Painted Ten Thunders group photo September 2013

I’m finally up to date with my Malifaux painting though I suppose that won’t last long.  Anyway, Sho3box commented a while ago suggested that I should take a family photo of my Ten Thunders crews and here it is.  Of course, this lot is nothing even close to a legal crew in either version of Malifaux, and thanks to the arcane hiring rules that govern the faction half of this lot can’t actually be taken in a crew other than by their thematic master.  As of right now, a lot of these miniatures don’t actually have rules in the first half of the Malifaux version 2 release so I can’t even use them in that ruleset.  Luckily I’m having a great time playing Jakob Lynch to work out how I can use him to most entertaining effect (against Joe, who should probably become a Henchman and get some recognition for the work he’s starting to do to keep up the community) so I’m not really too worried about the rest yet.

Ogre Kingdoms vs Vampire Counts (500 points); 22Aug13

The last regular game in our still-unnamed escalation campaign at 500 points is against Aramoro‘s Vampire Counts.  Test games with this match-up have been even more swingy than usual at this points level, but have mainly come down whether I can take on the undead units piecemeal and destroy them outright before they can get themselves back up to strength with Invocation of Nehek.  Grinds generally favour the Vampire Counts.  My list is as noted previously, but for convenience, here it is again.

Miss Madras, Firebelly, additional hand weapon (FB)

Heidi’s lasses, 5 Ironguts, musician (IG)

Helga’s lasses, 3 Leadbelchers (LB)

Blackcat Bone, Sabretusk (ST)

Aramoro has some fluff for his army which he will presumably post in his own blog eventually.  The Vampire in charge, one Barry Von Carstein, has had doubts cast about whether he really is a Vampire at all as test games have regularly seen him miscast in turn 1 and forget his spells, or be poked to death by angry villagers.  Vampire Counts seem have a bit of a problem at this point level because they need the expensive Vampire but can’t afford to do much with him.  Also the units that they can put on the table are generally aren’t big enough to soak up the incoming damage and start grinding right back at their foes.

Barry Von Carstein, Vampire, Summon Creatures of the Night (V)

3 Crypt Horrors (CH)

20 Skeletons, champion, standard (S)

10 Crypt Ghouls (CG)

5 Dire Wolves (DW)

We’re still on Battle Line, and random terrain gives us two mundane buildings, a set of Blessed Bulwarks and a river that we all know is going to turn out to be a River of Light.  Miss Madras rolls up something useless again (probably Piercing Bolts of Burning) and swaps it for Fireball; Barry Von Carstein doesn’t even bother to roll and defaults to Invocation of Nehek (which is apparently critical to playing Vampire Counts).  Note that the Firebelly is deployed with the Ironguts this time to (hopefully) mess with Crypt Horror regeneration.  I win the roll and force the Vampire Counts to take the first turn.

With no ranged attacks available the forces of the Undead have no choice but to head forward as quickly as possible.  The Ghouls move into a building for no apparent reason and the Crypt Horrors threaten a flank charge if I dare to charge the Dire Wolves or Skeletons.  3,1 magic dice allow the Vampire to cast Invocation of Nehek which adds a few Dire Wolves to the unit.

Standing around and pinging a few wounds off in each shooting phase is dull (though effective) so I go for a long charge from the Ironguts into the Dire Wolves.  The plan is to blast right through them and over run to (relative) safety.  We roll for the river, and of course, it is Light.  Net of Amyntok goes on the Ironguts but I breathe a huge sigh of relief as they pass the strength test and also complete the charge.  The Sabretusk crosses the river and also gets Net of Amyntok for his troubles; luckily again it passes the strength test which otherwise would probably have been fatal.  Rolling a feeble number of shots, the Leadbelchers manage to scratch a Crypt Horror, then the Ironguts annihilate the Dire Wolves.  The penalty to hit from the Blessed Bulwark makes it a bit sticky though but the Firebelly personally stomps the last one and the unit overruns out of the charge arc for both the Crypt Horrors and Skeletons, again passing the Net of Amyntok test.  Getting stuck there would probably have been the end of the game as I doubt I could have afforded to take both units in the side.

