Of course, regular readers (shout out to Roger, John, Pete, IRO, Whittlesey & the crew!) will remember how it was Willy’s unfortunate encounter with my hungover foot that brought on this decision to paint an otherwise (almost) mint Heroquest set.. happy to say that Willy survived surgery involving superglue and rapid dry PVA and is almost 100%.. As with the Undead contingent, I wanted to follow the box art as closely as possible – because you just don’t mess with the classics – and went with the trick of priming white and prewashing with Vallejo Smokey Ink.
Flesh tones were a mix of craft skin tone & Vallejo Skin Wash, browns were Vallejo Filthy Brown washed with Brown Ink, metallics were Mithril Silver over a black base and washed with Smokey Ink.. and everything got a unifying drybrush of craft bone – basing was the same trick as the Undead, brown and yellow washes over a white base (nicely scuffed by all the collateral painting damage up to this point), followed by a thin black wash, black drybrush and then a drizzle of dust and flock to tie them to the theme of aged flagstones.
Got to say, they look a bit cackhanded next to the box art – the LIDL version of ‘Eavy Metal painting – but given the startling decline in my short range eyesight over the past six months (go on, make the jokes) that was probably to be expected, and I reckon they pass the “Two Feet Away” test without too much trouble – really looking forward to our first game with everyone painted up, that’s going to be some next level regression/nostalgia right there.. so till then, stay thrifty and Slavia Ukraini..
Le me blow your mind here. It’s the MID-2020’s X-O. How the hell did that happen? Well, with New Year’s hangovers gradually receding and the faintest hints of my toes reappearing under a belly strained to bursting point with mince pies, wine & (hopefully) medicinal whisky, let me see if I can pin down exactly where the bloody hell 2023 went…
Of course, we all know about the miserable international situation- but given that in early ’22 I was primed for the Threads– style end of the world scenario, it could still be a damn sight worse… against all the odds the Ukrainians are still hanging in there and have managed to chase the Russian Black Sea Fleet away from their attempt to starve half the world despite not technically having a navy, for example, so there are very definitely nuggets of hope to cling on to.. as long as our great and wise leaders don’t choose to suddenly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory… and who knows, maybe if the IDF actually do manage to stamp out Hamas once and for all then maybe the Middle East can start to find a modicum of peace for once and all the poor bastards caught in the crossfire can actually be left alone to live their lives… but that’s as political as I’m getting right now. Y’alls didn’t come to be lectured.
But you DID come to see some toy soldiers, right?
In respect of Dan’s birthday, I managed to track down the latest iteration of a skirmish game that we’d both been hunting for for many a year, which yielded up a couple of great fun little games and some painting tips – we even managed a YouTube video.. and there’s a chance we might manage some more, more on that later…
We kicked off with old school 2nd Ed Space Marine action as conflict tore apart the world of Hazzard with the BIGGEST Epic game we’ve run yet – Redeemers, DIY Guard and Squats held the line against a horde of howling greenskin scum (who have subsequently been reinforced) – and (spoilers) it did.. just… but with a twist that may yet cause further ructions on that tormented world…
And then there were our own systems. Atlantic Alliance vs Holy Soviet Empire is still too near the knuckle for either of us to actually enjoy it, but we DID throw down a newly reinforced League Of European Nation against the Atlantic Alliance, throwing a spotlight on some of the fringe conflicts of the Apocalypse War.. before we got into Hyperian Wars, which has been steadily escalating all year before culminating in an almighty conflagration currently taking place in the shed!
I should also give honourable mentions to one or two projects that might not have made the blog – my Epic Squat Goliath Mega Cannon built from a pen, repaints on a couple of scenery pieces… including a newly upcycled satellite dish made from a now defunct satnav holder:
and of course our now traditional Star Wars Epic game, reinforced with an air wing and new infantry! With the advent of GW’s Legiones Imperialis and Mantic’s own Epic game it looks like teeny weeny scale games are very much back on the horizon, so nice to be in the mix!
