The Seat of Seeing

One of the reasons I really wanted to play through the Quest of the Ringbearer campaign was it would encourage me to collect and build the characters and locations from Middle Earth at a measured pace.

Having reached Lothlorien in the campaign, I know that the next stop is Amon Hen, the Seat of Seeing, in the Emyn Muil where the Fellowship is ambushed by the Uruk-Hai.

It's from one of my favourite scenes in the movies, when Aragorn sends Frodo away walks round the seat to face a veritable horde of Uruks with a look on his face that says, "you boys are in so much trouble."

Despite only being in the background of one set piece, the Seat of Seeing is, for me, one of the more iconic locations in the trilogy, and one that is small enough that I don't need a house extension to store it.

This piece is 3d printed (for those that care, the main body is FDM, whilst the statues are resin) and bought off and Etsy seller, REZ3DPrinting, who I'd heartily recommend - really fast delivery, well packaged, etc.

There was a little bit of cleaning to do on the statues, and the top platform was separate from the column and steps, but the whole thing went together really quickly.

There are some visible layer lines in the columns, but when it comes to stone, that's not really an issue. Additionally, there is a very slight warp on the top platform that means that it's not quite flush at the back of the model. This is not particularly noticeable as I only spotted it when I was gluing the thing together.

The use of resin to pint the statues offers much more detail on the parts of the model that draw the eye, adding to the whole piece.

I've kept the eagles separate so that I can potentially use the main structure in other circumstances, without it clearly being from Lord of the Rings as it has a generic temple/altar feel without them.

The broken sphinx statues will also be quite versatile in pulp or fantasy games. All of which makes this a piece that I'll probably get to use more than I have Weathertop.

When it came to painting, there's nothing to report. A dark grey base with a heavy dry brush of light grey. Job done.

Yes, there are ways of making it look more like real stone, but it's going to have orcs with plastic bases struck to their feet moving round it, so I'll cope with a bit of lacking realism.

I'm really pleased with how the whole piece has come out and I'm looking forward to the next scenarios (there's actually a choice of doing three linked battles, or one big one).

Before I get there, I do need to paint some of the Fellowship in their Elven Cloaks. I do own suitable models of Legolas and Gimli, but I need to track down an Aragorn. I might not bother with Boromir, as it would only be used in this battle, whereas barring a brief costume change at Helm's Deep, they'll be wearing the cloaks pretty much until the end of the campaign.

For tally fans, I'm counting this as one model, as I only counted it as one when it arrived, and it took less effort than a single miniature to do the whole thing.

Acquired: -69
Painted: 324
Lead Mountain: 660

'O Sole Trio...

It's time to take a trip back to the mean streets, canals and rooftops of eighteenth century Venice. Shall we take a gondola? There seems to be plenty of people willing to row us through the city...

This set of models were a Christmas gift from Mrs Cheaphammer last year. As Mrs Cheaphammer is not a wargamer, I often end up with gifts that are very much in the right ballpark, but not what I would have specifically chosen. I'd given guidelines that anything Guild or Rashaar and not in a starter gang (trying to avoid models I already had) would be right from the Carnevale range.

These fit that description perfectly, except that I neglected to mention already have two different Gondoliers from the starter sets. However, it does mean that I can theoretically field a whole guild of Gondoliers, and a second Gondola means that not only will my games look even more Venetian, but I can also actually use the Gondoliers' special rule of being able to field additional Gondolas.

The models themselves were simple enough to put together, although as ever they needed a wash in soapy water and there was flash trimming to do. Additionally, long, thin oars needed straightening with hot water.

I have to say that my favourite of the three is the one with the oar over his shoulder, as the raised oar looks a bit odd, and the female Gondolier's scale is a bit off. She's a big woman when you consider that she's got her knees bent.

In terms of painting they were done simply with contrast paints. Mainly Fleshtearer's Red for the jackets and sashes, Garaghak's Sewer for the boots and Black Templar for the trousers and waistcoats.

