The Battle of Shady Hill

The Hill Dwarf General stared at the huge skeletal catapult in the gap between the forest and hills.  
Scouts had spotted the Undead army and he knew they were arrayed for battle on the other side of the forest.  He knew his troops have to drive hard and fast to avoid being constantly pounded by the Vampire Lord's catapults.

The wooden rectangles were marking deployment areas.  Should have removed them before taking the pictures.  D'oh!

I packed up my Warband stuff and took it over to my friend Darby's house and we got in a game Saturday night.  He played the Undead and I played the Hill Dwarfs.  These were 500 pt armies.

Undead Army
Vampire Lord (Good)
Necromancer (Average)
Skeletal Crossbows
Skeletal Riders
Skeletal Warriors x 3
Undead Catapults

Hill Dwarf Army
General (Exceptional)
Spell Crafter (Average)
Handgunners
Warriors x 3
Noble Riders
Artillery

During terrain placement I of course placed hills because they do not hamper movement for Hill Dwarfs if you give them the "Hill Walkers" ability, which I did.  Darby placed forests to hamper my movement as a counter measure. Below is the placement of units before the battle began.  I have my Noble Riders [NR] and Handgunners [HG] on the left.  My goal was to run around the hill and hit the left flank with my riders and move the Handgunners up on the hill to fire down from the cover of trees.  Darby placed his skeletal riders [SC] on his right as a counter to my cavalry.  Darby placed his artillery in the middle of his army to have them immediately available to start pounding the Dwarfs during their approach.

After several turns the Hill Dwarfs have had some motivation issues and not made much progress in the advance.  The Noble Riders have made the flank and one unit of Warriors has made the hill on the right flank.  This has made them a prime target for the catapults and they have suffered some hits after reaching the top of the hill.

Fast forward several more turns and the bulk of both armies are engaged in a melee.  The Noble Riders and Skeletal Cavalry are locked in a stalemate on the left.  Darby managed to advance some Warriors on top of the forested hill making my Handgunners retreat and unable to take any shots.  In the middle 2 units of Warriors are engaged with the Skeletal Warriors and Vampire Lord.  The Necromancer and Skeletal Archers have both joined the large melee to provide flanking attacks on the Dwarfs.  On the right Warriors from both armies are locked in melee.  At this point both armies' artillery sit silently waiting for targets.

As the melees continued for several more turns both sides see progress.  On the left, the Noble Riders have routed and the Handgunners are engaged before they even get to fire a volley.  The Undead are winning on the left.  Both sides artillery moved into position to start a duel.  The Dwarf Artillery forced the Undead Catapults off the board, but not before they could route the Dwarf Spell Caster and put some wounds on the Dwarf Artillery.  With the right flank still in a deadlock the major change takes place in the center.  The second unit of Skeletal Warriors have been destroy and both the Vampire Lord and Necromancer are pushed back.  The Dwarf Warriors 1 was also routed, but rallied after running past their General.

Next turn the Hill Dwarfs' left looks really bleak as the Handgunners are hit in the rear by the Skeletal Cavalry.  Hill Dwarf sandwich anyone?

Luckily for the Handgunners they don't have to survive long because the next turn the Hill Dwarf General charges into the Vampire Lord and forces him off the table.  At this point the Undead have lost over half their army points and break off the engagement.

I have to say it was a fun game and look forward to playing it again.  I'll need to take another read through the rules to make sure I have everything correct this time, but overall, I thought this one went much smoother.  I have been pretty focused on Infinity here lately, but I'm already wanting to start another army for Warband.  :)

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

This week's flurry of painting saw the "completion" of my 10mm Warband project and a few extra figures.  I put completion in quotes because you all know we tend to add more units here and there, and I'm sure that will be the case for both my Dwarf and Undead Armies.  Anyway, enough blabbing and on to the pictures.

I painted up 3 units of skeleton warriors.  I really wanted these 3 units to look like a horde so I opted to put 26 figures on each stand.  One of which is the Necromancer in charge.  You don't think these skeletons would just form up in rank and file on their own do ya?   I had determined with my first units that this army's colors would be purple and yellow and the coat of arms would be a 1/4 yellow moon and a star.  So all the shields with enough space has either stars or the moon and star combination.

This also starts the Where's Waldo portion of today's post.  Can you find the cat hair in each picture?  Goodness... no matter how hard I tried there's probably one that sneaked its way into EVERY SINGLE PICTURE!

And the group shot...

So what are those big bones back there you ask?  Catapults!

