Victory! (and not quite victory but not quite utter defeat either!)

As Andy Lawhammer mentions here, and t'other Andrew mentions here, I played a couple of games on Saturday.

The first, against Andrew Bell's undead, was an overwhelming victory for my ladz. Cue happy orcs.

ERMAHGERD! WE WON!

My army mostly performed well. A little bad luck, and a little good; Andrew B was hamstrung by the theme of his army. He wants one led by his PC from our RPG, who is not a vampire, so he has been having a necromancer lord as his general. It turns out necromancer lords are allergic to Black Orc Warbosses. Who knew? Ultimately, my plan was to wipe out his general and back up necromancer. With Orcs, that wasn't so hard. We called it quits in turn 4, as I still had most of my army alive, and he'd lost a chunk of units and both necromancers. That'll do, Orcs. That'll do.

(Andy Lawhammer and I prevailed upon him to use the vampire rules to represent his character (Eichengard) as it's a better fit. Eichengard is tough, a skilled fighter, and rubbish at magic. A rock hard vampire with level 1 necromancy is a much better fit than a level 4 necromancer who is squishier than a marshmallow.)

Not Eichengard

So, to the second game.

As we are still taking a while to play (though we are getting slowly faster, if that makes sense), we decided to make our next game a threeway (steady now!) using the battle royale scenario.

Would it be gauche to mention the lack of a Cathay/Nippon GW army?

We diced off, with Waaaagh Morthang forced to deploy in the middle, the Nulners on one flank and the Restless Dead on the other. I made the decision to focus on Nuln first, as my orcs hadn't eaten any 'oomies for a while, and I knew that if I got bogged down in the undead army, the Empire would fire their cannons and handguns at us both to devastating effect.

I'm hungry for manflesh. Oooer, fnar fnar!

While my orcs did rout the Imperials, it was at devastating cost. My Warlord fell to the Imperial General: Black Orc and Wyvern both underperformed, and the lack of a ward save / anything more than heavy armour meant he fell too easily.

Ultimately, I could only put up a token resistance to the undead, and our final VPs (based on generals, and objectives held) were Undead 3, Orcs 2, Empire 1. If the Wyvern had rolled more than one on his Thunderstomp Morthang would have lived and I'd have got a tie. Still, such are the vagaries of fate!

Lessons Learned
So the games gave me a few things to think about.

Firstly, I need to bulk up my units, especially my Orcs, Savage Orcs and Boar Boyz.

Secondly, I need a couple more characters, including a beefier Savage Orc and a Battle Standard Bearer.

Thirdly, if I'm playing undead, I need a few magic items. Stinking Ethereal units.

I've ordered some more troops, but I have movement on the characters already. Ladles and jellyspoons, I present...Big Toof.

Big Toof. Waaagh and what not.

This is another Avatar of War miniature and I love it almost as much as the shaman. Almost. I did a SHOCKING job on the mould lines, but I tried to make up for that with some more elaborate warpaint. This guy will go with Skargutz's Boyz, giving them a bit more oomph (and, against the Undead, having a cheap magic weapon to let him wade into those stinking ethereal units).

I am looking forward to seeing how he gets on.

Tomorrow I'll be picking up the annoying second shaman model, which I'll be converting to a battle standard bearer, thanks to some Undead bits and bobs given to me by Andrew B.

So that's all for now. The army continues to take shape, and with our first crushing victory I can feel the Waaagh energy growing!

Drogrot & Morthang

Drogrot & Morthang...sounds like a firm of Orc solicitors. I can't imagine there's much market for Orc legal advice though...

''Ello, Drogrot & Morthang!"
"I was bashin' stunties and Grimfang stole me squigs!"
"Well?"
"Can you 'elp?"
"Yeah. Bash Grimfang an' get yer squigs back!"

I don't remember Ally McBeal being like that.

Anyway, to business. Or pleasure, rather, Drogrot and Morthang are, in fact, the two characters I've just painted for my army. Wahey!

