First Songs of Blades and Heroes battle

So I welcome you all to 2012, the year of the Zombie Apocalpyse, but I hope you are as prepared as I am (I recommend the Zombie Surival Guide and World War Z, both a blast to read).

Around the christmas holidays I had my first and probably last "Songs of Blades and Heroes" game. The rules really do have the advantage that army building goes fast and the rules are easy to explain. Still I really don't like the whole activation process, a random activation is okay, as long as it doesn't frustrate every player at least 2-3 times over the whole game. Some like the amount of luck involved, but I prefer e.g. a card activation system (every player draws cards, assigns them to units and has to activate them in this order), because it's a lot more tactical approach.

Now on to the game: First warband - "The heroes" after plundering another dungeon and freeing a village from untold evils, our heroes travel through the land of Bruendelheim. The gang includes a cleric (rules-wise: magician), a dwarf, an elvish druid and his two elementals, plus Bob the mule and a hunter (the heroes picked him up on the way).

The orcish warband in the front: Skullcracker the warboss, his loyal ogre Zurg, three savage orcs and three archers. The law keepers in the bottom picture are the trusted men of the sheriff. The sheriff decided that the heroes have not paid their "plunder tax". So he sent out his men to "deal" with them. They are led by Sir Wildwort, the 8th Knight (of the 10 most trusted knights of the king).

The heroes make their way through the dense forest.

The sheriffs men are waiting behind an old barrier to cut off the heroes retreat.

Ogre attack! The orcs break loose from their hiding in the forest and fiercely attack the knights/squires. The ogre and orc boss butchered a lone squite that was caught in the open.

Even the forest turns against the knights as a swarm of spider attacks the crossbow man, but he is able to kill them all.

Sir Peter tries to corner the heroes, but they get away. Instead he tries to increase his reputation by killing the orc warboss skullcracker.

The 8th knight charges in to save the day with the sherrif's cousin to his right. Still he is to late as the orc warboss cracks Sir Peters skull with one savage blow.

At last the knight flees the field and is cought by the pursuing orcs.

Although a fun game, the luck left me and another player at the end, so it became gruesomely one-sided. The warbands worked quite well, but I'm still switching to the Lord of the Rings ruleset from GW. Still one of the best skirmish rulesets I know. I recommend you to try it, even if you like GW bashing.

My 15mm fantasy terrain and table plus a small battle scene

Hi, there! It's picture time again. I could achieve some further progress for my 15mm Fantasy project. The gaming mat you see in the picture below was made for my by a great fellow gamer in Berlin. He perfected a technique using a canvas, a lot of different flock and an acryl joint-sealer (don't really know if this is the correct description). Here is a link to a pictured (sadly only in german) tutorial and some pictures of the finished product:

http://www.sweetwater-forum.de/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6661&pageNo=4&highlight=gel%C3%A4ndematte

http://www.ulmer-strategen.de/DBA-Matten.htm

The  trees are from ebay. A guy sold 43 of his H0 trees, as he seems to have used enough of those. The little hut is from Splintered Light Miniatures. The two watchtowers are self-made.

The stone-skull (an Orc totem) is made from styrofoam, that was carved out of a cube, then I applied a lot of wood glue and then I could spray it. Styrofoam tends to be destroyed by a normal spray paint otherwise.

This little barrier/barricade is from the Games Workshop "Battle of the Skullpass" box set and can be found at some Warhammer bitz stores.

The whole beauty from the dragons perspective. The beauty of it is, that I can pack the terrain in a shoe box and roll the mat and just take it with me.

The pauldron is from the GW bretonian archers, if I remember correctly.

Some GW Lord of the Rings ruins.

One of my favorite miniatures at the moment. One of the four elementals from Rebel Minis.

I'm quite pleased with the "wet water" look, that I tried to achieve.

An earth elemental with some moss growing on him.

A Splintered Light Dwarf that leads a small warband to support the human weaklings.

I finally finished my giant spider! The spider is from GW (wood goblins), the howdah selfmade and the crew from Splintered Light. I'm not 100% satisfied with the colouring of the spider and the wood, but overall it still looks nice.

Some battle scenes. Supported by an elvish mage, the knights try to break into the orc battle lines.

Orc reinforcements approach from the flank with their terrifying giant spiders and swarms of their smaller kin.

Evil magic and brute force patiently waits in the orc camp to attack at the right moment.

Yes, still alive....

Hi,

sorry to all of my readers, but moving 600km and starting a new job 40h a week did limit my hobby time quite a lot.

As the flat I'm living in, is only a temporary solution I only brought my 15mm Scifi and Fantasy stuff with me and focus an the latter.

 Bought this one from my little sister for 7 €. With a little green stuff and a good paintjob, I think it will look great and menacing.

Some Splintered Lights Orcs with my frist try of warpaint. Beautiful miniatures, the limited selection of poses is not really a problem, because with a little bending you can easily create new poses.

The "soul catcher of Grundelberg" a cursed undead jester, that draws his victims in with his music and eats their souls. Often his hellhounds (Rebel Minis undead dogs) hunt with him and feast on the fleshly remains of his victims.....

Every hero party needs a mule or two. This one is from 15mm.co.uk. I will paint at least two of these, because they are also great as scenario objectives.

 A Splintered Lights wraith that got a new weapon.

 Two of the Blood Dawn orcs. They are huge and fantastic sculpts. I will use them as an well muscled orc subspecies, that serves as frontline fighters.

One of my orc heroes (SL). I imagine him as a warrior priest who works himself in a holy rage (his tatoos start to glow brightly) and smashes his enemies with the help of his orc gods.

My fist giant spider. The howdah is from wooden stripes (Mc Donalds Coffee stirrer). The crew is from Splintered Lights and the spider is from GW.

A great bargain! Got this church from one of my favorite retailers. Just 18 € for this massive resin model.

The first watch tower for my orc camp. It has enough space for two orc archers.

Second watch tower with room for one archer.

An obelisk painted like crystal. I will make several of those for whatever magical ritual I will imagine.

My assembled human Empire force. "Guards, knights, squires, prepare for battle" Quote from the brilliant Excalibur movie. I will use them for Game of Thrones (left House Stark and right House Lannister) and for my  Fantasy setting.

The stone skull is made from several layers of styrofoam.

The spearhead of the orc army....

The orc shaman is casting a spell using a cauldron full of green ooze.

I hope I will find the time to post more often and hope you still bother to watch this page for news.