Judge Dredd #3: Sweet Justice

The final tutorial scenario from Judge Dredd: I Am The Law pits the entire contents of the starter box against each other in a battle royale.

We swapped out the Rookie Judge model for the Judge Dredd I painted as she didn't exactly look like 'Veteran Judge Cassidy', I've also made a slight change to the scenario as Ramirez got blown away in the last one, and so Kinsey is back for this one.

The battle is just a straight fight. The Judges are trying to take down four gangers and the High Rollers are aiming to drop a single Judge...easy, right?

This was a real back and forth fight. Initially, the Gunfighter rule of the Judges (which we'd finally got the hang of) meant that it was really dangerous to fire at them, as it should be, and it seemed like the perps stood no chance.

However, the stump gun shot and chain attack suddenly put Kinsey on the back foot, but I just couldn't finish him off. When he got back into cover and healed, it felt like the gang has lost their opportunity, especially when Matt started blowing things up.

Ultimately, the return of the ganger with the combat rifle (probably still the Diceman), who'd been severely injured early on and had spent several turns healing, turned the tide and put enough damage onto Kinsey to end the game.

All in all I feel this is a really good game. The miniatures are good and the mechanics really allow for forces mismatched in numbers to feel balanced. The Big Meg and Armoury cards are really powerful, but a limited resource that need to be used wisely. The game also offers the closest representation of a movie-style shootout (the Gunfighter rule is key to this) that I've come across in any skirmish game.

If there's a down side, the rules are a bit scattered through the rulebook and sometimes it's hard to find the bit you need. I also think that it's a game that relies on interest in Judge Dredd to drive sales as this box really does contain everything you need for a good game.

Will I pick up more of the range? Possibly...if the price is right. I'm not a massive Judge Dredd fan, but I might grab a few of the more well known characters: Judge Death, Mean Machine Angel, the Fatties, etc. I suspect I'm more likely to raid my remaining Wargames Factor Survivors to add to the Block Gang, rather than buy expensive resin models, and I'm inclined to use generic city and post-apocalyptic terrain (like the movie did) rather than start building Mega City One.

However, I like this game, and that might have an impact when I'm next passing a Warlord Games stand at a show.

Judge Dredd #2: Half-Eagle Day

The second tutorial scenario for Judge Dredd: I Am The Law sees a Senior Street Judge and a Rookie Judge ambushed by a block gang in retaliation for what happened in scenario one.

Once again, Matt was the Justice Department and I was the villainous High Rollers.

This game doesn't hang around.

This time we managed to get to turn two before it was all over and it was my turn to make efficient use of my Big Meg and Armoury cards to bum rush Rookie Judge Harris and leave Senior Judge Ramirez surrounded.

I don't think we'd properly got a handle on the gunfighter rule at this point, and I was definitely cheating with my stump gun (the ganger in pink), as she shouldn't have been able to move and shoot.

Ah well, that's what tutorials are for.

Judge Dredd #1: Sugar Rush

In a slight change of pace, Matt and I played through the three tutorial scenarios for Judge Dredd: I Am The Law from Warlord Games.

The first scenario, Sugar Rush, pits Judge Kinsey against three members of the High Rollers block gang and introduced all the basic mechanics in the game.

I took control of the nefarious perps, whilst Matt was the Law.

As you can see, the action was extremely brief as I completely overlooked the Big Meg and Armoury cards and My att didn't, dropping a Stumm Gas grenade between two gangers, knocking them out and winning the game in a single turn.

The multiple activation mechanic of the Judge meant he acted faster than the perps could react.

Nevertheless, we learned the basics in this first outing, and I learned to remember the cards.

More to follow...

Raise the Dead: A Tale of 4 Armies

As the endless shambling hordes of undead infantry shuffling through the pages of the blog, a rattling sound is heard. Something is getting closer...quickly.

Something with pace and power and more than a little weight...

...something that was thought lost to legend has risen again...

This is the Undead Chariot from the Skeleton War Machines boxed set released in 1991 (I think) and bought for me for my fifteenth birthday.

