Last one for 2016

I took a few days of vacation for Christmas time to be with family and actually found myself both time and energy to do some painting. I usually get up at 7am and as the kids tend to sleep ´till 10 or 11 as they don´t have school now I´ve had a couple of hours to myself each morning. The best thing about that is that I got my part of joint effort dark elves done. Now I just have to deliver them to Traject0ry. I think I will manage that during january as I have some work related business to the town he lives in.

Painting those cross bow armed dark elves put me into a mood to paint some more darkies. I really don´t have too many of those left as most of what I had was traded to Traj. I didn´t feel like doing the half dozen cold ones and their riders I have but the repeating bolt throwers felt like something I might try. I´ve painted a couple of bolt throwers for my high elves (here and here) so the war machine model itself if a familiar one but the crew is naturally different.

The bolt thrower itself and the 2nd crew member are in WIP stage so the only thing that is completed is this spotter. I chose to paint him first because of his stance. He is clearly looking forward - perhaps towards year 2017 and what it might bring?

It must be hard working in a bolt thrower crew. That dark elf is perhaps the most jagged old school elf I have seen. On the other hand he has to be pretty strong to carry all that armor he´s wearing.

That´s all for 2016! Thank you for reading my humble blog and have a Happy New Year!

Joint effort darkies - Finally completed

Sometimes you just hit a painters block. No matter how you look into it you just can´t get yourself to pick up your brush and finish something. That is just what happened to me with this unit of ten cross bow wielding dark elves.

Last october I sort of got Traject0ry hooked to Oldhammer. He started building a dark elf army and TL and myself promised to help him with the project. That way the Dark elf army joint effort project was born. I wrote about the project itself here. It´s not mentioned in the posting but we set an unofficial goal for this Christmas. My job was to paint two crossbow units both ten strong to meet the WFB:Armies troop minima for darkies. First unit was completed in september but this second one really took it´s time.

So here they are. Bob Naismith Citadel C09 Dark elves. 

I´ve used the guard model as the unit leader.

The unit leader and the musician.

And a couple of troopers.

Now I have a good excuse to visit Traject0ry some day as I don´t think I want to mail the painted models. And I´ll get a chance to talk him into writing something about the rest of the army.

And perhaps we can get the first chance to do some battle with these guys...

Seeker of Sampo

Merry Christmas!

In my previous posting I wrote about Kalevale painting challenge I´m running next year. The ´winner´ will be decided by a draw in which I will not take part but I wanted to paint something myself too.

Here´s Kauko Saarelainen - son of one of the men that followed Väinämöinen to Pohjola to get the Sampo back from Louhi. As we know Sampo was lost to sea after a battle versus Louhi and her men. Kauko´s father was the last one of Väinölä folk to hold on to Sampo but could not prevent it from falling off the ship and sinking to depths. Kauko´s father never forgave himself and nor did the people of Väinölä. Known as ´Sampo waster´ he lived shunned by everyone except his own family. Kauko seeks to clear his family´s name by joining the party that goes after the lost artefact. He is an agry young man with bad temper. That temper has gotten him in trouble many times.

Kauko wields the same spear his father used in combat against Louhi and her minions. He covers his head with a hood to go as unknown as possible. His fathers reputation is videly know and affects Kauko too. Kauko is protected by a long mail skirt and a big round shield.

Kauko´s model is a ELF1 series Kyfaillion. I´ve replaced his plastic shield with a larger metal one.

The base has been left blank as the winner of the draw will be responsible for basing all the models he gets.

BTW at the moment we have six participants doing a total of seven models allready. Check my previous posting for details of the challenge.

10000 views and a painting challenge

Just a couple of days ago my blog hit the 10000 views point. I really don´t know if that is a lot or not for a blog that has been active for just over a year but I´m happy with it. A BIG thank you to everyone whos been here!

To celebrate that and the fact that year 2017 is the 100^th year of Finnish independence I´m going to arrange a painting challenge. The idea for this challenge came from the excellent Oldhammer Forum where similar projects have been running for at least three times. Last one was a chaos villager project. You can see the wonderfully chaotic result here.

edit. 17.12.2016 Participants added
edit. 20.12.2016 Participants added
edit. 23.12.2016 Participants added

Raiders of the lost Sampo

How does it work?