Everyone reforms to make it inevitable that the Ironguts will end up in a sandwich and the Ghouls leave the building to get involved in the game.  Barry Von Carstein passes the magic phase as the risk of miscasting makes it not worth casting a spell that’ll only heal a single wound on the Crypt Horrors.

I try to swift reform the Ironguts so that they can move backwards and possibly take both undead units in the front, but they fail and choose to face the Crypt Horrors as I perceive them both as more killy and more important  to kill off in a single round of combat.  We roll up 2,2 magic dice and the Firebelly kills of the wounded Horror with a medium Fireball then another hapless volley from the Leadbelchers wounds a second.

Needless to say, the Skeletons and Crypt Horrors charge into the Ironguts while the Ghouls continue to slog their way into the action since they don’t have a grown-up around to tell them to march.  It’s another 2,2 magic phase and Invocation of Nehek heals the Crypt Horrors.  After two rounds of terrible rolling with the Leadbelchers my dice go red hot and the Firebelly immolates the Crypt Horrors with her breath weapon alone.  The Skeletons can’t do much damage to the Ironguts and Barry Von Carstein doesn’t make enough of a difference to stop the Ogresses winning due to their musician; they reform to face.

The Leadbelchers move up into the river and get Net of Amyntok again; they shoot a single Ghoul in a third round of stellar output.  Barry Von Carstein steps to the fore and criticises the curry-making prowess of Miss Madras.  This insult cannot go unpunished and both are locked in mortal / immortal combat.  Sadly, Barry may indeed just be pretending to be a Vampire and he fails to make any impression on the Firebelly and is kicked in the ghoulies stomped for his troubles.  The Skeletons pull down one Ogress but are smashed to bone dust by the mighty great weapons of the Ironguts.

We only roll up 1,1 magic dice this round but a well timed Invocation of Nehek heals Barry Von Carstein and resurrects a few skeletons.  The challenge gives us no wounds on either side but enough Skeletons fall that the Vampire crumbles to dust.  With only a few Ghouls left, Aramoro has had enough and calls it a day.  Victory to the Ogre Kingdoms!

Another fun game, but the real lesson here is that it’s better to be lucky than good.  If I’d roll less spectacularly with the Ironguts and Firebelly in the crucial first round of combat against the Skeletons and Crypt Horrors I could have found myself on the wrong end of an attrition battle; similarly if any of a number of things had gone wrong against the Dire Wolves I probably would have lost the unit.  So next is probably 750 point games, although there has been some talk of a multi-player game, possibly even Storm of Magic.  We’ll see what happens.

Painted Lucas McCabe

This is the last of the Malifaux miniatures in the painting queue at the moment as I’ve been holding off buying more while I wait for the dust to settle from the arrival of Malifaux second edition.  This is the leader of the Relic Hunters, Lucas McCabe.  He was unique in classic Malifaux in that he started out mounted and then could be knocked off his horse as the game went on, swapping some mobility for an increase to his not-inconsiderable durability in the process.  McCabe was also unique in that he could spend soulstones at the start of the game on various upgrades; evidently Wyrd liked the idea so much that it’s a core rule in the new edition.  Anyway, I never really got to play with him much in classic Malifaux as I was having too much fun with the other masters, but Joe had a lot of success with him in a tournament paired up with Von Schill.

I’m not really sure why I decided to paint McCabe’s horse as a zebra, but the funny thing is that once I started applying the paint I saw this post from Jamesatlantic on the excellent The Red Crusader Rides blog.  Of course, even if you can live with the stripes, it looks nothing like a real zebra as they have spiked up manes and less hairy tails.  But, hey, if I’m going to suspend my disbelief and play this game with zombie prostitutes, magic and so on, then further suspend my disbelief by having a man riding a zebra then I’m happy to go one step further and accept that magical zebras in Malifaux don’t have the same manes and tails as normal zebras.  These close-ups don’t really do the stripes much of a favour, but happily the effect is quite satisfactory at table top distance.