So what’s on the agenda for 2024? Well, there’s a fighting chance we might have some rules published (currently sitting in PagePlus being spellchecked and rewritten)- but in the meantime, plenty of playtesting, plenty of scratchbuilding… and we’re going to start with a game that kick started many folks’ hobby careers.. what could that be?
What indeed…
So that’s our 2024 (roughly) planned – what about you guys? How about our friends out therein hobbyland? Drop us a line and let us know!
Betcha thought I’d forgotten about these lads, didn’t you 😉
OK, I’ll admit, we are no stranger to big red things here. But this particular one…
WAAAAAY back in the mists of time, when humble old COVID seemed like the apocalypse, I acquired a haul of Space Marines off eBay with the intent of creating the Blood Angels 3rd Company army from WD 139. And one of those vehicles – albeit not one that I think they ever got round to painting – was the Land Raider.
Now, a modern bog standard vanilla Land Raider kit will set you back… (checks GW website) £55. That’s almost a gallon of petrol. Bugger that.
Enter Paperhammer! This particular template was downloaded from In The Grim Cheapness STC Archive (a Mk 1, obvs), printed out onto paper and glued to cereal box cardboard. I followed the instructions as best I could fathom them (cheating a but with the smoke launchers and exhausts, going with copped up drinking straws for those), until we got to the sponson lascannons.. I had such plans for them, an ingenious double pivot system based around spare 25mm bases and cocktail sticks… But in the end, they failed to survive contact with the real world – so I went with Foam ex, detailed with cardboard squares, glued on kebab skewers and added card on the end of the barrels… and off to the shed for priming we went.
It begins…It continues…Application of nylon tulle to make grating.. NOT recommended without alcohol on standbyNow with tracks, guns & detailing – thanks Roger for the heavy bolterOG or bustCarbon neutral…?
Primed white (natch) prewash with Smokey ink and then covered the whole thing with Vallejo Hot Orange and washed with Red Ink, and a mix of craft red thinned with red ink and matte medium. Came out a little darker than the Rhinos in the end – as I’m too thick to have thought about keeping one of them on hand for reference – but pleasingly crimson nonetheless. And I can always give a wash to the Rhinos too.
Here you can see the grill – glued the tulle to the cardboard, then more card over the top, then painted the area black and drybrushed silver. It’s a pretty cool effect but I’m buggered if I’m doing it too many more times…
Got to admit, it took a while to get this put together but it’s made a great centrepiece for the lads and it’ll come in very handy when the Blood Angels eventually make their final assault on Orklahoma City! Til next time, stay thrifty and we’ll see you soon.
Can someone explain to me how the HELL it’s October?? I know it’s an age thing, but this is ridiculous – I’m still writing 22 on the end of dates…
Still, enough griping – October is Orktober, and we’ve been preparing! Let us begin by turning our attention to Da Black Ork Cav – I’ve gone for a bit of low hanging fruit as time has been something of an issue, and finished up the second battlewagon that I started last year (!) and a bit of extra terrain for Orklahoma City… wanna see? Course you do!
Classic RT/ 2nd Ed vibes right there, and it didn’t cost a penny!Engine compartment – got to be a hemi in there, right? No Net Zero pledges for da boyz…Ran put of lollipop sticks detailing the wheels so had to make do with cardboard strips…All set and ready for priming!Attempted a zenithal prime – white over grey… still not entirely sure of this yet! Dinosaur in the corner is Dan’s project, I’ll let him tell you about that 😉 Painting was otherwise the same as last year’s model
And now, let’s check out the terrain:
So what we have here is a multivitamin container, thin cardstock glued over the top, rivets added (PVA blobs added with cocktail stick). kebab skewer legs, lolly stick walls mounted on FoamEx base with texture sprinkled on to PVA painted onto the base..Nicely ramshackle, I think!Primed black and ready for paint!
