Hammers & Swords 2019

This weekend saw the ressurection of my game club onto the Tournament Scene as a hoster of events.

I guess it must have been back in 2012 when the last one was hosted, then for Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and now after years of voidness we entered the scene again with a The 9th Age (the spiritual follow up of WFB) event.

We had put open 32 spots through T3 for the event, as that made it "manageable" in scale for a first timer, and the turn out was a success with 29 players actually attending, and three clubmembers alternating as the reserve player.

Price support was given by our sponsor, Het Magische Naaldje in Kapellen, and what an awesome heap it was to grant the players of the tournament.

On the same note, the club pitched in and sponsored the trophies for the event itself.

And in the meantime, our resident Orcish cook was sweltering away in the kitchen to make his Squig Con Carne...

Now back to business while the stew sputters, the tournament itself!  There where some drop dead gorgeous army present, and during the 3 rounds of battling I took the opportunity to put some of them to picture for this little corner of the internet. 

The distribution of armies was rather equal, as it didn't become a "mono faction event" as a result, the most common being like 3 players fielding the same force.

Over the course of the battles, I had some unexpected "work" as the software we selected decided to go in retardo modus and refused to add painting and fair play points to the total, and scrambled up some other small thing.  So I jumped back in the mid-2000s mindset of tournament organisation and took the best pc there is: by pen and paper...

It all seems to have ran smoothly though, and after many battle was fought, it was time for the award ceremony.

Coming out on top, was Guy Demeyere.

Next we had Best Painted, but as Nico Hermans, who won, had already left, he had told us to give his price to our only Youngblood present, Cedric.  But I do have a picture of his army.

In second place came Menno van Tergouw.

And the top-3 was rounded out by Ortwyn Lowijck.

We then proceeded to hand out prices down to 11th place, before we came to that said Youngblood again, Cedric, who also carried the Red Lantern today...

Hectic for sure after all those years, but I hope everyone had a fantastic day with our "return to the scene" tournament.  It was a pleasure helping to organise this, and now it's time to iron out some children diseases for a more polished event next year.

Thanks to all that attended, both as a player, volunteer or visitor, and see you in 2020!

The Haul Report 199

Another week, and a nice anime statuette with a decent "rack" arrived for the collection.

Yes, buxom bombshell Meiko Shiraki from Prison School has finally fallen in the mailbox, and now into the cabinet.

Yup, she is definitly in my top 3 of anime crushes

I also acquired some more books to read, in the form of three Middle-Earth ones through AwesomeBooks.

That should keep me company on the bus for sure.

More Lord of the Rings, for the MESBG also arrived this week.  Starting with a small order from Forge World, I just needed to have the special one week Mail to Order Bilbo Baggins, and in the meantime also grabbed a blister of Will Whitfoot and Baldo Tulpenny.

The final parcel is a small one, as my regular eBay seller saw me win an auction for an osgiliath veteran.

So a hefty loot this week, great times!

On the Painting Desk 113

Another week, and while not that much progress has been made, the desk looks totally different anyways.

Because I've shuffed those half finished havocs to the side, I really can't get myself around painting them for some reason...

On the other hand, the Morannon Orcs have arrived in MXM basecamp, and I hope to get them finished before the move packing up reaches the paint desk area in a few weeks.  I'll be doing them in batches of 4 to 5 and then flock them all together, that approach usually goes the smoothest.

Let's see how many of them and the Moria Goblins will get finished in the remaining 4 weeks!

What I Painted in September 2019

Walls.  Ceilings.  Now with most of the workmen done in the appartment for the plumbing, we could finally start tackling those things in earnest.

And yes, that means I wasn't doing much even during the two weeks of holidays I had this month...

Never the less, I did manage to get a good amount of work done, in the form of these...

My T`au commander and his accompanying drones got finished this month (at last?), an inbetweener from all the Middle-Earth violence.