Once he’s off the horse, McCabe turns fully into Indiana Jones.  There’s not much to say about the painting except that I tried to make it as consistent with his mounted incarnation as possible, which worked nicely.  Strangely, he has a gun holstered which he can’t actually use in the game.  The whip (which can be seen in all its glory in the first picture) is truly not designed for ease of transport as it sticks out hugely.

Next on the painting table: Mournfang Cavalry.

Ogre Kingdoms vs Lizardmen (500 points); 15Aug13

We have a new contender in our campaign; Joe (@Laundry_King if you do the Twitter thing) joins us by way of the Malifaux gaming group and has picked Lizardmen.  Actually, I think that he was brought back to Warhammer Fantasy Battle by the new Lizardmen book, remembered that we played it, and found a happy coincidence that we were just about to start an escalation campaign.  My list is as noted previously, but for convenience, here it is again.

Miss Madras, Firebelly, additional hand weapon (FB)

Heidi’s lasses, 5 Ironguts, musician (IG)

Helga’s lasses, 3 Leadbelchers (LB)

Blackcat Bone, Sabretusk (ST)

Joe seems to have based his army on the theme of ‘miniatures he owns’ which leaves me facing down a cloud of Skinks with a very chewy centre of Saurus Warriors.

Skink Chief, Enchanted Shield, javelin, light armour (C)

Skink Priest, Lore of Beasts (P)

2 x 10 Skink Cohort (SC1 and SC2)

13 Skink Skirmishers (SS)

15 Saurus Warriors, full command (SW)

Terrain rolls give us two normal buildings, a Grail Chapel in the centre and some Blazing Barricades in the South East.  The Firebelly takes one look at all the small, annoying, toughness 2 units around and chooses to take Fireball; the Priest swaps Pann’s Impenetrable Pelt for Wyssan’s Wildform.  A good choice, as strength and toughness 5 on Saurus will make them rather brutal.  The Lizardmen win first turn and take it.

Everyone rushes forward, though the Chief bravely orders his cohort of Skinks to ‘support’ the other one from behind.  The Priest pulls 3,2 magic dice and I’m unable to stop him putting a boosted Wildform on the Saurus Warriors.

My Sabretusk gets the scent of a toughness 2 character dead ahead and I am unable to resist charging at the Skink Priest.  Fortuitously, the Blazing Barricades provide cover at exactly the right point which stops the possibility of a poisonous stand-and-shoot reaction and indeed Blackcat Bone gets there unharmed.  The other units move forward, not in a rush to have anything to do with those Saurus.  We get another 3,2 magic phase and the Firebelly puts a mid-sized Fireball into the nearest Skink Cohort killing 4 of them; the Leadbelchers take another.  Combat goes better than my wildest dreams; the Priest is eaten by the Sabretusk and the rest of the Skinks are unable to deal with it before fleeing and being run down.  This is probably the perfect situation for using Sabretusks to do something other than redirect and die – toughness 2 means I wound the Priest on 2s, the Skinks are skirmishers so they aren’t steadfast or bringing a rank bonus.  All the Sabretusk has to do is live through the barrage on the way in.

To my concern, the Saurus Warriors declare a charge on the Ironguts.  I hadn’t even considered the possibility that they could get in from so far away and I’m pretty worried about how powerful they are after looking at all the rules.  The Saurus need an 11… and the dice come up a 10.  We all let out a sigh of disappointment, perhaps with a side order of relief in my case.  The small unit of Skinks moves into the Grail Chapel and the Chief’s Cohort moves up behind.  The Skinks then unleash a veritable hail of poison javelins at the Leadbelchers killing two outright from the 16 shots they have available!  Fortunately for me, the survivor and Firebelly hold.

