Saturday 31 January 2015

The Tiny Tournament Trio

Today was the big day! After two weeks of getting lists together and speed painting zombies it was finally time to take my tournament army into the fray! I'm not a naturally competitive person so tend to pick units I like the look of or like the background of instead of what's best to win battles however with this list I'd sought help on forums, written a few lists and finally got a list that I liked and was competitive (see earlier post).

I have to say I've been excited about the tournament for weeks so this morning was a blur as I got the army all together and filled my bag with army books, dice and pork scratchings. You can see the assembled force in a shambles below:

As I don't currently own a carry case big enough this is how I transport my force. It's not great and I got some odd looks as I meandered through Lichfield city centre desperately trying to stop gale force winds from throwing my terrorgheist off the tray and smashing it into pieces on the concrete below. 

7 people had bought tickets for the event at Titan Games but in the end only 3 showed up. Tom with his Thanquol led clanrat heavy Skaven army, Matt with his character unit wall of destruction Ogre Kingdoms force and me with my zombie conga lines. As there were three of us it made sense to just play a game against each opponent, 3 games, then tally up victory points. As there were prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place it was really just a case of who was getting which place!

We rolled dice to see who'd be getting the first game. Matt and Tom rolled highest so I sat this one out. As you can see from the pic below Tom's army is two massive hordes of clanrats, two warp lightning cannons and Thanquol. Matt on the other hand has a fairly even spread of Ogre units with a focus on his character heavy ironguts to hold up the middle. Matt has a sneaky tactic of using 3 sabretusks ahead of his army to block charging units however Tom won this first game after completely dominating with Thanquol. In a 2000pts army Thanquol is stupidly overpowered, him and Boneripper just tore through any units they got near and dominated every phase of the game. 


The second game was Tom and myself. You can see my block units of Skeletons and Zombies, a tactic that I hadn't used before but I'd been assured was how I should build Vampire Counts armies. In the end I won. It was a tough battle again dominated by Thanquol however he got bogged down trying to beat down 80 zombies and wasted three turns while my Vampire Lord, Kristoff, tore through everything else on the table. 


I forgot to take a picture of the third battle as it had been a long day. Matt really knows his Ogres and he regularly plays against Vamps so he was a seasoned vet in this situation. It started well with my Terrorgheist actually killing a unit of 3 Mournfangs but after Kristoff charged the character heavy Ironguts unit, got himself killed and left a lone necromancer to take an ogre unit in the face it was all over. My army crumbled to nothing and Matt got himself a complete and absolute victory. As we'd all won one and lost one Gareth, from Titan, gave us each a box set for our armies. Overall a fun day with some great players. Looking forward to the next one!

(My spoils)

Thursday 29 January 2015

Kristoff Von Purchenstein's Tourney List

This Saturday I will be playing my first Tournament with Kristoff. It's a small 2000pts tournament and it looks like there's only 6 players so it should be a short one however I'm really excited about it (hence the painting marathon on the zombies). Here's the list I'll be taking which comes in at 1996pts:
  • Lords (514pts)

    • Kristoff Von Purchenstein - Vampire Lord (514pts)

      Heavy Armour, Lore of the Vampires, Quickblood, Red Fury, Shield, The General of Undeath, Wizard Level 4
      Quickblood, Red Fury, The General of Undeath, The Hunger, Undead, Vampiric
      • Magic Items (100pts)

        BRB - Ogre Blade, BRB - Talisman of Preservation, BRB - The Other Trickster's Shard
  • Heroes (185pts)

    • Herberton the Reanimator - Necromancer (90pts)

      Lore of the Vampires, Wizard Level 1
      Undead
      • Magic Items 

        AB - Book of Arkhan 
    • Lucille De La Verde - Tomb Banshee (95pts)

  • Core (500pts)

    • Cantelegro's lost - Zombies (180pts)

      60x Zombie (180pts)
    • Skeleton Warriors (260pts)

      Champion (10pts), Musician (10pts), 46x Skeleton Warrior (230pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
    • The Reanimated - Zombies (60pts)

      20x Zombie (60pts)
  • Special (572pts)

    • Grave Guard (239pts)

      19 Grave Guard, Champion (10pts), Musician (10pts), Standard Bearer (10pts)
      Killing Blow, Undead
    • Hexwraiths (150pts)

      5x Hexwraith (150pts)
    • Spirit Host (45pts)

      Spirt Host (45pts)
    • Vargheists (138pts)

      3x Vargheist (138pts)
  • Rare (225pts)

    • Terrorgheist (225pts)

Land of the Dead (Zombies part 4)

Phew! They're finished! Oh god that was a gruelling couple of days but I think you'll agree well worth it. I'm pleased with the snow bases, they take models to the next level of quality I think.




Day of the Dead (Zombies part 3)

It's day 3 and we're in the final stages of basing! Just some snow and we're done!
I'll be so pleased when these are done


Wednesday 28 January 2015

Mother of dragons!

Quick break from zombie painting today because this fella arrived. Seriously look at the size of him. I've included a zombie to give you an idea. The tail might be an issue for gaming so figuring out a way to pull it in closer or shorten it. But again look at it! Just amazing. It's a beautiful figure. He's going to make a beautiful centrepiece for Kristoff to ride into battle.




Dawn of the Dead (Zombies part 2)

We're now at the basing stage after yesterday's crazy speed paint on the first 40 zombies. The thing that takes the longest on these is the ink drying so that slows the process down a lot. Today I'm starting the next 40 while the bases dry on these ones. Fingers crossed they'll all be done for Saturday!

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Zombies!

After 40 minutes work this is where I'm up to with 40 zombies. They need some blood and some basing but after that really that's all I'm going to do to them in the hope that I can get all 80 done for Saturday's tournament. It'll mean that instead of fielding an army with 100+ models unpainted I'll be fielding one with a 30 (won't finish the Grave Guard, Characters or Terrorgheist by then).
This does also mean that next time I face Stephen mine might be close to being completely painted (gasp!)


Sunday 25 January 2015

My pet Kaladrax

So I was trawling through Facebook wargames pages and someone was trading off their stock from their vampire counts army. Long story short guess who got a massive dragon for less than the cost of a trip to the cinema? That's right this lucky undead general! This guy is massive and is going to make an incredible centrepiece


Thursday 1 January 2015

Black Knights, RISE!

I've been rushing to get these done for my game tomorrow with Stephen and finally finished them today.


The colour didn't come out the way I wanted it to but I think the effect is quite good. I wanted them to look like any colour has been obliterated from their armour. In their lives they could have been Bretonnian Knights, Griffon riders, even Caledor dragon knights but in death they serve one master.