Age of Sigmar Tourney

Age of Sigmar was sure a piece of work. It seemed as if GW turned the entire wargaming world upside down and sparked a lot of buzz from all over the gaming world. This does make tournaments a fair bit tricky to run however, since there are no points system to regulate balance between players. Since then, comped rules have been popping out, with the Azyr Comp being the most talked about so far. But simpler guidelines such as limiting army size by number of wounds have emerged but, let’s face it, it wasn’t really all that fair with named characters sharing the same wounds as generic Lords and with obviously more special rules to make them stand out.

So the obvious answer is of course, the scenarios. Which detail out what troop type each side will bring. Which is neat. In fact if a tourney were to be run, they MUST be run from scenarios (of which 40 is supplied in the big book) which could be an interesting way to run things.

I’m about to go on my first AoS game AND tourney and I can’t wait. The loose rule is that it’ll be capped at 50 wounds, so that’s not really a lot to play with. With a really tight limit, the best you can do is go for a common theme that you know you can do well. Here’s my take:

Lord on Griffon

10x Dragon Princes of Caledor

10x Ellyrian Reavers

…

That’s it. Griffon Lord allows rerolling charge and the others are cavalry. The Reavers are stupid awesome with their bows that almost ensures they’ll be firing 3 attacks each in the Shooting Phase.

But that’s not really what I did. Nope. I have a dragon and I’m not afraid to use it:

Prince on Dragon, armed with Lance and War Horn.
9x Dragon Princes
9x Ellyrian Reavers

Packs a bit less punch troop wise and may be a bit slower. But the “Feat” will hopefully bring a full big unit to a pulp. Hopefully. Plus the Prince is no slouch in combat either.

Back to Immoren in full metal

Left Warmachine a good while back, the bug seem to have bit again. Haven’t really bought any new models during my absence from the game, but I did rediscover the box with all my models kind of recently and did the one thing that I could do to keep my army fresh without spending any big amounts of cash:

I repainted my Khador army…

And slightly modded them…

Into Cygnar.

Brought it to my LGS during the Reckoning release event and it certainly invited verbal reactions from other players 😛

I’ll post a pic of my new army when I can get a decent picture out.

What I did was mod both e and p Sorscha into a more battle wearied version of Allison Jakes. Also sculpted cowboy hats on a couple of widowmakers and changed every jack head into Cygnar jack heads, courtesy of Grind. It was certainly an uplifting experience and got me in the groove again.

More importantly, I played with a jack heavy list out of eSorscha (or Capt. Allison Jakes) and was surprised that it could work. The key thing is not to allocate focus to all your jacks if you can, but to allocate them if you need to use them during that turn. Also, another way to field lots of jacks under a caster that’s not known to be able to do so is to field focus efficient jacks. Jacks like the Devastator, Marauder, Destroyer, Beast-09, and the Berserker. These jacks need little focus to run them to their optimum and they work just fine on their own.

1 focus hog jack (like the Juggernaut, Demolisher, Spriggan, Behemoth) is usually enough to fit whatever focus diet you’re on. Even better if you’re running your group with casters that have widespread spells or feats like pVlad with Signs and Portents and Karchev’s Unearthly Rage.

This is the 35 points that I’m playing with nowadays:

eSorscha
Beast-09
Demolisher
Destroyer
Koldun Lord
Dirty Meg
Mule

There are other variations that I’m dying to try out, especially after I fount out that Juggernaut, Marauder and Berserker make a really good 15 point base to build upon. More on those later as I play more games and repaint more of my jacks.

The Sons of Caledor’s Final Recruit

I decided not to buy any more Warhammer Fantasy models. My High Elf army has reached 2500 points, and that, I feel… is that. Sure, it’s not the best group of models out there and I can’t even use everything in a 2500 list (which was my initial goal but I overshot by buying 1 extra unit box). So with a surplus of 2 Heroes/Lords on Griffons, 2 Mages and the Loremaster of Hoeth, this is the final list I came up with to at least look cool on the table:

(psst… it has dragons!)

Prince General, riding a Star Dragon, wearing Dragon Armour and Enchanted Shield, wielding a Biting Blade: 565 points.

Noble Battle Standard Bearer, wearing Dragon Armour and Shield of the Merwyrm, wielding a longbow and Luckstone: 130 points.

Dragon Mage of Caledor, riding a Sun Dragon and carrying a Dispel Scroll: 375 points.