I can see I’m outmatched in shooting here, so the Leadbelcher and Firebelly charge the Chapel and the Ironguts charge the Chief and his buddies; both units take a wound from stand and shoot reactions.  The Skinks in the building are killed easily, and the Ironguts make short work of the Chief, smiting him and most of his Cohort.  The remaining Skinks flee and I try to restrain to face the incoming Saurus but the Ironguts are having none of that, lumbering a ponderous 3″ after them.  Still, at least it takes them out of the Saurus Warriors’ charge arc.

I’m expecting the Saurus to charge into the Grail Chapel, but apparently Joe isn’t keen to try his luck on another long charge.  Instead the Saurus move up to make sure of landing the charge on the Ironguts next turn; the Skinks fail to rally of course.

The Ironguts and Sabretusk line up on the Saurus Warriors and the Firebelly leaves the Chapel.  I need a decent Fireball and breath weapon to get the Saurus down to a manageable level.  It’s a big phase with 3,3 magic dice so I go for it with the big Fireball.  Disappointingly, it only kills off 4 Saurus Warriors, but that’s enough to force a panic check, which they fail despite being Cold Blooded.  The Leadbelcher chips in another couple but that’s pretty much it now for the Lizardmen.

The Saurus rally, the Skinks don’t.

The Ironguts charge into the Saurus, take a few wounds then kill a satisfying number of the Lizardmen.  The survivors flee but not far enough; we’re eating lizards tonight ladies.  Victory for the Ogre Kingdoms!

It was a good game, and I was happy to get a shot against the new Lizardmen.  However, I think that Joe’s inexperience showed a few times: putting the Skink Priest too far forward and out of range of the Chief was a mistake as even without the lucky Sabretusk guided missile attack a single good Fireball could have panicked the unit out of the game.  I would have gone for it with the Saurus Warriors against the Firebelly and Leadbelcher too as even a failed charge would have achieved the goal of getting the right facing.

More Ogre Mournfang Cavalry conversions

Way back when it was cold(er), Furycat gave me another box of Mournfang Cavalry for my birthday.  As we have been on a major Malifaux binge, they languished on sprues for too long.  But now, with the advent of our escalation campaign, Ogre Kingdoms are back on the agenda.  I made this pair up as the musician and standard bearer for the unit to go with my other two rank and file dudettes.  As before, the Mournfangs themselves are the common-or-garden variety (except one whose tusks just wouldn’t stay on, so it’ll have to go tusk-less) and I’ve made the riders into Ogresses.  There’s not much more to say, except that my photography evidently took a sharp dive when I did these.  Anyway, I can’t go back and take another set because they got sprayed immediately after. I can’t wait to paint them, though I doubt I’ll feel like I can splash the points on a fully loaded unit any time soon.

Ogre Kingdoms vs High Elves (500 points); 08Aug13

After a game against Justinmatters‘ Goblin force, next on the menu for the evening was a contingent of High Elves piloted by Forkbanger.  My list is as noted previously, but for convenience, here it is again.

Miss Madras, Firebelly, additional hand weapon (FB)

Heidi’s lasses, 5 Ironguts, musician (IG)

Helga’s lasses, 3 Leadbelchers (LB)

Blackcat Bone, Sabretusk (ST)

Forkbanger has noted the impracticalities of putting a force of High Elves together at 500 points as everything is expensive and it’s hard to take anything that can absorb a hit long enough to do real damage .

Mage, level 2, Lore of High Magic (M)

15 Sea Guard (SG)

6 Sword Master of Hoeth (SM)

Sky Cutter, bolt thrower (SC)

Sticking with Battle Line, we roll up a hill, a forest, an Earthblood Mere, some Ghost Fences (on the hill) and some wall (not on the hill).  For the third time in a row, the Firebelly rolls Cascading Fire Cloak and swaps it in favour of Fireball.  To be honest, I’d have swapped anything for Fireball in this match up, even Flaming Sword of Rhuin and Fulminating Flame Cage (both of which I love), as small units of Elves really hate strength 4 magic missiles.  The Mage takes Soul Quench and Walk Between Worlds.  I force Forkbanger to take the first turn hoping that the High Elves will advance into my Leadbelchers and get shredded.

