TSA Age of Sigmar 5000 points multi-player

Yesterday I finally reached one of my goals now that I`m back into wargaming, and that is that I fielded my army at last.

Part of a 5000 points alliance, the game was to try out things for the Mega Battle coming in two weeks, and seeing how some things worked.

And we have some little things we have to look at, like the Seraphon Engine rolling an 18 or Skarbrand's unit wiped rule...

Now, the forces where on the one side 2500 Death (Jo), including Neferata, Mannfred and a lord on dragon, banded together with 2500 Stormcasts (David) with their Celestial Prime.

On our side there was the Seraphon with their Slann Mage (Mike), Khorne Deamons (Cedric) with a Bloodthirster and Skarbrand, both numbering 2000 points, and my 1000 points Order force with a simple Empire general feeling very, very small amongst all those big hitters / models.

We did a regular pitched battle, and soon the forces where ready to hack into each other.

Now, in the end we played 3 turns as time ran out, the clock nearing midnight, but I did learn some very, very valuable lessons.  Rulewise, I got to get out of the idea of charge arcs, as this cost me my light cavalry very early in the game.  Another thing I`ll be having serious adaptation to go, is the battleshock.  My Witch Elves decimated a Skeleton unit, but in the end ran off as they had suffered a few casualties in return.

But a more detailed look at how my own army did, is something I`ll be having a look at tomorrow or monday.

Highlights of the battle included a Bloodthirster smashing into a lord on dragon, only to do, well, nothing, while being decimated in turn.

Witch Elves + Hag + Witchbrew is one serious amount of dice for a small unit of semi-naked chicks.

Skarbrand is an utter monstrosity, rolling up almost the whole Stormcast flank by itself.

Neferata has a mean ability with the -1 to hit.  I learned that to hit is perhaps even more important in AoS, which is basically a smashfest instead of carefull manoeuvring for the perfect charge, then to wound.

Mannfred survived three rounds of combat against almost the whole Seraphon army with his save, ignore first wound, and healing shennanigans.

And here are some more pictures:

In the end, the battle was called a draw.  My army was decimated, as I only had my halberds and militia standing firm with my general (I LOVE the Empire Hold the Line command ability), and a hag on a single wound duking it out somewhere with some skeletons.

That meant our complete left flank was on the verge of collapsing, the flying blokes and the cav unit ready to crash into the as lightly wounded Seraphon army.  On the other side of the table, the Khorne force was on the point of collapsing the Stormcast line, so it would come down to a big centre battle.  In all honesty, it depended if we would get a 4th turn who would get the initiative...

Great fun, and while I will be expanding my Order force for sure, the "style" of this new fantasy setting has motivated me however to get those Slaanesh warriors up and running asap!

On the Painting Desk 6

Well, let`s start by saying I didn`t get as many work done on the Chaos Marines as I would liked to have done.

It`s been a busy week, and the coming one isn`t much better, while the one after that I will be away on holdiays... so I *hope* to get them in their "basic colours" this week.

So far, they have been "pinked and inked" and the next phase will be first a drybrush, followed by blacking in the non-pink parts.  That`s my goal for them the coming week, everything more will be bonus.

I did do some work on my Future War Commander force, with some support units and the Night Lords detachment, and in between working on the marines I hope to do at least the units that will go in my Emperor's Children force, basically everything from  the purple dreadnought until the right border.

So that`s a bit of work on the shelf, so let`s see how it turns out in a week!

Future War Commander: Night Lords Detachment

The latest set of figures I painted for my 6mm force, is this small section of Night Lords to go with my Emperor's Children.

Like the Alpha Legion, this is just a small contignent to break up the colour scheme, and as a test for the big 40k plans I have on Legions... to field over time 4 of them.

I picked some stands suitable for the legion, in that it has it`s own CO (painting that winged skull was misery) as well as a unit of Assault Marines, and a Land Speeder as support.

I went for fully red helmets to have some difference with that other dark blue detachment of the Alpha Legion, even though their pre-heresy scheme where dark blue and grey / silver for both of them. 

Next in the 6mm planning are more Emperor's Children, as well as a detachment of Word Bearers, but the coming week I`ll be focussing more on my 40k as I want to get my forces battle ready soonishly...