These resin models take contrast paint extremely well, leaving very little highlighting needed for a decent tabletop quality.

The gondola itself was done almost exactly the same as the first one I did, except I've given it purple seats. I've done this to not only distinguish them in games, but also because the black and purple works for both the Strigoi and Patricians. I'm not sure the fishmen of the Rashaar really need a boat.

I did consider doing the boat a different colour, as apparently the gondolas in Venice all being black is a relatively new (as in post-war) thing. However, I wanted the goth vibes of the purple and black more than I wanted to explore other options.

My only real gripe with these miniatures is that there were three mooring posts with the gondola, but only enough bases for two.

I could contact TTCombat's customer support about it, but I have five painted now, so I might use the last one as part of basing a model at some point.

Mrs Cheaphammer and I have been playing a bit of Carnevale recently and we're making our way through the introductory scenarios. Given that the setting is somewhat recognisable, I'm hoping that it holds more interest for her that other totally fictional settings.

A few more easily identifiable models will certainly help in that regard.

Acquired: -69
Painted: 323
Lead Mountain: 661

Death Is Not The End

Having recently played, and lost, a game of 2nd edition 40k with my burgeoning Astral Claws army, it was painfully obvious that whatever version of the game I was painfully missing some heavy weapons.

Therefore, I've taken some steps to address this issue. Big, clonking, metal steps.

This Dreadnought brings some much needed weight to my Astral Claws, with the ability to both lay down heavy firepower, and punch things until they cease to be.

It was part of an eBay lot I picked up, primarily for this model, but included a few other bits and pieces that will get used in my various Space Marine armies.

Painting was a bit of a breeze as the Astral Claws are generally silver, and so a spray base coat followed with a wash of Nuln Oil does most of the work.

The blue is Caledor Sky, and I've taken to giving the blue a gloss varnish, which seems to gel better with the metallic main body than a matt finish. I've also taken to edge highlighting the blue bits to give a bit of extra pop. I'm still not the best edge highlighter, but I like the outcome.

For the gold elements I tried something new, which is to use Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint directly over the silver, and it worked a charm.

I'm fact, most of the other painting was done with contrast pains, speeding up the final process massively.

  

The transfers are from the same set I've been using and this model marks the first time that I've used the actual chapter badge of the Astral Claws; the Tactical Marines all bear the icon of the Tyrant's Legion.

My thinking is that only those units that are directly mentioned in the Tyrant's Legion army list should have their chapter symbol, the rest, such as this Dreadnought, are actually seconded from the main Astral Claws, hence this different iconography.

I have a range of weaponry available for different occasions, including a Heavy Plasma Gun, a Lascannon and an Assault Cannon. The model came with a Missile Launcher for the other arm, but I'm going to use that on one of my Blood Angels Dreadnought in games of Horus Heresy.

Although the Lascannon is better for hurting vehicles, and the Assault Cannon works against infantry hordes, I'm going to favour the Heavy Plasma Gun initially as that's what is featured in this artwork from which I took my inspiration.

I originally painted my Dreadnought with the same blue shoulders as in the image, but it made it look too much like an Ultramarine, and so I stripped the arms back and started again.

I'm really happy with the final outcome and it means my force is growing, and with Arbitor Ian's Tale of 4 Gamers campaign officially launched I've already done enough models for a Kill Team and am making headway towards a Combat Patrol equivalent (more on that in a future post).

Acquired: -69
Painted: 317
Lead Mountain: 667

Vampires Suck (Part 2)

And so, having taken an entire evening to play only three turns of an error strewn game, Pete and I reconvened for round two of our breaking out of the old armies.

This time we opted to go for just 1000 points to speed things up and we also actually studied our army rules before playing, which helped.

We had both clearly spent some time thinking about what went badly as we had both altered the balance of our forces with an aim to improve performance.