It's a metal sculpt and because I was somewhat of a novice modeller, it was prone to breaking and ended up sitting in my bits box whilst the horses were used to mount various undead champions over time, including one mummy.

The dragon skull on the front was eventually drafted in to an army standard bearer but the rest sat unloved and was ultimately forgotten.

That was until the end of last year when the main body of the chariot and the wheels turned up in the haul I got back from a friend, and when the Warhammer: The Old World hype hit I was motivated to put it back together.

I'd been using the horses to pull Krell, the Lord of Undeath along in a small Celt chariot as a proxy Black Coach and so I've simply transferred the old chariot onto the bases I was using for that

Painted with a series of contrast paints, dry brushes and washes (all of which always work much better on metal than on plastic), and smeared in Blood for the Blood God where a layer of flesh that I'd never previously noticed provides a degree of underfoot comfort for the crew 

  

Speaking of the crew, the chap with a goat's/bull's head and a scythe is apparently called Longhorn, appropriately. The poor charioteer didn't get a name, unlike the other characters in the box.

For those keeping track, the unit champion of my Spearmen is called 'Screamer' and the Necromancer is 'Morbius'. 'Reaper' was the army standard bearer that made use of the big skull, but he's currently been stripped and is awaiting a new role (or a new flag).

I'm really pleased with how this has come out as it's such a cool model and really harks back to my early collecting. It will take over from Krell on Black Coach duties; it has horses, wheels and a bloke with a scythe. If anybody asks where the vampire is, I'll just say that they are standing in him.

In other, less exciting news, I've redone the base of the Zombie Dragon I painted last year to fit with the rest of the army.

I'm not counting the Dragon as a painted model, and the chariot only counts as one, however, it does take three off the Lead Mountain because Id counted them separately last year.

Acquired: 0

Painted: 118

Lead Mountain: 870

Curse of Years: A Tale of 4 Armies

Having stated my intention to finish everything I had before buying more, after sprucing up the infantry units of my army I set about reanimating the few remaining bodies I had left unpainted.

This this required me to delve into the catacombs of my bits box and bring forth long forgotten creatures that have not seen the light of day for an age, 

I have not bought new units for my Vampire Counts army since I put together the plastic zombies over fifteen years ago, instead opting to drag life out of my somewhat eclectic collection of miniatures to make whatever units I could.

This saw my draft Wargs and Ringwraiths from Lord of the Rings into my army as Dire Wolves and Wraiths, paint Empire Militia white to create Spirit Hosts and cobble together a Chariot riding Krell to function as my Black Coach.

This approach saw my use almost every scrap of undead miniature I could to bolster my army, which meant that not much was left before I got my hands on much of my old collection, and what was left spoke of a loss of interest in the undead.

These three (four?) Zombies were cobbled together towards the end of my playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle. They make use of bits from the Zombie kit (naturally), the ever useful Empire Militia and even some Skaven Gutter Runner parts.

The challenge I faced was trying to recreate the terrible approach I'd taken to the original unit using tools much better suited to the purpose. This has lead to Zombies that are better painted than the originals with me trying to not actually be better.

They fit in well enough but the experience has highlighted how much easier average painters like myself have it compared to to when I started in the hobby. Tools like washes and contrast paints allow you to get an army to a decent tabletop standard with much less effort and skill than previously.

Another consequence of my 'how the hell do I get this army 2000 points?' attitude when I returned to playing was the use of Harpies (originally part of a nascent Dark Elf army) as Fell Bats.

I still really like this idea as it evokes the brides of Dracula as they were envisaged in that film classic Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale's corset.

I've given these models the de-shine and highlight treatment, as I'd also over used Devlan Mud on their wings. I've put quite a bit of work into these to get them looking only marginally better than they did.

I also used an unhealthy quantity of Stirland Mud to try to hide the fact that their original 25mm bases had just been stuck on top of 40mm bases because I was clearly scared that they'd snap off their bases and had not at that point mastered pinning models.

To make the Games Workshop Harpies into a useable unit of Fell Bats I was forced to draft in a WizKids D&D Miniatures Game Harpy to help. She's not a bad sculpt (certainly within that extremely variable range), but she's not great either.