Those who want to join will paint a single miniature to fit Kalevala: Raiders of the lost Sampo warband theme (see below) and mail the painted model to me by December 1^st 2017. All participants will enter a draw that will be on December 6^th 2017. The winner of the draw will get the warband for him/herself. The participants will cover the mailing cost for sending their model to me and I will take care of mailing the whole warband to the winner of the draw.As the organizer I will paint a model myself too but will not be part of the draw.

This challenge is mainly for Finnish oldhammerers. Painters from other countries are free to send in a model but will not get to be part of the draw.

By sending their models to me the participants give their permission for me to use pictures of their the models in this blog.

What models can I use?

You are free to use anything that fits the Kalevala: Raiders of the lost Sampo warband theme. Kalevala is a work of epic poetry compiled from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology.  There are wizards, shamans, heroes, giants and mythical creatures. You could even do the golden lady crafted by Ilmarinen.

Sampo was a magical artifact in Kalevala that brought good fortune to its holder. Sampo was lost to sea and was believed to be destroyed but now rumours of it´s rediscovery has spread and adventurers from all over the Väinölä are gathering to recover it.

You don´t have to stick with the original story of Kalevala just connect your work to it somehow. It would be appreciated if you could write a short background to the character you are creating. Akseli Gallen-Kallela´s art is a good source of inspiration on the theme.

The defence of Sampo by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

How will it look coherent?

We shall make a warband of heroes so no evil or chaotic models please. As some of the main characters in Kalevala are quite troubled - Kullervo perhaps the most - you´ll have some freedom there.

For some coherency the colors of the Finnish national flag blue and white should be present in every model if that is possible. It might be just a small detail or nothing at all if you are painting a Kokkolintu (a fiery or metal bird) for example.

Entering models should be provided with a round base. The winner will be responsible for basing. That way the bases will look coherent and the winner can make the models part of his/her collection and use them with the stuff he/she already has.

How do I take part?

Email me (janikortesluoma(at)Hotmail.com) or comment this text and let me know you want to take part. I will have and update a contributor list on this site.

Who is in? Updated 23.12.2016

Myself - a defender of Sampo spearman
LM - Something inspired by Lemminkäinen and his companion Tiera
Finmirage - Antero Vipunen (a giant?) or Lemminkäinen´s mother. Or something else.
Traject0ry - A shaman leader?
TL - The tiny man from the sea
MM - A giant pike

Model count: 7

Elf parade

In my previous posting I mentioned the Finnish independence day and the military parade that is an essential part of celebrations. Going through my even older text I noticed that almost exactly one year ago I painted the first model in the blue and white theme that was then chosen for my high elf army. That me made think - let´s see how my army looks today. Elves! Get ready for a parade!

Here´s everyone. Not exactly in a parade formation rather than just arranged on a bookshelf to fit in one picture.

Backrow: Baggare train, Guards, Shore riders with Scouts behind them, a Wizard, a Spectre

Middle row: Merchant company, Archers

Front row: Two Marine bolt batteries, Ship company, Wardancers

That roughly 120 models painted during last 12 months if you count in the war machines and carts too. I´m pleasantly suprised with myself.

Here´s a closer shot of the left wing. The merchant company was the first unit I completed. I had quite a lot of those 4th edition archers and spearmen left and it was nice to practise painting after many years not touching your brushes.

The right wing. Pretty much everything here is old school citadel. A lot of Jes Goodwin sculpts here.

In my opinion the army has a naval expeditionary force feel in it. It´s an infantry strong army with just a small unit of light cavalry in support. Just like something you could expect to land from elven warships and merchant galleys.

I´m hoping to expand my army so that it would eventually have at least one unit of every unit type presented in the WFB: Armies book. That means that I will have to paint a dragon rider, a unit of silver helms, a unit of warrior, kith unit and a chariot. I have a dragon and it´s rider in WIP state and it would be finished quite fast if I took the bull by horns and just painted it. One day...

For kiths I would like to get some rural looking archers. Armed with longbows the kiths could add some firepower to my army with lower points value than the normal +1 missile elite archers. I did buy a chariot a few months ago and I think I will take it on the painting table some day during next spring. As I love Jes Goodwin sculps I will try to get my hands on some more hand weapon armed elf warriors and create a warrior out of them.

