Animal handlers in 3rd ed. WFB: Wood Elf Beastmasters

This part of Animal handlers in 3rd ed. WFB series of articles is about Wood Elf Beastmasters. It discusses rules, models, tacktics, pictures, links, pro´s and con´s and everything related to Wood Elf animal handlers. Please click here to find the other arcticles.

As per WFB: Armies book you can take 0-6 Beastmasters to a wood elf army. You can divide them into units made up of 1-3 handlers each with 2-6 beasts they lead. A single beastmaster has a normal elf profile and is armed with a hand weapon. Basic cost includes no armor but there is option for light armor and shield. Handlers may lead bears, boars, warhounds or wildcats. A dedicated set was produced for each animal type by Citadel.

 An addvertisment from WD96. I just love those Jes Goodwin sculpts.

An another add.

As we see the sets were originally sold with one leader and three beasts except for bear keeper who had just one bear. Later blisters had just the handler and a single animal in them.
Another thing of curiosity is the name- in the rule book everyone is called animal handler, in WFB:Armies we have wood elf beastmasters and the miniatures were sold as elven animal keepers.

Bears

Rules

Wood elves are the only race that can use bears in beast packs. Looking at the description, rules and profile two think stand out immediately. First the base size. Here it says 25 x 25mm but the bear in the Elf Bear Keeper set is provided with a 25 x 50mm base and is such a large model that it would not fit a 25 x 25mm base by any means sane.

The other thing is movement. In RL a bear can run at 60km/h where as the world record speed for a horse in a sprint is around 88km/h. Usein Bolt can reach almost 36km/h on a 100m dash. He wouldn´t stand a chance agains a bear. At least on a longer distance. Therefore the M4 feels very low. As in real life a bear´s speed should propably be somewhere in between human speed and horse speed. Giving the bear a M6 would have made it a bit more believable.

Tactics

Tactically bears can be somewhat tricky to use effectively. I would propably use a largeish pack of bears in a straight frontal attack agains enemy infantry. Or as wood elf armies often rely on ranged attacks I could place my unit of bears either in the center between archer unit or to flanks to protect those. They would stay still until enemy moved closer and then engage.

If I chose to go on offence with my wood elves I would propably deploy bears in support of my treemen or warrior kinband. As rules limit maneuvering with packs the attack would be pretty much a straight forward advance and charge.

Keep in mind that the bears cause fear ability is very helpful in many situations and should not be forgotten.

The bears will draw missile fire and that fire is away from the fragile elves. With T4 and W2 you can expect the bears to handle that at least better than elves. Taking the optional armor is a must for bear handlers to give them some protection agains missiles. Having a hero as unit leader would be another thing worth concidering just to add some resilience to handlers.

With S4 and A2 bears are formidable in close combat even though WS3 will force you to pick your opponents carefully. A smaller force of WS4 dwarves could tie down your bears for a long time.

A unit of three handlers with nine bears is around 220 points. If you take a LVL10 hero as the unit leader the price goes up to 300 points. That is quite a lot. You can get a treeman or a unit of eight elven lords including a hero for that. But as wood elf army lacks good infantry with some staying and slaying power bears could be a choise to concider.

A beautiful bear keeper from Thantsants´ collection.

The bear handler set is not very common and you should be prepared to pay around 20€ for a set of a single bear and handler in ebay.

Bear Pro´s:

Jes Goodwin models

No one else gets them

Good S, T, W and A stats

Cause fear

Bear Con´s:

Slow

Tactical limitations

WS3

Pricey
Model´s can be hard to get

The Masterwork Guild blog brings us these four bears and their master.

Boars

Rules

 

Another type of beast pack that is only available to wood elves. The description says that boars in Old World are much bigger than the ones in RL but that does not seem apply to the Jes Goodwin sculpted wood elf boars. The are smallish especially if compared with orc warboars of the same time. They are mounted on 25 x 50mm bases but will fit 25 x 25mm ones nicely.

The special rules do not apply when boars are in a beast pack. It would be quite logical if the negative leadership modifier for boars being difficult to control would apply to packs too but the rules state that it´s in effect only for riding purposes.

The profile for a boar is pretty close to a human with differences in movement and psychological stats. And as we know all tests are made with the handlers´ profile. So low boar scored here don´t count.

The boars as beast pack animals suffer from their special rules. Their cost is affected by stubborn rule which has no use for them in pack mode. In my opinion their right value should be somewhere around 4 points.