She's joined here by two undead warriors from the same game who will help bolster the ranks. There are other WizKids minis already in the army so a few more isn't a problem. The taller Skeleton is actually a decent model part from its bizarrely detail free sword, and the shorter model potentially works as an undead Dwarf.

The major issue I have with all three is the hunch poses that make them a pain to photograph.

Whilst we're on the subject of non-Games Workshop miniature, these are some Grenadier Miniatures I've had since the late eighties.

Whilst I was a wee nipper the only shop in my home town that sold miniatures was G&I Models, which carried mainly trains and Airfix kits. However, they had a small supply of fantasy miniatures from a range of manufacturers.

I really like the Grenadier sculpts and I've made use of them to create some unit fillers, mainly because that gave me space to hide their chunky lead bases (again, more heaps of Stirland Mud).

The gravestone is my last remaining Renedra one, the Skeleton climbing out of the grave is one of the original Games Workshop plastics that had lost his foot somewhere, and the pile of skulls is from the original Screaming Skull Catapult, which I sadly no longer have.

Equally ancient are this Skeleton Drummer and a lone member of the Cursed Company Regiment of Renown.

These weren't mine originally but came into my possession with an entire regiment of the Cursed Company I bought and then sold about a decade ago - clearly because I had no intention of painting them and other projects beckoned.

I kept the drummer because he wasn't part of the unit and was missing an arm (replaced with a plastic Skeleton arm), I think the other chap just slipped through the net.

I used to think the Cursed Company and other Regiments of Renown were at the pinnacle miniature design, but it's cool to still have one to see how far things have moved on.

Finally there are these two undead guards. I think they also came into my possession with the Cursed Company, but I kept them due to them not fitting with the rest of the unit when I sold them.

They certainly add to the armoured feel of the spear unit, and their pole-arms help make the armament of the unit clear. I've still not decided to do with the plain shields if this unit and so I've just given them a light drybrush to be going on with.

I'm a touch disappointed in the photo here because it looks like I've just drybrushed them with Leadbelcher. I promise I have actually painted the bones.

All of this totals up to 20 miniatures painted (I'm counting the corpse on the floor, the gravestone and the pile of skulls as one each, sue me), only 3 of which didn't come from the Lead Mountain.

This leaves only the cavalry and characters of the army to deal with and means that I can slow down a bit and take more time over them, moving beyond the category of 'just make them better' to 'csn I make them good?'

Acquired: 0
Painted: 117
Lead Mountain: 873

Hellish Vigour: A Tale of 4 Armies

With the parameters set for my series of Warhammer Fantasy based challenges, I leapt into action, reanimated with motivation and an unhealthy witchlight glowing in my eyes.

Where to start?

The Bretonnians were already without unpainted models; the Wood Elves and Skaven probably needed the guidance of new army lists before making decisions about units and basing, which left...

...the Vampire Counts, my first actual army, built around the frankly excellent value Skeleton Horde and Skeleton Army boxed sets in all their late 80s glory and added to over time with a mishmash of units cobbled together from what I could lay my hands on cheaply.

This is the army, of the many I 'started', that actually got painted. This is the army that battled my housemates' Wood Elves and Orcs through university. This is the army that I took to the GIMPS gaming club in Sheffield 20 years ago and went to my first ever tournament with.

However, somewhat appropriately for the risen dead, this army is showing its age. Not only in some of the classics sculpts, but also in the low effort and frankly shoddy approach I took to painting them, valuing speed over skill.

A good example of these are the skeletons at the core of the army. Most were done with nothing more than a black base with a hasty white drybrush over it. Shields were plain black with a drybrush of silver, whilst weapons and armour were sliver with black haft. I hadn't even put a design on one of the banners (the other one, a metal Grenadier model, was painted by my brother).

Basically, they were a bit rubbish.

On top of that, there were numerous breakages, missing shields and limbs and ropey bits of painting to address 

The first order of business was to address the colour of the bones, and for this I employed the somewhat appropriately named contrast paint Skeleton Horde, which turns out to be really useful for painting skeleton hordes.