Independence day archers

Today we are celebrating the 99th independence day of Finland. It is a tradion to have a big military parade on 6th december and this year it will be in Kajaani. And it is also quite common that if the Defence Forces has aquired some new equipment lately it will be presented to the public on this parade. This year the new system to make it´s first public appearance is the Orbiter II UAV system that will fly over the city of Kajaani during the parade and the image it transmits will be shown on a big screen.

With all this on the background I felt it would be appropriate to have something new ready for my high elves today. As my army has been lacking a dedicated archer unit I decided a while ago that I should get one. I was lucky to score about 30 plastic fantasy regiment archers from two seperate ebay auction for a very low price. Now the unit is completed and ready to mow down my enemies.

The unit leader is a Citadel Eternal Champion EC05 Dyvin Tvar model. Both the musician and standard bearer are excellent Jes Goodwin models from Elf command groups range. And the rank & file are of course fantasy regiment unipose elven archers. The archers were in pretty nasty shape when I got them but I decided not to strip them but to just give them a facelift. I think it worked and will do just fine as rank & file. The command group was given a bit more care.

A close up on the command group.

The whole unit.

This is how the archers looked like when I got them.

Seventeen archers, standard, musician and a LVL5 champion is roughly 350 points. That is a lot but elf archers can be used in hand to hand combat too if needed. It would be nice if they had access to shields and magic standard. Those would add a lot to their usability.

I still have eleven of those unipose archers left so I might do another unit later. Or use them as scouts. We´ll see. Happy indenpendence day everyone!

First year behind!

I started this blog on 2.12.2016 so today it´s been running for a year and a day and this is my 49th text so far. Initially I wrote in Finnish but changed to English to reach wider audience. I my first ever posting I set myself three goals:

1. builf myself a playable high elf army 
2. play some 3rd ed WFB with it and 
3. blog about the aforementioned things

I feel that I´ve succeeded with all three. My high elf force is certainly playable as I´ve had three matches with it so far. And I´ve been pretty active with this blog I think.

Quite a lot of elves have been painted during a year. I really haven´t counted them but there a several dozens. My personal favorites are the baggage train and the ship company.

The baggage train was really fun to put together. It took me ages to get the suiteble minis as there are not that many choises available for elf civilians. But I´m very pleased with the result. Especially happy I´m with the painter and his model.

This is the ship company. The unit has a fixed size of ten models which limits it´s usefulness on gaming table but I like it in any case. Rank and file are Citadel ME-32 Noldor deep elf variants. The musician and standard bearer are conversions using bits from 90´s high elf archers and dragon princes. Well armed and armored they look like marines from an elven warship.

After six months of blogging I had 2849 views and 5 followers. At that point I set myself a goal of 10000 views and 10 followers by this day. Today I have just below 9000 views and 12 followers so one of those goals was met while the other was not.

The most popular posting so far has been this battle report of a game between my elves and some dwarves. My favorite posting is the Baggage train compendium as I´ve become a big fan of that area of WFB Oldhammering.

What next? This year is ending soon so I´ll set my sights for year 2017. So during next year I want to play at least as many games of WFB as I did this year (3). I have an elf chariot that I want to complete. And I´ll paint enough greenskins for a 1500 points O&G force. And I´ll continue blogging about my oldhammer activities.

A harpist and some archers

It´s been a month since my last update and to be honest I haven´t been painting that much lately. Mostly it´s been because of work and other duties taking my time but I´ve noticed myself being a bit tired with the current projects. A unit of dark elf crossbow armed warriors is still waiting to be finished among other things. But as I´ve promised my friends those darkies will be completed by Christmas.

I hadn´t painted any high elves lately as I sort of got fed up with them until this week when I suddenly got a boost of motivation and decided to start a new unit. It will be archers this time. Same blue and white theme as the rest of my guys. I have close to 30 plastic elves from the fantasy regiment box and ultimately I´m aiming to have a 20 elf strong archer unit including 80´s metal command group. Rest of the plastic archers will propably boost my small unit of scouts some day.

The first one to get completed of the unit was this harpist photographed 

standing on a training for warriors book :D

The musician, a pair of very quickly painted archers and a WIP standard bearer.

Relaunch of Blood Bowl is coming!

As we are expecting Games Workshop to re release Blood Bowl at Q1/2017 or most likely before Christmas if you ask me I just had to dig out an old dark elf lineman and put some paint on him. I painted him to a pretty simple red and black theme with metal helmet plume. Skin is rakarth flesh washed with agrax and then highlighted to almost white.

