White Dwarf 485

 

 Time to have another look at an issue of the Games Workshop in home magazine, White Dwarf.

 

At the beginning of the year, at the Aalst Underworlds tournament, I obtained a nice stack of older magazines for nought, and been flicking through them on and off.

 

Now, let's have a look through it after reading them, and have some opinions.  I do say, I am not into the whole 40k universe thing for years, so those won't be getting to much attention on my part for the reading, but the things that caught my intrest I read of course. 

 

A Khorne Berzerker graces the cover, as they star in a battle report to liberate Kharn himself.   

 

And so we first kick of with the community articles as usual, before World of Warhammer tells about setting scenery in your games.

 

And then we go to the Mortal Realms at first, with Flashpoint Rondhol and more rules for this campaign.  We then get a look at Gods and Monsters in a showcase.  Rules of Engagement takes a look at playing two player campaigns and the charms this brings along, before we get a fun article of Warcry to bring Gloomspite Gitz to the system, including Bladeborn rules for Grinkrank's Looncourt from Underworlds into the fold and with all their needed cards included.  Glory Points look at the formats in Underworlds (well, still the first edition back then), as we get then a look at a Tale of 4 Warlords over the years. 

Moving on to the 40k setting, more material is included for the Arks of Omen setting and the Herald of Misery flashpoint as such.  This includes a big lot of scenario's, and thoughts on playing Boarding Patrol games.  This leads to the battle report from the cover as Imperial forces try to hold off the crazed followers of Khorne.  The magazine also includes the first part of a new Necromunda campaign, the Aranthian Succession, together with a painting gallery of the models in the range.

 

So no, not really a magazine down my alley, even though the Warcry stuff was fun, but not my army that I'm playing.

 

 

 

 

Thunderbolts

 Based on, but very unlike, the comic series of the same name, Thunderbolts is about a team of the most unlikely superheroes.

 

In the comics, it was Baron Zemo who saw an opportunity when he wanted to reform the Masters of Evil to step into the void the Avengers and the Fantastic Four left, presumed all dead, to get to power through public apporval.  And those weren't D-rank villains like the Suicide Squad...

 

But probably to avoid confusion with the DC team of convicts, the movie instead goes to unite some of the side-characters from previous Marvel MCU movies and bring those together.  The "new" Black Widow Yelena, Red Guardian and Taskmaster (also both from the Black Widow movie), US Agent (Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Ghost (Ant-man and the Wasp) and Winter Soldier are brought together due to circumstances.  

 

Bar Bucky and Red Guardian, they are all secret agents working for Valentina De Fontaine, who is trying to cover up evidence for the OXE "Sentry" project.  She sends them all to the same facility in order for them to kill each other, and Taskmaster is shot in the head by Ghost.  They find a guy named Bob there, and make their escape right before the room is incinerated.

 

When her troops arrive to take them out, Bob draws fire and is shot, but seemingly unharmed, before flying high in the air and crashing back to the compound, taken in by Valentina.  Her new headquarters, the Watchtower, is the former Avengers building in New York, where she figures out the Sentry project worked on Bob.   The group, now led by Bucky to stop Valentina and bring her to trial, face her, but are quickly overcome by Bob, now called Sentry.  As they manage to get through to him, his dark alter ego, Void, emerges and starts transferring people to a dark dimension made up of their trauma's.

 

Yelena enters his consciousness by stepping into this void, slowly getting to him and making him come to his senses.  His Void alter ego tries to stop them from getting out, but the others arrive to save them, and with their help Bob overcomes his inner darkness, restoring the city to normal and freeing the trapped people.  The moment they want to arrest Valentina though, she quickly flips it around in a publicity stunt, introducing them as the new Avengers to help protect humanity now as the newest superhero team.

 

In the post credits scene, they are discussing a trademark issue with the Avengers name with Falcon, when a signal from an extra-dimensional spacecraft bearing a large '4' signal comes in... 

 

Apart from the fact Florence Pugh is a joy to look at, this was a fun movie.  You can already feel the Thunderbolts are going to take the role of the Guardians of the Galaxy as the "comic relief" movies in the mCU, and with Sentry an absolute powerhouse has also been introduced into the franchise.  And we all know with that post credits scene who are coming as well... 