Completely by accident, my old rush job of drybrushing had actually created the underpainting effect that when combined with contrast paint becomes the 'slapchop' method, and so with bones covered, shields tidied up and weapons and armour given a coat of Agrax Earthshade to make them a bit rusty looking, the Skeletons quickly got to a point where they are now not going to embarrass me.

They're not going to win any prizes either, but that's not the goal here.

I also decided to draw a clear line between my spear-armed armoured skeletons (above) and my more basically equipped horde. It remains to be seen whether Warhammer: The Old World allows skeletons to wear armour, but I thought that having a definite visual distinction between the two units would be good.

Therefore, as well as the spears and armour I set about giving the larger unit some white accents in the form of raised crossed bone insignia on the shield that would fit them, and skull transfers (I'm still working with only 40k decals) on the flatter shields.

Additionally, I reworked the unit standard, removing the paper banner and replacing it with a cobbled together construction from my bits box.

I'm not sure if the plain white is a bit much, or whether even if it is the skulls need some chipping to not look so new, but for now I'm happy with both units.

I might also return to the gravestone unit fillers (Renedra plastics were a godsend to the early days of Cheaphammer) and give them a brighter drybrush to get the details to pop a bit more.

With the skeletons done to a point I was happy with, attention turned to the zombies.

Good grief, what was I thinking!

These had been 'painted' with Goblin Green skin, Bestial Brown clothing and liberally daubed with what I presume to be Devlan Mud wash.

Here's a closer look at them in all their shiny horror.

Frightening stuff.

I didn't want to go through the laborious task of stripping all that plastic (always a much harder task than with metal), especially as the models underneath are not very good anyway.

And so I set about highlighting the flesh with 

Elysian Green, adding a bit more variety of colour to the clothing (still generally browns, but more varied), picking out wood and rope to be different than the cloths and giving any metal a tidy up and coat of Agrax Earthshade for rustiness 

The final result is still not amazing, but at least they done look like someone has defecated on them any more.

In addition to the unit proper, which includes a few non-zombies amongst their number, I also tidied up the newly-risen dead I used for summoning purposes, ekeing out every scrap of value from the single box of zombies I bought.

I have the means to do quite a bit more of this to up the numbers of raised zombies I can field before I'm done. I think that might be the last task I do when I think the well of my Undead bits box has run dry.

Cheaphammer was driven by me just not having the money to add whatever I wanted to my armies, I'd also never kept my focus and so my collection of miniatures was always somewhat eclectic. This meant that when I finally joined a gaming club I repurposed miniatures from other abandoned projects to allow my Vampire Counts to get to the standard 2000 points for gaming.

This led to the creation of my Spirit Hosts.

Empire Free Company painted grey, drybrushed white and stuck onto bases with gravestones to become Spirit Hosts.

At its core, the idea for this unit was sound. However the colour I'd painted them made it look like they were unfinished rather than ethereal.

One coat of Hexwraith Flame later and they're much more spooooky.

This is still a cheap as chips unit concept, but it works well enough. If I was using Age of Sigmar Nighthaunts or Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead in exactly the same way, this would be a much more effective concept.

I'm tempted to see if I can use cotton wool to add mist to their bases for a more ethereal feel, but as it stands, I'm happier with these than I was as it's much clearer what they are meant to be.

The only other miniature I've worked on is this one, who is a conversion of my old Liche (just a head swap) I did when I was trying out Guildball with unofficial miniatures.

All I've done here is rebase him for use as a Necromancer. I also rebased the team mascot (a bat hovering over a gravestone) and have put it in one of the units of skeletons.

And so, most of the grunt work on improving this army is done. There are some areas to potentially revisit, but for now I'll turn my attention elsewhere.

Conveniently this actually gives me just about enough to field the 1000 point army necessary for the first scenario of Circle of Blood, led by Renar the Level 2 Necromancer.

I think I'm probably about 50 points short, but I'm now painting the skeletons and zombies that I never got round to, which should easily fix that issue.

On the subject of painting, I'm counting these as almost every model here has had an almost full repaint. Admittedly in many cases this was a wash or coat of contrast, but they are models I've painted.