A Witch Gate Coral Snakes lineman (line elf?)

Hoping to get my hand on more 2nd edition dark elf minis as it would be nice to have a full team of them eventually. At the moment I only have a few so it might take me a while. These 2nd edition minis are in my opinion far better than the ones that were released with 3rd edition. And from what I have seen about the new ones that will be coming with the new edition - well they just seem to have like too much everything. Everyone seems to be some sort of a crossbreed between a human/orc/you name it and a forklift. And stuffed with spikes and metal claws. These older ones are more subtle or elegant if you ask me.

Sound out if you happen to have some dark elf players you´d want to sell/trade.

Baggage train - Finally completed

My high elf baggage train has been in WIP status for some time but today I finally had chance to finish it. The main reason for not getting it ready earlier was me not being satisfied with the wagon I had planned to use. It was just too big compared to smallish 80´s elves. So I went back to ebay and got one that in my opinion looks better.

So here is everyone - ten elves, two carts and a horse plus some supplies. The base is some grass mat mounted on cardboard. There´s a sheet of "rubber steel" just undet the grass mat and every mini has a small magnet on the bottom to make them stand better. The base is 6"x8" to match the size of a 2000 point army´s baggage train.

Two elf ladies and a minstrel. They are from the Turnkey Miniatures´ elf villagers set.

An artist and his model. The artist is from Marauder´s MM62 series and his model is a Citadel ELF5 wounded wardancer.

The merchant couple. The male in the foreground is pre slotta C08 high elf wizard and his wife a pre slotta C08 high elf thief. They are walking their horse away from the supply cart.

Another cart and some supplies. The elves are again from the Turnkey Miniatures´ elf villagers set.

As far as I know this is the only completed high elf baggage train around the internet at the moment. Please let me know if there is another somewhere.

Deathshade Kyosti´s Quarrelers

A few weeks ago I wrote about a joint effort to get a dark elf army painted by next Christmas. I´m happy to tell that my first contribution to the case is a crossbow dark elf unit Deathshade Kyosti´s Quarrelers. The unit is made up of a level 5 dark elf champion Kyosti, a banner bearer, a musician and seven troopers. Everyone has the standard equipment for a crossbow dark elf i.e. a normal crossbow and light armor. That means that the unit as such is worth 196 points.

I haven´t painted that many dark elves before these. I think that the last ones were some Blood Bowl players back in the 90´s. Perhaps I´ll go through my boxes and see if I can find one of those.

Kyosti´s quarrelers - the command group is 80´s Citadel but 

the troopersare 90´s Marauder. The troopers were missing the clips for their

repeating crossbows and were converted to non-repeating ones.

Deathshade Kyosti himself and his command group. 

Very characteristic models all three. Could still add a flag to the pole

but IMO it works without too.

This is from the WFB: Armies book. Make sure you check out this

great posting by Goblin Lee about the dark elf army list.

I´ve started painting the next crossbow unit as we need at least 20 crossbow dark elves. The colour scheme will be a bit less bright for that one. And no Marauder darkies there - only 80´s Citadel.

Elf baggage train WIP part 3

A quick update on my high elf baggage train. All the characters are completed now and next I´m going to take care of wagons/carts. And the base/moving tray thing for the whole camp. But here´s a group photo of everyone:

From left to right. An elf horse and a merchant couple. They are a pre slotta mage and a female thief. In the middle six minis from Keyhole miniatures elf villagers series. And on the far right a wardancer and an artists.

A closer look at the merchant couple. The male figure is oroginally posed to look like he is casting a spell but I tried to me it seem like he is pulling the horse from it´s reins. The female thief was slightly reposed to make it look like she is helping her husband with the horse.

This is perhaps my favourite part of the whole group of camp followers. I wanted to include the wounded wardancer but his expression and pose are so aggressive that he seemed a little bit out of space among the civilians. Then I say this artist mini and came up with the idea that the wardancer is modeling for the painter. So now I have Thom of Elfland starting his latest painting The Wounded Wardancer.





Hope you enjoyed reading!

Dark elf army - a joint effort

So it´s yet another work in progress posting. Perhaps I´ll get something completed one of these days and get to write about that.