35 Lothern Sea Guards with added shields, full command complement: 450

10 Ellyrian Reavers, with added bows, full command complement: 220

20 Swordmasters of Hoeth, with full command complement: 290

10 Dragon Princes of Caledor, with full command complement: 320

10 Sisters of Avelorn with High Sister: 150

Total: 2500 on the dot.

I have to be honest with you, the General is not the best equipped as he should’ve been. In fact, why his total equipment only comes up to 35 points is because he’s just the delivery system to get the Star Dragon down right and nasty with an infantry block. Same deal with the Dragon Mage. The magic is just bonus, really.

I’m putting the Reavers as a single block instead of traditionally splitting them up into 2 smaller harassment units for 3 reasons:

1. In Blood and Glory, I know there’s a mobile unit with a standard still running around and denying points to the enemy.

2. A 10 man spear charge can be delightful.

3. They don’t panic when 2 of them die for whatever reason.

Same deal with the Dragon Princes. Thanks to the addition of the standard bearer and musician, they can dish out a lot more hurt on the charge then they would have in smaller units of 5.

The BSB is also better protected for fewer points compared to my previous versions of the list. Granted, it doesn’t protect against everything well, but it’s enough.

I played this list once and it has the trouble of covering ground due to the shrinking number of units. I spread it out a bit too much last time but I couldn’t help but wonder if a more compact and dedicated formation would be better for the army.

The only parts that can switch around between lists is the Lords and Heroes category. It’s impossible to add in more to the core army numbers because that would involve buying more models. As it is, it looks pretty decent and neat. Enough to hold my ground at least till 9th Ed shows up.

First Relic Knight Session: Cerci vs Corsairs 35 pts

Had my first Relic Knights game last Sunday. We played 35 points because that was the amount of painted models that we have for both sides. In a nutshell, the game can overwhelm you with options. Since the game play area is only 3′ x 3′, which is roughly half of a typical table, the other half is where you’ll line up your cards and dashboard, so you will take the entire long table if you play this game.

The game is played in alternate unit complete turns. Each turn you’ll move 1 unit to the active state, make an initial move, perform 1 action and make a final follow up move. And that’s it. The unit queue system makes sure that you won’t activate the same model consecutively every single turn.

Here’s the list that we played:

Corsairs:

Calico Kate & Skully

Squall

Blowhards

Primary Objective: Heist (Steal 3 tokens from enemy Primary Objective and deposit on any board edge)

Secondary Objective: Realign (Place 1 infuse token on 3 different enemy objective)

Cerci:

Princess Malya & Mr. Tomn

Pacer

Rin Farrah

Primary Objective: Tear it Down (Destroy either enemy Primary Objective or both enemy Secondary Objective)

Secondary Objective: Anarchy (Deposit 5 Sabotage tokens on 5 different objectives)

It’s really hard to give a battle report on a turn by turn basis, since it’s done unit by unit. But here are the highlights that I manage to remember:

• Cerci blazed first by going after the Corsair’s Primary Objective and managed to bring it to 1/3 of its total health using Malya. But by then Kate stepped in and pummelled the Princess down halfway through. Malya kept taking damage to keep her hand to complete Lap Time but didn’t make it.
• Kate was a melee monster. With a big 14 inch threat range and the fact that her ultimate melee move does not allow the target to do a guard action, Even though Malya managed to heal a bit she was forcefully brought down to 5 hp left. She got hit by that ultimate melee. Ouch.
• Mr. Tomn was happily stealing Kate’s held esper for almost the entire game, which helped bring the damage counter down a bit. But he didn’t have the chance to transfer the delicious espers to another model.
• Rin Farrah was useless. All she did was put down the auto shot AoE and practically dodged and ran the entire game.
• The Blowhards tried to complete their faction objective, but failed after the primary objective blew up (Cerci scored 5 at this point). But they were in a unique position to threaten both Rin and Malya with enough damage to kill either model, thus draining Cerci’s card options and held espers.
• Squall is very economical in dealing decent damage with few cards expended. Most of her activations were spent putting Malya on the spot.
• The Pacer and Malya made a final dash in the last few turns, scoring the secondary objective and winning the game by scoring the remaining 3 points.

Result: Cerci: 8, Corsairs: 0

Final thoughts: Not really what we were expecting before we started the game. The concept of cover was not given emphasis simply because of the card mechanics used. So models were used to block movement lanes in broad daylight instead of applying shooting from cover pressures like other games. We also discovered that each faction has their own special thing and fully relying on those strengths is the key to win games, as well as keeping a straight focus on completing objectives.

