oooOOOoooo that was unexpected

Well I was going to write today about the new trend in big plastic kits that GW seem to be bringing out with every release (the sphinx, aracknorak, hell pit abomination.. etc) and how I thoroughly approve of this trend.  The main reasons I love this trend is the fact that all these models have been awesome, they add a lot of fun to the game (whilst in my experience not being overpowering, afterall a cannon will still kill almost anything) and the price  for the kits has actually been reasonable.  However the rest of this post has been superceaded by the shock news today that an expansion for warhammer is due out in the summer called 'Storm of Magic'.

Whats Storm of Magic I hear you say.  Well we don't know much yet, but we do know there are gonna be new Terrain, Wizard and Monster kits and new kits are always good.  It seems to be an apocalyse style expansion, but we'll just have to wait and see.

So I've been playing warhammer since 4th ed. and I've seen a lot of changes over the years and 8th ed. was one of the biggest.  Overall I've been pretty chuffed with 8th ed. (full thoughts in a later post) and think the feel of the game has been changed for the better, however the one change I haven't liked has been the magic.  When we play it seems to easy to 6-dice a crucial spell and it will almost always work (who cares if your wizard dies if the spell wins you the game) so I'm not sure more powerful magic is really gonna help.  On the plus side I'm already excited at the prospect of giant new monster kits and hope that means more than just a generic drgaon (though of course that will be cool too).  It might be wishful thinking but I'm also hoping for some cool massive dwarf war machine, maybe an airship, golem or even a land ironclad.  Dwarves are by far my largest army (over 15,000 pts) and whilst I have the anvil of doom and the throne of power they could do with a proper big centerpeice.

All in all I think we're in for an interesting summer as far as Warhammer goes, well done GW.

More Mantic Goodness

Well this almost seems to be becoming a mantic games blog (at least until the next new shinny thing crosses my path) and today I'm showing off some mantic figures I've painted over the last couple of days.

First off we have the dwarf warriors from Dwarf Kings Hold

I think the top 3 are better models, the other 2 with the moulded on sheilds aren't quite as good, I've left them unbased for now as I only have 7 mantic dwarves and that doesn't make a regiment, this might change as if I get any more.  The skeletons and revenants form DKH(dwarf kings hold) have already been stuck on square bases to add to my vampire counts army.

Next we have the sheildbreakers from DKH

I found this sprue a mixed bag, I think the guy on the left looks great, but I don't really like the beard on the guy on the right.

and now a couple of bits of 'mantic fun'

2 cool little pieces, really like how they've actually been incorporated into the game as well.

Next up the Dwarf Driller Mantic Journal Subscription Model

This is such a niffty little model, shame it currently has no use in either Kings of War of DKH, hopefully that will change in the future, I think it would fit escpically well into DKH, maybe allowing it to dig connecting tunnels?

And Finally....

I got these ghouls ages ago when mantic were giving them out free, not sure why its taken me so long to paint them, some of the best models in mantics range in my opinion, and I really enjoyed painting them.

Sudan Mounted Infantry

Today I'm going to share another recent project, my British Mounted Infantry in the Sudan (early 1880's) to add to my army.  They are 1/72 scale HaT Industrie Zulu war mounted infantry, but painted in grey rather than red.  There are some inaccuracies in the uniform (the lack of puttees and pugarees for example), but as we're still waiting for a basic infantry set I think a mounted infantry set is out of the question at the moment, and I think they still give the right feel.

Mounted:

and dismounted:

All apart from the officers came from a single box.  The mounted officer is taken from Hat's British Camel Corps and glued to one of the horses intended to be lead by the dismounted soilders and the dismounted officer is taken from waterloo 1815's anglo-egyptian army.  I painted them red just for the sake of it really, apparently some officers did still wear red in the sudan and I like seeing British troops in redjackets.

For information on british uniforms in the sudan I recomend this article by michael perry.