Realising that I had struggled to cross the board, I opted for a much faster, if smaller, and hard hitting force. Pete, meanwhile, had reduced the attacking wing of his army which had found itself strung out and isolated (his Lord had only narrowly avoided defeat against my Vampire), but had maintained his infantry line.

High Elves

High Elf Lord - Giant Blade, Heavy Armour, Shield

High Elf Mage (Level 2 Wizard) - Ruby Ring of Ruin

16 High Elf Spearmen - Full Command 

12 High Elf Archers - Champion

12 Lothern Sea Guard - Full Command

15 Swordmasters of Hoeth - Full Command

Tiranoc Chariot

Vampire Counts

Vampire Count - Sword of Kings, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Protection, Heavy Armour, Nightmare

Wight Lord - Charmed Shield, Heavy Armour, Skeletal Steed

Necromantic Acolyte (Level 2 Wizard) - Sceptre of Noirot, Nightmare

7 Black Knights - Lance, Barding, Full Command

5 Black Knights - Lance, Full Command

3 Bat Swarms

3 Fell Bats

Deployment

The armies we'd picked somewhat dictated the nature of the battle we would be having. My hammer units were going to aim to get across the field as fast as possible, and Pete's archers would seek to whittle them down before the arrived.

Meanwhile, my flying units would attempt to get behind his lines, whilst his chariot would seek to plough into my flank.

At least we understood each other.

Interestingly, this is the shape of many of my games against Pete, be they Blood Angels vs Alpha Legion in Horus Heresy, Resistance vs UCM in Dropzone Commander or Soviets vs Flak 88s in Bolt Action.

Turn One

Getting the first turn, I immediately made straight for the enemy lines, angling the smaller unit of Black Knights to address the inevitable advance of the Tiranoc Chariot.

Meanwhile, my Fell Bats flew up the flank of the Elven army, whilst the Bat Swarms loitered behind a wood.

Magic achieved nothing...a recurring theme.

For some reason I didn't get any pictures of Pete's turn, but he moved the Chariot up and opened fire with magic and missiles, killing a couple of Black Knights.

Turn Two

The Necromancer got on with his main task of bringing back fallen Knights, and the Vampire declared a charge at the centre of the enemy line...which failed.

To try to stymie the Chariot, I threw the Bat Swarms in its way, whilst the fast moving Fell Bats got behind the Elves.

Being somewhat out of practice at this game, I hadn't spotted that I'd left the Bat Swarms in the way of a double charge from the Chariot and the Spearmen, an invitation that Pete immediately took.

Meanwhile, a much more effective round of shooting and magic took almost half of the Vampire's unit out of action.

The Bat Swarms could have withstood the Chariot by itself, but a ranked unit hitting their flank led by a hero with a magic blade was too much to bear and the fluttered away into the night sky.

Fortunately, the Chariot fumbled its overrun roll and failed to contact my cavalry.

Turn Three

So far, things hadn't gone amazingly well and that sinking feeling grew as the Necromancer failed to bring back and Black Knights twice!

With nothing else to lose, I issued a charge into the Archers with both my Knights and the Fell Bats. I lost another Knight on the way in but won the combat and drove the Archers back.

Sadly, the other unit of Knights failed it's charge and to add injury to insult a miscast from the Necromancer (who was having an absolutely smashing turn) killed one of the Knights.

Fortunately the stumbled forward enough to be out of the Chariot's charge arc. Small mercies.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for the Vampire's unit and they were suddenly on the receiving end of a flank charge from the Swordmasters.

There followed some furious book-flicking as we tried to work out if the rest of the unit could fight if the Wight Lord the were in contact with issued a challenge - we reasoned that they couldn't as they weren't in contact with any other models, please let us know if we were wrong.

Meanwhile the Elf General and his Spearmen charged the Necromancer's unit and things were looking bleak.

However, I hadn't counted on just how resilient Black Knights could be when you'd properly read their rules, and we were both reminded of just how squishy Elves were.