But it’s a fresh take on miniature gaming. There are no set long term strategies that you can follow before the game starts, unlike some other miniature games. One could say that the entire game felt reactive and a lot of what you need to do had to be strategized and conceived right there and then. The feel of the game felt very anime-ish to me, which was what they wanted I guess. It’s a good thing, but it might leave experienced miniature gamers feeling a bit disjointed for needing to do what is normally a bad thing in other games.

I think we’re preparing for a 50 point skirmish next, which for me will use most of the models I own, plus a boost or two, which is fine.

Happy Speedy New Year!

I have not been writing in for a long time. Lots of real life events got in the way and not much happened on the cool factor on my end.

Anyway, to start off the year, I got a box of Cerci models from Relic Knights. The ones in the box are not in the starter (not even one model). what I got is Malya, Suicide Queen, Rin, 2 Pacers and 4 Hell’s Belles. In a way it’s cool that the models I have do not coincide with the starter box, so it means that it’s still a worthwhile purchase for me.

The models are a pain to clean. I really hate the plastic that they chose for it. I’m also painting some Corsair models so I can make a direct comparison. Within the faction, the scale seems pretty okay. But it goes out of whack when you compare them cross faction. The sculpt quality also varies. The sculpts from Cerci is consistent and looks good, no complaints there. But the Corsairs are a mixed bunch. Some are awesome, others are like poor Captain Harker (sigh).

I haven’t had a game yet but reading the rules and trying out the deck the game seems pretty nifty.

If only the models didn’t take so much work to get it to a presentable painting ready state, I would’ve bought more of it. As it is, I’m pretty happy with what I got from Cerci. Sure, it’s limited compared to what other players have, but I think I’ll enjoy the quirky play I’ll get out of it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR AGAIN!

How to make practically free army movement trays for WHFB

If you have bought a Warhammer product before, chances are they’ll be in plastic and it’ll comes in a box. Movement trays are integral to a game of Warhammer Fantasy as it speeds things up as you move your regiment over the battlefield. The only problem is procuring a set of GW army trays can get expensive to cover a 2,500 point army.

What I did was cut up the boxes in squares that I want my regiment to fill in, setting aside an extra 1 cm horizontally and 5mm vertically. Then I cut up the frames of the sprues, clean them and glue them on 3 edges of the cut out cardboard. All it needs now is some paint and a bit of flocking on the plastic edges. I use white glue to attach the plastic sprue onto the cardboard.

And there you go. It’ll take you about 5 minutes to finish one tray of any size. I used up the sprue frames and boxes from 1 Dragon Prince unit box and 1 Dragon box to do mine, and I still have half a Dragon box left over for future trays if I need them.

So is 10 quid worth 5 minutes of your time (per tray)? You decide.

Quartering Points (A Warhammer army guide)

Not really much of a guide, but it’s kinda what I’m basing through to plan for my current army. Normally around my parts it’s a 2.5k game. Quartering that would give me 625 points. This number is significant for this point range because it is exactly the threshold of the entire army composition in WFB (which is 25%).

For a hero-tastic(but squishy) list, you can opt for this:

25% Lord
25% Heroes
25% Core
25% Special/Rare

But I always fancy a High Elf army with lots of boots on the ground, so I’m going to turn it around slightly, like so:

25% Lord/Hero
25% Core
25% Special
25% Rare

How would quartering help? Well, for a fresh army, it would help you with your purchases if you can manage micro purchases within that quarter. For example, my Lord/Hero quarter would give me:

Prince on Moon Dragon, Dragon armour, Enchanted Shield, Crown of Altrazar & Biting Blade = 505
Level 2 Mage OR BSB Noble with barded steed, heavy armour, shield, lion cloak = 120

Instead of scratching my head to fit in double dragons in my army, only 1 would suffice to bring the entire army together in a coherent-ish fashion. Not only that, but if you bought one of each model of your faction, this method will promote mix, match and rotate your models in your lists to tailor for different configuration.

Sounds cool? Kinda. While this method does give you an avenue to save a bit of money by optimizing your expenditures in small bite size, you can go overboard and over buy stuff as well. But perhaps the best bit is that you can maintain your core throughout any of your list permutations and they’ll still come out okay. Also be warned that you might or might not be able to fit in your necessary habitual choices, like always having a mage and bsb, etc. So most of the time you will tend to cycle out your selection.