OK, and now let’s take a look at the whole lot formed up and ready:
New arrival on the left hand side, next to Da Dread.. Orklahoma City HQ providing the backdrop!Water tower all painted up – ain’t she purrty?‘TEN-SHUN!! Da Black Ork Cav, ready to roll out…
So that’s #Orktober started, how are you all doing out there in hobbyland? Let us know! We’ll be back with more soon, so stay thrifty out there!
As we wipe the sweat from our collective brows after last month’s rather epic battle report, let’s change scale, period and game type back into some (presumably) near future dystopian sci-fi skirmish as we show off our progress through the surprisingly comprehensive Combat Zone box set from EM4 miniatures… for the price of a cheese sandwich or a kiss on the kips with no tongue from GW, you too can own.. MANY miniatures, a rulebook, dice and scenery, everything you need for a campaign (which is also contained in the box.)
We’ve already covered the first squad of Corporate Troopers, so in this post we’ll be taking a look at the OPFOR, the Gangers.. in this instance the notorious Ginger Ninja faction – so named because all members have to show at least some bright orange in theor clothing, and the more orange you show, the higher your status in the gang.
This obviously presents it’s own tactical issues as there are few environments where this is going to be effective camouflage, but given it’s strong association with US prisons I thought it made for quite a good basis for an “outlaw” faction. Plus, of course, South Park:
As with the Corporate Troopers, I started off with grey priming, washed with thinned Smokey Ink and drybrushed with bone craft paint.. this should give a nice 3D surface to paint on, with shadows and highlights already taken care of in the underpainting stage. That way, nicely thinned paints should simply colourise your underpainted shadow/ highlight combination and you’ve already got the hard work done.
Should. I’m still not entirely convinced that it did.
Still, I’m quite pleased with the results – check them out!
Our glorious leader – “Go over there or I’ll cut you!”The classic “Sword in the ponytail” look.. “What you say? I’m trying to shoot someone!”There’s a fair bit of double denim going on here, but when you’re packing an automatic shotgun I doubt anyone’s going to call you on it..The crew ready to roll out.
Orange was the Vallejo Hot Orange/ Red Ink combo, blues done with Wilko’s (RIP :-/) Duck Egg Blue overpainted with blue craft paint, browns with Vallejo Filthy Brown washed with Brown Ink.. a final very light drybrush with bone craft paint to make the highlights pop.. I also gave all the metallics a Vallejo Smokey Ink Wash to give the weaponry a dirty, beaten up look. Baddies don’t clean, what are you, a narc?Basing was the same recipe as the Corporate Troopers, so follow the link for that one.
We also managed to get the test game in (on an urban board that has seen better days, sadly :-/)
A pretty good ding dong back and forth, ended by a highly cinematic shootout and heroic charge into single combat by the Ginger Ninja’s leader! Once you’ve got your head around a couple of slightly counterintuitive basic points, the rattles along nicely – it will be interesting to see how this scales as we work through the campaign included in the box though, moving to larger battles.. still, only one way to find out, eh?
Stay safe and thrifty, and a belated happy Flag Day – SLAVIA UKRAINIA
What are the two words most dreaded by wargamers? “Rounding out”? “Finishing off”? “New 40k?” (meow) – no, my friends, not even close. Brace yourselves for the full horror that is:
TIDYING UP.
Recently we’ve been getting our feng shui on in Jim’s gaming shed, informally christened “Apocalypse Junction”, and this has required some organising and rationalisation to make the best use of the space available – buying storage boxes, putting up shelves etc – and this has thrown up many a long-abandoned mini-project and piece of Interestingly Shaped Crap.
So while Jim was busy nailing himself to a wall, I got busy creating some more scenery from said Interestingly Shaped Crap with a view to big Apocalypse: Earth dust-up in the coming months.