Having spent last few months mostly painting my high elves I have to admit that I'm pretty fed up with them. I will complete that WIP baggage train but after that I think I'm going to set those high elves to side for some time.

Traject0ry is an old friend of mine who is VERY experienced wargamer. I'm very happy to have been able to get him hooked into oldhammer. Traj has played a lot of WFB 4./5. ed. with his dark elf army so I came up with an idea that we could start collecting and painting one for 3rd ed. together. TL the dwarf general promised to help with painting so we decided to set goal for next december. By Christmas time we would have a playable dark elf force ready.

I did have some C09 dark elf minis and a few Marauder crossbow darkies. TL took the witch elves, warriors were sent to Traj and I was left with the crossbows. Traj wanted to include scouts to the force but we all agreed that the Marauder dark elf scouts are pretty hideous. Because of that Traj acquired some elf warriors that would proxy as shadows.

Command group and a trooper by me. The troopers of this unit were missing the bow part of their repeating crossbows so I did this crude conversion to normal crossbows using plastic bits. And I will change his base to one with no flock as we agreed on using glued sand and green paint. This will be a ten elf strong unit when completed.  I have another unit with C09 models to be painted later.

 Some witch elves by TL. This will be a ten elf strong unit too.

WIP dark elf warriors by Traj. Part of the first unit of 20.

Scouts waiting to be painted. These are elf warriors that will be painted dark elf style.

Some of them have been slightly converted by replacing their original weapons with swords.

Perhaps it won´t be the most uniform dark elf army you have seen but we are having fun building it. We three live hundreds of kilometers apart but it´s almost daily that we discuss using watsapp.

Traj has been writing a colorful background for this army and with this posting I´m inviting him to act as a visiting author for this blog. Hoping to hear from you soon Traj!

p.s. If someone happens to have a C09 beast handler or two I would very much like to buy them...

Baggage train compendium

As mentioned in an earlier posting baggage trains bring a lot of realism to a WFB army. Using the WFB: Armies lists as a guideline there are nine armies that can include a baggage train to their composition. For this posting I´ve done some googling and tried to find sites about the baggage trains people have used for each of those armies. I hope that wargamers who concider getting a group of camp followers and carts can get inspirations out of these.

I´ve only included sites with pictures and therefore these is more stuff for some armies than others. Some are just single pictures among other material so please scroll down if you don´t see what you were looking for right away.

Updates:

26.10.2016 - Added a pic and couple of links to Dark elf part

6.12.2016 - Added a pic and a link to Dwarf part

High elf



For high elves I´m going to have use my own army as an example as I was unable to find any other pictures of a high elf baggage train. The reason might be that high elves are one of the rarest if not the rarest 3rd edition WFB armies around.

A cart and five camp follower. Enough for a 1000 point army.

I´m  going to expand this with another cart and more civilians

to make it suitable for 2000 points.

Elf lady and some supplies. 

A minstrel and a reading elf woman.





Chaos

Mouse, the author of the Tales From the Big Board blog has created a very atmospheric baggae train for his chaos army. You can see it here and here. I really like the way Mouse has connected some of the minis with the art of Albrecht Durer and Pieter Bruegel. It´s a very oldhammer chaos entirety.

And be sure to check out this thread for inspirational material. So many cool ideas.

Both Carnival of Chaos Plague Cart and Cabaret of Chaos Pleasure (and Pain) Wagon would fit any Nurgle or Slaanesh army.

The lost and the very damned blog has this chaos warband with some civilian followers.

edit. After publishing found this chaos baggage train from Hammer & Banner blog.



Bretonnia

There is very little to be found directly connected to bretonnian baggage trains. Google brough up just this one page that has a nice scratch build wagon for a bretonnian army.

This baggage train is for Saga but it uses old bretonnian trebuchet crew minis and has a very bretonnian spirit in it as a whole. They really look like scruffy peasant following on the trails of the army itself.

And another one for Saga that would go well with bretonnia or empire.

Marauder miniatures´ MM62 Citizens range has a lot of nice models for bretonnian (or empire) camp followers.

Chris´ miniature woes presents a wide range of painted Dark age/Fantasy villagers that could be used both for bretonnia and empire.

Xin´s lair has these painted Gripping Beast civilians that would fit any human baggage train.

Paul´s Pods has this huge Medieval army with a large baggage train.