Hobgoblin Cutthroats

 Roight, I finally painted up a full unit for my large Chaos Dwarf army, and this time it's some Hobgoblins.

 

Well, except it actually aren't Hobgoblins, but bear with me...

 

A while ago, and with this project in mind, I obtained 6 boxes second hand of Oathmark Orcs, with second hand being an overstatement, they had been opened once to have a look at the sprues and that was it.

 

But as the Oathmark models are 28mm and not the bulky heroic orcs of Games Workshop, think more Lord of the Rings Mordor plastics in size.  Apart from that, they also have a very human build, like in various fantasy books, and Dungeons and Dragons back in the day, how Hobgoblins are actually depicted.

 

That meant they would be perfect use to make the big blocks of cheap, expendable infantry for the Dawi Zharr, and with a Border Patrol tournament at the club coming up at the end of august, I decided to paint up one of my blocks of these just for that.

 

I went for earthen and leathery tones for them, like I did with the metal Legends of the Five Rings a few years ago, and tied them into my army by painting the shields the dark blue and gold colours I use on my Dawi Zharr armour. 

 

The flag was made by printing out one of the old Hobgoblin banners, orientate it to single side downwards position and then cutting some openings and edges to fit with the skulls on the banner and the relative short flagpole. 

 

And while I will need only 12 on the day itself, I made it myself easy and just went for a full regiment of 20 for them in one go...

 

Now to still assemble three more boxes of them, guess it's nightshift time for that... 

Shardspeaker of Slaanesh

 Time to start slowly painting on the Slaanesh Spearhead, and of course that means the general of the force is the first to get some paint.

 

And she was great fun to do with the eldritch energies around her staff and the flowing robes.

 

A Shardspeaker is a seer, and his biggest role on the field of battle being adding Depravity points to your pool, as it is not a close combat general at all. 

 

Now, I painted her as a first model this time for my Spearhead, in order to get set on a colourscheme before tackling the rest of the exstatic Hedonists.  Of course, purple will be the dominant colour on the force, and I aim for a heap of pastel's for the steeds of Slaanesh, but need to think on those first.

 

Now to move on to the next unit of the set, probably some Slaangor... 

On the Painting Desk 339

 Okay, the Chaos Dwarfs are here, so putting time in any other army is not happening anymore.

 

That is the result of living on Copium for decades... so expect nothing else but Dawi'Zharr models on this desk as we work through them in eager awaiting of the new Age of Sigmar line.

 

But as I also have no least then two 2k The Old World tournaments still on the calendar, three if you count the Border Patrol event, I'm going to be painting up the required baggage train, along with probably some additional war machines that go on the required 50x75 bases.

 

First things first though, and this week I want to finish the final Sneaky Gitz to round out the unit this month, as well as make some good progress on the Da Kunnin Krew whom I'll be taking with a "fluff deck" as a slaveforce of Hashut to the Mines of Alost III, to pave the way for when the The Blood of the Bull warband arrives.

 

Time to get painting the coming weeks, as half of august I'm away on holidays and that will cut in the available paint time! 

 

 

The Old World 500pts battle: Chaos Dwarfs vs Tomb Kings Royal Host

 So after a game of Blood Bowl, and waiting for the announcement video on Games Workshop's stream tonight, it was time to fit in a game of The Old World.

 

This was mainly to try out for the Border Patrol tournament in september, which has a 500 point limit with a whole set of restrictions, more on that in the relevant post when the tournament comes round.

 

But this will be the force I'll be taking along, the Cutthroats (Oathmark orcs) and Sneaky Gitz painted in the past two weeks.  I'll feature them in detail when I painted up the remainder of their units for the collection, but at the moment I just went for the models I will be needing.  My Darkforged weapon came up as having Life Bane, that might be handy if I managed to get to his general.

 

Facing me was the tournament organiser Steven, and his army of  Tomb Kings, and I felt severly outnumbered.  His army contained the following:

 

Tomb Prince with Language of the Priests and Armour of Meteoric Iron

A single chariot.

A unit of 3 chariots.

22 Skeleton infantry consisting of 10 archers and 10 spearmen, champion and standard.

5 skeleton horse archer Chariot Runners.

 

The scenario from the tournament pack was on regular kill points, and the relic in the middle of the board gives Hatred and a lot of immunities to the unit controlling it.

