Necromunda.. ground level...

On Monday at COGS we had another game of Necromunda. Having seen a few of the terrain setups on the Necromunda Worldwide Facebook group I thought that with my completely flat ground level I was missing out on a trick.

Then I remembered this boards I'd made many, many years ago for the Bridge over Khazad Dum scenario for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

After a quick search I found the boards in a loft. Being primarily made of expanded polystyrene insulation sheets I needed to touch up the paintwork a bit. They could be placed over either side of base boards for the standard grey Necromunda colour or the sea of used for my naval battles. In the end we plumed for the watery look:

We played "The Raid" Scenario, unfortunately Steve managed to bring some of his guys in on my flank and the ensuing fight put paid to any chance of me succeeding at the mission.

Clash of Kings 2015 - Best Army

Clash of Kings is the annual official Mantic tournament in the UK for Kings of War.

This year was the second time I attended and again it took place at the Sanctuary Gaming Centre in Sutton-in-Ashfield. The event is a two-day-long epic with 2500 point armies facing off over all 6 of the Kings of War scenarios. This was the first official tournament to use 2nd edition.

I took my Mantic Elf army as I've been doing fairly well with it recently and being almost totally Mantic models was legal for the Best Army prize.

The Army List was:

• Therennian Sea Guard Horde + Chant of Hate (305pts)
• Therennian Sea Guard Horde (280pts)
• Therennian Sea Guard Regiment (170pts)
• Therennian Sea Guard Regiment (170pts)
• Therennian Sea Guard Regiment (170pts)
• Forest Shamblers Horde (190pts)
• Forest Shamblers Horde (190pts)
• Drakon Riders Horde + Brew of Courage (295pts)
• Elven Mage + Bane Chant (2) & Inspiring Talisman (110pts)
• Elven Mage + Bane Chant (2) (90pts)
• Drakon Rider Lord + Ensorcelled Armour (195pts)
• Tree Herder + Medallion of Life (295pts)

There's a lot of very high point units there and that seems to be the general way armies are constructed in 2nd edition. No more swarms of little units. 

I was going to list my opponents and results, but I appear to have lost my results sheet in all the excitement. However suffice to say I got 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses, leaving me firmly in the middle ground in 19th place.

However my chances of getting one of the lovely Golden Blaine statues were not all lost. I still had my chance at Best Army. Unfortunately after the first game of the weekend, a defeat against the chap who would go on to take 3rd place, I managed to knock my Tree Herder onto the hard stone floor of the church, with predictable results. Most of the branches on his back were knocked clean off and the stone he was carrying came unglued.

I did have a spare Tree Herder, but unfortunately that was at home and there was no time to go and get it. I'd have to re-glue the one I'd brought. The problem is the only glue available was Super Glue and with my allergy to it's fumes I couldn't really use that. So I asked Rich, the owner of Sanctuary, for help. He glued the branches back on whilst I stood far away trying to avoid the fumes.

With it done he handed it back to me to paint. Then I realised another problem. I'd not brought my modelling glasses with me. Without them I would have to repaint it at arms length and then only barely able to see what I was doing! So I set to it and did as good job as I could, though the branches fell off again. I didn't fancy hassling Rich again so stuck some toilet paper up my nostrils and tried gluing again. I managed to get it all together for the next couple of games.

After the 3rd game, and the last that day, I found my army had been one of the four that had been selected for the voting for Best Army. Every player got to vote, which is I think the fairest way for these competitions to be judged. Unfortunately in the last game one of the branches had fallen off again and with no time left for repairs I had to put the fallen branch on the base, hoping people would understand.

I couldn't bring myself to re-build the Tree Herder that night and instead brought the spare one on the Sunday.

When it came to the prize giving at the end of the day I sat with not a little trepidation. I'd been in this position before with Lord of the Rings tournaments but never won. However this time loads of people had kept on saying they had voted for me. I'd seen the competition and it was going to be a close run thing as all 4 of the armies were equally excellent. So when my name was announced as winner of Best Army I was completely overwhelmed, speechless...

Thanks to all those who voted for me. There was only one point in it and I had voted for the army that came second!

Man O'War.. lots going on!