Dark elf

So far I have not been able to find a single picture of a dark elf baggage train - painted or unpainted. Any link would be appreciated.

Update 26.10.2016

Dieselmonkey sent a couple of pictures of his WIP dark elf baggage train to Oldhammer forum and gave me permission to publish them here. Here´s the group photo. 

Check out rest of the pictures here. And Dieselmonkeys wonderful dark elf force here.

Dwarf

I don´t think there´s model that says dwarf baggage train better than Bugman´s cart. There are many dwarf baggage trains to be found around the internet. Perhaps it´s because there are quite a lot of suitable models for camp followers for a dwarf army.

Here´s one project with a bear drawn beer wagon.

Another fine example at the stuff of legends site.

Cookie's Chuck Wagon from the Tales From the Big Board blog. And the same baggage train with 2nd cart and more camp followers.

A dwarf baggage train can been seen in this battle report.

Jon´s wargames minis has a Battle for skull pass wagon as a center piece for a baggage train.

This tired dwarf on a pony would go nicely with Bugman´s cart.

 This baggage train is by Thomas Foss. Be sure to visit his blog.

Empire

Citadel has produced a set for empire baggage train. Here´s a painted example of one.

The hoodling hole blog has a supply wagon acting as a unit filled in a halberdier unit. It has a very empire feel in it.

This forum thread is mostly about dwarves but scrolling down you can find a nice example of a painted empire wagon and camp followers.

My opinion is that most of the models presented in the bretonnia part would work perfectly for empire with a different paint job. Little less shabbyness and little more uniformity and there you have your empire civilians.

Orcs & goblins



Captives, slaver, drunks - Oldenhammer in Toronto blog has it all. This orc baggage train really captures the spirit of orc baggage train.

Another fine example - bear wagon, drunks, severed head. Sword & Dorkery blog brings you very orky set.

And once again we go to Tales From the Big Board blog for Flo's Field Kitchen and JackJaw's Junkwagon. Just wonderful stuff!

edit. A super cool additions from Hammer & Banner blog here, here and here.



Slann

Goblin Lee´s huge slann army has a baggage train that was in WIP state. Nice conversions of both slann and lobotomized human slaves. As Lee states they really bring character and completeness to his army.

Note that slann baggage trains do not include wagons but have twice the number of camp followers than other armies.

Wood elf

Last but not least we have wood elves and the Oldenhammer in Toronto blog that got me into this baggaga train thing. Using pack horses instead of wagons is a good idea and fits the theme of a wood elf army better than heavy carts. Nice conversion of a javelin throwing elf warrior there.

Well, that concludes this rather long posting. I hope that you did find the links listed here useful.

Until next time!

p.s. Please let me know if there´s a dead link. Or if I´m linking to your site and you want the link removed. Or if you want me to get your site included.



Against the Skaven

What a wonderful gaming day I had a couple of nights ago. Not only got I to play another game of WFB 3rd edition but I also had the pleasure to meet a fellow oldhammerer whom I had only met online before. And this was also the very first time for me to play any version of WFB against the skaven.

We agreed on playing a few months ago when I had my vacation plans figured out. 2000 points, unmodified 3rd edition rules, game breaking spells banned. We also decided to have a 50% break point which means that the game would end when one army has lost 50% of it's point value in units of characters. Destroyed or routed. Units would be treated as whole so individual warriors within a unit are not counted.

My opponent had prepared the battlefield and let me choose the table edge. I took the side that had a small wheat field furthest to left, a forest in the middle, a couple of buildings and another field on the right.
Looking from my point of view skaven side had a hill on the left, some woods in the middle and a farmhouse with fields and wall on the right.

 

The battle field

 I set up first. From left to right my units were:
- bolt battery
- ship company, 9 troopers inc. standard and musician, light armor, shield, long bow, hand weapons, led by lvl10 hero with hail of doom arrow
- bolt battery
- 5 scouts, hand weapons, long bows, shields
- 12 archers, inc. standard and musician, longbow, light armor
- 8 wardancers, two handed weapons
- 19 guards, inc. standard, sacred standard, light armor, halberds, led by lvl20 prinze, arcane light armor, magic sword: hellhoned, mighty strike, parasitic blade
- 7 shore riders, spear, bow, shield, led by lvl10 hero, seeking arrows, spell shield
- lvl15 wizard on horse

 

View down the elf line from elven left flank.

