Warhammer Diskwars

While I've not done much on the miniatures front due to building all the models for Samurai Battles, I have been playing some new games during the first weeks of the new year. Warhammer Diskwars recently released and it is great! I've already played three games (four if you count the mini-game I did for this blog) and I see lots of potential for this game.

Follow the link I provided above to see some nice pictures and details of the game mechanics. Fantasy Flight Games does a nice write-up with good illustrations. In a nutshell, this is the same game as the original Diskwars with a Warhammer theme. I'd never heard of Diskwars, but I understand it was popular and just as fun as this version. At the heart of the game are your units, which are represented as disks. The disks have a move value, which represents how many flips edge-over-edge that each disk can take. So a Move 4 disk can flip in any direction up to four times. When a disk lands on top of another disk, it has pinned the unit and once all disks are activated you will resolve close combat by comparing attack and defense values along with any existing damage. A disk is destroyed when you exceed its hit points and wounds totals. Most disks have only a single wound, but some of the tougher heroes and disks have two or three wounds.

So rather than try to explain all this, I ran a short game with one hero per side. The starter comes with Chaos, Orcs, High Elves, and Empire. I chose Orcs versus Chaos. Here's all the disks available for each of these forces. Sorry for the glare.

I just picked one hero per side and their associated disks from the constructed armies in the book. You have freedom to built your own armies, but using the book is faster for this example. The game is played on a 3x3 area. Michael's sells a 3x3 piece of green felt for $4, so instant playmat! After I select the disks, I pick four command cards to use.  Command cards determine initiative order as well has how many disks can be activated. Some cards also give special abilities.

With my forces selected, deployment zones are established. Players pick cards which determine how many disks can be placed within that zone, with one side of the card giving a perk and the other defaulting to three disks. You can set up deployment cards wherever you want, but it's a good idea to keep them together to form one big zone.  Here's my set up and the forces involved.

Chaos has Archaon the Everchosen as its leader, with a Bloodthirster (the giant disk) and a unit of Flamers to support him. His mission is to kill the orc leaders, five victory points per disk. You see how both zones make one larger area to accommodate these disks. I could place a total of six disks here, and any more would have to remain in reserve until there is room to deploy them.

Orcs are led by Azhag the Slaughter mounted on his wyvern. He takes a unit of wolf riders, arrer boyz, a big boss, and boar boyz with him.  Like Warhammer, orcs are cheap, numerous, and tough. I split their deployment zones, mostly because I wanted Azhag on the flank to take advantage of his flying and terrain. It wouldn't matter much, as we'll see. The orc's objective is to kill as many enemy disks as they can, for one victory point per disk.

Terrain is laid out with players taking turns. I just flung some pieces on the table. The terrain is dual sided with different types. There are game effects for the terrain that are fairly intuitive and work much like other war games. Here's the table to start. It looks underwhelming with so few units, but in a normal game you'd have two times or more the number of disks here.

You roll for initiative advantage once in the game, and after that command card priorities will determine who goes first. The initiative roll determines who has the edge, which breaks ties when cards of the same type are played. In this case Chaos wins and gets a warhammer token to show it has the edge in ties.

Turns progress by playing command cards, activating the number of disks the card allows, and then repeating until all units are activated or pinned. For turn one, The Orcs play the Approach command card, which allows them to activate four disks and has a slow strategy.  Chaos plays Assault which also allows four disks but has a bold strategy. Strategies are a rock, paper, scissors approach to determining initiative.  Slow always goes last, so Chaos activates first. They move to the center of the board.

The orcs now go, and I flip the disks according to their move values. This scenario has a special rule that adds one flip to each move, so the orcs become even faster. The arrer boyz move into the ruined fortress while the boar boyz and the big boss are able to reach Archaon the Everchosen in one turn. You can see the big boss barely made it, but it counts. The boar boyz do 4 impact damage, which is assigned as soon as they touch a disk. That's a powerful hit and will help whittle down Archaon. The other orcs move around but don't do much. The wolf riders move and shoot but have no luck.

Now with all activations done, close combat starts. (You can see activation tokens on all the disks along with hit point markers.) The orcs put a wound on Archaon and he strikes back at the Big Boss to destroy him. The disk is removed, but the Boar Boyz are still pinning Archaon.