I've been a little obsessed with Man O'War of late.

I managed to get a copy of the Plaguefleet rules and had a good look through it. Worked out that I could convert some spare Imperial Wargalley models I've had for years into Chaos Deathgalleys and have been trawling eBay for ships to go with them. This has taken a while since I am unwilling to pay the massively inflated prices some sellers seem to want. 

Anyway, finally all the ships for the initial Chaos fleet have arrived and I've been having fun assembling them. There's 850 points there so to make it up to the standard 1000pts I'll have to add a bit, but that can be done with Chaos Rewards, or I do have other ideas... 

In addition the second Imperial Greatship arrived which means I'll be able to play a different 1000pt fleet from the one I've been stuck with for the last 20 years.

Of course the Imperial Griffons I just finished painting will also help with the variety.

I can't leave my Dwarves out of it! They also need some variety, and that's where the balloons come in...

... and the Gyrocopters which will be being painted next! I've wanted some of these for years!

Yes, that's a lot of Man O'War...

Edit... as requested some photos of all my Man O'War collection. They are stored in a 4 litre Really Useful box attached to the bottom with Blu Tac.

Necromunda - Underhive Scum and Ladders

After the game of Necromunda a couple of weeks ago one of my Juves, "Squirt", died. To replace him I bought an "Underhive Scum" hired gun. This has meant I've had to buy a new model. I had a good search around and decided to go with one of the original Citadel models, the one with a plasma gun and autopistol. This will fit in well with the "Gunfighter" skill which will allow him to shoot both each turn.

We also noticed that the Deadzone terrain we used was rather lacking in ladders. So I got these inexpensive MDF ones from Warbases. 

Dreadball Mechanites Team (Argh!!!)

When I first srarted Dreadball the team that most interested me was the Robots, so when the Dreadball Xtreme Kickstarter had the Mechanite team in it was going to be my favourite.

It's not my favourite any more....

For this month's Painting Oath I oathed the Ada Lorena team and the Mechanite team. The Ada Lorena team were a breeze to paint. The mechanites somewhat less easy.

First of all I spent 2 or 3 hours pouring over the rules in the Season 5 book trying to get the parts supplied into a team with more than the minium 6 players at 100 points. Even with the use of a spreadsheet this was no easy task. I really hope Mantic have a team builder planned for this team!

Once I decided on the team structure I built up the models. This was fiddly and was not helped since I can't use superglue due to hypersensitivity to the fumes and had to wait for two part expoxy to dry. Then to really annoy me every single glue joint failed. Arms, legs and heads just came apart in my hands.

I switched to another brand of expoxy and also did some pinning and the second time round they stuck together far better. Though still if you pull at a limb it will come off.

So then I started the painting. I decided on a brightly colours scheme with colour coded roles for the players. Part way through I looked at some of the Jacks... Hang on... They didn't have the correct arms to pass the rules... ARGH!! 

So with some changes of limbs to models and the resolution that I'd only have 6 players in the team of 100 points I continued. 

Finally today shortly before writing this post I finished them. They were by far the most painful Dreadball team to date.

French Napoleonic 80 gun ship

So the last of the unstarted 20-year-old langton ships in my collection has finally been finished. This is an 80 gun French 3rd rate.

And here she is with the rest of my little fleet. I plan to add a 100 gun 1st rate ship to finish off and then start another nationality. I fancy doing Spanish. Of course all that will require another order to langtons.

Edit: Since posting this I have been reliably informed that in fact the hull is British. I'm not sure how that has happened since I don't think I ever bought anything British from Langtons. Also the braces are rigged incorrectly. 

Well she's going to have to stay as she is and be a captured British ship. When I get my next batch from Langtons then I'll get their new rigging guide which has come highly recommended and hopefully then such mistakes will be a thing of the past.

Flames of War Plastic SU100 and SU85

It's been a long time since I painted anything for my Flames of War armies and I've had a box of Plastic Soviet Tank Killers (SBX31) sat part finished on the shelf for a long time.

So I finally got round to completing them ready for a game on Monday.

SU100s

SU100

... "But, you said you only had one box of Tank Killers, there's only 5 in that box and you have 10 tanks there!!!"