Then the skaven army took positions. From left to right there were:
- a jezzail team
- a poisoned wind globadier
- warp fire thrower team
- 6 gutter runners, hand weapons, throwing stars
- 19 clanrats, inc. standard and musician, spears, light armor, shield, iron hard skin, great fangs, led by lvl15 wizard, spear, snake tail
- 19 stormvermins inc. banner and musician light armor, two handed weapons, relic banner, led by lvl10 hero
- 49 skaven slaves inc. banner and musician, led by lvl5 champion, 2 blague cencer bearers hidden
- warp fire thrower
- poison wind globadier
- 6 gutter runners, slings
- 34 clanrats inc. standard and musician, light armor, shield, led by lvl20 sewertyrant, hellhoned magic sword, spell shield, army standard bearer lvl5 champion, relic banner, war banner
- 6 rat ogres with 3 handlers
- jezzail team
- a summoned undead hero

The skaven set up with their right flank nearest in picture.

 



Seeing the rat horde spread out in front of me really made me nervous. The skaven outnumbered my elves by more than 2:1.

Weapons teams and gutter runners hide in the shadows of a farm.

ROUND 1

I won the roll for initiative and chose to go first. Wardancers rushed forward from between the two building on my right flank. Guards and shore riders advanced a little. Everyone else prepared themselves for shooting.
In shooting phase first blood was drawn as one of the bolt batteries killed a rat ogre.
On the right flank shore riders tried to take down the jezzail team lurking between two buildings but failed to wound. My wizard cast a fireball against that same team but did not cause damage.

The skaven line started a general advance. The skirmishers in the middle occupied the forest in front of them and the other gutter runners moved behind the farm buildings.

Both jezzails fired but did not hit. A single wardancer was scorched by skaven wizard´s fireball.

The elven right flank watches as the skaven are advancing.

 

 

Skaven line hurries towards the elves.

 



ROUND 2

Most of the elves held their position. Wardancers moved now in to the open area between the buildings. Shore riders advenced a little and guards wheeled a bit to the left to better face the stormvermin and clanrats.

Missile fire from shore riders killed the jezzail team that was taking cover between the farm buildings. The shore riders´ leader took out the warp fire thrower team with a magical missile. On left flank bolt throwers continued to fire against the rat ogres and scored one wound. Marines and scouts shot at the skaven general´s clan rat unit which lost a few fighters. Archers killed seven slaves with their arrows.

Now that the ranged threat agains him was neutralized the elf wizard cast a wind blast spell from his elevated position against the storm vermin.



With both jezzail and warp fire thrower team taken out

the elven right can now breathe a little easier.

 

 

The skaven continued to move forward. The stormvermin failed their strenght test and could not move. The skaven right flank with rat ogres, clanrats and slaves were getting pretty close to elven lines and might be able to charge next turn. The skaven slaves came to 8" range of elven archers and two plague cencer bearers were released. The first one hit home and killed five elves but the other was left spinning in between the two units. Despite heavy casualties the archers´ morale held.

 

 

The lone jezzail on skaven right flank shot at bolt thrower crew but missed. Skaven wizard cast a mystic mist in front of shore riders and wardancers were left inside the mist.

 

The spell was originally directed so that it would affect also the guard. But as they had a sacred standard we ruled that the spell would not affect them and the template would be moved so that it would not cover that unit.

 

The skaven are closing in on elven left flank.

 

 

Plague senser bearer wrecks havoc in archer lines. 

Mystic mist will hinder elven movement.



 

 

ROUND 3

 

My shore riders marched backwards to get out of the mist and guard held it´s position. Wardancers moved so that they would be able to get out of the mist next turn. On my left there was no movement as everyone prepared to shoot.

 

The ship company´s marines shot at rat orges. Their leader had a hail of doom arrow and a total of 15 hits were scored. I was lucky to kill all three beast handlers which meant that the rat ogres would head home on their next movement phase. A couple of clanrats from skaven general´s unit were shot too.

 

As we ruled that the elf wizard would not be able to see through the mystic mist and there fore could not maintain the wind blast he used fire ball against the gutter runners now behind the farm wall and killed one.

 

 

The rat ogres head home as their handlers are killed by ship company´s shooting.