A set from Greblord´s Little Men.

Tactics

A boar packs best asset is their speed. They can charge 14" which means that they usually can choose to charge enemy infantry instead of getting charged themselves. They are pretty weak in close combat with their average profile. And with T3 and no save thay are vulnerable to missile fire.

Keeping the afore mentioned in mind I still think that there are several ways to use boars in battle. One could sacrifice them to screening more valuable units from missile fire. Or to tie down enemy units to give your other unit time to take them on flank or rear. Or you could send them to a flanking move to harrash enemy war machines or missile troops.

The size of a boar pack depends on how you want to use them. With their 25 x 50mm base a large pack of boars takes a lot of room on the battle field. That might not be good if you want to move fast around enemy flank and go after warmachines. But for screening own troops or delaying action you need some durability. And elf profile should keep the pack from routing even if they losa a round or two of combat.

The maximum unit including three handlers with no armor and 18 boars for screening or delaying action costs roughly 150 points. For flanking and war machine harrassing you could take a more nimble set of two handlers and six boars for just 62 points.

A pair of piggies and a handler from Wee Blokes blog.

They look better on 25 x 25mm base than on the cavalry one.

There aren´t that many painted examples of a boar handler unit in the internet. The set propably wasn´t very popular at it´s time. With some luck you could get a single boar from ebay just below 5€ where as a handler could go for 6€. But it´s more common to see BIN prices of 10€+ for a model.

Boar Pro´s:

Jes Goodwin sculpts

No one else gets them

Good speed

Cheapish

Boar Con´s:

No very effective in combat

Vulnerable
Costly compared to war hounds (see below)

Handler and his pack from Lead and Paint.

Warhounds

Rules

 Here we meet the 25 x 25mm base issue again. The models produced are on cavalry base and as with bears won´t fit a smaller one. The elven warhoud model is a pretty long one and I believe it would be quite impossible to set them up as a unit if on 25 x 25mm. Orcs and norse are mentioned as users of warhounds alongside with elves but warhounds never made it to their army lists.

Profile is very close to that of a boar. M is one lower and I one higher. Once again there is no reason to look at the LD, INT, CL and WP part. So for two points less than a boar you get a slightly slower beast that can hit a human first with it´s higher initiative. I would take warhounds over boars any day.

Tactics

Warhound pack could be used in the same way as boars above. Higher initiative given you a bit more room on what targets you should engage. Keep in mind that your dogs won´t last very long with their T3 and no armor. Don´t take both shield and armor for handler as you don´t want to slow him and the pack down.

With just about 110 points you can get yourself three handlers and 18 dogs. That´s 40 points less than with boars.

Thantsants´ war hound pack with their master.

A single warhound can be sometimes found at 5€ or even below. The price for a handler is usually up from 8€. BIN prices for a full set seem to be around 30€.

Warhound Pro´s:

Jes Goodwin sculpts

Good speed

Cheap

Warhound Con´s:

No very effective in combat

Vulnerable

A pack of war hounds from The Masterworks Guild blog.

Wild cats

Rules

Another type of animals that is available to wood elves only.

M8, WS4, S4, A2 and leap special rule all means that this kitty is one mean killer. As the text says they are formidable fighters indeed. On the other hand it has T3 and just one wound.

Look at picture from WFB: Armies - does that look like a killing machine? No! That´s the face of a little naughty kitten who has just been disciplined by it´s owner IMO.

Tactics

You need to get your cats to charge an enemy of lower initiave. You can´t afford being shot at as your costly cats will be killed. Be carefull with your deployment as you can´t maneuver much. It´s pretty much straight forward towards an enemy you can leap at. Against a not shooting enemy you could concider holding back and protecting your archers not engaging but at the latest moment. But make sure you charge and against lower I.

Wild cats can be an alternative for cavalry but they are not as versatile as horse mounted troops. They cost a lot and require quite a lot of concideration on where to use them effetively. But they sure look good as a unit. Taking a hero to lead wild cats could be a good idea as with bears.

A wood elf wild cat handler and his pack by Thantsants.

Perhaps the most sought after of the wood elf animal keepers. But they seem to be a bit more common than the bears. In any case be prepared to pay at least 10€ for a single cat or a handler.

Wild cat Pro´s:

Jes Goodwin sculpts

No one else gets them

Great speed

Killing power

Wild cat Con´s:

Vulnerable

Costly

Model´s can be hard to get

A big pack of cats from The Masterwork Guild.