Front and centre we have two soap dish holders, now surplus to requirements for several years. For the bases we have cut up CDs (soak in boiling water and then cut with kitchen scissors), and some offcuts of craft and insulation foam to create rocky outcrops. I used a mix of fast drying PVA and superglue to put these together – superglue gives the initial grip while the PVA provides are more durable and flexible bond when it’s dry. There was also a rogue piece of polystyrene Jim threw my way – or at me – which got added into the build.It’s filler time! Cheap stuff from the local Poundland, this goes in all the gaps and over the smooth surfaces, and over the bobbly surfaces on the polystyrene.Texture paste – PVA, filler, sand and black paint thinned with water. This gets applied liberally with a big and old brush – the idea being that black paint made it easier to see if I’d missed any bits. Then all likely nooks, crannies & crevices got painted with PVA and I drizzled cat litter on top. This is a ridiculously easy but effective way to add detail to pieces like this.Primed white with £1 shop spray primer.Leopard spotting! First we daub it with thinned yellow…. oh, noAnd then the brown… oh no no noAnd then a thin black wash… oh, okay, starting to see it now..and then the drybrush does it’s thing… NOW, I see it.. actually, this was where I realised I’d gone a bit heavy with the black wash and the drybrush was a bit too high contrast – a thin grey wash sorted out the balance and smoothed everything out a bit. See? And here they flocked, sealed, varnished and are in situ, with the Blood Angels fending off nasty beasties from Hive Fleet Imprudens… The rocky crag you can see in the background is a sister piece to his Golgothan Spire which Jim made and never got around to doing a blog entry for.Now that’s a bad day at the office.Defending the Star – no, best make that Space – Gate!I also found a last bit of insulation foam, glued some thick mounting card underneath it (figuring the foam itself would keep from any warping), carved a couple of slopes and got busy with the bark chip and the filler, and the texture paste..Close up of the stoneworkOff we go leopard spotting again…Black wash pulls everything togetherFinished and in situ with the rest of the new terrain – fine companion to Bose CliffINCOMING!“This would never happen if we were on a model railway”Genestealers REALLY interested in how we did the stonework…
So now we have few more eye-catching terrain pieces providing some depth and interest to the next battlefield – stay tuned for the write up! Stay thrifty out there…
I think we may be in danger of starting Yet Another Skinflint Tradition here… over the last couple of years, regular viewers will have seen me appropriate the granny grating techniques that Dan picked up to scratchbuild some Epic scale Star Wars armies, in a somewhat ambitious attempt to recreate one of my favourite old RTS games, “Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds” on the tabletop. It’s also served as an incubator for our “epic scale” version of the Apocalypse: Earth rules, nd believe it or not these are actually in a pretty good state, albeit existing as stapled together Post-It notes and scattered pages of A4 paper!
This time I wanted to add an aerial dimension – so what else but a flight of TIE fighters for the Empire and X-Wings for the Alliance? And if you’re going to have air, you need anti-air assets, so that meant infantry packing SAMs.. and while I’ve got the granny grating out, why not add infantry packing personal mortars able to provide indirect fire support? Well, it would be rude not to, right? In fairness, I’ve no idea if this is “canon”, but Star Wars lore seems infinitely malleable depending on who owns the IP – and let’s not forget George Lucas was making it all up as he went along anyway – so I decided to stick by SWGBs template!
Right, enough talk, let us get to business – I won’t go into the infantry because it’s pretty much the standard drill now, granny grating & hot glue, granny grating lengths cut to represent SAM launchers and mortar barrels and bipods, 20mm wine box cardboard for basing, you can read all about that in innumerable posts on this blog… and, well, I clearly forgot to take any pictures. Whoops.
