The Siege of Castle Oldenhawk

After months of trying to starve the Empire garrison, mighty Orc Warboss Grumlock received bad news from his goblin scouts. The cunning 'ummies managed to get a runner past the Orc lines and a relief force was on its way. Just as well, he thought. He was tired of fighting like a cowardly elf, letting time and hunger do his killing.  It was time to storm the castle, like Mork and Gork intended!

This was a massive 3000 pts Blood in the Badlands siege battle, hosted on the fantastic castle table at the Highgate Village Games Workshop.

After starvation and bombardment, the Empire defenders lost a large number of swordsmen and ended up with a breach of the main gate. Cavalry consisting of 20 knights and 10 pistolliers was kept in reserve. The Orcs concentrated on the South and West sides, with Savage Big'uns, supported by Trolls, storming a weakly defended North West tower. The bulk of the horde would storm the South gate and towers which held all of the strategic objectives.  At least that was Grumlock's cunning plan..

Trouble for the Orcs started immediately when the Savage Orcs, unable to work the siege tower, spent the entire turn standing still. This confused the trolls, which ended up stumbling forward and taking archer fire from the battlements. The south wing advanced as intended with the Arachnarock and the squig herd crashing into the South West tower.

The Black Orcs, weighed down by their heavy armour, did not manage to make the assault on the first turn and the night goblins, led by a Shaman, were too cowardly to advance. The Empire mortar crew made the goblins pay for their inaction by dropping a shell in their midst, killing half of the unit.

Orcs were not to be out done by the human artillery. Crusher, the rock lobba, launched a perfectly placed stone, which not only destroyed the Hellblaster defending the South East tower, but it also crashed through the tower breaching it!

The squigs and the Arachnarock stormed the South West tower.  Empire swordsmen, encouraged by their warrior priest and captains, mounted a desperate defence...

... but it proved to too weak to stop the frenzy of the squigs. The crazed fungus monsters crashed into the tower and pushed the defenders out. Castle Oldenhawk was breached!

Their victory would not last. All of the Empire captains, warrior priest and the generals charged into the tower and slew every single squig. The humans were in control of the castle walls again.
On the North Western flank, the Savage Orc big un's were still unable to operate the siege tower and spent another turn staring at the walls.

Disaster strikes the Orcs!  The mighty Arachnarock was brought down by the heroes of the Empire. As its grotesque legs curled in twitching death spasms, the human defenders cheered and shouted praises to Sigmar.
On the North West flank, the Savage Big'uns abandoned the tower and got ready to storm the walls the old fashioned way, but they were unable to agree on who led the charge and spent the turn squabbling.
Grumlock knew that it was time for him to enter the fray and prepared to storm the hotly disputed South Western tower himself.

The Savage Orcs finally stormed the castle and easily beat back the defenders of the North Western tower. Castle Oldenhawk was breached again!

As the day was ending, Grumlock made one more desperate attempt to storm the deadly South Western tower. The Savage Orc Big'uns slaughtered through the defenders of the West Wall who bravely held back the River Trolls for the entire day, but they arrived at the South Western tower too late to help. Grumlock roared in anger as he was unable to break through the Empire defenders and was kept out of the castle. Even though the green tide has finally started sweeping around the walls, it was too late.

As the day ended, the Empire reinforcements finally arrived. It took the knights the entire game to make it on to the table and they were unable to make any difference in the outcome of the game. Castle Oldenhawk withstood the might of Warboss Grumlock on its own.

As night fell, Savage Orcs Big'uns were rampaging around the walls, but they were ultimately forced to withdraw. This was a solid victory to Empire.

A fantastic game! The Blood in the Badlands siege rules played very well. They are simple, but give the game an epic feel of a gigantic siege. And most importantly, the game was exciting and tense till the last die roll.

Lessons from the game:

• Squig herds are really cool.  Will definitely pick some up. 
• Never trust Savage Orcs to drive a siege tower. They just don't understand how wheels work.
• Never count on your reinforcements to show up, even if they are all mounted. Empire knights can sure take their time..
• Commit your troops early. Allowing the defenders the luxury of supporting combats from adjacent buildings is a huge mistake.
• Siege is awesome!  Can't wait to play another one.

Dancing with Skargog Skull 'ead

My Savage Ork Shaman is ready

As with all characters, I painted Skargog Skull 'ead with classic blend shading instead of dipping.  I really enjoyed shading and blending the muscles and and cloth. The Savage Ork minis are quickly becoming some of my favourites to paint because they offer a great mix of large area shading and detail work. And of course, this sculpt has one of the most dynamic poses in the line.  How often do you get to see a half-naked ork dancing?

I used the Micron pen on the skulls and I am thrilled with the results. It's hard to see in the pictures, but I was able to draw in some really great designs which bring the mini to life and add eye-catching detail.

Now that Skargog is ready, complete with the Shrunken Head hanging off his belt, he'll be joining my Savage Ork Mob and providing them some much needed protection!

The Other Death Wing

The second squad of the Death Wing terminators has been completed. With this squad, I am finished all units of the starter box and now only have the Commander and Chaplain left before I can officially declare the starter box painted.

This second squad showed me the limitations and perils of the Army Dip. The dip became extra thick and it was very difficult to remove the excess. As a result, the whole squad came out looking a little muddy and I had to spend time re-painting and cleaning up the extra dark coat to bring back some of the original colour. Especially on the open sloping areas like the shoulders and back there was a distinct streaking effect. The final result is still very much solid table-quality, however, I am not happy with how the minis turned out.

I have thinned the dip with distilled turpentine for the next time. Hopefully it will work better.

What's next for the Dark Angels? I will get a couple of more games in and at this point the main problem I have is getting my Tactical Squads into the action. I think a Rhino or two are in order.