The characters themselves were actually created by Andy Lawhammer for our WFRP game. When I decided to make an Orc army, and to have a Wyvern-mounted war boss leading it, I recalled our PCs facing a Black Orc on a Wyvern. Well, I say facing. He swooped down, his Wyvern ate our rock-hard NPC henchman in one gulp, and we ran away.

So Andy filled me in on some of the details, and lo and behold! Morthang da Burna.

Morthang da Burna, on his wyvern

That flaming sword represents the Grudgebringer sword, as featured in Dark Omens and Shadow of the Horned Rat. The sword, once borne by Captain Bernhardt, found its way into the hands of this mighty Black Orc. I converted Azhag the Slaughterer with a burning wizard sword, graciously donated by Andy. In game, I'll use the Ruby Ring of Rhuin to represent its fireball attack.

A more detailed view of Morthang.

I'm pleased with how the flaming sword has come out. You may just be able to see the hint of runes I did at the base of the fire (Grudgebringer, in our canon at least, is one of Alaric the Mad's Dwarven runeweapons). Obviously Morthang has attached it to a bit of bone to give him a proper, Orcy handle (the original plan was to strap the sword onto a huge Orc choppa, but it looked silly).

The reasons for his red crown are twofold. I wanted his helmet to stand out. His armour looked rag-tag, so I wanted to paint it all bashed, rusty iron. But the helmet looked cool, with the little crown-like peaks and what-not. But, when I got to painting it, I realised I had a limited palette of colours to use. In particular, I've yet to pick up a gold colour (hence Morthang's bone hilt). I'd already done one model, an Orc Boss, with a red helmet, and liked the effect, so that's what I went for.

In a full game, when I can afford the points, I'll probably give him The Trickster's Helm. It's a pricy magic item, but quite useful for a tough old Black Orc (it forces enemies to reroll successful to-wound rolls). There's also a nice connection to my WFRP character, Adhemar, that would take too long to explain here.

Morthang from the side! From the side! (obscure Lee Evans reference)

Overall, he's painted more roughly than I'd like. I'll probably tidy some bits up (I've manged to get red in the wyvern's armpit. Wingpit?) and some of the drybrushing's a bit rough. But once he was based, he really came together, and I'm pretty chuffed overall.

Now, Andy also mentioned that Morthang was accompanied by an Orc Shaman, Drogrot Gorkeye. This fanatical visionary is convinced Morthang is the reincarnation of Mork himself, destined to bind all the Orcs together in the greatest Waaagh the world has ever seen.

Now, while the Warhammer Orc shaman is a cracking model, it didn't really capture the steely-eyed intensity Andy was describing. So, I turned to Avatars of War, who do some cracking figures. Their Orc Shaman, in particular, is wicked, and looks the part. So he became my Drogrot:

Drogrot Gorkeye; driven

I love this model. The detail, the pose. Brilliant, and really fits the character. His cloak has some cool details on it too, severed hands and skulls and what-not.

Detail on Drogrot's cloak: pleased with the severed hands!

Through an online shopping debacle, I've ended up with two of this model: I intend to convert one to become a Battle Standard bearer, but more on that later.

I've wittered on for quite long enough, all that remains is to tot up my points so far...

Lords - 320 (25%)
 Morthang on Wyvern

Heroes - 190 (15%)
 Drogrot (level 2), Mord (level 2)

Core - 615 (49%)
 10 x Savage Orc Big Uns, 15 x Orc Boyz, 20 x Goblins, 10 Spider Riders, 5 Wolf Riders

Special - 135 (11%)
 5 x Orc Boar Boyz

Total - 1,260

Not bad, not bad at all. I should also mention here that I'm using Quartermaster, an army building app that is aces. Love it.

I still have a Savage Orc Big Boss to finish painting, and a BSB to convert, and I think I'll buy myself some Savage Orc Boyz this week too. Time Skargutz's Boyz got reinforced.

Waaaagh!