But the interesting stuff is here – the ships! X Wings first:
Fuselage crafted from sprue lengths (approximately an inch in length), whittled down with a craft knife to create the X Wing silhouetteWings cut from cardboard and glued to the fuselage with a mix of PVA and superglue, eyeballed the angles with the help of a rulerAnother viewDrinking straw thrustersAnd there are the TIE Fighters! Blobs of greenstuff with cockpit details etched in, wrapped around cocktail sticks chopped down and cardboard wings added with PVA/superglue mixBases! These are 30mm squares of Foamex (ePVC to some) bevelled down, and sanded the edges (right hand side)..Tactical rocks added for cinematic style – and stability! Cocktail sticks driven into the Foamex and glued in place.The lads take to the skies! Paint scheme was the same as the mechs and for the moment I’ve bodged the bases with Blu-Tack to keep the X Wings in the sky…Providing air cover to the Rebel Scum (TM)Close up on the mortar platoonRebel air defence teamAnd from the best angle – two feet away – the army on parade!Stormtrooper support assetsSlightly better angle here!TIE Fighters on patrol, overwatching the Galactic Empire – painted black and some edge highlighting done with thinned Duck Egg Blue house paintLord Vader leads the troops forward – there will be no-one to stop us this time…
Tune in next time to see how the battle went down, and stay thrifty out there!
Ebay should come with a health warning. “Based on your previous purchases, you may like…” it simpered innocently at me. And before I knew it I’d snapped another 10 Genestealers for a project that was an accident in the first damn place.
Still, it WAS a good deal – £4.95 including postage for what turned out to be 10 minis, all in more or less good shape.. and after a little bit of selfless internet research, I discovered that Andy Champers (praise be upon him) had in fact written a Genestealer Cult army list as well as a Tyranid Invasion Force for the 2nd Ed Tyranid Codex, and you can download it FREE (and I believe legally) here. I got my copy and have yet to be held to ransom by Russian gangsters… (touches wood just in case).
This is just a quickie post as there really is nothing new here, I painted these lads in exactly the same way I did the previous two waves, but we’re up to 24 models now which is a fairly decent horde (and I’ve probably given the game away for my next plans for them…)
Note a couple of tentacles bodged from greenstuff in place of missing arms.. arms which I subsequently found in the packaging… sigh.A couple of subtle differences in the shades of wash and basing as I had to hand mix these colours having run out in the period since we last encountered them…If you look closely you’ll see the basing materials are a little different as I lost my pot of Garage Floor Dust (TM) and used a dab of Dry Garden Soil (TM)…But on the whole I think they mix pretty well!Ole’ Six-Eyes leads his newly reinforced brood forward…..and here they are in action against their spiritual foes, Dan’s 1991 Blood Angel Terminators!“They’re coming out of the walls! They’re coming out of the Throne-damned walls!”
I’m actually quite chuffed with these, for an accidental maintaining-sanity-during-COVID project they’ve come out OK and are forming into a nice little army.. of course, in Skinflint style these lads will be pulling extra duty, not just for 40k (and if all the rumours surrounding 10th edition having free rules and datasheets and no codexes are to be believed, then HELL YES we’ll be all over that!), but also different flavours of Space Crusade and another Space based GW classic.. plus of course a ’90s classic rule set that was rather overlooked back in the day that we’ve been trying like hell to figure out..
..and maybe these lads will crop up in the junglesof Armageddon too? I mean, you never really know what’s lurking out there…
Stay safe and thrifty out there, and keep watching the skies!
Some of you may remember these lads from the dim and distant World That Was – pre-pandemic, pre-war – and although I scraped together enough models to fight the scenariosin the 2nd Edbattle booklet, I just… left them there. In order to make a fully legit 2nd Ed force. They were going to need the most dreaded phrase in wargaming parlance – “rounding out”.
Happily, I still had a few Orks left over from filling out the ranks of the Boyz (as well as a random Grot), a copy of the 2nd Ed Ork Codex from 1994 as a PDF from what I assume is a legal source.. and of course hope (Sorry, wrong franchise).
I planned out a list with the intent of making an “armoured cavalry” themed force of mercenaries using the scratch built Ork tanks that WD 136 came with cardboard templates for – cool quirky things that would make their way into Epic like the Gobsmasha, the Lungbursta, the Braincrusha and the Bonecrusha or Bonebreaka.. only to find that these no longer had rules in 2nd Ed. So after some wailing and gnashing of teeth, I came up with another plan – although the original paint scheme left these guys as largely clan-agnostic, most of the ladz had camo trousers of some description, meaning I could legitimately run them as Blood Axes… and that meant access to Imperial hardware.