In an amazing turn of events I won both combats, including an amazing use of the Charmed Shield turning aside a cleaving blow destined to take the Wight Lord's head.

I was still surrounded but I had the opportunity to charge one last time. There was still a chance.

Turn Four

I managed to raise a few more Knights into the Necromancer's unit before the charge was sounded again and the ploughed into the Spearmen and the Vampire's unit went into the Lothern Sea Guard.

In other news, the Fell Bat went into the MN age because why not.

Unfortunately, the Elves became a much tougher nut to crack and whilst the Sea Guard were driven back, the Spearmen and the Elven General cut down the Necromancer's unit and turned to encircle the Vampire.

Enemies crashed in around the Vampire who took the opportunity to issue a challenge to the Elven Noble, who bravely accepted.

Despite the Black Knights hacking and slashing their way through Elves, and cutting down the enemy General, soon only the indomitable Vampire Count was left standing...surrounded on all sides...

Turn Five

...I think you know what happened.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was a much more successful game, not only because we were much more competent, but actually there were the seeds of a decent plan.

Had I made the first charge in turn two, I think that things might have turned out differently, as with more Black Knights to play with, I'd have lasted longer and, more importantly, the Swordmasters were looking the wrong way at that moment.

Things might also have gone better if I'd not stupidly wasted my Bat Swarms.

What we both enjoyed was the fact that despite my first couple of turns going badly, I almost dug myself out of the hole, which speaks well of the way the game works.

I still need to get my head around the fact that powerful charges are less likely to blast through enemy units, and I really need to think about how best to take advantage of magic in the game.

I could do with rolling less miscasts too.

We'll probably do this dance again soon, and I suspect that things might get a bit 'scaled' up, if you catch my drift.

Vampires Suck (Part 1)

Pete and I have been putting off (for lots of varied and valid reasons) playing Warhammer: The Old World again for about two months.

Therefore, when we were finally able to schedule a game, we dived in with enthusiasm, picking 1500 point armies and both neglecting to re-read the rules since we last played.

This led to a game that featured probably the most book-flicking, rules checking and take backs that we've had since we played our first game of Horus Heresy.

As you'll read on you'll realise that the image above never happened as I allowed Pete to take back his charge as we realised after the fact that the Black Coach was ethereal and without a magic weapon the Elven Lord was charging into purgatory.

There were many such moments, I shan't be listing them all.

Vampire Counts

I've not fielded my Vampire Counts army since giving them a hefty spruce up earlier in the year and so I'd not really engaged with the details of how different they are in Warhammer: The Old World to previous incarnations.

This ignorance meant that I picked an army which was pretty similar to what I used to field in 6th and 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle: blocks of undead troops to lock the enemy in place and fast moving hammer units to hit the flanks.

One thing I noticed is that there's a lot more restrictions. For example you need an ethereal character to include Spirit Hosts, and I like this kind of thematic element.

Vampire Count (Level 3 Wizard) on Nightmare - Flayed Hauberk, Master of the Black Arts, Shield
Necromantic Acolyte (Level 2 Wizard) - Sceptre of Noirot
Tomb Banshee
20 Skeletons - Full Command
20 Skeletons - Full Command
25 Zombies - Full Command
3 Bat Swarms
3 Spirit Hosts
7 Black Knights - Full Command, Lances, Barding
Black Coach

High Elves

Pete's been busy building up his High Elves for some time, replacing the army that he sold a good chunk of after the demise of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

I think the Dragon Princes, Griffon Rider and Spearmen are part of his original army and the rest has been added, but I could be wrong.

Just like myself, Pete went for what would have been a fairly big standard High Elf army back in the day, with a little bit of everything.

