Even though the guys haven’t been playing a lot of saga recently, With a lot of excellent strategic boardgames such as “No Retreat” and “Twilight Struggle” holding our interest, a few guys at my local games shop showed some interest in the system. The problem was, I only owned 4 […]
These are 2 separate kits released by Wargames factory, Zombies [all male] and Zombie Vixens [all female]. I picked up a box of each cheap in the clearance bucket, still buzzing from the season finale of ‘The Walking dead’ Box contains 5x identical Sprues. Normally this would stifle creativity when […]
Check these out, new force commanders from Forgeworld. I’ll be painting these over the next week, will upload some pics as i go Left – Lugft Huron Chapter Master Of The Astral Claws (Base being painted separate)Right – Tyberos The Red Wake
Ok, so whats in the box. Well firstly it doesn’t come in a box, but your basic starter set-up is as follows: The Saga rulebook – Quite thin, which is reassuring fr a quickplay game. But the £25 price tag puts it at the “premium” end of the […]
Saga is the new(ish) game on the block from Gripping Beast and Tomahawk studios. It pits small warbands against one another in the dark ages period, specifically 793 – 1066. We have had an eye on this for nearly a year now, and after seeing the Demo game at Salute […]
Of all the games ever released by Games Workshop, in my opinion one has always stood head and shoulders above the rest. The rules are ambiguous and poorly tested but the concept is perfection given injection-moulded, punched-card form. Instead of taking on your mates, you team up to venture into […]
A series of articles tracking the progress of a 28mm World War One project, using The ‘Great War” Rules by Warhammer Historical. There has been a bit of a surge in the popularity of World War One wargaming in the last couple of years, and some great rulesets and ranges […]
James got in first sending pictures of the his Anglo-Dane warband. Although he didn’t provide use with details of the exact colours he chose, it looks like Games Workshop acrylic paint, followed by Army Painter system Quickshade and a few GF9 products for basing. From the photos I can […]
I couldn’t tell you why I picked the Normans. We all picked our respective forces based on looks rather than any insight into the rules. The Normans have this very distinctive feel about them, with the stylised nose-guard helms and kite shields, they should be recognisable to anyone. The […]
Photos from the Games weekend over at Tom's, early April 2012. Opened with a great WW1 game. The first trial of the hex-based game ‘No-Retreat’ (Review coming shortly). Weekend was rounded up with probably the most epicly insane game of Warhammer quest ever played. where our lvl 3 group was faced by a dark-elf sorcerer who transformed into a chimera, certain death for any group, but not us, down she went and all 4 survive to fight another day. Gallery also contains some photos of Tom's forge, and “Drucilla, destroyer of worlds” (The cat)
Warhammer Quest was always a game that could suprise people. I’ve often found it to be the best thing to break out when faced with a tough crowd, amongst those who wouldnt normally play a wargame or an rpg. Every GW critic, every cinic fell in love with the game […]
Of course the satisfaction of owning a complete set is somewhat dimmed if it isn’t painted, and therein lies the problem. I dont have the greatest of willpower when it comes to painting but I was determined to see this one through. I wanted to keep the boardgame feel and […]
Just before we moved out of the flat and put our wargames on hiatus for a few months, Mat dropped over for a few beers and to have one last night of drinking and rolling dice. We originally intended to play a mini Blodbowl league, but it didn't take much to get the hordes of the things set out. Game 1 – Richard playing the forces of Light, Mat the forces of Darkness. Mat got to be defender, and laid the terrain. Rich chose a ranged force comprising of mostly Bow, Magician and Artillery. Mat foreseeing this choice had taken a very fast moving 'aggressive defence' force comprising of Knight, Rider, Warband and a Dragon. Rich deployed with the cannon batteries in the centre, with a strong left flank. A Weak right was propped up by the army commander magician. Fortunately the 'weak right' wasn't to be harassed, as Mat deployed a strong cavalry force in the centre, designed to capture the key bridge early, and a very strong right hook. After a few turns Mats cavalry supported by the dragon crushed Rich's centre, and encircled his army commander. Rich's strong gains on his left were not enough and offset this loss, and the Day was won by the forces of darkness.
After the first game we were debating the usefulness of 'Horde' elements. They were undoubtedly crap in combat, but their ability to repopulate was handy. Rich mentioned that he had been harbouring an idea for an all-horde army, and put forward the theory that in defence, around their stronghold, they could repopulate and hold off an attacker indefinitely. Mat declared he would meet that challenge, and as normal, Alex declared the whole exercise futile, and the game hopelessly broken (Don't worry, you get used to him). Elected to be defender for this exercise in game-theory, Rich as defender did his best to make the terrain suit his aims. A river directly down the middle of the table would provide a great defensive line to hold. A few clumps of bad going either side designed to disrupt the attackers. A 36 point army which consisted of 3 Behemoth, Blade command, and 22 elements of Horde. Played against Mats choice of Spear, Bow, Artillery and magician. Mats forces stopped on the river bank to bombard the bad guys for a while, before crossing. Although initial losses were repopulated by the bad guys, Artillery and magician played havoc with the behemoth elements. Once double-ranked spear were on to dry land they cut a hole through the bad guys line and made a B-Line for the stronghold. Result: unable to repopulate their losses at a high enough rate, the Forces of Darkens gave the field to the forces of Light.