So, a Gobsmasha could be an Orky take on a Vindicator? Scans Marine & Guard codex…nope, Vindicators didn’t have rules back then. However, the Leman Russ was new to the Guard back then, and there’s no reason why a Blood Axe Mek shouldn’t have looked at that great mountain of dakka and thought “Hmm…”… so I figured I could pretty reasonably knock together a Lungbursta hull, slap a couple of sponsons on it, and hey presto – Orky Leman Russ.
I came up with a battle roster suiting the kit I had to hand – 20 odd Orks, 41 Gretchin.. keeping to the theme of austerity (Orksterity?) I figured the rest would be vehicles and Dreads because I could scratch build them virtually for free – hell, I’d already done a Dread.
So here is the roster:
2 x Mobs 10 Boyz (bolt pistol, flak armour, axe) – 120 pts each
Nuvver Dread – Heavy Bolter, Missile Launcher – 145 (249)
Yet Anuuvver Dread – Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer – 120 (369)
2x Warbuggy – Multi Melta – 130 (499)
3rd 500 pt block
2 Leman Russ Demolisher w/Heavy Plasma Guns in sponsons – 250 each – 1999
As you can see, a fair bit to do! Currently I’m painting the remaining infantry and building a retro-style battlewagon:
Remaining Orks and lone Grot stripped, based – homemade texture paste, PVA, dunk in the mass of sawdust and general Garage Floor Grit, prime white and thinned Smoky Ink wash (partly for the gradation of colour, mainly for outlining details that my aging peepers might otherwise miss) Floorplans cut from foamboard – you can see the measurements marked on. Shaded parts are the bits to be cut off.Stroke of genius here! X-D Stacked up the foamboard offcuts to make the fron drivers compartment and the rear mounted engine compartment… I’m thinking BIG V8!Overview of the foamboard chassis, Ork Boy for scaleNOW we’re cooking! Card panels cover the foamboard engine & driver compartment, single corrugated card for the passenger compartment side panels, wheels are cardboard tube with cardboard added for armour plate and balsa wood coffee stirrers provide the cross bracing on the wheelsMore armour panels and rear wheels built from toilet roll tube – bigger rims… “Ghazgkull sez, ride big”Rivets! Detailed with hundreds of the bastard things, little dots of PVA added with a cocktail stick… tedious to do, but looks SO GOOD when you slap the paint on… Note as well the spikes filling in the gaps in the armour, these are just cocktail sticks trimmed to fit and held in pace with the magic combo of superglue and quick dry PVA.Rear view..
Now let’s finish off with a few beauty shots – there’s a fair bit to do to get these up to the magic 2000pts (let alone the hefty force of Marines Dan’s Blood Angels will add up to) but I rather like this idea of a renegade Ork mercenary force with a lot of dakka for hire.. an elite cadre of Orks with the Gretchin “hired help” pressed into services as supporting fire/ meat shields.. Look out for a battle report in the near future as we get the gaming shed ready for some 2nd Ed retro goodness!
All painted up and ready to roll!Base of red craft paint, washed with smoky ink and drybrushed up, pin washes of smoky ink and went heavy with the sponge chipping and drybrushed up some brown to represent mudThe new recruits! Boss WarBastard IV identifiable by snazzy kustom shoota (bit of lego jammed over an Imperial bolter by the eBay seller), sword and spiky armour – yes, I will be doing back banners!Da Black Ork Cav on parade!All together – WAAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
And by my calculations I’ve got enough scraped together to field a legit 1000pt army (just need the banners) to go up against Dan’s boys in red for a proper legit retro 2nd Ed scrap – so Dan, is Captain Tycho ready to get his pretty face messed up again? Let’s do this!
As always, stay thrifty and we’ll see you again soon!
With the Last Regiment finally finished, the end of this project is tantalisingly close… so let’s keep on!
