Warhammer Underworlds: Hrothgorn's Mantrappers

 Now this is a warband I painted with a mission!

When I finally got my hands on this all but forgotten warband, I just heard a voice inside my head telling me my hobby motto: F*ck the META.

I just needed to paint this warband up, and build a Nemesis deck for them to take them to a tournament in the future!

When I got my hands on the warband in a recent lot haul, I just loved the huge over the top crossbow he hauls along.  And to that end, I wanted to paint him up.  

Now, his warband is a pure "voltron style" band, his Rivals deck for example are almost all objectives the leader scores and the upgrades are mainly for him as well, even able to push him to 8 wounds, making him the biggest badboy in the game.

Now, my plan for him is to connect him with Rimewyrm's Bite after the Under-Ekeren tournament, as the deck is currently melted together with my Dread Pageant.  The ping damage should compensate for the minor damage the three gnoblar attendants dish out, and it has some objectives that should be easily do-able with the ogre / cat tandem.

For the cat I went for an icy colourscheme, allowing it to blend good into the lore, while the gnoblars had a regular greenish skin and brown furs, nothing to fancy on them.

And of course, there is the trap as well, which basically turns a hex into a lethal hex XXL, the goal being to goad / push the enemy onto it for a juicy automatic 2 damage.

I'm curious how he will play for sure, and look forward to try him out in a month or two on our casual game nights!

Warhammer Underworlds Battlereport: Skaeth's Wild Hunt vs Fomoroid Crusher - Desecration

 Time for the second confrontation between noble Skaeth and his Wild Hunt against the savage Fomoroid Crusher in scenario 2 of A Crushing Terror.

And this is kind of the hardest one if you read the battleplans, as you face a ferocious beast out to toss objectives at your head, inspiring along the way.

And with all his special abilities, it won't be easy to do the needed 12 damage swiftly... or will it?  Especially as the Crusher has Breaker in his activations, dealing an automatic 3 damage to an adjacent enemy and as such almost autokilling every Kurnothi...

 

 

So the Wild Hunt deployed, circling the mighty Crusher, as their opening hand was drawn.

The Crusher immediatly goes into action, charging Lighaen, but misses the nimble little cat completely.

In retaliation, Sheoch strikes the beast for 2 damage.

But the little beasts luck ran out, as the Breaker action immediatly smashes it down, and I salvaged an upgrade card for him.  In these scenario's, as no glory can be scored, upgrades are given automatically after a fighter's activation.

Skaeth thunders across the battlefield, his hooves impacting on the back of the Fomoroid and doing two points of damage, and giving him the Shield Slash upgrade.

Sheoch in the meantime is smacked down by the lumbering giant.

Karthean joins the fray, in an effort to keep Skaeth alive, and wounds the beast for yet another two, taking it down to 4 wounds remaining and getting an upgrade as well.

 

Which he won't have much joy from, as he is taken out by the brute next.

In the final activation of the first round, Althaen shoots another wound off the tally from the beast.

And so with the first round ending, the beast already suffered 7 hits out of his 10, as he keeps getting locked in combat to prevent it from inspiring.

The power cards are replenished for the second round as Skaeth inspires himself.

 

The Breaker attack hits the leader for 3 damage, but as he has 4 wounds, he has that one chance to make a difference as I salvage some more power cards.

And he attacks with his Shield Slash, scoring that important Critical Hit to allow him to do the full three damage, as the Crusher can't defend against a crit and a success.

With a load roar, the Crusher topples and the Sylvaneth are victorious!

So that is the second game of the three scenarios ran with the Wild Hunt, and I must say it went amazingly swift.  But now onwards to the finale, where the monster will be inspired, and a LOT more dangerous!

 

 

2D6 Sword and Sorcery

 Time for another ruleset I had a look at, and thatis 2D6 Sword and Sorcery by 2 Hour Wargames.

Amd this set can be found pretty cheap on the DriveThru website.

Written by Ed Teneira, this is a so called beer & pretzels game focussing on fun and ease to play, aimed at causal and new players to get a game in swiftly without to much work beforehand.  And as the title says, you onle need 2d6 to roll...

The game allows for a variety of modes of play, like a loner that goes on encounters with monsters, or leader of a warband, and these both in solo, co-op and opposing forms, and it plays on a 12x12 area.  The game is of course, like so many indendant game systems, miniature agnostic.