For Noshi's force to play with, some more Rivendell warriors have been readied as well, in the form of a single archer and 5 swordsmen.

Another thing I completed was for the Hammer and Swords 9th Age tournament the club held the last weekend of september: some additional pieces of scenery in the form of CD terrain woodlands and ruins to put on the table.  And later into Middle-Earth...

That isn`t however all the scenery I completed, as I finished a sprue of the old Middle-Earth ruins as well this month.

Talking the 9th Age, my general has been completed for the force I decided to start for this game...

So a very modest 20 models where painted up, and it seems there won't be that much following in the coming months...

No Game No Life 2 - Yuu Kamiya

And so I finished the second volume of the novels from this most fantastic anime series.

Which also means I am going to need the next two or three soonish to continue reading, because now it starts getting intresting.

In this second volume, we go until right before the end of the anime itself, as the gamer siblings Sora and Shiro declare that they will take over the animal kingdom of Werebeasts.  To that end, they first defeat a Flugel, Jibril, who will follow the siblings as a servant from now on.

In the meantime, Stephanie has given the key to save Immanity to Sora, which unlocks the study of her mad king grandfather and contains knowledge on the Werebeasts and their game, knowledge that not only proves he wasn't mad after all, but might also bring victory to the monarchs of Elkia.

The book ends shortly before the end of the anime, as the battle and result as such of the nations game vs the Werebeasts is for issue 3, and we saw in the series how that went.  But after that, it is all new territory to read...

Middle-Earth Ruins

A small scenery project I finished this week, a sprue of the EXCELLENT Middle-earth ruins from Games Workshop.

Because with a tournament to be ran at the end of the month, every piece counts!

I always loved these simple yet nicely detailed corner ruin from the Tolkien range, as it has a good height (for 28mm), nice texture and fine details like the arch of the tallest piece.

The added benefit of finding them usually on BnB's for dirt cheap, make these some great thingies to expand collections of terrain.

And they are really smooth and swift to paint!

My 9th Age General: Imperial Prince Jung

So I finally bit the bullet and have started building my force for the 9th Age game, the spiritual follow up to the glorious Warhammer Fantasy Battles of old.

While I pondered hard on exactly which force to field (Infernal Dwarves being obvious candidates), when I saw Titan Forge's Dragon Empire I was sold.

Now, this means I'm going to use them as Empire of Sonnstahl for a force, but restrict myself to the forces they and some other manufacturers have available, as well the fact I always played Empire in WFB so have a general idea of what the army works like.

For the record: I played three armies over all the years I played WFB: Chaos Dwarfs, Wood Elves and The Empire

Now, I already read and heard that warmachines aren't dominant in th current meta, but big monsters are, yet I will be hauling along as many gunpowder devices along as I can, because that is just my style of play.

But my general (a model from the Bushido range) will be "riding" a dragon never the less.  Rulewise, he is an Imperial Prince as such, but the dragon model is a resin one I obtained years ago.  No idea what brand it is from (or even if it was made specifically for wargaming uberhaubt), and I love it so much I didn't want to cut in it.  So I decided to put my general actually in front of the beast, on a small raised rock in order to fit the 50x100 base (as the dragons cast base was already 40 wide, causing issues to fit a 20x20 on it as well).  Considering it's a single model for the rules anyways, this made no difference.

Now, I went for black armour, as I am greatly inspired by The Great Wall fantasy movie (see my report on that one past summer) and my forces will be reflecting those of themovies as such.  I'm also going for a minimum 3 tone colour scheme as well, to make the army really stand out on the table as highly colourfull.

So there we have it, and 840 points general for my 4500 point force, a serious heap out of the allowance (the dragon as well taking a bite - no pun intended - out of my Sunna allowance for the force) for characters, but it is just to cool to pass up.  I'll snibble down on points in other chracters then I guess, as this is going to be a tournament force, but I won't be playing for the win anyways.

Now to start building the first regiments!