I’d separated out the remaining figures into five “Boss” figures – one of which would be promoted to Warchief Ghazrag The Bloody himself – and ten “Shamans” (one of which played Ghaz in the battle reports). This meant there was going to be a SERIOUS amount of of Orca magic going on.. which was fair enough, it’s not like they get much in the way of heavy weapons or missile troops…
So, I based all the remaining models on 20mm washers using a mix of superglue and quick dry PVA, primed them white and then gave them a thinned black pre-wash to help pick out the detail as the eyes aren’t what they were… you might notice a little bit of greenstuff conversion work to make the figures less uniform, including the odd arm bent up or down, as well as a greenstuff cape on Ghaz himself to give him a bit of extra presence. The jester’s hat on one of the shamans was another greenstuff effort, a tip of the hat to the classic old GW Ork Weirdboy from the 90s, and in case it’s not clear, the stuff coming out from the shaman’s outstretched hands is magic, not an oversized novelty foam finger.
Next up, flags. Having failed spectacularly with my freehand attempts with the Blood Angels, I decided to take a different tack – a Google Image search for “Warhammer Fantasy Orc Banners” got me this:
So much easier when someone else has done the drawing for you..
The paint schemes were the same as thepreviousregiments, and I extended that to the banners – mostly red (Vallejo Hot Orange washed with Red Ink), craft bone paint and Vallejo German Grey for black / dark grey bits.
For banner poles I snipped some black paper clips in half, arranged them in reasonably convincing poses and superglued them in place.. and now the big reveal!
Warchief Ghazrag The Bloody, seen here at the head of his horde doing his best John Travolta impression… you can tell by the way he holds his axe, he’s a woman’s Orc, no time to talk…Orca Boss at the head of regiment of Boyz, now all flagged up and ready to rockGhaz and his Shamans at the head of his regiment of bodyguardsHead shaman rocking VERY fly hatDey’s over dere, GET EM!!!!!The Mighty Horde!!
Now admittedly, Orca strategy is largely:
But it’ll still be nice to have all these Bosses to help keep the assault rolling forward
But before all that, Warchief Ghazrag had the small matter of an Ancien Regime force to match wits with in his quest for ever-holier stones…
The battle lines are drawn…The Ancien Regime forces deploy with their flank anchored by the Steam TankGhaz leads the boys in a pincer movement around the ruined church (or at least that’s the plan)Supported by the Arrer Boyz, the Orca pile forward – Ghaz attempts to lead his bodyguard forward in the centre but is defeated by the terrain..Watching the Orca thunder toward the Ancien Regime lines, the Steam Tank takes cover for a flanking shotAncien Regime Grenadiers fall victim to Orca Arrer Boyz but the line holds… “Let them come on, lads!”Caught in the open, the Orca Warriors fall to the Steam Tank’s firepower!Rifle regiment receive the first of many Orca charges!Despite massive losses, the Rifle regiment holds, buying time for the Cuirassier cavalry to counter attack with a devastating flank chargeGrenadiers join the party, pushing home the counter-attackMeanwhile, the “elite” Black Orcs are hit with rifle fire from the regiment positioned on the cliff, and straightaway fluff their morale check..Not to be deterred, however, Ghazrag and his bodyguard are closing in on their objective!Grenadiers and Cuirassiers make short work of the Savage OrcsMaking a last gasp dive for the objective after Witch-Colonel Murphy manages to teleport him down the hill, Ghaz is felled by rifle fire as the remaining riflemen burn through their remaining command points in desperation… the last bullet hits home, felling the Warchief!
Bugger, I cocked that up royally – I tried to keep the regiments together and failed abysmally, leaving them to hit the Ancien Regime lines piecemeal.. hopefully my new cadre of Shamans and bosses will inject some flexibility to round out the army..
There’s still a couple of war machines to build, plus I’ve got a couple of conversions up my sleeve.. and then maybe make some giant spiders.. and this is why projects never really get finished! The Curse Of The Wargamer strikes again…
Stay safe and thrifty out there, we’ll be back again soon
Skinflint Games 