Every figure is classified as either Grunt or Star, the grunts being controlled by the system, and the stars by the players, who have two advantages: Star Power and Free Will, which can make for some really hollywood style heroic actions.  They also have a Reputation that show how experienced the models are, and it can go up and down during the course of a campaign, depending how succesfull you are.  Every model also has a class, which can be either Missile, Melee or Caster.  And of course, one of them will be the Leader.

The warband contains a number of models equal to your Rep score, so the better you fare, the bigger your warband becomes, determined by a roll on the table to see what you obtain.  The game uses a simple system of a d6 versus the Rep, with a natural 6 always failing.  Movement is unlimited, as this is basically a gladiator style game and you can go into combat at will.  Spellcasters have three spells at their disposal, which can be their action for the turn.

Shooting follows a similar system of hitting, with cover depending on the type of encounter that might generate terrain, before coming to the bread and butter: melee.  After a succesfull charge, again measured against your Rep, you can engage your enemy.  But even if your combat goes badly, you can still recover out of fight models, hence the willpower of your star.

 

Once the dust settles, you roll on the After the Battle table to see is anyone returns from the fallen soldiers of your warband.   

Next you get the rules for the "AI" of the game system, and how encounters will happen, being the same for solo and co-op modes.  The various types of Encounters are then explored, before going to the short army lists of models you can either recruit or face on the table.

So, it looks like a nice little game, and in the not so close future I will definitly give it a solo try.  So once that happens, you will of course read all about it on here!

WarCry The Horns of Hashut

 Hashut has returned in the Age of Sigmar lore, and while hinted at often, now the bull-headed Father of Darkness finally showed his forces.

Well, sort off...

Apart from two Chaos Dwarfs amongst other warbands in WarCry (the Iron Golems and the Spyre Tyrants), Hashut got his own warband... filled with humans.

The lore explains these as slaves that go out to reclaim and explore other lands, or they and their families would be tortured to death, but not a single Chaos Dwarf overseer is with them.  Now that would have been cool though, the leader being a Dawi'Zharr but alas.

Never the less, I like the looks of these bull helmet warriors, and the flamehurler they bring along is top of the game system.  Add to that some of the best chaff with the Shatterers, and you have a warband that often can punch above it's weight.

But let's have a look at the painted models now that the warband is finished.

Ruinator Alpha with War Bident and Ruinator, the commanders of the force

 

 

Demolishers with a variety of gear, the basic warriors

 

 

Demolisher with flamehurler, just burn everything in range down

Shatterers, the lowest of the slaves ready to take the punches

So I went for of course the colourscheme of my main Chaos Dwarf force and bases, to keep it all in tone with each other.

So with (possibly) a third edition on the horizon, and with the WarCry axing of a few months ago where the Horns of Hashut where also retired from GW's production schedule, this might be a band not getting any rules anymore.

 

 

We'll see, and in the meantime I'll try to get at least one or two games in with them...

On the Painting Desk 300

 A jubilee edition, especially considering there has been a long hiatus in this series during the Lego days (and hence why it runs behind on the numbers of the same time starter Haul Report more or less weekly series).

But as we keep on brushing, that also means this sin't something special or so I fear.

I have been working mostly this week on the Orktober entry of Hedkrakka's, with some very good progress made on that part, aiming to finish them by the next week.

The same goes for the Idoneth Tidecaster, as I hope to get her done as well before the Age of Sigmar event that *might* happen in two weeks at the club.  That way, if I use the legends rules for the Underworlds warbands, I got 1000 points battle ready (not worthy, ready, mind you hehehe).

In the coming week I hope to finish up some more stuff, like some pillars standing off screen, in a vain effort to get the Battle Against the Grey badge this year on CDO, but with the Blood Bowl team coming in soon that counter is getting dramatic...

Well, we'll see next week what has gotten resolved...

Warhammer Underworlds casual night: Sheer Brutality!

 So, three weeks to go before the Benelux Clash, and I changed warbands and decks and went out to field Hrothgorn's Mantrappers with Breakneck Slaughter.

Because all the dancing around with the vampires wasn't my thing, and this build is just pure hardcore brutality instead.

 

 

Facing me tonight would be Peter, who also still is trying to figure out what he would be taking along, trying out the Hungering Parasite with The Headman's Curse combination for two games of sheer brutality!

 

 

Both led by a "big boy", the bands deployed for the first game of their slugmatch!

 

 

Bushwakka quickly scurried forward, tossing his trap on the objective just across no-man's land. 