Turn two:  Chaos plays Storm of Chaos, Devious 2, and Orcs play Fist or Mork Devious 3. Since Chaos has the edge, they go first. Chaos uses their command card's special ability to empower Archaon (giving him boosted stats). Then the Bloodthirster, which can also fly, zips overhead and lands on Azhag. The Flamers shoot at the Boar Boyz and put 3 damage on them, but not enough to kill. They can take 5 hit points before taking a wound.

Now the Orcs activate their units. Both the Arrer Boyz and  Wolf Riders shoot Archaon and put four damage on him. The Boar Boyz activate but don't move. With everything activated or pinned, it goes to close combat. Archaon kills the Boar Boyz, but since he is so wounded the Boar Boyz second round of fighting is enough to kill him, so both disks are removed. The Bloodthirster does two wounds to Azhag, which would normally destroy any model but Azhag is exceptionally tough with three wounds.

Here's combat just before I resolved the Bloodthirster.

Turn Three: Command cards are played and initiative goes to Chaos. The Flammers fry the Arrer Boyz with three hits in one roll, which is very good. The Bloodthirster remains pinning Azhag, since he doesn't want that bad boy getting away. Now the Orcs activate, Azhag can do nothing, so the Wolf Riders shoot at the Flamers then run away after missing completely. Azhag activates a special power from his command card, but the spell fizzles (he does d6 - 2 damage, and he rolled a two).  So now it goes to close combat of the two giants of the battlefield.

The writing is on the wall (or in this case, right on the disks), without help or some boosts to his powers Azhag doesn't have the juice to kill the Bloodthirster. He dies and Chaos wins, 5VP to 1VP.

So that's a small, short game of Warhammer Diskwars. The army construction rules are fun, and to really do this right you should get a second starter box. Like so much of what FFG does, they almost always make buying a second set a good idea --but it's certainly not necessary for playing the game. I just want multiples of some of the more powerful units. Armies like the High Elves need units with more juice than what is provided in the box.

The game is tremendous fun. What at first seemed to me a silly concept (flipping disks around a table), turned out to be quite an engaging experience. I highly recommend this game, and with it being under $30 is a great value. I can't wait for expansions to be announced. I'll be all over it!

Dark Elf Spearmen

While I haven't been posting up much, I've still been busy with my various miniatures projects. I've had a lot less time to work on models than I'm used to having. So my output has decreased. But today I put finishing touches on more of my Dark Elf / Twilight Kin forces.  While these are GW dark elf models, they work perfectly for Kings of War Twilight Kin, which is what I'm planning. Here are two core units of 20 spearmen each.

I've tried to stay away from the purple and black color scheme that seems "dark elf standard" these days. I've gone for a pale gray green with subdued darker greens and dull reds. I've also been painting their flesh with Reaper's Dark Elf Skin triad, and it works great. The old school GW models even show hair, so that got painted white. Hopefully they look like Drow!


Here are a few sample models I pulled out.

The lot of dark elf models I bought earlier this year actually came with printed banners on adhesive paper. I only got one but liked the looks of it. Most modeled banners looks so heavy, or you get the banner hanging in the faces of other models. This one bends back naturally to get out of a neighboring model's way. I wish all banners were like that. But I also understand the challenge and rewards of hand painting your own banner. I thought about doing that for my other unit. Maybe some other time.

I have one more "core unit" for the Twilight Kin force and that is 20 crossbowmen.  From there I can work on specialty units. Up next immediately are 4 witch elf replacements for the old school witch elves I have. Then I'll paint up two characters to lead the army. After that I'll probably move on to a different project for a while.

OOOH HOOO Withcy Woman

Technically they are Witch Elves, but that Eagles song just kept playing in my head whenever I worked on these models. I'm glad to be done with them and rid myself of the song.  These are the first models from the batch of Dark Elves I got several weeks ago. I'm beginning to doubt if I'll ever get all those models painted! I'll be using them for Kings of War or skirmish games. Neither option will need as many Dark Elves as I own.

So foregoing raven hair and ruby lips (and sparks from fingertips.... there's that damn song again!) I chose to paint them as Drow.  The overall effect, when ranked up in a unit, is a confused mass of black and white.  Take a look at what I mean.

I used Reaper's Dark Elf skin tone triad, which is a nice grayed lavender color. I used a very gray green for their clothing.  Overall, I like the effect on individual models.  Here are some close ups of the girls.

Overall I think they came out pretty good, and I like the colors.  I got a kick out of the 80s ripped fishnet stockings.  These Witch Elves could be on the cover of a Ratt album.