Obviously, I won't be taking anything off the Lead Mountain, and I'm not counting the Necromancer or gravestones.

However, it does feel like I've hit the ground running on this challenge.

Acquired: 0
Painted: 97
Lead Mountain: 890

The Tale of Four Armies

 So, I've made a bit of a rash promise to myself.

Yesterday, I was writing down my new year's resolutions and an idea struck me that I posted before it was fully formed.

It was to work on four armies for Warhammer: The Old World: Bretonnians, Vampire Counts, Wood Elves and Skaven...at the same time.

This initially appears to be a massive undertaking, but three of those armies are already assembled and painted to varying degrees and the less said about the last one the better (that's the rash bit).

The aim is to get all four armies to specific goal points during the year and play some games with them.

I'm not necessarily going to do work on each army concurrently, or weekly, but I think I will aim to get something achieved with each of them every month and possibly do a round up post in the manner of the original Tale of Four Gamers articles in White Dwarf.

So without further ado, let's look at the challenges I've set myself.

Army 1 - Bretonnia

Challenge: Be able to play each of the scenarios of the Circle of Blood campaign pack with fully painted forces.

Initially, this seems fairly straightforward as I recently announced that my army had just about hit 2000 points of fully painted miniatures.

However, the scenarios offer a specific set of challenges which mean I'll need to paint more units. Not were they designed before the inception of Pegasus Knights, most of the scenarios allow only a single character and put restrictions on what units can be fielded, meaning that I can't currently field an army for any of them.

The first scenario, Night Battle at Mercal, for example, allows only a single unit of Knights Errant and the rest must be peasants. I think I can currently get to about 700 points of the 1000 required.

Also, I just need more knights if I'm actually going to use this army in games with other people.

However, one thing I don't need to do are the special characters as my recent attempts at kitbashing have happily solved this problem before it arose.

Army 2 - Vampire Counts

Challenge: Be able to play each of the scenarios of the Circle of Blood campaign pack with fully painted forces.

Yes, it's the same challenge but with a slightly different focus.

Actually fielding the different armies for each scenario presents less of a challenge to my current army despite the same limit on characters. However, I'm really not happy with the appearance of some (most) of these units as they were done at a time when I really wasn't enjoying painting and some very dodgy strategies were employed to get the army on the table.

I present Exhibit A.

Therefore the main focus of this challenge is to get to the point where I'm not embarrassed to put them out on the table. This will involved highlighting and detailing what are essentially badly done base coats on units like the zombies, and in some cases stripping models to start again.

I also need to sort myself out with a model for the Red Duke himself.

Army 3 - Wood Elves

Challenge: Rebase and restore the army to at least 2000 points.

So these boys need moving back over to Warhammer basing from Kings of War. I'll also need to dig out those models that didn't make it onto the multi-bases and give them the same treatment the rest got (washing and matt varnish) during the first rebasing.

I also want to have a look at highlighting these models up a bit because they seem somewhat flat to my eyes now and I'd like them to pop a bit more.

In all honesty, this is probably the easiest of the four challenges to achieve, something that can't be said for the last one.

Army 4 - Skaven

Challenge: Paint up and play a game with a 1000 point force of Skaven.

So this is the big one.

What you can see in the picture above represents only about 500 points of Skaven, and half of that is the Grey Seer. I'm hoping either Rat Swarms or Giant Rat packs make it into the new edition, as I think painting up the swarm models will be quick and simple.

Even getting all of these done is going to be a bit of an effort.

The Final Challenge

So there we have it. However, I'm going to throw in one final requirement for myself, which ties in to one of my other resolutions.

Challenge: No new models may be bought for an army whilst there are still models for the army in the Lead Mountain.

This should keep me honest and prevent things getting out of hand with four armies on the go.

Admittedly, I don't actually have anything to paint for the Bretonnians, and with the launch date for Warhammer: The Old World having been announced, that's a dangerous position to be in.

Mind you, my first order of business for them is 200 points of peasants, and there's no way I'm paying GW prices for their Men-at-Arms or Bowmen kits. 

This is Cheaphammer after all.

Acquired: 0

Painted: 0

Lead Mountain: 890