Dwarfs Take the Field

My Dwarfs took to the field recently for a day of battles. In a field that boasted High Elves, Dark Elves, Bretonnians, Wood Elves, and two Dwarf Players, random luck had me play Dwarf-on-Dwarf battle and against the Wood Elves. Given how speedy our Dwarf-on-Dwarf violence was in game one, we snuck in a second game before the others were finished (a random blizzard occurrence special rule, plus a Breaking Point scenario made it super quick).

I took the opportunity to take some photos of my force:

 Ironbreakers led by Lord with Shieldbearers.

 Irondrakes. They were the unit of the match against the Wood Elves, not so much for what they killed, but for the sheer amount of firepower they absorbed due to lucky armor and ward save dice rolls. 

 Horde of Warriors with Great Weapons.

Unit of Warriors led by a Runesmith (left front) and a Thane with the army battle standard (right front).

 Trollslayers.

This Engineer: an old Warhammer 40k squat miniature represented a drunken and grounded Gyrocopter pilot.

My Anvil of Doom conversion. May be the most favorite model of mine in this army, but sadly not one that I will likely field often (I just brought it along for the photo).

I call this guy the "Ancestor Statue". He's a Mercenary unit for Triumph and Treachery games, and is a counts-as Daemon Prince. Sometimes he will be Khorne, sometimes as Tzeentch with Lore of Metal. 

I largely forgot to take photos of the games, as I got so excited about the games that I got distracted. In my game against the Wood Elves, the Trollslayers paired off against a Treeman general. When they managed to land 4 wounds on him (and plenty of glorious deaths amongst their own), I snapped a photo.

I'm still torn over which army I want to prep for the campaign that we're starting in a month and a half. That's enough time to finish any one army, but if I split my time and thoughts between three I'm going to remain with things woefully under-painted.


Fully Painted Models
Dwarfs: 41
Undead: 17
Skaven: 14


Battles
Total 2014: 10

Dwarfs:
4 Wins (Dwarfs 2, Wood Elves 2)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)

Undead:
1 Win (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (Dwarfs 1)
1 Tie (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (T&T Daemons 1)

Skaven:
2 Losses (T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1)

The Dead Rise

Played another game with my Undead, and took a moment to photo the painted units to share here. The match was against dwarfs and ended in a big fat tie. I'm finding that my approach to the Vampire Counts list might be a bit unworkable--at least against Dwarfs. Too much light stuff, cavalry, and stuff that disappears in the face of magical artillery. I'll have to re-think the strategy for future games, but at least it's more models to show off!

A Vampire on a Barded Nightmare. I did a fire effect for the tail and hooves, to make it like a Nightmare from Dungeons and Dragons lore. 

Vargheists proved to be the most effective, defeating a unit of longbeards and a grudge thrower crew.

Ghouls rose from the sewer system and crept into a building housing an organ gun and crew, tearing them to bits and feasting on their remains.

The Spirit Host, composed of a miasma of swirling ectoplasm.

Bat swarms clouded the sky, but failed to bother the Dwarf battle line in the least.

Fully Painted Models
Dwarfs: 38
Undead: 17
Skaven: 14


Battles
Total 2014: 8

Dwarfs:
1 Wins (Wood Elves 1)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)

Undead:
1 Win (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (Dwarfs 1)
1 Tie (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (T&T Daemons 1)

Skaven:
2 Loss (T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1)

The Grand Necromancer

I recently ran a specialized game linked to the current Games Workshop End Times series of books. The battle pitted the forces of Undead, led by Nagash and his Mortarchs against small groups of forces across a fragile alliance. Players in the event had 400 points of troops and hero/lord in a single unit, with no magic users, and had to take out Nagash, Mortarch Neferata, and a Master Necromancer paired with Krell (all of whom were summoning new units to oppose them using the new Lore of Undeath spells). My component for the battle was painting Nagash.

My Nagash model, in his undead glory, at the event (credit to Thomas Jarvis for the great photo)

The model itself is glorious, and was really fun to paint. I need to do some uplighting on the spirit hosts swarming around him, but otherwise I'm really pleased with how it turned out. In the battle, we had 7 players versus three of us as GM's. They managed to kill Krell and the Master Necromancer, and got within a wound of slaying Nagash. But he proved just too powerful, finally striking down the Herald of Nurgle and the lone remaining Kroxigor from a Skink cohort--the last hope for the fragile alliance. Meanwhile, Mortarch Neferata escaped with only two wounds and a mass of dead trolls and Orc bodies at her feet.

Fully Painted Models
Dwarfs: 38
Undead: 17
Skaven: 14


Battles
Total 2014: 7

Dwarfs:
1 Wins (Wood Elves 1)
1 Loss (Dark Elves 1)

Undead:
1 Win (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (Dwarfs 1)
1 Loss (T&T Daemons 1)

Skaven:
2 Loss (T&T Daemons 1, T&T Dwarfs 1)

Return to Mousillon

"The Dread Secrets of Mousillon" was the name of a very successful Warhammer Fantasy Battle campaign that I ran in the summer of 2013. Set in the Bretonnian Dukedom of Mousillon,  I took a set of Mighty Empires tiles and constructed a full map of the region, complete with multiple hexes depicting the ruined and flooded city of Mousillon itself. We had a great group of players and great games raging across the region.

I've been a Warhammer Fantasy player for years (picked up my first two army books at the same time in 1996: Undead and Skaven), and I've played numerous numerous armies in that time. I've had and sold so many of the armies, and played almost all of them (High Elves and Wood Elves remain the only ones I've never built, fielded, or painted). Recently moving, I decided it was time to sell down my collection and focus on depth with a few armies rather than breadth of multiple forces. At the time, I had Beastmen, Lizardmen, Dwarfs, Vampire Counts, Empire, Skaven, Dark Elves, Chaos Daemons, Warriors of Chaos, and Orcs and Goblins (of the savage variety). I decided I would keep two or three armies, and work on building a central theme with them. And my mind returned to some of the best moments I've had playing Warhammer--and my love of the cursed city of Mousillon. The idea of a ruined city still struggling to survive, with embattled heroes trudging the streets while horrible Undead lurk outside and vicious Skaven skitter below, is just a cool setting.

Map of the dread city itself

I decided to focus upon armies that fit with the Mousillon setting. I'm focusing on forces that conceptually might want to claim the city. First off is my Skaven, which will be busily burrowing through the underway into the sunken city. They're one of my favorite conceptual armies, and the army I've played the longest. I even still have one of the very first Warhammer models I ever purchased--a Skaven Plague Monk from a blister. I've sold away two whole Skaven armies in the nearly 18 years I've been a fan of this hobby. But I'm back now and determined to make this Skaven force my own. Second are my Dwarfs. I'm thinking of them as an expedition sent up the coast from the seahold Barak Varr to try and aid the Bretonnians in their dogged renovation of the crumbling metropolis. My Dwarfs are a highly personalized army, so I'll give some thoughts on a force using a wide range of models across all editions (and my folly of deciding to make sure every single model is different and has his or her own persona).

 

My dream for a beautiful, prosperous, and flourishing Mousillon

This blog will track the progress of my Warhammer armies, as well as the games that I play and the return of the Mousillon campaign to our local play group. I'll update with photos of the armies and more.