I still had some time left for painting, but nothing in my ready to paint queue seemed to fit this theme.  So I pulled some Reaper Bones skeletons out of my lead pile that I plan to use for Dragon Rampant or Open Combat.  This was my first time painting any of the Reaper plastics, as I generally buy the metals.  There were 6 total, but I honestly just didn't like the soft bendy plastic so I stopped at three.  I'll get some more skeletons, but I'll shoot for metal for now on.

No matter what they try to tell you.  Size matters...

I believe your catapults were some friends of mine...

Cheers!
Rod

The Creakin' of Old Bones

Here's some more of my 10mm Undead army for Warband.  I'm already being plagued by thoughts of adding more troops and I have to constantly remind myself to paint what I have on-hand.  It's something we all experience as miniature gamers, rationalized as "but it will be here when I ready to continue this project".  That "reserve" is also known as the lead pile.  I'm still working on my goal of making a dent in it this year and so far I'm being successful!

So here's a shot of the three new stands together.  We have a skeletal crossbow unit, a necromancer unit, and the leader unit.  One thing that came about with doing these units is that I decided on a army color scheme.  With my Dwarves I had chosen Red & Blue.  Deciding to give my units a sense of uniformity I went with Purple and Yellow.  This is not to say I connect the Undead to the American college football team Louisiana State University, but I am an Alabama fan so it kinda fits!

The Undead Army box only comes with 4 figures for the General unit.  That seemed like a rather large base for just 4 minis so I added a couple of ghouls and vampires I had ordered separately.  I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

The same thing goes for the Necromancers.  There were just 4 in the package and the spooky monolith.  I wanted to make it look like these guys meant business.  So I had also ordered some spirit figures.  I added 6 to this base and I think it makes these guys look like a unit to be wary of just rushing into for a fight.

The last unit is my ranged unit.  I went with all crossbows, saving the longbows for a potential later unit to build.  I decided that all my skeletal units would be accompanied by a necromancer.  You never know when those skellies will start falling apart!  It's like a team mechanic repairing or replacing parts as needed!

Beating a Dead Horse...

I'm not sure how it translates in other languages, but in English there's an expression "beating a dead horse".  It basically means you keep bringing up a same opinion over and over even though it won't change anything, but just gets annoying to everyone having to hear it.  Well, that's what I kept thinking when I was painting these Skeletal Cavalry.  But it was really more of just how long does a skeletal horse go?  Sure it doesn't get tired.  But don't they start falling apart after a while?  Meh, I just over thinking it.  It's magic!  Fantasy!  Who cares?

So, speaking of fantasy, magic, and the Undead.  How about I introduce you to the start of my 10mm Undead army for Warband.  You didn't think I painted up all those Dwarves so they could sit on the shelf and drink all my ale did you?

More to come soon.  Enjoy the last hours of your weekend.

Rod

The Dwarves are Marching!

Greetings friends!  Today we venture back into the realms of fantasy... tiny fantasy... I mean, like seriously... 10mm tall fantasy.  They may be wee Dwarves, but I swear all the beer casks are still empty.  So on to the pictures.  Here is the last stand of Dwarf Warriors.

With these guys done, that means my starter pack for Warband is done.  I have bought a few more Dwarves since then, but I'll hold on to them for now.

Now this means we can do a group shot of the Army.  Thanks to my lovely wife and her fancy photography skills I think these pictures turned out really super.

The "Family" shot of all 8 stands.

Here's the picture of the Cavalry, Magic Users, Leader and Artillery.

And below is the Ranged Unit and 3 stands of Warriors.

The undead army is already in progress and on the painting table as you read this.  More tiny fantasy is in the future!

Cheers.
Rod

Dwarf Warriors and a New Challenge

I had originally meant to wait until all three stands of Dwarf Warriors were completed, but then other life stuff came up and I didn't want to let the blog go too long without a post.  So, here's two of the three Dwarf Warrior units I have for my Warband.

Also, something new in the works.  This year I have decided I have enough free time to participate in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  I've watched this for several years, but never felt like I had the time to join the fun.  This year will be my first, and I've set myself the goal of 500 points.  I should be able to make that.  Now I'm in the process of sorting out and preparing some miniatures to be ready for paint when the first day starts.  Also, if you are participating and need someone to join in on the group tribute to send to Curt please let me know.

I do plan to have this last unit of Dwarf Warriors done before then!

Rod

Dwarves from a Distance

I have completed two more units of Dwarves for my Warband army.  These are both ranged units.

First up is a unit of archers (which also includes crossbow and handgunners).

