Tuesday 29 March 2016

Update...


The Army: Vampire Counts

Run as Undead Legions at Fall of the Old World 2 

Lined up for some painting votes... 

My run down of how the army ran in its first tournament will follow, along with better pics of the completed units, but put briefly I lost 3 for 3. It was fun, but I didn't do enough damage to my opponents, and was slaughtered in my last game against Dale's vicious DE/Carmine Dragon list.

--

3000pts chosen from below (Blue = Painted, Orange = Assembled, Red = unbuilt):
Neferata Mortarch of Blood
2 Necromancers
3 loose Vamps (1 Strigoi, 1 foot (sub for Nefereta on foot), 1 Strigoi)
Mounted Wight BSB (conversion required)
Krell/Wight King
Mounted Vampire 
Kemmler 
Coven Throne/Mortis Engine (if I get it built)

30 Skeletons - Swords
35 Skeletons - Spears
45 Zombies
16 Dire wolves (11 ready, 5 undercoated)
60 Ghouls (45 ready, 15 built)

Corpse cart
3 Spirit hosts
5 Hexwraiths

7 Crypt Horrors (3 ready, 4 unbuilt)
3 Vargheists
9 Black Knights

4 Fell Bats

Mourngul/Varghulf 
2 Morghast Archai
2 Cairn Wraiths & Banshee (+2 assembled)


Thursday 24 March 2016

Vampire Counts: Characters

This first of my more detailed pics, and some short biographies of the key dramatis personae....

Genevieve du Sang (Neferata)

Matriarch of the du Sang Family, Genevieve was responsible for the corruption of this once-proud House of Bretonnia. She is also behind the insidious rise of Deiter Kriersdorf from hedge wizard to Master Necromancer.


Erasmus Gruber, Marie du Sang (Isabella von Carstein), & Deiter Kriersdorf

Marie soon followed her sister into the blood curse, proving to be an adept student of both combat and magicks. She formed a close bond with Kriersdorf and his apprentice, Gruber, raising countless dead warriors to the family's cause.



Vorash &Vorysh, the Brothers in Blood

No-one remembers the arrival of the Strigoi princes, but the horde of ghouls that followed would not be forgotten. Little more than savage beasts, the Du Sang family keeps their blood cousins as a powerful pair of weapons to be unleashed on their foes - either together or individually.


And we're ready for war...

It's taken just over 3 months off and on, painting nothing else besides, but we're there (a minor injury to Skin Wolf 3 asides - that's setting with a pin right now)...

 
The Family du Sang lines up for battle... 

Neferata, Isabella, 2 Strigoi, 2 Necromancers, 1 Corpse Cart, 50 Zombies, 30 Skeletons, 45 Ghouls, 3 Skin Wolves (counts as Crypt Horrors), 11 Dire Wolves, 3 Spirit Hosts, 5 Hexwraiths, 2 Cairn Wraiths, 1 Banshee, 2 Morghast Archai, and a Terrorgheist... somewhere in the region of 150 models in the time it normally takes me to paint 20 then lose interest!

Individual unit profiles to follow when I get the chance.

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Update...

A productive night saw me finish off 15 ghouls, 25 zombies, and the 2 morghasts. All that remains is to glue a wee bit of static grass to everything and we're done! That's a wee bit of static grass to over 100 models of course...


30 skeletons
50 zombies
5 hexwraiths
1 Strigoi
2 morghasts
1 necromancer
6 dire wolves
15 ghouls...

Urg! Still awaiting my Malifaux starter set - looking forward to a change of painting style!

Death comes on swift wings...

4 painting days to go....

With Fall of the Old World 2 on Saturday, it's a race to get things finished, will our hero make it? Will the Old World fall? Stay tuned for our next thrilling instalment...


 
Growing the ghoul horde, raising some more zombies, and summoning the Morghasts 

My, what a big halberd you have... 

Thursday 17 March 2016

Raising reinforcements...

In a bid to get some heavy hitters into the VC before Fall of the Old World 2 on the 26th, on the painting table this week we have...


In progress - Morghasts
A couple of Morghast Archai and another Strigoi....

In progress - ghouls, bats, wolves
Some more ghouls, some nice alternative Fell bats and another half a dozen wolves

Really it's just a break from piles of zombies and building skeletons - I think after I get it to 3000pts, I'll need a change of scene for a wee while, all this necrotic flesh is warping my world view!

Sunday 13 March 2016

An expanded world?