Now if only Hat would release the basic infantry so I could complete my army.

Dwarf Kings Hold - Gameplay

So I had yesterday off work and spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing Dwarf Kings Hold by mantic games, if you read my last post you'll know I was generally happy with the quality of the game, but had a couple of small niggles.  So how do I feel now I've played it?

This game is brilliant, the niggles no longer matter, go buy this now!!

Seriously it was one of the most fun afternoons I've spent gaming in a long while.  The basic gameplay is similar to Space Hulk, although it is not simply Space Hulk in a dungeon as I've heard some people say, I actually think there's a surprising tactical depth to this simple little game. The rules are incredibly easy to pick up and we were thinking tactically from about turn 3 on game 1. The major difference between this and Space Hulk is that actions are generated by the action tokens, which you can hold a certain number of at once, this adds a sort of basic deck management as another tactical layer to the game.  It also makes the two sides feel very different to play, the dwarves normally get a lot more action tokens per turn than the undead, this means the dwarves feel alive and you can normally activate each dwarf each turn, with the undead it actually feels like your a necromancer bending your focus to a small section of your shambling horde and when the dwarves beat them or die switching your focus to another minion to try and get your objective.  It's a neat trick pulled off by a simple mechanic.

The other main thing that makes this game so good is the quality of the scenarios, the game contains 6 scenarios and each is a corker.  They each add a simple special rule that really changes the way the game plays and really makes you think.  So far we've found them very balanced as well, which is rare for this kind of game.

What really gets me excited though is the potential I can see in this, I can't wait for the expansions and hope mantic post some extra sceanrios using other models from their range on their website.

All in all I can't recommend this enough, we played all afternoon and only stopped because my mate had to go to work and loved every minute of it.

If anyone has started devising their own scenarios or disagrees with what I've said drop me a comment below.

Dwarf Kings Hold

I've been excited waiting for this game to arrive, and theres a simple reason why, its the same reason I have thousands of painted toy soilders, it was a game I was bought for xmas at some point in the early 90's, that game was Heroquest.  Heroquest was what started me (and many others of my generation) in the wargaming / roleplaying world, since that board game my interest has spread far and wide over the hobby.  Hoping for a new Heroquest was a bit much, but still I've been aticipating this game alot and it arrived this morning, so I am happy with it? In a word yes, but I do have some niggles.  First off there is a major difference between this and the Heroquest/Warhammer Quest style of dungeon crawler, there isn't a party of warriors all radically different who 'level up' this is more akin to Space Hulk in a dungeon, but thats cool as i love Space Hulk to. so component review:

Board Sections: Yeah the artwork is pretty seem to be of high quality, no issues here for me, I like the added flexibility that not 'jigging' the board sections brings, although i would have liked to have seen some plastic connectors similar to those in Warhammer Quest, but still its not a big issuse.

Tokens: made out of the same card as the baord sections, they're card tokens, and seem fine.

Dice: erm you get 7 D6's, they roll ok...

Rulebook: a 21 page black and white small rulebook containing 6 scenarios.  Some nice simple rules, hopefully providing interesting tactical challenges, although as I've not played it yet can't be sure on this.  Would have liked a few more sceanarios, but apparently we will be getting more online and in the mantic journal.

Models: the models themselves are fantastic, the skeletons in particular.  They are the standard mantic sprues: 10-man skeleton sprue, 2-man skeleton warmachine sprue, 10-man revenant sprue, 5-man dwarf sprue and the 2-man sheildbreaker sprue.  The sprues also contain another 2 skeletons bursting out of the ground, 2 undead hounds, a dwarf dog and a dead dwarf. I'm actually a lot more impressed with the dwarves in person than I have been looking at them on the web and now plan to add more to my dwarf army.