Elven Lord on Griffon - Lance, Heavy Armour, Additional Hand Weapon
Elven Mage on Horse (Level 2 Wizard)
25 High Elf Spearmen - Full Command
11 High Elf Archers - Champion
12 Lothern Sea Guard - Full Command
15 Swordmasters of Hoeth - Full Command
6 Dragon Princes of Caledor - Full Command
Reaper Bolt Thrower

Deployment 

We matched up fairly evenly in the deployment phase, with both of us loading opposing flanks with fast, hard-hitting units. My opposite flank was anchored by the Bat Swarms that were aimed squarely at the Repeater Bolt Thrower.

It was clear that the battle would be decided by the cavalry.

Turn 1

Pete advanced cautiously with his Lord and Dragon Princes and stood still with the rest of his line, unleashing a volley into the massed skeletons.

On my turn, the horde began to shuffle forwards and I suddenly realised how slow this version of the army was. If the Elves weren't going to come to me, I was going to struggle to get across the board with anything other than my Bat Swarms.

The few casualties caused were negated by the new way that Invocation of Nehek works, without needing to cast a spell. Broadly, I like this change, especially as the High Elves were repeatedly casting Drain Magic to neuter my magical ability.

Having said that, I did manage to cast a Spiritual Vortex to impede the advance of the Dragon Princes as my own faster troops also edged forward, trying to dance around who was going to get the charge.

Turn 2

Whilst the rest of the Elves stayed put and delivered another desultory round of shooting that was going to be healed at the start of my turn, the Elf Lord boldly charged into the Black Knights and killed the Hell Knight in a challenge and the overkill removed another Black Knight as I hadn't quite got my head around how the Indomitable rule worked.

In my turn, my line shuffled forwards, but the Spirit Hosts and Black Coach pushed forward to threaten a charge on the next turn. The Banshee ran up through the woods and screamed at the Dragon Princes, killing one.

The Vampire challenged the Elf Lord and we very quickly discovered that we had not tooled up our characters effectively as they both failed ineffectually at each other. Technically the Black Knights won the fight through combat resolution but the Griffon rider held his nerve.

At some point during these two turns, the Vampire suffered damage through a miscast. Magical ineptitude was to become a theme.

Turn 3

The Elven line continued to remain immobile and send arrows raining down on the incredibly slow moving horde approaching them.

Meanwhile, the Mage got himself out of the way of potential charges, whilst the Dragon Princes charged the Banshee, intent on slowly killing her with combat resolution.

The Vampire and Elf Lord again failed to hurt one another, but this time the Vampire miscast a dispel attempt. It didn't cause damage, it was just embarrassing.

Desperate to kill something, the Black Coach charged the Archers, who fled rather than face inevitable destruction.

The Spirit Hosts also charged the Spearmen, but failed to make contact.

Meanwhile, the Bat Swarms were finally able to charge the Bolt Thrower and killed one of the crew. Also, the Banshee managed to scream another Dragon Princes to death and avoid crumbling.

However, despite these moderate successes, things were about to get ugly. Not fully understanding hot The Dwellers Below worked, the Vampire managed to wound himself again when he succeeded on casting it and falling under his own template.

To add injury to insult, the Elf Lord managed to sneak a wound through the Vampires various saves, killing him and initiating the inevitable destruction of the whole army.

At this point, we called the game as we'd frankly taken ages to play three turns and it was getting late.

Final Thoughts

The differences between how this army worked and how I thought it worked were quite noticeable, and my main takeaways were as follows:

• Vampires no longer seem to be the blenders that they once were;
• I really need to examine how to use undead magic better, I feel the lack of the old Vanhel's Danse Macabre crutch;
• Fear and Terror ate not the weapons that they once used to be;
• I need to examine the army list to do something about how slow things are.

In fairness, I suspect Pete was feeling frustrated with the reduced impact of his shooting, and he also needs to re-evaluate how he equips his characters. However, I do suspect that if I'd made it to the Elven lines, the Swordmasters would have ripped through my Skeletons and Zombies.

You'll get to see how we both learn from our experiences when we clash again in part 2...