9th Age Battle Report - Infernals dwarves vs Beast herds

After a long break between drinks it was time for a gold edition game of the 9th age.

I ran a character heavy list as follows:

• • • Overlord [505pts]

      Selections: Army General, Shield [5pts]

      • Special Equipment [230pts]

        Selections: Death Cheater [100pts], Lucky Charm [10pts], Onyx Core [120pts]

    • Prophet [510pts]

      Selections: Alchemy, Infernal Weapon [15pts], Master [265pts], Wizard [160pts]

      • Special Equipment [70pts]

        Selections: Destiny's Call - Standard Size only [70pts]

    • Vizier [360pts]

      Selections: Battle Standard Bearer [50pts], Blunderbuss (3+) [15pts], Infernal Weapon [25pts], Shield [5pts]

      • Special Equipment [140pts]

        Selections: Ghostly Guard [40pts], Icon of the Inferno - Cannot be Taken by Core [100pts]

  • • Hobgoblins [270pts]

      Selections: Backstabbers [69pts], Champion [20pts], 23x Hobgoblin [161pts], Musician [20pts], Standard Bearer [20pts]

    • Infernal Warriors with Blunderbuss [632pts]

      Selections: Champion [20pts], 27x Infernal Warrior [540pts], Musician [20pts], Shields [27pts], Standard Bearer [20pts]

    • Orc Slaves [225pts]

      Selections: Musician [20pts], 25x Orc Slave [200pts], Paired Weapons [50pts]

  • • Immortals [637pts]

      Selections: Champion [20pts], Flaming Standard [35pts], 21x Immortal [588pts], Infernal Weapon [42pts], Musician [20pts], Shield [42pts], Standard Bearer [20pts]

    • Taurukh [333pts]

      Selections: Flaming Standard [35pts], Infernal Weapon [40pts], Shields [16pts], Standard Bearer [20pts], 8x Taurukh [192pts]

    • Taurukh Anointed [725pts]

      Selections: Champion [20pts], Infernal Weapon [90pts], Musician [20pts], Shields [50pts], 5x Taurukh Anointed [525pts]

  • • Titan Mortar [300pts]

      Selections: Ogre Slave Crew

Created with BattleScribe

Going character heavy was intended to try out which build of the general I preferred - overlord or prophet.

My opponent ran a couple of beastmen units, chariots, a big block of minotaurs and one of each of the nasty monsters.

The game was a back and forth struggle with the beast monster and dogs hitting the blunderbuss with the prophet and bsb.  Took a few turns and lots of magic buffs eventually took down the big guy.

The immortals with the overlord withstood the front charge of the minotaurs and ousted them back only to later be hit again in the front and the flank by the chariots who had used the backstabbers as a speed bump. The immortals fled and were wiped out when I failed leadership check on ten twice by rolling eleven twice!

The Titan mortar did not hit much during the game which was disappointing.  The Orc slaves look cool but ran off when they had a chance to shine.

The little Taurukhs did not do much and the bigger versions who scared off the centaurs early in the game eventually made it around the board to charge the Shaman only to then be hit by the rock throwing monster.

We called it quits there but MVP went to the blunderbuss unit with the prophet and BSB.  The alchemy buffs made this unit pretty resilient and I was super impressed by how devastating their blunderbuss are in the shooting phase.

The immortals with the overlord withstood a Minotaur charge and pushed them back but could not catch them.

I think my next version of the list will include wolf riders as chaff and probably some more infantry units.

In the battle for the general I think I will drop the overlord and go the prophet with the points saved to add some more warmachines.

Multi based Mongoblins

After the successful first batch of Mongoblins I decided to multi base the next miniatures.

The key lesson from the first batch was to assemble the body and arms then attach the head.  For the head to attach best I glue the head to the hat/ helmet and when dry attach to the body.  Although the head is really only a face, the hats hide most of this and this approach allows the rear of the hat to attach to the stoop of the back.

Maintaining a stoop is of course an important trait for hobgoblins as it is inevitable his most trusted allies will attempt to lodge a kinife or two in his back at some point.  

I found the multi basing also sped up the painting with two bases done together.  I did not find the close proximity of the minis resulted in any difficulty with painting or basing.  I also expect these bros to die pretty quickly in games so the multi basing will assist in removing casualties.

The fireforge box comes with 24 bodies so with these two bases complete I am half way through.

Next on the hobby desk is more Mongoblins but this time the heads comes from Oglah Khan's wolf boys.  The heads are a little different with a different nose compared to the other hobgoblins.

Consistent with the practice of the Mongol horde where captured forces and other combatants were absorbed into the army with traditional family or ethnic differences broken within the army composition at a unit level.

The Mongoblins will reflect this by the different heads that will be used throughout the unit.  Below are the first minis using Oglah's boys heads. These bros have a pretty cool moustache so will be interested to see how the Magic mould brings out the detail.  The other difference is I managed to keep some of the ears on one of the mounds which with a little bit of tweaking can fit outside of the hat.