After School Special

A movie from a very special niche of films, being the "late night flicks" genre that, when your like a 14 year old hitting puberty, are those sorts of "black label" films.

You know, the ones that feature some nudity in them, but aren`t fully fledged adult movies, even though they often feature adult stars in them.

Like this one, who features cult icon Ron Jeremy amongst it's cast.  Now, while most of the actresses are known (or reknown) for some skills, acting per se isn`t amongst them.  The list of adult actresses succesfully pursuing a regular acting career is pretty short after all.

In this all over the place "action drama", teen stepbrothers, Danny, a wannabe entrepreneur, and Ajay, an artistic dreamer, pull off an elaborate prank on the last day of school. Caught in the act, they're assigned to a summer mentor: lascivious bar owner, Tyler Lavey. When Tyler enlists the boys to make a delivery to a private party, they unwittingly stumble upon an underground society hiding some very dirty secrets. After Tyler's own niece is taken captive, he turns to proteges Danny and Ajay and former CIA agent Grandma Alice to stage one kick-ass rescue.

Yeah, that`s a really intresting storyline don`t you think.  Well, it`s a horrible flick, even the fanservice is pretty low in this gig, so you wouldn`t even want to watch it for THAT reason anyways, and with all those free adult sites around the internet nowadays, even the puberal lure of these late night films is seriously dwindling.

But, I got a couple of them still having to be watched, so I`m going to struggle through seeing them,  realising I`ll be wasting an hour and a half of my life every time I watch one of these aberations of the movie industry.

Pray for my soul!

Build Report: 30284 Tractor

A while ago, Axel, guru behind the excellent 80s Geek blog, asked if I would be doing anything LEGO related still.

While the initial answer would be "no", that did make me decide to do at least all the remaining Build Report materials I still have on my hard drive, and that is still, well, quite a lot.

So expect me to be sharing those set builds I made in my LEGO hobby regularly now, right until I finished them all from the backlog, and today I`m picking up the series with a small polybag set from the Creator range, the Tractor from 2015.

Numbering 51 parts, this is a smallscale vehicle and as we open the bag we get the instruction leaflet and the pile of parts.

The base of the vehicle is a black 2x6 plate, to which a hinge is added at the back for it's pulley.

The bottom side of the vehicle is blue, so we commence by laying down these foundations, including the blue mudflap element.

The underside gets the wheel axles installed, which are placed at differing heights, in order to accomodate the height difference of the wheels.

We put down the engine cap and the seating next, and then a small canopy is build around this area.

Addind some details and the wheels, it's now pretty clear while the wheel axles have a plate in height difference.

The small plow is then assembled next, making use of robot arms and hands to build it`s structure.

Once attached, the set is complete

And of course, we have some left over parts

It`s a nice little vehicle if you like to build smallscale cities or to put on your desk if you work in agriculture, but I`m afraid that, as it isn`t suitable for minifigures and the likes, this isn`t the most sought after set released.

FWC Whirlwinds and Knight Lancer

I added some ranged support to my Future War Commander force today, as the varnish is drying on three more models for the 6mm force.

While they are "Imperial" models, they will serve the forces of the Prince of Pleasure with joy in my Emperor's Legion force.

For long ranged artillery support, two of the old metal Whirlwind artillery units have been added.  I hope to paint up an FAO for them in the coming week, for which I`ll be using the old Thudd Gunn model.  This will allow my force to get ranged in support during the battle.

I painted one of the Whirlwinds in the old purple colourscheme, while the second one got the flashier pink and black of the post Heresy colours.

Another piece of heavier support is a Knight Lancer.  One of the three old variants, this one looked the most Chaos-y with it's beaked head and "chicken walker" look.

It also served as a testbed for a lot of the purples and pinks I bought recently, like the Dechala and the Emperor's Children GW colours.

Next up to finish is my small detachment of Night Lords to go with the force, so they will hopefully be done and posted tomorrow.

TSA Dux Britanniarum Campaign # 1

Welcome to the first bunch of ramblings I`ll be doing the coming months about this game and campaign.