Luckily for the gaming, Forkbanger isn’t so silly.  The only movement is the Sky Cutter, which moves to the centre then one-shots the Sabretusk with its bolt thrower.  For this exact reason, I always try and keep the Sabretusk 6″ away from any other units; panic is a very real threat when no-one is packing Lords or BSBs.  We get 3,2 magic dice, then find out that Soul Quench is out of range of any targets.

I run the Ironguts into the swamp (taking a wound from dangerous terrain) and the Leadbelchers walk forward to get range to shoot the Sky Cutter.  Funnily enough, this is just what I hoping to get Forkbanger to do (i.e. walk into my short range shooting) but the difference between Ogre resilience and High Elf resilience is significant.  I roll up 1,1 magic dice then roll low on a small Fireball at the Sword Masters; the Mage dispels it with his single die.  The Leadbelchers manage to put a wound on the Sky Cutter.

The Sky Cutter moves out of the Ironguts’ charge arc and lines up a beautiful shot on the flank of the Leadbelchers; everyone else moves up behind the Ghost Fence.  There are another 1,1 magic dice which turns out not to be enough to even cast Soul Quench, and another impressive turn is completed as the entire army rains arrows and bolts onto the Leadbelchers to no effect whatsoever.

Not surprisingly, the Ironguts charge the Sword Masters (losing one outright to dangerous terrain).  Surprisingly, the Sword Masters elect to hold.  The Leadbelchers, now looking somewhat like hedgehogs after the barrage of arrows last turn, continue their advance toward the Sea Guard.  We finally get a big magic phase (3,1) but I get greedy and fail to cast the big version of Fireball by a single pip.  No matter, as the Firebelly uses her breath weapon [it looks like the Sea Guard are too far away in the maps but there was a corner of the unit in range when we played] and the Leadbelchers unleash hell to shred the Sea Guard.  Impact hits take out a few Sword Masters before they get to swing, and the survivors aren’t even able to finish off a single Ogress before they are chopped to bits.  The Ironguts reform to face the Sea Guard while stuffing tasty white meat into their mouths.

In an act of apparent desperation, the Sky Cutter charges the Firebelly on the flank of the Leadbelchers.  The Sea Guard stay still; I thought that this was to avoid the moving and shooting penalty, but Forkbanger cleverly uses his 3,1 magic dice to cast Walk Between Worlds to get them out of trouble.  Sadly, the dice say no and the Mage fails to cast it, leaving him surrounded by the disappointed glares of his compatriots and (slightly further away) a hungry force of Ogresses.  Still, at least they won’t suffer the same fate as their brethren in the Border Princes did at the hands of the Beastmen.  The Sky Cutter makes up for it, killing off one of the Leadbelchers with impact hits and taking no wounds back.  The Leadbelchers hold, but fail to reform to face.

The Ironguts charge the Sea Guard who flee but are run down.  The Sky Cutter continues its good run by putting two wounds on the Firebelly for none in return.  The Ogresses once again hold but fail to reform.

The Firebelly is killed by the Sky Cutter and the Leadbelchers flee and are run down.  We realise that the game is pretty much over now, as the Ironguts will never be able to charge the Sky Cutter (which can move out their charge arc each turn) and the Sky Cutter is unlikely to kill off all the Ironguts in the remaining turns.  Rather than moving the miniatures, we just roll the dice to see if the Sky Cutter gets a lucky hit to take out the Ironguts or make them panic off the table, but it’s not to be.  Victory for the Ogre Kingdoms!

The game was fun, but it was a bit of a mismatch.  Ogres are good at brawling even at low points but High Elves seem to struggle to even fit in the required three units at this level.  At the start we both assumed that magic would dominate as Fireball is highly effective against small units of Elves and Forkbanger had taken a level 2 Mage, but as it turns out neither of us got a single spell off all game.  In some ways it is a bit disappointing that Forkbanger’s clever play (especially trying to use Walk Between Worlds) were stymied by the dice, whereas my own simplistic ‘run forward and smash’ game was rewarded.