Warband Fantasy Online!

 

With pandemic lockdown in the UK continuing into the foreseeable future, through 2020 I moved my gaming online; mostly roleplaying but also for the last few months with various wargames.  After trying Tabletop Simulator through Steam, me and my players have settled on the Roll20 platform for our games.

This week I finally managed to get Warband Fantasy into the realms of the electronic.  Tonight we ran a multiplayer game with the Dark Elves facing off against a warband of Samurai Apes!

So, here we go.

Battle of the Ice Fields

The Samurai Apes

On the northern fringes of the element-shattered lands resits the fiefdom of the ancient Ninkoku Clan, led by the Daimyo Songoku.  Songoku is the 14th son of the Ninkoku dynasty and is ably advised by his kraken mage Tako Uizad.

For four months Songoku's northern ice-hamlets have been raided, harried, and deprived by a foul Dark Elf warhost.  Songoku has pressed them sorely to drive them out.  Finally he has brought their army to battle and the matter will now be decided. 

No quarter will be asked or given; the Dark Elves die or the Ninkoku Clan's reign will fall...

Samurai Apes (Ninkoku Clan)

• 496pts
• 10 Units
• 1x Daimyo [Average] (Songoku)
• 1x Kraken [Good] (Tako Uizad)
• 2x Samurai archers [Powerful]
• 4x Samurai warriors [Powerful]
• 2x Samurai tiger riders 

The Dark Elves

For over a year now Chief Khedir has held together a ragtag and fractious alliance of Dark Elf kinfolk, warbands, and merciless mercenaries.  With this strength he expanded his power in the subterranean nether-caves. 

Reaching the limits of thier underground territory, four months ago he led his War Host to the surface in search of glory, plunder, and slaves.  Khedir, and his warlock Ingole Nar, found themselves in and icy wasteland.  Making their way south they found poorly defended settlements, populated with ape-beast fishermen, and snow-corn farmers.

The raiding was bountiful! 

But now an ape-land has come from the south and the Dark Elves can avoid battle no longer.  Khedir must win; if he does, his position will be secure and the pillaging will be legendary.  If not, then only death at the hands of the enemy, or his own followers awaits... 

Dark Elves (War Host of Chief Khedir)

• 496pts
• 11 Units
• 1x Chieftain [Average] (Khedir, of the Fara’Efir Clan)
• 1x Warlock [Good] (Ingole Nar)
• 2x Archers
• 4x Warriors [Fierce]
• 1x Assassins
• 1x Cave Spiders
• 1x Witch Cultists

The Battle

This is a simple fight to the death.

Deployment

Both armies deploy as specified in the core rules.

Terrain

• The ice terrain is open terrain.
• The areas of rocks/boulders are limiting terrain: Rough Ground.
• The hills are limiting terrain: Hills.
• The lake is impassable terrain: Lake.

Victory

The standard victory conditions apply.  An army breaks when it reaches 50% casualties on points.

The Dark Elves break at 248pts lost.

The Samurai Apes break at 248pts lost.

Initial setup

As most of the players were new to Warband, I thought it unlikely we would finish the game, so to save time I preset the battlefield; in this case an icy realm of hills and broken ice chunks.

So this initial (virtual) table looked like this.

 

The Dark Elves in the camp awaiting deployment.

And across from them, the Samurai Apes

Deployment

The armies deployed onto the ice plain between the impassable frost water and the frozen rocky hill.  Both battle lines formed a mix of archers and infantry warriors.

Turn 1

Gaining the initiative, the dark elf chieftain began a cautious move forwards with the commander taking direct control and enacting an army-wide “group move”.  They pushed forwards a base depth, willing to wait for the Apes to make a move.

The Daimyo of the Ape army tried to match his elven foe, but failed his motivation test for an army-wide group move.  The Samurai Apes stood where they were and didn’t move.

Turn 2

The dark elf warlock weaves his magic around the nearby archers, imbuing them with “raider’s savagery” to make their archery more effective at a longer range.  The elves expect that they will be in range to open the attack this turn.

The Samurai Apes respond with magic of their own, giving their troops on the ice-hill the “hill walkers” special ability with the “elemental infusion” spell.

Nothing like the weave of a Warlock to make arrows fly true...

Magic will get those Ape warrios off the hill...

