Wolfriders 2: Electric Boogarooooooo!

Two quick things to update today. First off is that I finished my next 5 wolf riders today (the ones I whinged about converting HERE.

I do love these wolf models and wolf riders have always been a favourite of mine. Partially because of the rapid movement, but also because of fond memories and fevered imaginings of the battle of five armies from The Hobbit. 

The group shot was too blurry, but here are a few solo shots:

Here's the boss...

Here's the musician, complete with excessively large horn!

Wolf rider making with the stabby-stabby.

So, of course, the reason I was painting these all so frantically, was that I was playing Andrew B's undead horde tonight.

To say it was a game of two halves would be an understatement...

Waaagh Morthang

Horde's Eye View...

Initially, things were almost all going my way. Barring some very unlucky animosity rolls, it all went my way in the first 2 turns.

Turn 1

Morthang swept through the centre of Andrew's army, taking out the Hex Wraiths and the Undead Heavy Cav too. The Spider Riders not only broke the dire wolf unit, they swept into the black coach and (along with the goblin archers who were "suffering" under animosity) destroyed it to. The Spiders' poisoned attacks were very lucky, and Andrew's ward saves were very unlucky.

Meanwhile, though, my savage orc big uns and orc boyz were going nowhere fast, as they failed animosity test after animosity test.

Morthang ended up in combat, alongside the wolf riders, with a skelly warrior unit. It should have been a bloodbath, but the Wyvern rolled poorly, as did the wolf riders, and though beaten, the undead hung on.

At this point we made a wee rules mistake, and assumed Morthang (who was no longer in B2B) would be free from the combat, as he'd wiped out all the skellies he was in B2B with. In truth, he should have been moved into contact again. As it was, he was out on his own, and a combination of a Tomb Banshee's howl attack and a Cairn Wraith chill attack killed him. The Wyvern broke from combat and was killed. Gutted. I gave him the Trickster's Helm, but against those special undead attacks, it was totally useless. Bah. Lesson learned: against undead, you need a ward save!

From this point on, it was downhill for the greenskins. Andrew's general - Eichengard - is nuggets. Fencers blades, plus a ward, plus a couple of blood gifts, make him a combat wombat. There was just nothing my lesser characters could do against him. Morthang, on Wyvern, would have done alright, I think, but a Big Boss just ain't that big.

I plugged away, and my boyz did OK, but he was killing 5 to 8 boyz a turn. We stood no chance (though bigger units may help in the future...).

Penultimate Turn

In the end we were left in the odd situation where Eichengard and one skelly were in combat with my unit. Eichengard kept offering challenges then obliterating my characters. With hindsight, I probably would have been better refusing the challenge (unOrcy though!) and hoping some boys were left in B2B to hurt him. Also, again, bigger units may have managed to overcome his insane amount of damage.

What was odd, was that if there had been more skellies there, my savage orcs would have killed them, meaning they won the combat, meaning Eichengard took wounds and died. As it was though, they just stood around like plums, watching him slaughter character after character.

So a victory to the undead.

Lessons learned:

1 - ward save vs. the undead.
2 - don't play scenarios where you play lengthways, as animosity is a killer.
3 - I really need bigger units.

Good fun game though. At any point it could have gone differently: If Morthang hadn't been able to be reached by the Cairn Wraiths, he'd have survived at least one more turn, possibly longer. If my infantry hadn't failed all those animosity tests, they'd have been attacking Eichengard at the same time as the small boar boy unit (whose magic banner negated his magic items, though in truth it's the blood gifts that did most harm).

Equally, if Andrew's black coach and/or wolves had survived, or his cavalry...

Already looking forward to the next game (and hoping my ordered stuff arrives soon!).

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!

Army Building

So I recently played my second game in our personal Warhammer Rennaissance, this time against Andrew (700 points). Once again, it was a draw, with me ahead on VPs, but not enough to classify as a win (I was 75 VPs ahead, when I needed 100). Nooooooooooo!

Noooooooooooooooo!

Also, it's the second time in a row I've forgotten about my choppas special rule (+1 S in 1st round of combat for Orcs). Not a massive deal, but given how narrowly his necromancer survived, it may have made a difference. Next time I'm going to write it on my hand or something. 

Still, it's a learning curve, and I suspect that when next we meet, I'll be facing more than one necromancer. After the game we had the usual tidying up debrief; Andrew realised having one or two low level spell casters to back up his General would be a plan, and I realised I needed to bolster my army's leadership. 

I also realised that I'd been misreading the rules when it came to characters. I had somehow convinced myself I couldn't take Lord characters unless I was playing over 2,000 points. I have no idea where I got that from, as it ain't in the BRB or the Orc Army Book. I also realised I can have 25% Lords and 25% Heroes. Suddenly, I realised I have a bigger army than I thought, as the wyvern I bought didn't have to sit on the bench for an age. 

GW's awesome Azhag the Slaughterer model: waaaagh!

Here's what I own, right now (not all painted).

Lords: 345 points

Black Orc Warboss on Wyvern (using Azhag the Slaughterer model)

Ruby Ring of Rhuin*

345 points

Heroes: 190 points

Orc Shaman

Level 2

100 points

Goblin Shaman

Level 2

90 points

Core: 805 points

Forest Goblin Spider Riders

x 10, full command

160 points

Wolf Riders

x 5, shortbows, shields, musician

70 points

Wolf Riders

x 5, shortbows, shields, musician

70 points

Goblins

x 20, shortbows, shields, full command

110 points

Orc Boyz

x 15, shields, full command

140 points

Savage Orc Big 'Uns

x 20, additional hand weapon, full command

255 points

Special: 135 points

Orc Boar Boyz

x 5, Spears, Shields, full command, 

135 points

So my totals are:

Lords:    345

Heroes:  190

Core:      805

Special:  135

Total:    1,475

25% of 1.475 is 369, meaning my Lord is just under 25% and my core is well over it. Slam in a couple more magic items (Banner of Discipline? A magic weapon for the Warboss?) and I have a legal 1500 point army!

It's not a great army, by any means, of course. The Orc Boyz and Orc Boar Boyz both need to be bigger. I could really do with some Ld boosting stuff too (Battle Standard bearer? Banner of Discipline? Crown of Command?). 

But it's a 1,500 point army. Cue happy dance!

Numfar! Do the Dance of Joy!

*Ruby Ring of Rhuin - this is actually a sword. It's the Grudgebringer Sword (as featured in Warhammer games "Shadow of the Horned Rat" et al), which in our WFRP game found its way into the hands of a Black Orc. I've converted the sword onto the model, so will always take it for character reasons. More on that once the big fella is painted!

So simply by including the handful of unpainted minis I own, I can more than double the points of my army. Nice! I could also drop a couple of redundant bosses (Goblin archers, I'm looking at you) to get some extra magic items. 

I'm feeling pretty dang pleased with that. And keen to get that Wyvern painted. So enough spraffing.

To the bat-drybrush!