Back to Animal handlers in 3rd ed. WFB main article.

War altars revisited

One of the things that I love about the Oldhammer community is it´s ability provide you with new ideas or different angles of a view. In my previous posting I wrote about the war altars in WFB 3rd edition. That article created some discussion both here at my blog and at couple of Oldhammer facebook groups. I was happy to note that at least some of my readers had been inspired by my article and were resurrecting their war altar projects or starting new ones.

Because of that discussion and the feedback I received I felt that there was a need to revisit the concept of war altars and the parts I missed writing that first article.

Hobgoblins

Thantsant who is the author of a wonderful Somewhere the Tea´s getting cold blog commented my article in the Oldhammer community facebook group telling me that he has built a war altar for his hobgoblin army. He also remembered reading something about hobgoblin war altars in the 3rd edition rule book. I had to take a look and he was right.

In the bestiary at page 221 there are special rules hobgoblins. It says that:

1. Hobgoblin forces always carry their army standard into battle. This takes the form of a staff or pole bearing a trophy or sign, and is carried in a small wagon drawn by a span of fierce Hobhounds. So long as their standard remains intact, any Mournguls are subject to frenzy. The army standard, its wagon and crew must be included.
2. The Hobgoblin standard is the symbol of a tribe´s honor. Any enemy engaged in close combat against it is hated by all Mourngul units on the table.
3. The standard is a potent magic symbol to the Hobgoblin wizards. Totems always have the ability to act as magical reservoir as described under magical standards. All Hobgoblin wizards on that side must surrender half of their magic points before the battle and place them in the standard.

Even if it is called an army standard that resembles a carriage mounted war altar a lot in my opinion.As far as I know the hobgoblins are the only race presented in the original rule book to have this kind of army standard/war altar special rule.

Somewhat sadly the hobgoblin army standard/war altar concept was dropped from the WFB: Armies book. The hobgoblin mercenary contingent can still include a contingent standard bearer who has a option for 100 point magic standard. But the standard is no longer something you have to take nor it is automatically a magical reservoir. In the psychology part for hobgoblins it still says that:

• The contingent standard is a sacred tribal fetish. As long as the standard remains intact, all hobgoblins are subject to frenzy. Any enemy unit engaged in close combat with the standard bearer will be hated by all hobgoblins.

Even with the similarities with the original rule the new ones are missing the war altar aspect and therefore feel sort of diluted.

Thantsant gave me permission to use his pictures here. Please check out the rest of his hobgoblin force. They even have a baggage train - I might be time to update my baggabe train posting. Or do a similar revisit.

Thantsant´s hobgoblin war altar and it´s guards/crew.

A closer look at the center piece.

Undead Plague Cart

In Oldhammer Finland facebook group it was pointed out that the undead Plague cart has a lot of similarities with war altars.In the WFB: Armies the rules for Undead Plague Cart are these:

1. Any undead unit with models within 12" of the undead cart may add +1 to the D6 score in the instability test.
2. The Plague Cart causes fear in living creatures.
3. The Plague Cart has a movement allowance of 5" and may move over all terrain and through all obstacles except buildings with no penalty; movement through solid walls and in/out of buildings costs half of the cart´s movement for that turn.
4. The undead cart may be attacked like an ordinary wagon.

Of course the plague cart does not give any psychological bonus but a +1 to instability test is very nice. And the fact that it can move through any terrain without penalty makes it possible for the cart to keep up with the rest of the troops. Losing a plague cart to enemy is not penalized meaning that you can take closer to enemy than you would do with a war altar. In a way plague cart is a war altar for the undead.

A thing of interest is a fact that there is also a different set of rules for a plague cart. They were presented in WD94 with this advertisment.

So somewhere along the way the plague cart has changed from being a randomly appearing or summonable wagon of terror and undead raising that lumbers uncotrollably across the battlefield to a war altar like unit that can be included to your army by spending points. I think both concepts are cool in their own way but the original rules for a plague cart are less war altar like than the newer ones.

As citadel produced a model for plague cart the painted examples of them are a lot more common than war altars.

This is LM`s plague cart deployed with his beautiful undead army.

The creaking cart brings naught but doom and despair. This one is

by Subedai of The Lost and The Damned blog.

Nathan Firth´s plague cat from Oldhammer Melbourne blog.

Orlygg´s plague cart with a spectral driver at Realm of Chaos 80´s blog.

So just a few examples here. This would be a very loooong article if I included all the cart that come up with just googling: plague cart.