The Dark Elf battle line then advances, contracting to avoid the hill on its flank.  It moves into archery range, prepared for its opening volleys.

The Samurai Apes respond with the risky tactic of sending their powerful mounted tiger riders out on a dual flanking envelopment.

The Dark Elf archers open hostilities with a hail of arrows on the two ends of the Ape lines.  They inflict minimal casualties, and the Ape warriors shrug off the damage as black arrows skitter across the ice. 

Turn 3

Consistently winning the initiative, the Dark Elves push on into a position between the ice-lake and hill.  The Samurai Apes hold their main main line back to give their tiger riders the chance to get into the rear of the elf warband.

Isolated from their friends, the tiger riders motivation drops and the Daimyo is too car off to aid them with his Command Points.  None-the-less some good dice rolling means they make good progress on their flank march.

As this is happening, the two archery lines close in and the Dark Elves once again score some hits on the ends of the Ape line.  However, inspired by their Daimyo the Ape archers return with a vicious and effective barrage of arrows.  The Ape players made good use of their Command Points to pack out their archery attacks but to no avail.  The elves stood largely unharmed and set about taunting their simian foes!

Turn 4

The Samurai Apes finally wrest the initiative from the elves, but their motivation to do anything with it falters, and most of their troops stand still.  Failing to press their advantage, the tiger riders mill about beyond the ice lake, clearly intimidated by the rear of the elven assassins unit… 

The elves oblige too, and aside from some ineffective archery, the two lines have clearly stopped to rest, despite the encouragements of their commanders.  The ebb of flow of magical energy is clearly weak too and few spells are cast.

Turn 5

Finally the tiger riders get it together and charge into the rear of the Dark Elf Assassins.  The elven killers attempt to evade the charge, but fail their motivation to get out of the way, despite their commander shouting at them to do so!

Nobody thinks this will be pretty…

The Dark Elves echelon their line out to try to press their overlap into the Ape formation, hoping the Assassins will be able to drive off the Tiger Riders to their rear.  The Apes move out to meet them.  Over on the other flank, the line breaks up as the elves try to use magic and archery to drive off the Tiger Riders and open the other end of the Ape front line.

And the first melee of the game is brutal for both sides.  Hit in the rear, the Assassins are still a formidable opponent, armed with petty magic, poisoned blades and vicious skill.  Both sides inflict serious harm (and “powerful” hits) on each other.  But while the Tiger Riders hold their nerve, the Assassins’ Morale collapses and as they rout and flee, the Tiger Riders cut them down.  First blood to the Samurai Apes. 

 

Turn 6

The Ape Daimyo’s command impetus fails him (rolling only one Command Point).  Seeing him falter, the Dark Elf Warlock casts “Arcane Winds” and drains what’s left of the Daimyo’s command potential (removing the 1 Command Point!)

The Dark Elf line then charges in, led by the fearsome swarm of giant spiders!

Hovering above his battleline, the Samurai Kraken spellcaster bolstered the entire Ape line with “irrepressible belligerence”.  With such powerful magic imbued in them, the Apes would hopefully withstand the terrible assault. 

All across the line, magic, archery, and swirling melee raged.  The Dark Elves got the worst of it, losing a unit of Warriors…

 

…and at that our time for the evening ran out.  The Dark Elf players conceded (as they had lost two units to the Samurai Apes zero) and we wrapped up.

 

Overall a fun game of Warband Fantasy, and the build in Roll20 worked very well.

 

I’m looking forwards to next week’s battle!

Warhammer 40K 9th Edition: Death Guard reinforcements

Here we are in mid to late 2020 and the UK seems about to plunge back into national quarantine because a second wave of Coronavirus Covid 19 looks to be here.

So my long hiatus from actually wargaming looks set to continue, just as Warhammer 40k 9th edition is released.  I'm itching to play of course, but in the meantime I'm continuing the hobby as best I can by building new units for my two armies; the Crimson Fist space marines, and in this case, adding a cohort of daemon engines to my heretic Death Guard army.

Throughout 8th edition of the rules, I ran my Death Guard as the "Poxmongers" faction, but with the recent release of new rules (in the War of the Spider supplement) I'm now able to deploy the Poxmongers with special rules of their own!