A full unit consists of 20 models for Kings of War. I only had 16 of the newest sculpts, and had to back fill with the old school Witch Elves.

I hate these models, as they are all hair and ugly as sin. I'd much prefer to have all the newest sculpts. I still have a bunch of these old ones.  If anyone wants these models, I'd be willing to trade one for one for the new witch elves.  I still want Witch Elves, but just not these hags.  They're all hair and their weapons look like hunks of metal, not very interesting to paint.

So I just wanted a break from all the military stuff that I have been painting (and still have to paint). I've got some 15mm sci-fi to show you soon.  Then I'm teeing up 15mm fantasy!  I played a few games of Mighty Armies last night and I think I'm really going to like it.  I hope so, since I've already got three armies for it!

Beastman Warband

At the same time I picked up the Dark Elves I mentioned in a prior post, I also picked up some GW Beastmen at a great price.  I think this collection represents the contents of the old boxes, where you got 10 Ungors and 8 Gors in one box.  Things were so much better "back then."

The collection also came with a minotaur to add some punch.  I'd like to say the new GW minotaurs look great.  But unfortunately all I can say is that they don't look great.  So I'm glad I got this one.  I'll add one more minotaur to this list, maybe one of those cool Avatars of War models.  Also, I think there are two metal Bestigors from the Mordheim line in the collection as well.

Anyway, here's the gang all ready to march out and start some mayhem.

I'm really enjoying putting these small bands together.  Though I haven't played a fantasy skirmish game in a while, I'm feeling quite prepared in case one should suddenly break out.

Dark Elves

I have always wanted a Dark Elf army. It was on my list to buy right after I completed my Ogre Kingdoms army. Well, I never finished the ogre army, and that means Dark Elves became a forgotten plan. As time went on my friends stopped playing WHFB and GW prices made it an impossible project.

While I wasn't looking for this army, a great deal came my way. I was able to pick up a lot of stuff, more than I'll use for a skirmish game. Here's a picture of the everything I picked up.

So what's in these boxes?  I spent some time cataloging everything.  Since some of these are "old school" models I guessed at what they were.  The list is in no particular order.

• 3 Sorceresses with skull staff
• 1 Sorceress on Cold One
• Morathi on Dark Pegasus
• Cauldron of Blood and crew
• 4 Repeater bolt throwers
• 3 Assassins
• 18 Cold One Riders with Command
• War Hydra and 3 handlers
• 40 Spearmen with cmd
• 32 Crossbows with cmd
• 20 "Old school" plastic warriors (Hand weapon & shields)
• 1 Executioner Command team (5 models)
• 38 Black Guard with Command (Some old school models in this; I guessed they were Black Guard)
• 14 Shades
• 20 Corsairs with cmd
• 10 Dark Riders with cmd
• 32 Witch Elves with cmd
• 2 Familiars

That's 260 models and a retail price of $1,364.  I won't report what I paid for this, but it was not $1,364!  The nice thing is these are all assembled and unpainted with no basing.  I get to do it my way!

I'm not playing WHFB anymore, and no one around me is interested.  At a cost of $1k to get started, it's no wonder. While I have a lot of models now, it's still not enough to make standard units.  I'd still have to dump more money into this to get a playable army.  I wouldn't do that, but do plan to get that awesome DE lord on a black dragon.  He'll be my reward for painting this whole force.

I've got some great plans for this army, especially the Witch Elves.  I want to paint them up as Drow, not the pale-faced bad boy elves that GW does.  Also, I should really consider looking at Kings of War as an alternative to WHFB.  I bet this force would work fine.  Now if only I can find an opponent for KoW!  I have two other armies in GW format to use in KoW.  I just need a willing player.

That's all for now.  I've got some painting to do.

Project: Ogre Kingdoms -- Gorger

So it has been a while. My Ogre Kingdoms project was derailed by my recent "discovery" of Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. Now Games Workshop completely owns my soul (not to mention wallet). I've been working on assembling and playing with my Gondor force rather than painting.

But I've gotten back on track. I've got only six more Ogres to go, 3 Maneaters, 2 Butchers, and the Tyrant. I've been saving the best for last, so that I'd be inspired to complete them. As for this Gorger, it was my first time painting anything "white." Hopefully, you like it.

Project: Ogre Kingdoms -- Ironguts

Last update today. Here are my Ironguts. I started them and then stopped them to work on Pirates for Legends of the High Seas. I'll probably go back to painting Pirates now that these are done. They came out pretty good. The pants took forever to do... I used GW Vomit Brown and it doesn't cover as well as I thought. Well, enjoy the fat boys.....