Let´s see if I can actually get something painted worth showing here. ´Till next time!

War altars in 3rd edition WFB

This article is something I have wanted to do since I wrote about baggage trains a few months ago. I´ve been working on it slowly and now I was able to found myself time to finish this.

War altars are another great element that add character to a 3rd edition WFB army. As the WFB: Armies book tells us they are small portable altars carried onto the battlefield and guarded by religious fanatics. Their presence encourages friendly troops meaning that you get special benefits for troop spychology.

As per rules the war altars are carried around by 2-5 religious fanatics called altar guards. They defend the altar with their lives and are immune to all psychology and rout test while within 6" of the altar. Carrying the altar reduced the altar guards movement by half.

There are two nice bonuses that come with a war altar. First, all friendly troop within 12" of the war altar receive +1 bonus to their hand-to-hand combat resolution score. The other benefit is that all friendly troops within 12" of the altar receive +2 bonus to their leadership, up to the maximum of LD10.

But losing a war altar can be a disaster. If a war altar is captured or desecrated all friendly troop within 12" must make an immediate rout test.

Some armeies may mount their war altar on a wagon. A wagon mounted war altar is treated as a wagon but retains it´s psychological effects.

In the WFB: Armies book there are four armies that can field a war altar. They are dark elves, chaos, bretonnia and slann.  In this posting I want to present material regarding war altars for all those four armies. I´ve included only such projects that are clearly for 3rd edition WFB so newer concepts like cauldron of blood and war altar of Sigmar are out.

I´ve looked for both complete sets and WIP projects. And as with the baggage train compendium almost all are not my projects. I´ve added a link to owners blog or site when I´ve managed to find one. Please let me know if you want you pic or blog or whatever added. Or if you don´t like you picture used here.

Dark Elves

Goblin Lee disected the pro´s and con´s for a dark elf war altar in his blog.
This is my list that differs a bit from his:

Pro´s:

Psychological bonuses

Chance to take magical standard and/or instrument

Con´s:

Vulnerability

Slow movement

I don´t think that altar guards having both hatred and frenzy is a problem as the war altar rules state that altar guards are immune all psychology and rout test while within 6" of the altar. Please let me know if you think that my intepretation of the rules is wrong.

Even though it is in WIP stage I wanted to have Willmark´s war altar here as the first one to be presented because of the resemlance between to picture in WFB: Armies and the scratch build altar. Progress of this project and rest of Willmark´s dark elf force can be followed on Oldhammer forum.

This is a war altar/cauldron of blood by Pahvivalmiste. The cauldron itself is scratch build and altar guards are midhammer witch elves. Check out Pahvivalmiste´s gorgeous dark elf army here.

My own humble dark elf war altar project is in a really early WIP stage. The idol itself is painted and I´ve started working on the altar guards but there is still a long way to go.

Chaos

Pro´s:

Psychological bonuses

Heavy armor gives some endurance

Increased mobility and combat ability if mounted on carriage

Chance to take a 100 points magic standard

Con´s:

Normal humans as altar guards are pretty weak in combat

Slow without carriage

Perhaps the grand mother of all chaos war altars. War altar of Nurgle by Ivan Bartleet from WD125.

Wheel of Pain - War altar of Chaos by Bluey Zarzov. For more pictures chech out his blog.

This one is by Asslesman. Presented in this thread at Oldhammer forum.

Bretonnia

Pro´s:

Psychological bonuses

Heavy armor and optional shield gives good protection

Optional halberds boost combat ability

Chance to take a magic standard

Increased mobility and combat ability if mounted on carriage

Con´s:

Normal humans as altar guards are pretty weak in combat

Slow without carriage, superslow if using shield too.

The Round Table of Bretonnia site has this war altar. Another picture on the site.

A very nice carriage mounted war altar by Warhamster. His Bretonnian collection is presented on Oldhammer forum.

Slann

Pro´s:

Psychological bonuses

Warrior priests as altar guards (WS4, S4, T4, A2)

Chance to take a 100 points magic standard

Chance to be placed on litter

Con´s:

Only shields for protection

Just four altar guards
Slow

Again I shall refer to Goblin Lee´s blog. And as with dark elves I don´t fully agree with the frenzy rule here. But again - let me know what you think.

Goblin Lee´s Slann war altar on a litter. Carried by lobotomized humans and guarded by warrior priests. Very nice!


 Hope that you enjoyed reading and perhaps got some inspiration to your army building.

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.