I figured therefore that I would expand the options I have for daemon engines, and added eight Myphitic Blighthaulers to the one I already have.  These plague-infested snufflers operate best in units of three, as the poor performance of my lone model in 8th showed.

These fun little models were super easy to build and even easier to paint up, and with two hours of gluing and about eight hours of painting I have a new cadre of Nurgle's servants to take to the field (whenever that may be).

Built and undercoated, they're ready to receive paint.

Basecoats done, I'm here in the process of adding all the fun "grime" with shades and washes.

Mostly done.  Just the technical paints ("Blood for the Blood God") pass to do, and the basing of course.

Finally finished (although the bases are still wet!)

Up close its not the best paintjob, but it does what I need, which is a decent looking force made table-ready quickly.  10 Hours from sprue to done for eight of these?  To quote Marty's Matchbox Makeovers, "I'm happy with that"!

The technical paint (Blood for the Blood God") really looks like congealed blood to me.

Here you can see the foul, infected mass of flesh living at the heart of these diseased living machines.  They carry heavy, tank-busting weapons, emit foul clouds of rotting toxic fumes, and are voraciously hungry.  Don't get too close or their snuffling maws will be on you like a pack of diseased cockroaches!

Overall these were kind of fun to paint, and I'm really looking forwards to fielding them as part of my Death Guard force on the table.  Whenever that may be...

Warband Barbarian Men

The virus quarantine continues and so does my progress in sorting out and getting paint on the various armies that lurk unloved and incomplete around the nooks and crannies of my Lead Mountain.  Having received my newly ordered bases, on the painting table next is another Warband army.  This time is the Barbarian Men; an army largely based on the "Sword and Sorcery" tropes of the classic works of fiction like Robert E. Howard's Conan book.

Thats a lot of bare lead right there...

Facing having to build and paint a whole army can certainly be daunting, but with a solid plan and clear procedures to follow, its actually pretty easy to power on through and get things done.  With 10mm figures, its important to remember that while you can make each miniature a work of art, for the creation of gaming pieces, you can take shortcuts and make each figure perhaps less impressive, as the visual impact comes from the overall effect.  Increasingly I've taken to a light or white undercoat and the liberal use of colour washes, and Games Workshop's "contrast" paints.  I find it a much faster way of painting large numbers of models to an acceptable tabletop standard.

After a weekend's work, perhaps 8-10 hours in total, an 11 base army is in the box and ready to take to the tabletop.  It consists of the following units now:

1 General
1 Magic user
1 Bison riders
1 Desert stingers (giant monsters)
1 Catapults
2 Archers
4 Warriors

The General unit is populated by an impressive chap who has "discovered the riddle of steel" and therefore has a large steel sword.  I filled the base with figures from other units too, to give him a retinue of guards and heroes.

Oooh...that's some fuzzy photography isn't it?

  The Magic User unit was fun to make and I drafted in some old style Pendraken gnome figures, and some "stone elementals".  I painted them up as summoned fire imps and molten monstrosities.  The Barbarian Men magic spell list is full of fire magic and so I wanted to represent this on the base.  I'm not an expert at painting realistic fire but I do my best.  Of course such creatures will scorch the ground so I painted that with a bit of black and left it free of grass to give the impression of them burning their way into reality from some magical realm.

The bison riders were fun to paint too.  I like the idea of them thundering into battle.  I was going to do them all one colour, but felt they'd look better with a lighter skin tone and darker hair/fur.

These are the Desert Stingers, which are described in the army list as a menagerie of giant poisonous snakes, scorpions, manticores, and other fantastical beasties.  Now then, I'm not too sure about how I've constructed this unit.  Perhaps its the different colours, but there's something a bit disjointed about it.  Not sure.  Its good enough though, and I'm sure they'll perform just as well in the game, irrespective of how they're painted.

Pendraken's Barbarian Men army pack includes enough archer figures for a well stocked single unit, but I feel as the Barbarian archers in game can be skirmishers, they're OK to split up into two less densely packed units.  Anyway, as these are wild tribesmen I see them as lacking any sort of formation and organisation, taking to the field in ad hoc lines of archers more used to hunting than war.  Of all the Pendraken figures, these are some of the few I've found that need a bit of preparation.  They have metal that needs to be snipped away from the end of the bows.  I presume this excess is to facilitate the casting of the bows themselves (getting the molten metal to flow into these narrow mould cavities, and its no bother to snip those extra bits off.