Project: Ogre Kingdoms

This is my latest project, Ogre Kingdoms. I've always loved the Ogre models, all of them. That's rare for me to say so about any army. (I guess I don't like Gnoblars, but they're not Ogres!) So it was a natural step to start collecting this army.

I've got all the models for the 2,000 point starting force built and primed. I'm working on one unit at a time, and am really taking it slowly. In fact, since an Ogre Kingdoms army is so small in size, I can really spend time working on the models. I spend hours layering skin tones up from a dark base on three Ogre models. It comes out to about the same time it would take to do a unit of 25 Orcs. So here are some representatives of my Ogre troops:

You'll notice that I left the Leadbelchers (the Ogres with the cannons for those who don't know) with very dark skin. This was intended to make them look like they are dirty from getting enveloped in clouds of black powder smoke. The rest of the Ogres will be really light skinned, to reflect their adaptation to life in the high mountains.

I really like the skin I've painted for these guys. The skin looks pretty smooth in person, while these photos make the transitions look pretty stark. Still, here are some details of the rear of an Ogre Bull unit and a profile of one. This is just to give a closer look at the skin.


Totally I've painted two units of Leadbelchers (shown above, two units of two each), and four units of three Ogre Bulls. I'm currently working on four Ironguts. But they got suspended as I moved over to work on my pirate crew. I'm really in no hurry to get these guys on the table. So I'm taking my time and doing these to my satisfaction. So far I'm really happy with the outcome. Let me know what you think!

WHFB Turkey Bowl 2007

This year my son and I started what we hope will become a new tradition: The Warhammer Turkey Bowl! The night before Thanksgiving I set up a small 4x4 table in my garage and pitted Dwarfs against their hated foes Orcs and Goblins. My son, Albert, is 10 years old and this was his first "big game" of warhammer at 2000 points. I set everything up for him, including deploying his troops in a massive castle formation on a strategically situated hill. I wasn't going to throw the game for him.... but I was going to give him a massive advantage.

The game lasted over three hours and we had an incredible blast playing it. Here I'll give a few shots of the game and then a little battle report after it.

First, here is the table and the set up. Looks like those Orcs have a massive killing field to cross! Then there's me and Albert admiring the scene before us. After that you have a few shots of the Orc line and then some of the Dwarf castle on the (unpainted) hill. Finally, there's Dad measuring off his first turn one move!






Basically here's how the battle went. The O&G went first and the Wolfriders went up the flank to threaten the organ gun. The rest of the line lurched forward with animosity playing its role in staggering the link. The Giant hid one turn in the forest, afraid of all that shorty shooting stuff.

In short, when the giant came out he caught one cannon ball and two bolt thrower shafts and died. At least he didn't fall on anyone. The 10 Wolfriders evaporated also to the Organ Gun and massed Thunderers on the hill. The rest of the Boyz ambled forward supported by their own Spearchukkas and a Doom Diver. They finally made the Dwarf line and what happened next shocked me.

The Dwarf Thane general engaged my BSB and his block of 25 Orcs and my Big 'Uns and Warboss crashed into the center line and hit the Longbeards. The battle churned like crazy there, and the Big 'Uns broke the Longbeards and crashed into the soft parts of the Dwarf castle. The BSB, despite losing every combat, kept making his roles to stay in combat. He went three rounds until there was nothing left, even making an insane courage roll to stay in the battle.

The Big 'Uns tore up the artillery behind the lines. The Quarrelers were the only defense back there, and 16 of them put up a good fight. My Night Goblin Fanatics were pretty good too. But the Night Goblin units themselves had been devastated by Dwarf artillery and got too far from the Warboss to effectively rally. At the end of the battle, it was essentially a draw. But the Orcs, if they had one more turn, probably would've crushed the Dwarfs.

I had expected to be shot to bits before getting the the Dwarfs. Also, I was surprised at how fast the Dwarf line crumbled. In one turn of combat it was pretty much decided that the Orcs were going to dictate the fight for the rest of the game. I will say, that the Thunders and Cannon crew staying calmly in place and blowing away the Night Goblin units that would've swamped the lines was quite impressive. They really kept their comrades in the fight.

More Dwarfs!

So here are yet more dwarfs. Here is the command unit for my Quarrelers.
I hand painted the banner. In this pic it doesn't look so smooth. But on the table it looks more crisp than this. Dwarf players.... go look up that rune in your army book and tell me what it is.