Heavy Footsteps

The army needed some heavy hitting so I decided to add a 40k classic: the Dreadnought. It's an iconic Space Marine vehicle and I chose to overlook their general fragility in this edition.

This is the first model that I magnetized and I am very happy with the results.  I have now 4 options for my heavy walker, but I think that these two will be most common. The cheaper basic:

 
and the decked out heavy hitter:

I was a little apprehensive about using the Army Painter dip on a model this size, but the final results are not bad at all. The dip had the nice effect of giving the model a weathered look, which is great for vehicles. I spent a bit more time detailing and shading to bring out some highlights than I do on individual troopers and I'm quite happy with the result. Oh, and I used a Decal Softener from Flames of War. It really helped to blend the transfers into the armour. For a model this sized, I did not feel comfortable going freehand to paint the symbols and numbers.

I can't wait to see how this guy does in battle!  Brother Serean has returned...

On the Wings of Ravens

The dual Ravenwing squad is done and done.

I have to admit that I was wary of using the dip on a black armoured model, but the squad turned out rather well.

The one new technique I tried this time around is how to highlight black armour.  I typically either went with dark gray to light gray dry-brush, or sometimes dark blue to white dry-brush, which works, but I the results were not satisfying. This time around, however, I tried medium blue and then bone to bring out the details. It worked better!  The blue gives the models some colour and the bone highlights are softer than white. When combined with the wash, the black armour has some great depth, pigment and details. And the best part is that I was able to use gray on the tires, which made them stand out from the bikes. I will definitely use this in the future.

The army is coming together nicely.  I can see the end of  the Dark Vengeance double box.  

Next up, I need a hero.

This Paint Job is Terminated...

Finally finished up my first batch of Deathwing Terminators.  Br. Tremiel is ready to teleport into battle!

The dip worked very well with the bone base, which I expected and it also layered some nice depth on the white banner and parchment.
The banner gave me a chance to try simple free-handing of the Deathwing emblem, which came out rather well.  I originally wanted to add some text, but ended up running out of space.

Two main lessons from this batch.

First, never ever use old primer.  I do not know why I ignored this wisdom.  The models ended up with a terrible, sandy texture which really obscured some finer detail on the robes and swords of the autogunner.  Fortunately I was able to cover the damage and it's not visible on the finished models.  But I was worried for a bit there.

Second, the P3 wet-palette is excellent for wet-blending. I only blended the power-sword, but this technique will be very useful on the character models.

Next up, my strike force gets some speed with a 6 bike Ravenwing squad.

Storm of Waaagh!

Gadagutz Sharptooth finally had a chance to try his horde out in a storm of magic game. We played 2000 points plus 500 points Storm of Magic bound monsters. My opponent graciously provided the four Fulcrums and the monsters, so all I had to bring were my Orcs.

The game was epic, chaotic and like any great game, it came down to the very last turn. This is exactly how Storm of Magic games should be.

Gadagutz's orcs were joined by a Lammasu, a Cockatrice and some spiders.
My opponent fielded goblins and brought in two goblin blocks, a big squig herd, two chariots, two bolt throwers, some squig hoppers and spider riders.  His army was joined by a Chimera, a giant, Dark Emissary and an Arachnarock.

After deployment. You can see that the SoM deployment rules make a huge difference. The Squig herd and the Chimera are very close to my lines. This being my first SoM game, I did not realize just how much danger my troops were in, right from the get go.

Goblin first turn. No surprises there, the squigs and the Chimera charge Ironskull's Boyz, which also has my BSB. Ouch. And the Arachnarock takes on the Trolls. The boyz fold under the massive barrage, including a very big Thunderstomp and my BSB is off the board.  The Trolls manage to wound the Arachnarock, but fail too many regeneration rolls and also flee.

This being a SoM game, massive magic energies abound. The giant is teleported to my rear. Things are not looking good. But Gadagutz has pulled through worse!  

Leftooth's Black Orcs hit the arachnarock in its flank and dispatch it soundly, but not before the giant spider eats Gadagutz!  At this point, I have lost the BSB and the general.  But.. this is a Storm of Magic game, so it's all about the Fulcrums. 

Leftooth and his crew get double charged, including a rear charge by a giant!  Things are looking mighty grim indeed, however, there's a pivotal battle happening in the back..

My Gigantic Spider has been steadily attacking and wounding the Dark Emissary in his Fulcrum. If I can get him out of the Fulcrum, this battle might be won yet.

I placed the Lammasu into one of the Fulcrums, the Dark Emissary teleports his Fulcrum away, but not quite far enough.  The nibbly spider follows and eventually eats him! And with the other Fulcrum teleported closer to my line, the Lammasu is able to Duel and eventually kill the opposing Night Goblin Great shaman.  This means I hold all the Fulcrums in the game. Victory may yet be mine.. if I can just hold on.

In the core battle, Leftooth is wiped out, but Madspittle and his Savage Orcs chop up the Chimera. The Giant turns around and storms the Lammasu. If he can't get him out of there, nothing else in the goblin army can..

The end of the game.  The Lammasu survives the giant and defends his Fulcrum. Thank you, breath-weapon. Earlier on Ol' Gums, my Orc Shaman, was forced out of his Fulcrum and destroyed but Mooneye, the Goblin Great Shaman, survives waves of attackers defending a building. There is not a single Orc left on the field, and Gadagutz's army has been scattered to the four winds, but I hold one Fulcrum to my opponent's none.

Victory!  (even if I have almost nothing left on the table to celebrate with...)

Overall I really enjoyed the SoM game. The extra rules really turn this into a very different game from standard WFHB affair. Fulcrums add a whole extra level of tactical game play and keep things interesting. Magic was powerful, but not as devastating as I feared. I will definitely want to play another SoM game in the future.