Sunday 22 October 2017

Two Games

I finally got to play a couple of small games on the new table this weekend. My friend Ryan has a considerable collection of Beastmen to draw on to build his Warband; I brought both my Dwraves and my Skaven and played a game with each. As I got involved in the game and frequent trips to the rule book to reaqquaint my self with the rules I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked.

Ryan's Beastmen Raiders Warband consisted of a Chieftan with light armour and two axes; 4 Ungors with spears and a Minotaur in light armour and a two handed axe.

The Skaven were led by an Assassin Adept with light armour and fighting claws; an Eishin Sorcerer; a Black Skaven in light armour with a flail; 4 verminkin with swords and 2 Night Runners with slings.
The first scenario was Defend The Find: the Beastmen deploy in a central building and the Skaven have to dislodge them. Here the Ungors and the Minotaur guard their valuable treasure.
The Sorcerer, a couple of the Verminkin and the Black Skaven approach from the east:
The Assassain Adept and a couple Verminkin "bodyguards" come at the building from the north but are met by the Minotaur who freezes the Adept with an angry stare (some leader...) and squashes the three of the in successive turns:
Although the other members of the two warbands traded blows fairly evenly, the arrival of the Minotaur at the other skirmish ended the game with only the Night Runners surviving.

The next game I fielded Dwarves led by a Noble with heavy armour and a two handed sword. he had an Engineer with 2 pistols; a clansmen with a dwarf axe and light armour; another clansmen with a sword ,shield and light armour; a thunderer with a handgun and a beardling with an axe. The scenario we chose was Hidden Treasure.
The Beastmen set up along the western board edge:

The Dwarves set up opposite. Although the Dwarves were much closer to more buildings, their stunty legs meant that the fast moving Beastmen rapidly moved through the buildings and closed with the Dwarves. The Dwarven Noble with feathered cap and his companion Pitr the Hunter with Handgun prepare to fight running Ungors. Stan- with dwarf axe in the lower right- has just exited the building; nothing of value was found.
As in the last game the Minotaur proved to be difficult, however, the Dwarves black powder weapons eventually put a stop to him- in melee, no less, with the engineer, and Stan to remove the final wound. In the picture below, the Minotaur munches through the beardling ( left to fend for himself against the beast) before making his way towards the engineer where he would meet his death,  while Yoshi prepares to charge a lowly Ungor (just out of the picture in the building) only to be taken out of action with the first blow.
With only two buildings left to be searched I realised that I actually only had a slim chance to find the treasure as it will automatically appear in the last building searched if all the other buildings fail to yield it and discovery is made by rolling box cars on 2 dice. So I opted to charge all my models into melee and faired quite well for a few turns however my inability to either hit or wound the Chief would eventually lead to the Dwarven Noble's demise and subsequently Pitr's as well.

So 2 fun games and 2 fun losses...

Monday 16 October 2017

Crossing Hazard

Countdown is underway... with a game this coming Saturday I had a few odds and ends to tidy up, specifically ladders and a bridge. the ladders are unremarkable: MDF from Warbases (I think). MDF ladders are just ok; no detail as such, very plain. I have since ordered some nice resin ones from Firedragon Games. I also had some plastic ladders from GW's LoTR Uruk Hai siege troops.

The bridge is made from 3/8 square balsa and popsicle sticks. Normally I would use balsa wood strips as the cut and carve easily but I didn't have enough in the size I wanted and didn't feel like running out to the hobby store. Painted with craft paint greys, washed with home made black wash and moss from Woodland Scenics fine yellow turf coated with watered down white glue and washed with green ink.





Sunday 8 October 2017

Ground Work Part 4

At the beginning of September I ordered some stone walls from Fenris Games for my table. They were meant to go between the grassy area and the urban area. Unfortunately they just got shipped 2 weeks ago which means they won't be here for Oct 21st .My guess is they will either arrive the day before or the day after... so onto Plan B.

I decided to make a hedge. I wanted it to look irregular, as one that grew up naturally as opposed to a planted and maintained hedge so I chose a variety of materials: coconut fibre, a few strands of florists wire primed brown, some woodland scenics lichen (natural) and grape vine from an Ashland wreath. The base is 3mm MDF which- despite taking precautions- still managed to warp somewhat, with Sculptamold and brown house paint for texture and Heki 10mm beige static grass. The dead leaves are ScenicExpress SuperLeaf.







I still have yet to start on that bridge....

Sunday 24 September 2017

Ground Work Part 3

The table is nearly done. Just a few items to add however Mrs. Codsticker says there are more importanter things that need attending to 😒.

I used quite a few different products at this stage. The static grass is a mostly Heki 6mm Autumn with a few splashes of Heki 10mm Autumn. The large beige tufts are Gamers Grass beige XL and the smaller brown tufts in the creek are Army Painter Highland Tufts. The reeds are natural bristles cut from a brush and washed with dark brown ink. The dead shrubbery is a mix of Ashland Mocha Moss and coconut fibre, with a spinkling of Scenic Express SuperLeaf, mostly Fall with a bit of Moss Green. The creek was painted then coated with several heavy coats of Mod Podge Gloss. The final coat was thinned and poured on. As it was a couple of mm thick it took about 36 hours to dry.




All to do now is build a bridge. I bought a stone bridge but the span is too small so a wooden one will have to do. I also have some dead wood I am thinking of adding to the ridge. I may not use them.

Monday 18 September 2017

Ground Work Part 2

More progress on the table. I have glued down rocks and sand; painted the murky water; inked and drybrushed the mud and rubble. I will put a few coats of gloss Modpodge on the water and add dry grass, dead branches and leaves. Oh, and make a bridge. I will either carve out the openings in the foam base to make fissures or just make sure they are covered in terrain... we will see. This could be all wrapped up next weekend! *eek*





Monday 11 September 2017

Ground Work Part 1

I started re-purposing an old table for Kodsticklerburg. It saw many hours of play for my kids Playmobile as well as being part of a bigger table for games of 40K. I scraped off as much of the old loose flock and paint as I could and scribed paving stones into the smoothest parts and covered the roughest sections with a mix of Sculptamold and paint, some grey and some brown.

Part way through: the pavers are all scribed in and I have started putting the base coat on them:

Dark brown texture layed down:
Dark grey added:
As it stands. I have some gravel and rocks to add then I am on to washing and drybrushing:



Sunday 20 August 2017

Finished Guild House With Base

Completed Guild House buildings for Mordheim. Really, this project consumed way more time than I expected. I only plan a couple more smaller buildings and then it is on to the tabletop itself.  As an afterthought I  may add a sign post once I have thought of a suitable design for it...


Monday 31 July 2017

Finished Guild House

6 weeks in the making, the second part of the building I am calling  'The Guild House' is finally complete. As I cannot help but experiment a little with each building it is not identical to it's partner. Not a problem- I can just claim that one building is a later addition. Construction materials are the same as for part 1: Fire Dragon Games  blue foam and metal windows; Games Workshop Mordheim roof, doors and windows; foam core and balsa wood. Paints are a mix of Ceramacoat, Americana, Coat D'Arms as well as washes made with Golden Inks, Flow Enhancer and Glazing Medium.
Now all that needs to be done is a base for both buildings together. There is also a bit of trimming to aid fitting the walkway into the second building as well as a small roof section to add at the join.