The Gnoblar's scrambled, Bushwakka retreating as Quiv moved up to provide Hrothgorn with some much needed arrows for his trap launcher.

But the Bearer of the Block suddenly materialized at the other side of the table, right next to Thafnir. 

The Wielder of the Blade charged the poor companion, and the tiger's nimbleness couldn't save it as the blade swooped down and felled the big kitten.

Luggit and Thwak however quickly avenged Thafnir, slapping the Sharpener of the Blade into Bushwakka's trap and finishing the ghost as such.

Bushwakka was besieged now by the Wielder of the Blade, and quickly fell to the mighty ghost's parasite ping, but at least that wouldn't bring back the Sharpener for now.

The first round as such ended at a 4 to 7 for the Headsman.

 

Hrothgorn launched a bolt at the Wielder of the Blade, and put a Move token on the big guy as a result thanks to the Gotcha card. 

The big ghost flew off, but the ogre chased after him as a battering ram, wounding the monster and pushing him along as a result.

Quiv thought his moment come, and the brave gnoblar charged the Wielder of the Blade, damaging him once and pushing him in the lethal hex.  This caused the sixth wound (he had an upgrade for +1 wounds) and ending the executioner.

But that still left the Scrivener and the Bearer of the Block to deal with, and Quiv is king as he dodged the attack from the Bearer of the Block.

But alas, this couldn't last and soon after the little guy went down, again pinged by the parasite...

Then the Sharpener returned thanks to a ploy card, and this left Hrothgorn in a pickle.

At the end of the second turn, it stood 7-9 for the Headsman.

Luggit and Thwak fell to the combined ghostly assault, but not all was lost.  If Hrothgorn would be able to take someone out in every activation, it might still be doable as I had my 5 glory for wiping the enemy in hand.  With the Scrivener at 2 wounds, the Sharpener at a single and the Bearer at 4... it might be turn out if all the attacks went my way.

The Bearer was the first to fall to the big ogre (which I forgot to Inspire d'oh, first game ever and such).

But missing the traplauncher shots next, the ghosts retreated to safe distances, and while we scored objectives, the Parasite ones scored bigger, netting the Headsman's Curse a 10-15 victory in the end.

So that called for a rematch between both big guys!

We deployed once again, with me opting to make the stacked passage the minimum width.

Hrothgron immediatly thundered forward to try and score the first attack surge, and failed miserably, only pushing the Wielder of the Blade back.

As the Scrivener drifted forward, Bushwakka tossed his trap into his path.

The Bearer of the Block went after Luggit and Thwak, taking out the dynamic duo swiftly.  

But Thafnir pounced on the Scrivener, pushing him into the trap and out of the game.

The first round ended as such with a 4-4 score on the board.

In the second round, Bushwakka became the centre of attention now for the ghosts, and was felled by the Wielder of the Blade, allowing him to bring back the Scrivener.

 

The Bearer of the Block next took down Quiv, as the plucky gnoblars became singled out and where all out of the game, leaving Hrothgorn and Thafnir to do the dirty work.

Thafnir took down the Sharpener of the Blade, resulting in him and Hrothgorn getting inspired as the ghost was adjacent to my leader.

Fortunatly, Hrothgorn used his crossbow shot against the Bearer of the Block though and this mostly to pull him out of my territory to score Eager for the Fight and Too Slow, and the second round ended with a 12-8 lead for the Mantrappers.

Going into the third, and the Wielder of the Blade having been forced to ping itself twice in a row now, the big ghost took down Thafnir in a devastating charge, and bringing back the Sharpener as a result.

Hrothgron however immediatly avenged his faithfull companion, taking the big ghost out.

Everyone was now huddled around the middle of the board, as it became an all against the now 8 wounds big ogre.

 

His crossbow thwanged, and the Scrivener was shot down by the mighty trap launcher.

But the ghost was brought back once again, and saving as such the parasite wearing Sharpener to take the ping damage instead.  However, with both scoring three glory in the last end phase, the sheer brutality of Hrothgorn this game yielded a 20-14 victory!

So conclusion after the first games?  I will be changing two upgrades in the deck, but for the rest it is okay for me.  Sure, the 5 glory wipe em all is very situational and perhaps hard to score, BUT it is fun so I keep it in there.  I will be switching out two upgrades though, one allowing to draw two cards as an action and one allowing an edge hex teleport, for simpler, even more brutal stuff.

I might not go for the top spots at the Benelux Clash, but boy will I be the bully of the place hopefully hehehe...