 

The lines where drawn, and as I won the first turn roll off, by the scenario I needed to take first turn.  Both sides as such advanced towards each other, with the single loose chariot taking off on an encircling movement.

 

 The Sneaky Gitz arrived on the field, taking down two horsemen, before everything clashed in a huge cluster around the relic.  In his turn the skeletons and the chariots clashed into the Infernal Guard and Hobgoblins to poor results, my warriors winning the combat but my general failing to hit his.  Then the gitz fell in the back of the chariots while the Fireglaives clashed in his side.

 

These large numbers proved to be to much evem for the binding will of the Liche Prince, and the chariots, who where downed to one chariot with a single wound left crumbled to dust.  Note: my opponent refuses the "second regeneration" and will take this up in the tournament pack as well.  Clearly that is something mistakenly worded in the 1.5 FAQ and not intended to be there.

 

The light chariot crashed into the back of the warrior unit, but the little tanks held on, while the skeleton horsemen moved to be in the way of the Fireglaives, preventing them from going in the flank of the big skeleton unit. 

 

The Senechal, again failing to hit the Prince, fell to the blows of the undead lord, and his Helshard only exploded for a single hit, which to add insult to injury failed to wound.

 

 Both units held their line, the Fireglaives charging the horsemen and the Sneaky Gitz smashing in the flank.

 

 This was now my 4th turn, and the Chaos Dwarfs decisevely won the combat with the skeletons, the chariot falling apart and the big unit needing to take so many crumbling casualties only his front rank would remain.  Steven called it there, we didn't even fight out the horsemen combat as they would already start at a negative combat resolution and would totally crumble as well.  Wihtout any freak things, his entire army would literally fall to dust by the end of his fourth round, so we didn't count the exact points, but it would be my Senechal versus his entire army...

 

And so the forces of Hashut took away the victory against the forces of the Tomb Kings, now to find a skeleton model to add to the ranks of my enslaved trophy unit... 

Warchief

 Movie time with this 2024 UK made fantasy movie!

 

Now, this is the kind of low budget barely B-movie level movies that seem to be made by a group of friends and their LARP community, and I like those, they radiate a certain love and pureness for the material.

 

The movie opens with a raid on a village by Orcs, whom we don't get to see by the way.  A trio of warriors, consisting of Orion, Griff and Arlo, accompany a mysterious cowled man called the Messenger, with a message for the king's ears only.  It doesn't take long though before they run into trouble as they stumble upon a group of plague victims, resulting in the death of Arlo.

 

When they hear the Orc warchief call to his soldiers, they try and make haste.  During their flight, we often look back at Orion's early life, from a little village boy to becoming a Guardian, who are a caste of warriors tasked with safely bringing their charge to their destination, no questions asked.

 

But the Orcs catch on to them, vastly outnumbering them as they learn the Messenger wants to double-cross the humans.  In the ensuing battle, Griff gets to explore on the spot some of her nascent magic abilities and manages to kill the Messenger, while Orion is brutally decapitated by the Orc Warchief, who is an actual fighter and not a barely trained farmhand who never been into the world.

 

The mission as a result becomes a total failure, and the Orcs start their war on the human kingdoms, as we see another village being burned to the ground as the films comes to an end.

 

So yes, an open and not-so-happy ending, which I thought was actually a nice twist, instead of the guy that paid for all of it saving the day as often happens in these types of movies.  Will it ever get a sequel to see how the war plays out?  Doubtfull to be honest.

 

But I would watch it though!

 

 

Efteling Fotoboekje 2021

 The third aspect of my Efteling collection, these little yearbooks are basically pictured catalogues of the amusement park.

 

Released every year, they tend to go in the souvenir shops for around 4.00 euro, so I'm scrawning through second hand markets to look for them at a decent price range.

 

And the first I found for my collection is the 44th booklet they released, the 2021 edition.  In this clip, I'm having a flick through it, so join along to have some excellent insights into the Efteling theme park!

 

Now to try and collect the other ones as well, which won't be an easy task for sure!

The Old World 500pts battle: Chaos Dwarfs versus Beastmen

 A 500pts game tonight as we do some try out for the Border Patrol tournament I'll be playing in september, and Steven was my opponent bringing his Beastmen to the table.

 

And it was a seriously savage army facing my Dawi'Zharr line of mighty warriors... and not so mighty Hobgoblins.