Lastly I finished up the warriors and the catapults.   

The Catapults were a bit of a pig to put together, coming without instructions or obvious contact points.  I think I've assembled them correctly; certainly it seems the only correct way to do them.  No matter, they look rather nice now they're done.

And finally I come to the warrior units that will form the core of the army.  Like the archers, these are not drilled soldiers, but rather tribal warriors, and ones in the "hero" tradition too!  So regimented ranks seemed out of place, which is why I made each base with scattered clumps of fighters gathered around the most impressive among them.  I imagine them bawling and wailing insults and challenges at their enemies.  The Barbarians are noted in the army list descriptions as using primitive wooden or stone weapons, with a few of them having access to metal like copper or bronze.  I decided to make them all armed with bronze weapons (except among the General's retinue who have managed to trade with more advanced folk for the much sought-after iron and steel!)  I wanted to give them a tribal motif too, and chose a simple black shield to unify the look of the force.  I was thinking about a Zulu-style black & white shield design, but with the scale of the miniatues, shape, and design of the shields, I couldn't make it look like I wanted to.  So the simple black scheme won out.

Overall, another successful army project completed and ready to go once the quarantine lifts!

Lord of the Rings

A good Saturday morning spent bashing away at and trying to sort out the Lead Mountain, and temporarily lacking 100mm x 50mm bases to continue with the Warband armies, I've decided to dive into the Lord of the Rings 28mm figures I have.  

These have been knocking about for a good while, and aside from a few boxes, I've also acquired some "pre-owned" figures over the years.  I'm sure I have more buried up there some where but these'll do for a start.

Now I was planning to do these as 28mm Warband armies, using the Lord of the Rings army lists.  But I think instead I'll base and use them as they are intended, as individual figures.  I'll likely look to use Dan Mersey's excellent Dragon Rampant rules if they ever hit my table.

Edit: A little progress.

I started with some (38) of the Rohan figures in the pile, painting them close to the "on the box" colours.

There are about another 20 to go, and then I have a new box of 24 other infantry.

The rest of the box looks like a mix of elves, men of Minas Tirith, a few dwarves and a a small number of orcs and goblins.

Looking at these figures close up while painting them, they are surprisingly poor quality for Games Workshop.  they have very simple shapes and forms, with a lot of poor, flat features, bad mouldlines, flash and other issues.  They look like cheap platic miniatures, rather than the amazing quality I've come to expect Games Workshop's products.



More to follow...

Warband Dragon Men

As my quarantine clear-up continues I came across this army in a box on the south face of the Lead Mountain.

I'm not sure what I was doing at the time, but this is a 10mm scale generic Medieval army that I'd build and based for the DBx system.

I figured that I'm unlikely to use this for anything DBx in the near future and it accurred to me that I could rebase these figures as a Warband Dragon Men army.  So, the project for the next couple of evenings will be to hack these minis off their current bases and use them to create a new fantasy army to join my Warband collection.

These are Pendraken historical figures and generally they are smaller that their fantasy figures, but at this scale I really don't think it matters too much!

Anyway, the rebasing commences...

...and in short order, two bases of crossbowmen and two bases of men-at-arms (spearmen).
  

Obviously I still have the rest of the force to rebase, and i need to do the ground texture, etc.

Anyway, the mess that's left.

Update:  I've made as much progress so far as I can. I've now proper run out of bases, and there are definitely no more in the house, so I'm waiting on the delivery from Minibits.

I'll do a decent army shot when its done, but for now, this is the result of the rebasing. I'll have to sort out a magic user base, and the dragon of course...

More to follow...

Wild West project finished

As part of the Corona virus quarantine "sort out", I've corraled my Wild West figures together and found that I had a few that I'd still left to paint.

The Wild West gathering in its new home!

The five remaining offenders...

So, about an half an hour's work later, I have five more for the posse.  That's all my Wild West figures done, so a nice quick project close off!

A Native American "scalp hunter", three pistoliers, and a curious "mountain man" with eyeglass and flintlock pistol.

I'll be finishing off a lot of these little "just a few left" projects over the next few weeks I think as well as making progress with more substantial "half finished" ones, and probably diving in to the "not yet started" pile.