And then some heavy artillery, with both direct fire cannons and a couple of mortars.

This leaves me with 3 units of warriors to finish up my starter army.  Each has 18 figures a stand so I think they'll look pretty impressive in this scale!  It's fun to see this project coming along.

On the gaming front, I did get to play an introductory game of Infinity by Corvus Belli.  One of my new gaming buddies is playing it, and wanted to introduce me and another friend to it.  It was fun and had some neat mechanics.  I may end up picking up some figures just to get some regular gaming in again.

Hope you are all doing well!
Rod

Pony Riders of Bofflard

The stout little ponies that come from the Bofflard region are easily recognized by their smaller size and shaggy coats, but are mostly known throughout the region for their rugged nature and sure-footed gait.  They may not have the speed of the larger horse breeds, but can travel greater distances and especially cover ground on more difficult terrain.  The Pony Riders of Bofflard provide the Dwarven army both scouts while marching and a unit of reliable troops in battle.

Another unit of 10mm Dwarves from Pendraken Miniatures are done.  This leaves me with a 5 more units to paint from my initial purchase.

1 unit of ranged (archers, crossbows, and some blunderbusses)
1 unit of artillery (cannons and mortars)
3 units of infantry

These little guys are pretty fast to paint, but my schedule right now doesn't give me a lot of time to paint.  At least with the 10mm I fill like I'm accomplishing something with my reduced painting time!

Rod

Heart of the Mountain

Hey friends, sorry for a bit of delay.  Turns out I needed a bit of a break from painting and everything else.  Now, I think I'll be back on track... so here we go.  First off, I'll give my Dwarves I showed you a few posts back, but this time with a proper introduction!

King Braggust Coalfist VI

King Coalfist listened attentively to the latest report from General Thorgeld Bromlow while the anger he felt slowly began to creep into his expression.  When the report had finished, he spat upon the floor and looked first at General Thorgeld, and then the rest of the assembly.  He measured his voice and said, "That foul Lich Shilvain and his minions have tainted our borders with their stench for too long.  It is time we showed them that the Dwarves of Halvoskaar are no mere fleas to be picked at and smashed."  He rose from his thrown and all the assembled Dwarves bowed before him.  He exclaimed, "Rise my warriors!  Call forth the clans!  Assemble the armies for we march to meet Shilvain and his accursed horde!"

Heart of the Mountain

Whenever the Dwarves of Halvoskaar march to war the King will command his Grand Mage to retrieve the Heart of the Mountain.  The Grand Mage will take his entourage into the Mine of Basvick  to search for a large piece of rock that has magical properties.  The Geomancers will shape runes upon the stone that aid the mages in battle.  Although the Heart of the Mountain is merely symbolic, and not some ancient relic, many enemy armies have wasted valuable troops and resources to seek it's destruction in battle.

Here you can see the Heart of the Mountain with two rock Guardians (who also carry it around the battlefield).  In addition there are several mages and geomancers.

Next up on the list will be the Riders of Bofflard on their stout ponies.

(the OCD side of me is screaming right now that they don't all line up on the sticks!!)

See you soon!
Rod

And now for something completely different... Warbands

Several years ago I wanted to experiment with 10mm figures for WWII.  I ordered up some troops and vehicles from Pendraken Minatures and got to painting.  I was liking how it was going, but none of my buddies were willing to jump on board.  They were too invested in 15mm.  So I ended up scrapping the idea and sticking with 15mm.  Later I realized I may have had better success if I'd picked a diffent time period.  Then Pendraken Miniatures released their fantasy mass battle rules called Warband and I thought I'd give it a try.  I bought the rules last November at a convention and then started looking at the starter kits.  I later ordered a Hill Dwarf and Undead starter.

Taking a look at some of what other gamers were doing I then decided to buy some extra figures to spice up my units.  The first to finally hit the gaming table was my Hill Dwarf command stand.  It came with about five figures, so I add some wizards AND... a piper.  Yes, I saw a bag piper on their site for Dwarves and ordered several.  One can be seen below!

Since they are kind of small I decided to have color schemes to match up my armies.  The main colors for my Dwarves will be red and blue.  The king in the middle was given purple.  Some things I noticed while experimenting with 10mm is that your really need bright colors to make them stand out on the table.  Also, metal paints don't work so well in 10mm.  So you may notice that for all my metal parts like swords and armor I took a basic non-metalic metals approach.

Anyway, the 10mm experiment is pretty fun and fast.  I like the results and figures are full of character.  I look forward to finishing up these armies and having some big fantasy battles.

Rod