In any case, here’s what I came up with:

2,500 points, High Elf:

Lord/Hero:
Prince on Star Dragon, Charmed Shield, Ironcurse Icon = 540 (survive the first couple of cannon balls and fly in close for a terrifying charge. The Prince is a ticket to get the Star Dragon into the army anyway)
Level 1 High Magic Mage = 85 (passable. he’ll be really good if he rolls a Walk Between Worlds)

Core:
Lothern Sea Guard x35, shields, full command = 450
Ellyrian Reavers x5 = 80
Ellyrian Reavers x5, spears and bows = 95

Special:
Dragon Princes of Caledor x5 = 145
Dragon Princes of Caledor x5 = 145
Swordmasters of Hoeth x15 = 195
Shadow Warriors x10 = 140

Rare:
Sisters of Avelorn x10 = 140
Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower x3 = 210
Great Eagle = 50
Flamespyre Phoenix = 225 (easily worth other things but it’s more fun seeing a flaming bird in the middle of the battlefield)

It’s faster to build armies this way and you won’t have too many headaches.

How to paint Reaper Bones minis: The simple way.

The material of Reaper Bones is similar to DnD/Star Wars minis. But they’re bare softy bendy plastic. Luckily, it’s white so you really don’t have to prime it if you don’t want to.

The key to properly paint it is straight from the bottle. No water dilutions, just wet your brush appropriately. You’ll also have to clean your brush more often to avoid the paint to dry and cake your bristles. Base coat everything normally.

After your base coat dries, shade it with wash deliberately, concentrating more washes on the bottom half of the mini and concealed areas. Then highlight the skin. Finally choose a neutral color (I chose Jack Bone for my mini) and very lightly dry brush only the areas where you want the mini to have light, this is usually from the front. DON’T drybrush all over the mini, it’ll look goofy-ish.

They also take well to matt varnish afterwards. After all that is done, i tried to bend it and stuff and the paint didn’t flake at all. So yeah, pretty cool stuff. It’s also fast to paint them as well.

Before I forget this new list….

The best toy for a miniatures wargamer is a calculator. Tonight, I mistakenly punched some numbers and came up with something AWESOME! It’s like I suddenly punched a magic number and everything clicked. Here’s my new and updated 2500 points list for my Caledor themed army:

(General) Prince on Star Dragon, heavy armour, Enchanted Shield, Crown of Altrazar, Star Lance and The Other Trickster’s Shard = 596

(Battle Standard Bearer) Noble on barded steed, heavy armour, lion cloak, shield, Khaine’s Ring of Fury = 145

Dragon Mage of Caledor, Charmed Shield = 355

Lothern Sea Guards x35, shields, full command = 450

Ellyrian Reavers x5, bows = 85

Ellyrian Reavers x5, spears and bows = 95

Dragon Princes of Caledor x16, full command (or split 9/7, with the 9 being the BSB bunker, it depends)= 494

Sisters of Avelorn x10 = 140

Eagle Claw Repeater Bolt Throwers x2 = 140

2 angry dragons with 1 equally angry rider, range control, heavy hitters, big block of awesome, BSB that doesn’t die too easily. Yup. I guess I didn’t miss anything.

Caledor revisited

After a few games of actually playing Warhammer Fantasy (which is more than I can say of Warmachine back then), I’m starting to appreciate the virtue of a mixed arms army more and more. In Warmachine, I find myself tailoring a list to fit a specific game plan. In Warhammer, this usually leads to my defeat. The best list I’ve fielded so far has a mix of melee, ranged and heavy hitters, which is pretty much text book composition and may look boring on paper, but it’s super fun to play on the table.

That said, there’ll be a 2,400 points Warhammer tourney in Penang early next year and I intend to bring my Sons of Caledor list. As it is, it’s not only impossible to complete by then due to the complexity of the Dragon Prince models, it’ll also get eaten alive. So here’s my current list that I intend to bring:

General: Prince on Star Dragon, wearing heavy armour, Charmed Shield, Crown of Altrazar, wielding lance, Ironcurse Icon.
= 563 points.
Since Dragons are prone to get shot off by cannons in the first turn, I’ve tooled it for survivability and keeping it cheap. Admittedly, I’m only using the Prince as a means to get a dragon in my army. With S7, T7, and 7 wounds, the dragon can cause major damage by flanking any regiment. Hopefully the Terror that it brings will make things easier for me to route regiments and chasing them down.

Battle Standard Bearer: Noble on barded elven steed, wearing Dragon armour, shield, Ruby Ring of Khaine, wielding lance.
= 153 points.
He’ll be joining one of the Dragon Prince detachments. I want my heavy hitters to really tough it out psychologically wise so making him join their ranks sounds like a no brainer to me. The Ruby Ring will give them a slight edge in making their ward saves if needed.

