The Green Horde rides forth, supported by a soulful Orruk Shaman

Today I finished a major part of the project I started on September 18th by applying the final blobs of paint to my Orruk Boar Chariots. Now five of these machines stand ready to enter the table and cause a mediocre bit of havoc.

Grunt, grung, stab, stab, Waaagh! (and all that...).

Storytelling in wargaming through AoS Open War Cards and other means

Playing this scenario pack actually got me to read Shakespeare (for a great bard, he showed a decided lack of interest in featuring treemen in his tales).

True old school Warhammer requires a game master as well as (at least) two players to fight battles. Fantasy (and sci-fi) wargaming followed pen and paper roleplaying in that regard. That is not entirely surprising as Gary Gygax & friends started D&D out as a variant system to wargaming. It should be no surprise that the oldest game supplements Games Workshop released tended to be adventure like campaign packs linking mutliple battles into a story. I vaguely recall playing through The Tragedy of McDeath campaign in the eighties (sadly with cardboard counters (if only I had taken the 100 quid miniatures deal way back then)). Unfortunately I remember the long discussion between players and GM about the utter lack of balance in the missions better than the actual game itself. That and playing an Appetite for Destruction cassette so many times the tape actually wore down. Sigh, happy times, nostalgia.  Looking back through the booklet makes me want to revisit this scenario someday, AoS style of course. It has rules for buildings that beg to be made into warscrolls and scenario's with interesting special rules. Let's first finish my drawn out move to a new house, then do something with the Grudge of Drong and set McDeath AoS style to somewhere after that...

Age of Sigmar Siege Warfare: The Great Wall

Due to a lot of other things happening I have nog been able to paint this week. Instead I thought it might be fun to make a quick battle report of my first siege battle with the new Age of Sigmar rules presented in General's Handbook 2017. I rather fondly remember drooling over the pages of the venerable Warhammer Siege expansion for Warhammer 3rd edition. It contained a lot of detailed rules for simulating sieges that eventually resulted in battles (to be fought on the tabletop). Unfortunately due to (among other things) a lack of time I never actually got to put any of the fancy rules to practice. To me it is a bit like the old Realm of Chaos books, even to this day wonderful to drool over, but never really practical to play. Having said that, let's take a look at the Age of Sigmar ruleset.

A ragtag unit of fifty Moonclan Grots managed to line a rather large part of the wall.

Orctober has begun, and I already have a head start...

The season of 'named' painting months: Orctober, Nidvember and Deadcember has begun. Usually I get around to observing these by the time the months end, but this time I have a head start as I've already started working on my old Orruks in September. This Monday I finished the second chariot from my restoration project.

Don't know why, but I'm a big fan of this Orruks expression.

Warhammer list building from Fantasy Battles to Age of Sigmar

The first wargame I played (somewhere in the eighties) was based of AD&D rules. My brother bought it at a gaming convention where we were both impressed by a (static) wargaming table featuring a bearded man (who filled his day yelling 'don't touch' at us kids). The AD&D game was chosen because the ready to use counters looked practical and more affordable then the metal miniatures. I remember the game was awful but I can't for the life of me recall its name

Undaunted by this bad experience my brother decided to invest more pocket money in the book featured to the left here,. Yes the start of the addiction for me was Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition. The book not only contained comprehensible rules for playing wargames, it also featured all the information you needed to play in the back. Points cost per race, special attributes and so on. The AD&D game taught us you could skip dropping pocket money in miniatures by grabbing the lid of a shoe box and making your own cardboard warriors. Our first Fantasy Battle featured four players (no GM) battling with 20.000 points each....

....I'm going to assume that the older readers have by now wiped the coffee of their screens ;) I don't think we ever got past round two, but we did enjoy the spectacular scenery (a grey 110mm diameter PVC pipe serving as a tower and green and brown crayoned paper serving as area terrain). We had some ways to go and the first step consisted of mail ordering miniatures.

My first Orruk Boar Chariot rides eternal, shiny and chrome

As my local GW organised a small AoS tournament I had no time to paint on Saturday. I did have a chance on Sunday to finish the crew for the first of (hopefully five) painted Orruk Boar Chariots.

One stick to poke the boars, one stick to find them.

Tutorial: building a ruined bridge base

Yesterday I completed my Orruk Warboss on Wyvern that included the fancy base you can see below. It is supposed to look like a ruined bridge or highway (or something similar). As it was rather easy and fun to build I thought people might like a tutorial on this. Luckily I actually remembered to take some pictures while scratch-building.

Never mind true line of sight and hiding behind terrain: a big model needs a big base, it just looks right.