Here's my lame BSB conversion. It's basically a regular warrior champ with an extra long pole and regular banner. But you get the idea. The banner pole is a brass rod.
There are more dwarfs waiting to be painted. I don't think I took photos of my longbeards. So, I'll do that later. I've got two bolt throwers to go, 7 more Longbeards, 24 more warriors, two more engineers, and 20 Slayers. That ought to keep me busy!

Dwarfs!

Here are some samples of my Dwarf army that I've been claiming to paint all this time. I'm really painting it! I am just going slow at it. The models have a lot of detail, and I like to bring it all out even if it doesn't show on the gaming table.

Up first is an Engineer and a Runesmith.
They came out nicely. But I don't think they came out as nicely as this Grudge Thrower crew and Engineer:
Here's my Organ gun and a sample of the crew. I think these guys came out nicely, but just one crewman suffices to demonstrate the look.

This post is getting a little big. So I'll add more pictures to a new one.

Dwarf Warriors

So, I've been every so slowly working on my Dwarf battalion boxed set. Here are thirteen warriors meant to round out my Battle for Skull Pass warrior unit. These look a lot better than the BfSP warriors. So maybe I'll move them to the front ranks, except for the command group of course.

As you can see, I have not based them in anything yet. They don't really have much showing for bases. So I'll probably just do sand and some clump foliage. Of course, my photography stinks. So you can't really see how well they came out. I was particularly proud of the robes for some of these guys. Here's a detail shot of the robes.

Once again Blogger will not let you expand these pictures. This feature is so goofy that I cannot figure it out. But then again, I don't think anyone is actually visiting this site. So I'm essentially talking to myself in cyberspace. I guess I've done weirder things, but this is still pretty weird. At any rate, since I have no visitors I'm not going to struggle with fixing this problem.

On the odd chance that there is a visitor, accept my apologies for the small pictures. Trust me, they are enormously sized on my computer. Don't know why it won't work on Blogger.

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, yesterday was my birthday. I'm now an extremely handsome and charming age of 39. This isn't all that bad. I still have one more year to evasively answer age questions with replies like, "I'm in my thirties. How old do I look?" Of course next year I've scheduled myself to have a a total emotional collapse at turning 40. Stay tuned as I prepare for it.....

I know this is a cliche, but where does the time go? My parents warned me that after having kids life would go by fast. I just had one, and my life has reached warp speed. I think if I had a second child my life would probably be over by now.

Well, this is depressing me. So let's talk about my birthday gifts! Despite being middle aged, I'm still treated like a child on my birthday --- I insist upon it. So, you know that my gift list was filled with Warhammer models. So here's the take. Warhammer fans can be jealous starting right now:

1. Ogre Kingdoms battalion box
2. One box of Tyranid gaunts (half way to a unit of Hormagaunts!)
3. One Tyranid Ravener

This year my son, who is 10, decided that he wanted to buy me gifts with his own money. So he got me:

1. One Tyranid Ravener
2. One Dwarf Engineer

So I got a good mix of Fantasy and 40K models. Of course, this produces a tremendous backlog of things to do. I've still got all my Dwarfs from my Xmas haul to paint yet. I'm moving at such a painfully slow pace with them. I just finished 11 warriors last night, and it took me a few weeks of painting to do that. Of course, I've been on and off with them during this time. So I've got to get motivated and paint faster. I'll post up a picture or two of these Dwarfs when I have a chance. Right now, I'm going to go get some leftover birthday cake!

Battle for Skull Pass Dwarfs

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm getting ready to paint up a Dwarf battalion box. That's a lot of models, about 44 of them in fact. I've always liked the Dwarfs, and while I'm not sure if they're really "me" in terms of play style, they are certainly fun to model and paint. So I'm going in on an army for that alone.

I've decided to show the Dwarfs that I have painted. These all come from the Battle for Skull Pass starter boxed set. I completed these over Christmas vacation last year. I had injured my back and couldn't do much of anything. So I painted all of these models. I have yet to decide how to base them. I've got some ideas for a "sand and scrub" type of thing. But the Dwarfs cover so much of their bases, this might not work.

At any rate, here are the Dwarfs. These are the first models for which I ever painted eyes with an iris. In these close ups, they sort of look freaky to me. On the tabletop, however, you can't even tell I painted the eyes. No matter what, they were good practice for me.