Mongoblins test miniatures

Inspired by the mighty Ghazak Khan and Oglah Khan's wolfboys miniatures I always wanted my own version of Mongol inspired hobgoblin infantry.

Thanks to those excellent chaps at fireforge games and their mighty Mongol sets I decided to try my hand at achieving some unique infantry.  The set has enough bodies for 24 bros with a range of weapon options.  As I have a heap of archers and sneaky gits I wanted to have a unit of spearmen.

I also have a fairly sizeable collection of Ghazak and Oglah's bros but now needed to explore options for heads.

Hobgoblins have a different nose and a longer head compared to other goblins so early attempts as converting existing heads had less than acceptable results.

Finally, I decided to try the Magic mould approach.  This would result in me achieving the face/  front of the head but thanks to the fireforge separate hats that are included there was no need for most of the dudes to have a back of the head.  Only one required a bit of extra conversion to ensure the mould was not visible.

The fireforge set has two spears per sprue of four bodies so extra spear arms were donated from the night goblin sprue.  The shields are from the beastmen set and have a suitable feral feel for these dudes who will often be the first to die before the valuable infernal dwarfs come into contact with the enemy.

The next couple of dudes will have suitable moustaches for those coming from the steppe but I wanted to get the test dudes done as soon as possible.

I am pretty happy how these turned out and with a bit of extra care on the magic mould faces I will have a unique unit.  Beware the Mongoblins.

Hellcannon crew finally achieve big hat status

Thanks to the excellent admiral from Admiralty miniatures the great crime of there being no big hats for the hellcannon crew has been corrected.

The conversion kit provides excellent options to make the skull faced no hats great again.

Below demonstrates how effective this kit is so do yourself a favour and declare death to the skull faced no hats thanks to the mighty admiralty miniatures.

Big hat slave orcs

Finally finished this space Orc unit for my infernal dwarf army.

Slave orcs may not be able to take a banner but my standard showing his allegiance to the mighty Slaver could not be ignored.

The orcs are the old GW set with mono pose plastic chaos dwarfs supplying the hats except one which I made using the Magic mould stuff.

I don't know how they play out game wise (it's been way too long since a 9th age game for me) but at least they look cool which is what is most important.

Great War Battle Report

With the 100 year anniversary of the end of the Great War my friends and I decided to play an alternative history game.  We will be using late war lists from the warhammer historical Great War rules and a home made White Russian list.

The Russian conscripts would suffer from an animosity type rule with a roll of 1 resulting in a stop work meeting, 2-5 acting normal and 6 a ferocious rush of blood or vodka surging them on.

The game set up was pretty simple with the Germans occupying a village and a strategic rail line that would deliver the Russians from turn 2.  The French plan was to take the village as quickly as possibly before too many of the Russians arrived.

The French would be lead by this little guy.

In a roll off for the first turn the Germans won the advantage and would start the game.

The German High Command and artillery took advantage of the ruins at the back of the battle field with the infantry and a couple of the deadly hmgs deployed forward behind the low walls.

With approximately 1400 points on each side the French deployment was pretty congested.

The cavalry would not last two turns before the artillery and hmgs would wipe them out.

The right flank of French infantry and a FT17.

The left flank of French marines / veterans would be delayed throughout the game by the forest in front of them.

The St Chammond would assist and survive the game.

The first turn involved shots across the board but things heated up on turn 2 with the arrival of the Russian train and hmg.

The arrival of the Russians also resulted in a lucky conscript rifle shot that destroyed the FT17.

Turn 3 the German bombers took the central right buildings and destroyed the French infantry threatening.

Turn 3 also meant more Russians arriving by train including another field gun for the Hun.

The Russians from turn 2 also decided it was time for another stop work meeting to discuss payment that appeared to be late this month.

Another unit of French infantry decide turn 4 was the time to retake the ruins their bros lost. The st Chammond vehicle guns would assist.

The French also emerge in the centre to challenge the German tank.  They would not survive the crossfire of hmgs that greeted their courage in emerging from the safety of the ruins.

The Russian flank consolidates in the face of advancing French infantry.

A vastly outnumbered French infantry platoon fixes bayonets for the charge into the Russians.

The Russians hold their line and after two turns wipe out the French platoon.

After witnessing their platoons wiped out, the infantry command charge the German tank that had been disabled by an earlier charge from their now departed comrades.

This time the command find the proper place to fix their grenades and the tank is destroyed.

The command group consolidate into ruins close to the German deployment zone.

Over on the left flank the forest delayed the French veterans and the Germans controlled the cemetery ruins.

The Germans had already withstood two platoons emerging from the forest and the ruins next to it but the final platoon enticed an enemy platoon out.  The Germans suffered heavy casualties from the supporting hmg and Mark 5 tank fire before the last unit of veterans charged and routed the Germans.

With that last combat, the six turns were finished and although the French did not take the German village both armies suffered tremendous casualties with most infantry units (and the unfortunate French cavalry) wiped out.

A bloody stalemate was the result with no side gaining any new foothold on the table.

An excellent game with even better bros with the Russian list requiring a few tweaks but is fundamentally sound.

Lest we forget.