 

While my army had a senechal with Darkforged weapon and Helshard, joining a unit of warriors with hand weapon, shield and full command, as well as a unit of 10 Fireglaives as it's core, I also brought some levy along.  This was a unit of Hobgoblins with handweapon and shield, and a unit of 10 Sneaky Gitz for some behind the lines annoyanceing. 

 

His list consisted of a level 1 shaman with Deamonology on a Tuskgor chariot, an additional Tuskgor chariot, and a unit of 11 Gor with the True-horn and a standard bearer.   His smaller units included a 10 man short bow Ungor herd, a Razorgor (T5 3W impact) and oh-oh, a Dragon Orge Shartak (that's a save 3+, T4 W4 beast, how the heck do I kill that!).  That's a lot of impact hits thundering my way!!

 

Well, at least I have the numbers this time, but the question will be if we can hold against the savage slaughter that would come my way... and what better way to have them come my way then to hug the hill.  We played the second scenario of the tournament pack, in which you either must score the most in 6 turns, or if your army drops below it's Break Point (a tournament special rule).  My Darkforged weapon in the meantime turned out to be Hell-Forged.

 

As I won the roll, I had to take the first turn, and moved my regiments a little bit forward to take the charges, and bring the Fireglaives in range for the next turn, as the Beastmen advanced towards my line.

 

The Sneaky Gitz turned up behind the Dragon Ogre,  and together with the Glaives managed to take out 3 of the beasts 4 wounds.

 

The Razorgor however charged into the poor Hobgoblin slaves, snorting like crazy... and missing almost everything, the brave slaves actually holding the line after winning the combat.

 

To add more insult to the big beast, the lowly Hobgoblins actually took the beast down.  I said it many times, don't mess with the Hobgoblins!

 

 But their tribulations weren't over, as it was the Dragon Ogre that now plowed into them.  And once again they actually won and forced the beast 2 inches back...  The Infernal Guard and the senechal prepared themselves for the charge of the Gors and the Shaman on his chariot, while the Sneaky Gitz kept tossing kitchen utensils at the Ungors...

 

As the struggle between the Dragon Ogre and the Hobgoblins continued, the Gors charged in, but the Shaman, suffering from Stupidity thanks to his deities, failed his test and wasn't allowed to thunder in. 

 

The Infernal Guard soundly beated the goatmen, and they ran off, the pursuit taking them out of the charge arc of the chariot and the Shaman.

 

 The Shaman then charged the Hobgoblins, who somehow STILL where keeping their ground against the massive Dragon Ogre, even though they couldn't pinch off the final wound.

 

 The Tuskgor chariot thundered through the remaining two Ungors, and into the Sneaky Gitz, and decimating them the lone survivor decided to leg it.

 

 The Hobgoblins where taking to much damage and ran off the field, the Dragon Ogre in pursuit and off the table for a moment.

 

 The shaman turned his chariot now towards the Fireglaives on the hill...

 

 ... while the Infernal Guard kept moving after the now rallied Gors, ready to take them on should they care for another bout.

 

 As the Dragon Ogre and Tuskgor joined for the charge on the Fireglaives, the Shaman having failed his Stupidity once again, he was down to his last wound after a mighty volley from the guns.

 

The charge did come though from the other two units, and the Dragon Ogre was gunned down in the stand and shoot, while the Tuskgor chariot charged in but failed to trouble the armoured Dawi'Zharr to much, the combat tied in this last turn for the Beastmen.

 

The points where tallied, and it was a solid victory for the Chaos Dwarfs.  We had lost only both Hobgoblin units, mounting up a measly 108 points, while Steven had lost the Dragon Ogre and Razorgor, lost points for the Ungors and for his General being under 25% of his starting wounds.

 

Glory to hashut, and that means a trophy model to paint up for my slave regiment! 

Blood Bowl match report: Elfheim Union versus Vongalazthag Violators

 Time for another Blood Bowl match report in the club league, and I'm still with my back against the wall for the ranking.  Will this be the match the sleeping giant finally awakens?

 

And I will tackle them with knives and alchemical flame!

 

I lost the first league game against these pesky dodge elves, but now I'm bringing two Bull Centaurs and a Minotaur, as well as a trainload of additional skills, including a Flamesmith with Block and Tackle... many hopes rest on his shoulder tonight.  