Some pictures from the trip to Tom and Jo's place in Shrewsbury, henceforth referred to as Hinterzerg. Mostly pictures of us playing through levels 2 and 3 of Warhammer Quest (Full write-up of the campaign and encounter tables to be added to the wargames section soon). Also some pics of the board game "Carcassonne".
Have you ever seen on of those HUGE display games at a show, with thousands of figures pitted in an epic struggle? Ever felt inspired to do something on that scale but not had the cash? In this series of articles I will be putting together a massive scale fantasy […]
These things always have a way of starting fairly innocuously. Tom and myself were sitting around, enjoying a frosty beer after a particularly hard fought game of “Battles for Empire” (Anglo-Zulu War). To hand was a box of old magazines which I was too sentimental to recycle, mostly ‘White Dwarf’ […]
So, with this initial idea buzzing around my head I started to round down the specific details. Firstly miniatures scale. This was a bit of a no-brainer as the scale it pretty much dictated to you by GW when you choose fantasy. Although I love 6mm as a scale, there […]
For 1AP per element, lurkers are cheap and if used correctly, highly effective. +2 in combat they are hardly the best combat units available, but their ability to appear an any area of ‘bad going’ entered by the enemy means they can cause havoc in your opponents line disproportional to […]
Ok, so now the grunt work begins. I would sorely love to walk into games workshop and pick up 2x 8000 point fantasy armies to game with unfortunately on my quite meagre paycheque this wasn’t going to happen without t a lottery win. The next best manufacturer of fantasy figures […]
Behemoth is one of the most powerful unit types, with a +4 vs foot and a +5 vs mounted, there is very little that can win in a 1-on-1 fight with a behemoth. Spear is probably the best thing to hold the line against behemoth with, but even then its […]
In Part 2 of this series I showed a photographic walkthrough of the rapid painting process that I’m using for this project, using a 1918 German Battalion HQ unit as an example. The process for painting up the opposing British forces is almost identical, but I thought for the sake […]
The unit I painted in Part 4 completed the British force up to 600 points and so the project is nearly ready for the first small scale game. This article is a quick run through of the units that comprise the British army, and I’ll also make a few ill-advised […]
Rider is one of my favourite unit types in the game. 2APs get you a very fast unit, being able to cover 500p in good going, with a +3 in combat against all unit types. Like all mounted units they are destroyed if they loose whilst in bad going, but […]
Magician, or Caster as we sometimes refer to them, are one of those unit types which give Hordes its character. They are powerful, but not ‘broken’, they provide the longest range attack in the game, and require no line-of-sight to do so. For a whopping 4AP you definitely get what […]
Even for 4AP per element Heroes are simply sick. They can cover great distances quickly at 500p per turn,and +5 vs all enemies makes them unstoppable in combat . The only elements that get a quick kill against them are paladins or artillery (Neither of which the opposing side have) […]
Pictures from uberzerg August 2010. Mostly Toms WW1 in 28mm Game. Got a good few games played that weekend, and found new uses for red laser spirit levels
Photos from games weekend October 2010 (back when we had a big enough house for this kind of thing), mostly photos of Toms "Great War" game
Blade represent high quality well drilled infantry, moving in tight formation. For this reason they are slow (Equally in Bad going or in the open), but do very well in combat against other foot units (+5). The are vulnerable to Mounted units however (only +3). They are Quick-killed by Warband, […]
In the first edition of Hordes of the Things, Warband was definitely the worst troop choice going. At twice the points cost of Horde it was only slightly more combat effective. Thankfully in 2nd Edition they were buffed slightly, and the semi-official-unofficial errata to the HoTT rulebook brings them up […]
Spear elements in hordes? Solid .. like totally solid, solid as a rock. Spear gets +4 vs anything, with a +1 on top for a supporting rank, meaning they can take care of most foot and mounted units, and can double-rank to hold the line against behemoth, knight and even […]
Shooter, or ‘bow’ as I call them, is probably the most powerful unit type in the game. Although I am not going to claim they are “Broken” as such, they are slightly undercost in terms of points. Faster than most foot units, they fare well in bad going and have […]
Artillery is one of the more interesting units from Hordes. A 500pc attack range is devastating, they freak out behemoth and dragon (causing a flee rather than a recoil), and can cause recoils on most other units long before they are under threat. However they are quick-killed in close combat […]