually aren't Hobgoblins, but bear with me...

 

A while ago, and with this project in mind, I obtained 6 boxes second hand of Oathmark Orcs, with second hand being an overstatement, they had been opened once to have a look at the sprues and that was it.

 

But as the Oathmark models are 28mm and not the bulky heroic orcs of Games Workshop, think more Lord of the Rings Mordor plastics in size.  Apart from that, they also have a very human build, like in various fantasy books, and Dungeons and Dragons back in the day, how Hobgoblins are actually depicted.

 

That meant they would be perfect use to make the big blocks of cheap, expendable infantry for the Dawi Zharr, and with a Border Patrol tournament at the club coming up at the end of august, I decided to paint up one of my blocks of these just for that.

 

I went for earthen and leathery tones for them, like I did with the metal Legends of the Five Rings a few years ago, and tied them into my army by painting the shields the dark blue and gold colours I use on my Dawi Zharr armour. 

 

The flag was made by printing out one of the old Hobgoblin banners, orientate it to single side downwards position and then cutting some openings and edges to fit with the skulls on the banner and the relative short flagpole. 

 

And while I will need only 12 on the day itself, I made it myself easy and just went for a full regiment of 20 for them in one go...

 

Now to still assemble three more boxes of them, guess it's nightshift time for that... 

The Old World 500pts battle: Chaos Dwarfs vs Tomb Kings Royal Host

 So after a game of Blood Bowl, and waiting for the announcement video on Games Workshop's stream tonight, it was time to fit in a game of The Old World.

 

This was mainly to try out for the Border Patrol tournament in september, which has a 500 point limit with a whole set of restrictions, more on that in the relevant post when the tournament comes round.

 

But this will be the force I'll be taking along, the Cutthroats (Oathmark orcs) and Sneaky Gitz painted in the past two weeks.  I'll feature them in detail when I painted up the remainder of their units for the collection, but at the moment I just went for the models I will be needing.  My Darkforged weapon came up as having Life Bane, that might be handy if I managed to get to his general.

 

Facing me was the tournament organiser Steven, and his army of  Tomb Kings, and I felt severly outnumbered.  His army contained the following:

 

Tomb Prince with Language of the Priests and Armour of Meteoric Iron

A single chariot.

A unit of 3 chariots.

22 Skeleton infantry consisting of 10 archers and 10 spearmen, champion and standard.

5 skeleton horse archer Chariot Runners.

 

The scenario from the tournament pack was on regular kill points, and the relic in the middle of the board gives Hatred and a lot of immunities to the unit controlling it.

 

The lines where drawn, and as I won the first turn roll off, by the scenario I needed to take first turn.  Both sides as such advanced towards each other, with the single loose chariot taking off on an encircling movement.

 

 The Sneaky Gitz arrived on the field, taking down two horsemen, before everything clashed in a huge cluster around the relic.  In his turn the skeletons and the chariots clashed into the Infernal Guard and Hobgoblins to poor results, my warriors winning the combat but my general failing to hit his.  Then the gitz fell in the back of the chariots while the Fireglaives clashed in his side.

 

These large numbers proved to be to much evem for the binding will of the Liche Prince, and the chariots, who where downed to one chariot with a single wound left crumbled to dust.  Note: my opponent refuses the "second regeneration" and will take this up in the tournament pack as well.  Clearly that is something mistakenly worded in the 1.5 FAQ and not intended to be there.

 

The light chariot crashed into the back of the warrior unit, but the little tanks held on, while the skeleton horsemen moved to be in the way of the Fireglaives, preventing them from going in the flank of the big skeleton unit. 

 

The Senechal, again failing to hit the Prince, fell to the blows of the undead lord, and his Helshard only exploded for a single hit, which to add insult to injury failed to wound.

 

 Both units held their line, the Fireglaives charging the horsemen and the Sneaky Gitz smashing in the flank.

 

 This was now my 4th turn, and the Chaos Dwarfs decisevely won the combat with the skeletons, the chariot falling apart and the big unit needing to take so many crumbling casualties only his front rank would remain.  Steven called it there, we didn't even fight out the horsemen combat as they would already start at a negative combat resolution and would totally crumble as well.  Wihtout any freak things, his entire army would literally fall to dust by the end of his fourth round, so we didn't count the exact points, but it would be my Senechal versus his entire army...

 

And so the forces of Hashut took away the victory against the forces of the Tomb Kings, now to find a skeleton model to add to the ranks of my enslaved trophy unit...