In its randomly updated state, this blog has really just been about GW models, but I think I might explore a bit more in my ramblings.

Admittedly, there are few folks reading this, but it might be fun to see how long I can keep this going this time around - after all, I tend to lose motivation on the blog after a few entries, so expanding its remit might help...

On the horizon:

Zombicide, the one mini game that my significant other & partner in crime actually likes, and encourages us to play - we've just got Season 1 and a couple of expansion packs, but we had a fun Christmas/New Year period playing lots of this...

Zombicide goodies
Finally, a game that my girlfriend enjoys...

Malifaux M2E, an impulse purchase after repeatedly seeing my girlfriend looking at the minis in the local gaming store - we'll see if this takes off or not...Got a Starter Set coming and my eyes on a Mei Feng box - kick-ass girl with a bunch of augmented labourers for back-up? Yes please...

Malifaux
Ok, no minis yet, but we bought a book...

Friday 11 March 2016

All we are is dust in the wind... Dust... Wind...

First "real" tournament style practice last night against High Elves with my Vamps.

In short, brutal. When I arrived, my opponent had already laid out his army, I knew I was in for a tough night as soon as I looked across at a Lord on Star Dragon, 2 Frostheart Pheonixes, an L4 Mage in a Silverhelm bunker and pain in the backside Eagles & Reavers making up the numbers.

Oh, and a small archer bunker with his 2nd mage.

Vamp Lord about to crumble
Hmm, Lady Genevieve is going to hurt...

I was rocking a similar list to the Skaven encounter - with a few tweaks, dropped the dogs and a spirit host to get my L1s up to L2 wizards, other than that I was ethereal plus ghouls, skellies, and a small zombie pile.

It went wrong from the vanguard phase... Foolishly left my Hexwraiths exposed to the first Pheonix, with my single spirit host behind - he had first turn, lost my ethereal flank by the end of my first turn (ouch). I got lucky as my opponent fluffed not 1 but 2 Purple Suns, almost destroying his Silverhelms in 2 turns - my Terrorgheist took out the rest.

Turn 2 I lost Genevieve to a combi-charge from the dragon and the first Pheonix, followed in close order by my 'gheist, from there I survived 3 turns of crumble as he slowly waded through my army.

In the end it was a thumping 20-1 on tourney scoring (I would have broken him back if only I could have taken the last wound off his Lord, that would have got me about 600 more points for a bit more respectability).

Highlights: 
  • Watching the 2nd Purple Sun miscast drop his L4 to L1, forgetting all his offensive spells.
  • 3 zombies tying combat with an eagle
  • A single corpse cart holding up the 2nd pheonix for 2 combat phases
  • Surviving 3 turns of crumble for the loss of 7 models
Lowlights: 
  • Magic, I got a single Invocation off in the whole game, and 1 hellish vigour... that was it
  • Sacrificing Genevieve to save the 'gheist for one turn
  • Vanguarding the Hexwraiths straight into trouble
  • Having to remove the Hexwraiths in turn 1 again
Lessons learned:
  • Don't throw Genevieve against characters, she's a unit killer
  • Don't vangaurd the hexwraiths, use the move to redeploy them
  • Need to try a few dirty tournament tricks - move the general to Kriersdorf rather Genevieve by running her on Death or Shadow
  • Get those morghasts built and field the wraiths as heroes

Next up, not sure, a week or 2 of painting before Fall of the Old World 2, if it's happening...

Armies of the Iain-perium

A quick rundown of my armies and their status:

Fantasy 
(Armies saved for posterity after the death of the Old World)
  • Warriors of Chaos 10500pts mostly built/painted
  • Skaven 1500-2000pts built, plenty still to go
  • Dwarfs  6000pts ish, about half built
  • Empire/Men  4400pts ish, mostly unbuilt
  • Dark Elves  3700pts ish, mostly unbuilt
  • Orcs and Goblins  3700pts ish, mostly unbuilt
  • Vampire Counts  5400pts ish built - mostly built/painted
  • Daemons of Chaos  2100pts ish, mainly Slaanesh, to be built/rebased from 40K

40K 
(More collected than played)
  • Imperial Guard Praetorians & Steel Legion in progress
  • Inquisitor & Retenue built
  • Dark Eldar  mostly built/painted (thanks to Matt) built, likely to be sold
  • Eldar Mostly unbuilt, likely to be sold
  • Chaos Marines  Mostly unbuilt, likely to be sold

Scenery sets  
  •  Some random bits built - loads in the wardrobe of sprue...