These are the 7 dwarves you get, the 2 on the right are the sheildbreakers.
As i said above I'm really impressed with the quailty of the skeleton models, not exagerated the way GW ones sometimes are, and I already have 30 of the Revenants so knew exactly what to expect.  There was one problem with my undead sprues though;

I have 10 grey skeletons, 2 bone coloured skeletons and 10 grey revenants.  If I wasn't planning on painting them having 2 skeletons in a differnt colour to the others would be very annoying, if I was primarily a Board gammer i'd be miffed.  That brings me on to another point, the models are squarely aimed at poeple used to wargaming not board gaming as extensive assembley is required, its fine with me and I prefer the added flexibility, but it's something to bear in mind.  I have one more niggle with this set, where's my square bases? come on mantic I can't be the only one planning to use these models for Dwarf Kings Hold and Warhammer (and potentially Kings of War), the simple inclusion of square bases would have made this a much better product for me.

Mantic Points/Discount Card: you also get 2 mantic points and a £5 discount at mantic games website, which is a nice bonus, i spent mine on square bases......

So overall I'm happy and impressed, a few small niggles that won't bother me once the gorgeous models are painted.  An impressive first attempt on the quality side i think and I can't wait to play it.  I'll post my thoughts on gameplay once I've actually played it.

Nobody Expects...........................

As I'm still waiting for dwarf kings hold to turn up (grrrrrr) I've started to watch Grey Knights week on beasts of war (my favorite site on the net for all things wargaming, seriously check them out), and I'm gonna take the opportunity to share two of my favorite models from my collection.

This is an old Inquisitor model from the back end of the Rogue Trader era of 40K, in what passed as terminator armour at that time.  I just love the guys face and the way he points his powerfist at you.

Another favorite of mine, the first Vindicare assassin model from when the assassin temples were introduced in 2nd ed.  Of all the assassin models that GW have ever released this is the one that screams silent killer to me and epitomises how I saw the imperial assassin.

Hopefully at some point in the next few days I'll be posting my review of dwarf kings hold.

Mantic Revenants

My copy of 'Dwarf Kings Hold: Dead Rising' the new dungeon crawler from Mantic Games was dispatched on friday and whilst i'm waiting for it to turn up I thought I'd take the opportunity to show off my Mantic Revenants (the equivilent of Games Workshop's Grave Guard)

For those that haven't heard of them Mantic are a new company doing 28mm fantasy figures for their own game Kings of War, but that are compatabile with the daddy of fantasy battle games, Games Workshop's Warhammer.  Now the quality isn't quite as good as those from GW, but they're still nice characterful models with nice little extras, like those shown in the 3rd pic.  Then there is the price, those 30 Revenants cost me £22 the same number of Grave Guard from GW would cost £61.50! now thats a big difference, even with the slight drop in quality.  Anyway my point is this, theres lots of models out there take a look around and see if you can add some different models to your army.  Don't just restrict yourself to fantasy models either, I'm giving serious consideration to adding some perry miniatures wars of the roses figures to my Bretonnian army.

Hello

Welcome to the first post of my blog, this will be a collection of pics of my current painting projects, gaming stories, rules musings and anything else that crops up.  I play warhammer fantasy mainly, but also 40k, mordheim, warhammer quest, a slection of tactical boardgames & star wars miniatures.  I also collect and paint historical figures (mainly 1/72 scale) but have yet to play any games with them.

Anyway to get started heres a few pics of my latest projects.

My new plagueclaw catapult.  Love the new Skaven plastics, and this kit in particular is great.  With the island of Blood and a few bits I had already my Skaven 'army' stood at 900pts and this has taken it upto a nice round 1K.

My High Elf Prince on a lion from the chariot model.  Not an origanal idea I know, but I still think it looks cool.  My High Elf army has also come about due to the Island of Blood boxed set, its gone from the ancient plastics from the old 4th ed boxed set to 3000pts since september, and its nearly all painted.

And as a taster of my historical work here is a pic of some of troops for the Sudan camapaign in the early 1880's, models are 1:72 scale from HaT industrie.