I enlisted, having never played the game, and I am going to put my thoughts during the run down here on this corner of the internet.

Now, today I picked up the rulebooks and cards from a buddy of mine, and I can start studying, but I already now my place, position, rank, lord etc etc as I rolled these up with the campaign master two weeks ago.

I`ll be taking up the mantle of Clustfeinad, Legatus of Glouvia, a 38 year old lord.  Located smack in the middle, my neighbours are another 1 province commander (Joeri, someone that joined the club during my sabbatical and I don`t know as such) and our Lord, Glenn (a bloke I know from day 1 at TSA, so that is going to work out I think).

map notes property of Jo

 

My other Nobles are the 21 year old Docidocus, and 22 year old Petif, while Meurig, my 22 year old champion will be fighting for land and the Lord Jesus Christ, as I have "catholic" as faith versus the pagans.  Which will be funny, considering my lord has ties with the Saxon invaders, being brother in law or something to the invaders ruler.

Of course I already shopped around for some upgrading, tossing down a watchtower and an old hill fort on my province, and as such upgrading rank to Legatus, and a Bard that accompanies me on my adventures.

Which from a tactical point of view won`t be the most adventurous of all, as I said, I still got to learn it all, and while my "game tactics" might be rusty as it has been ages since I played Dark Ages, I think I`ll be minding my own business in the initial months and years of the campaign.  bit of like "let me tend to my cows and my nuns" kind of approach.

Well, lets see how it`ll go!  Now to look for some figures to build my own force...

Alien Covenant

The sequel to Prometheus and the story leading to the tale of Alien, Covenant explores mostly what happened to Dr Shaw and David.

There is a small official clip on YouTube (and it will be on the BluRay) telling the journey of the survivors to their destination, the Engineers homeworld.

Ten years after Prometheus, the Covenant, a colony ship, is hit by a neutrino flare, damaging the ship.  This results in them picking up a signal playing "Country Road" from a nearby planet, and the crew decides to divert to that place instead of their target Origae 6.

However, upon arrival, some of the crew are infected by an alien pathogen, and soon creatures burst from their bodies.  This turns out to be the Engineers homeworld, whose population has been wiped out by David using the pathogen from Prometheus.  In an effort to create life and the perfect form, he has been experimenting with the pathogen, including killing and dissecting Dr Shaw, whose corps is found by the Covenant`s synthetic Walter. 
David lures captain Oram to a breeding chamber where he is infected by a Facehugger, a creature he created, and soon after the first Xenomorph bursts from his chest.

Walter and David face off, the former coming out victorious, as the Covenent retracts the survivors of the landing party, and defeat the alien by the now well tested method of spacing it.  However, as they go to the stasis pods, Daniels realises it isn`t Walter but David that is on board, and as she is put to sleep he wanders of to the colony bays, freezing in the embryo's of two Facehuggers...

The movie is a visual threat, even though the chestbursting alien doesn`t look as great actually in CGI then the old muppets from Alien and Aliens, and is supported by a mighty musical score.  Performances are strong along the board, and while a comment is that some characters don`t really have a background, another clip titled "The Last Supper" alleviates this a little bit.  And Michael Fassbender's performance as opposing synthetics David and Walter is just stellar.

A great movie, and while not on the level of both Alien or the ultimate sci-fi movie Aliens, it is a worthy addition to the franchise for my part.

Dark Elves classic Morathi

She arrived just yesterday by mail, but as she needs to be on the table friday, I pulled an all-nighter to get her ready.

This classic sculpt of the Dark Elf Queen Mother, Morathi, is one pretty looking sorcererss, though not as cool as her later Pegasus riding incarnation.

I will be fielding the model in my Grand Alliance Order force friday and during the big battle as a regular Witch Elf Hag though, as I was left with a 60 point "gap" to fill and that makes a nice commanding figure for my Daughters of Khaine section of the force that will be marching to battle alongst a mostly Empire army.

Being a character model, I went for the three tone style instead of the regular two tone one I`m using for my non-character (and non Slaanesh) models, giving her a bit more detail.

She was also a sort of testbed for most of the purple tones I bought last week, and I like how she turned out.

Enjoy!