 

 

With wind blast gone the storm vermins charge the elven guard. On the other flank ship Company and the bolt thrower crew on their right side are charged by the clan rats. The plague senser bearer who killed five elves last turn now lost his direction hitting a building wall and killing himself. The other bearer moved sideways and clear the lane between elf archers and skaven slaves. The gutter runners on the far left cleared the farm wall and prepared to meet the wardancers.

 

For the first time in this game a warp fire thrower shoots and hits a scout in the forest. The scout was killed on the spot. Jezzail fire was once again inaccurate. A wardancer was killed by shooting stars thrown by gutter runners.

 

The combat between elf guard and stormvermin was a pretty uneventfull melee. Elf general scored a wound against the skaven hero stealing an attack from him but no other wounds were caused. The skaven ost the combat by one point and were pushed back.

 

On other flank ship company´s captain was killed by skaven general and one bolt thrower crew member was lost resulting in a push back.

 

 The clan rats charge.

 

And so do the stormvermins too.

 

 

ROUND 4

 

 

I decided to take my chances and charged skaven slaves with my remaining seven archers and four scouts. Against all odds the slaves did not panic despite being charges to both front and flank. Wardancers charged the gutter runners and went into whirling death mode.

 

First there was some gutter runners....

 

The only shooting that occurred was a point blank range hit by the bolt thrower farthest to the left against the summoned undead hero who was sent back to grave.

 

In close combat three stormvermins were killed and no elves lost. Push back but not enough casualties yet to force a panic test. On the marines and bolt thrower crew vs. skaven general and his clan rats a couple of elves were killed. They were pushed back and had to test for breaking. The lone crewman lost his nerve and was free hacked down but the marines held.

 

A couple of skaven slaves were killed but their sheer number meant that they won the combat against scouts and archers. Pushed back the archers took a panic test but passed.

 

Wardancers slaughtered the gutter runners without breaking a sweat.

 

...but then there was none.

 

A poisoned wind globadier had moved in front of the other clan rat unit and elf wizard cast a wind blast against him. That would keep him from throwing his globes and also keep the clan rat unit from moving forward to help the stormvermin.

 

Scouts and archers battle with skaven slaves.

 

The wind blast struck globadier took a risk and moved backwards through the clan rat unit behind him. The move succeeded but now the clan rats were affected by the spell.

 

The jezzail team finally hit the bolt thrower and killed a crewman. His comrades broke and fled of the battle field. The marines next to them did not panic. In close combat they unsuprisingly lost again but refused to break. And again the skaven slaves won against scouts and archers but elven morale was high. The remaining senser bearer head away from the melee towards the elven board edge.

 

A single stormvermin was killed taking them past 25% loss point. They could not hit the elves and were pushed back yet again. They passed their break test but how long would they last agains such pressure.

 

The elf wizard had been left to exposed position and skave wizard hit him with a fire ball. He was very badly wounded but was able to continue.

 

Clan rats are held in place by wind blast and can´t help the stormvermins.

 

 

ROUND 5

 

There was very little movement as most of the elf units were in combat. Wardancers moved towards clan rats and I took my wizard to better cover. There was no shooting.

 

 

The close combat between stormvermins and elf guards proved to be decisive. After losing yet another round of combat the elite skaven broke. The wave of panic spread through the skaven army and after all the checks were done the only units still not running were the two clan rat units and a jezzail team. By our rules the skaven army was beyond the 50% break point and the battle was over.

 

Panic spreads through skaven lines and triuphant elves pursue.

 

 

It was a great battle to play and a were different opponent than the dwares I´ve been playing against. I did not really understand how low the skaven´s LD and CL are before this. My battle plan was to shoot and hold positions on one flank and to advance on the other. I got lucky with my shooting as I neutralized the rat ogres and high elven morale meant that the skav general´s unit was tied for a long time and could not interfere with what was happening near the farm.

 

Taking out the jezzail and warp flame thrower was essential to my right flank´s plans. The mystic mist partially messed up my advance as my cavalry could not do anything after that spell being cast. That was mostly my own bad us of troops as I should have redirected them to the other side of battle field. Now they just stood and waited for the mist to dissolve.

 

A BIG thank you for my opponent who let me to his home to play and set up his wonderful pieces of scenery to a gaming board. Really hoping to have a rematch some day. Here are just a couple of shots of his beautiful army and scenery:

 

Rat ogres 

A poisen wind globadier by cross roads