 

I know he will always line-up with three lowly linemen at the kicking end, who'll dodge away at first chance, so they will have to be taken down immediatly... and hopefully the Sure Hands and Pro skills will help actually getting the ball of the floor and to the needed players...

 

I was forced to kick off first,  launching the ball in his half before starting to push up the line as he didn't get away fast enough.  Unfortunatly, it where only some stunned results.

 

 His thrower went to collect the ball, and as most of his line was down he started to look for an opening for them to slip through.

 

 One of them tried to go through the right field, but was collected by The Raging Trainwreck and Fixit and knocked over before a pass could come his way.

 

 But on the other side, his star blitzer slipped through, and we failed to intercept his pass.  The ball landed in the hands of the elf, merely squares away from my end zone.

 

But Carven Loreflame reached him, and belched a ball of alchemical fire, knocking the blitzer over. 

 

The ball scattered into his waiting hands, but as soon as he turned around two swift elves ganged up on him, whom dodged through the lines to try and take back the ball.

 

The ball fell to the floor, but as more Chaos Dwarf players came to aid, we didn't get any of them down.

 

 In the meantime, his injury box was filling, with two already taken out, so that would give me an additional league point unless I suffered a casualty myself.

 

On the other side of the pitch, the Chaos Dwarfs where causing havoc, smashing over elf after elf.  if we could get that ball out of my half, the road to the end zone was wide open.

 

 But elves being elves, and who cares seemingly about tackle zones, while my players could just stare ar that nimbleness.

 

The star blitzer scrambled up, received the ball, and scored the 0-1 after the Raging Trainwreck was injured, but healed by the apothcary, in a one die block... and that wouldn't be the last time a one die block went purely his way with a full smash.

 

We set up again for the final turns of the half, Numbers coming on the pitch to try and pick up the ball. 

 

Which he duly did, only to fumble the pass to the The Raging Trainwreck, who could have launched himself for the equaliser as the whole field was wide open after the Chaos Dwarf demolition works...  

 

The half ended, and we set up to receive at the start of the second one.

 

 His front line was pushed over again, as Numbers went to pick up the ball once again.

 

However, his pass failed again (heck, at least we are picking it up now), so far for Pro, and it fell amongst my players. 

 

And guess what, of course some elf comes in, dodges and picks it up before dodging out again without failing a single roll, helped by the fact Hot Milky Nipples started to rage at some clouds for three turns in a row...

 

 Ragnoth Karadras went to greet some of the fans in the meantime on the other flank...

 

We could take down the running elf though, but unfortunatly the position was swamped with more of them, so it wouldn't be easy to collect the ball. 

 

And the blitzer cut through the tackle zones as a knife through hot butter, scoring a 0-2 and my only remaining chances where now to pull out a draw at most.

 

 We lined up to receive the pass, but Numbers got into an argument with the referee, being stunned by him...

 

A sudden flash of a knife from one of the Stabbaz plunged into the heart of an elven lineman, and even with his apothecary ended up with two time a dead result.  We might lose, but that pesky elf won't tell the tale.

 

 The Raging Trainwreck got the ball, and the Chaos Dwarfs started to pummel their way through the line of scrimmage.

 

Going in tandem with Cochones Grande, both Bull Centaurs went to the right flank to try and score the goal of grace.

 

 But alas, the swift elves ran over, and another one die block took down The Raging Trainwreck, causing him to drop the ball.  Two strength 4 Bull Centaurs versus three strength 3 elves and still he manages to pummel me over on a full hit...

 

 We did manage to pick it up again though, but time had ran out and the Bull centaurs where now locked on the flank of the pitch, and couldn't reach the end zone anymore.

 

 To add insult to injury, he then proceeded to knock over Cochones Grande again on a one die block, and again with a full smash, he didn't fail a single one of the one die blocks against models with Block, rather frustrating, but the game ended 0-2.

 

Cochones Grande was elected MVP, so he is close to getting to pick his first skill up, and having caused 5 casualties we picked up at least a second point for the League.  We crawled back into the 8th position for the moment, and reached our 10 games requirement to be allowed to enter the play offs at least.  But I really, really need that win left or right to consolidate myself in that top-8, as it is very, very close between spots 7, who has 21 points, and 10 with 16 points... 

 

Let's see if we manage next time...