Level 2 Dragon Mage, wearing Dragon armour, Enchanted shield
= 400 points.
He gets a Sun Dragon for free, so really, he’s only there to give me a S5, T5 dragon on the board. He makes it possible for me to field 2 dragons in one army, which is awesome. As a mage, he’s also more survivable than most because he has the option to wear the Dragon armour, which opens up the possibility to equip magical armour on him as well. In combat, he’s more survivable than the General by having a 2+ armour save as opposed to 3+ (which will drop to 4+ as it breaks).

Core:

Lothern Sea Guards x30, wearing shields, full command
= 390 points.
My “horde” for the army. An anvil unit that can shoot as well as having a massive 4 rank attack on the defense. With shields, they have a 5+ armour save which is handy when facing S4 crossbows and whatnot. Granted, a 6+ save is flaky but it’s better than having no save at all. Lined up in ranks of 10, all 30 of them can shoot in a massive hail of arrows, which is nice. Though they’ll only cause 2-5 wounds at best, but it goes a long way in thinning down other hordes. The bonus is that they can declare a Stand and Shoot reaction which will deter high damage but lowly armoured troops from wiping them off.

Ellyrian Reavers x5, wielding spears and bows, musician (2 units)
= 210 points.
Fast cavalry, perfect harrasser units as well as warmachine hunters. They also divert big blocks of infantry away from my heavy hitters which is really cool. Though they reform for free and all that, the musician is there for the +1 bonus while rallying after a feigned flight. The biggest plus about this unit is that they can march for 18″ and can still shoot. Using S3 bows, they might not do much but whittling down 1-2 per turn can be huge as it goes down to turn 5+.

Special:

Dragon Princes of Caledor x6, full command
= 204 points.

Dragon Princes of Caledor x5, full command
= 175 points. Battle Standard Bearer goes in here.

Dragon Princes of Caledor x5, champion
= 155 points.

The titular heroes of my army. Initially I had 20 of them but it cuts off my other options to deal with other threats, so no. 4 Dragon Princes had to be cut out so I’ll have a nice divided by 5 number to make it easier to composite my extra points and stuff later. These guys stat wise are as average as any other elf, which is a bit disappointing. BUT, they have 2 attacks and a 2+ armour save and 6+ ward save to boot. Oh and a 2+ save against flame attacks. Nice. The champion has 3. We are looking at a huge amount of S5 attacks on the charge and they still retain their Always Strikes First rule.

They are designed to be flank/rear chargers because taking a horde head on would be suicide. I don’t think I’ll be spacing them out too far from each other as I intend for them to hit a single big regiment from all sides, cause a route and chase it down. A broken regiment will waste a turn for not being able to charge, which is cool by me. I have a feeling that using them would be tough on both my opponents and myself, since it’s very easy to screw up while playing this way. But I’ll be damn to call my army the Sons of Caledor if I don’t have at least 15 of them.

Rare:

Sisters of Avelorn x10, champion
= 150 points.
My specialised missile unit. While the Sea Guards have 30 bows, they’re still S3, which can’t really cause a big enough threat. Especially against heavy cavalry units. They not only have WS/BS of 5, but they also carry these magical bows that deal S4 magical and flaming attacks. Against the forces of destruction, they also induce a -1 armour save as well. It would be swell if I have the extra points to plunk in the Handmaiden armed with the Reaver Bow with these girls, but as they are, they’re good enough. They also present themselves to be a juicy target, which hopefully will drive the opposing army away from my Dragon Princes. The biggest disadvantage of this unit, is that they don’t have a musician so they can’t swift reform to answer a looming flank threat. But I’ll think of a way to get around that when the time comes.

And that’s it! 2400 points, on the dot. If I need to play a 2500 game, I’ll just add either a couple of Great Eagles or a unit of 10 archers and that’ll be that. I’ll most likely go with the archers wince they’re cheaper, cash wise. My goal now is to complete this army before January starts because not only will the Penang tourney be held then, but the Warhammer Fantasy campaign will be commencing as well.

I didn’t tool up my Lords and Heroes to be as killy nor as impressive as they could’ve been, but I’m paying more attention to the troops as they will be the deciding factor whether I’ll win or not. 8th edition of Warhammer pays a lot of emphasis on the troops, rather than the Herohammer days of 7th ed, where a dude on a dragon will decimate a horde of small guys with no fear of being wounded in return. In 8th ed, a lowly goblin regiment can kill your general if you foolishly charge then head on since rolls of 6+ will definitely wound this time.

I’m still missing 2 boxes of Dragon Princes, 2 boxes of dragons and a box of Sisters of Avelorn to complete this army (assembled and painted as well). I just hope I can make it in time.