Wood Elves... that right... I said Wood Elves

  I feel really bad right now.  Why you ask?  Because I didn't realize I owned a wood elf army.

  How does one go about not knowing they own a wood elf army you might ask?  Well I knew I owned SOME wood elves.  I bought them from a friend back in the day of 5th/6th edition(or traded for them.. we're talking about the year 2000)  

  So today I was like, hey I wonder how many points worth of wood elves I have.  Well it turns out, alot. 

Time and moving has not been kind to the little hippies (neither has the Games Workshop rules... am I right... am I right...) But with a little dab of superglue, I hope to have them back to playable.  Even if I took the time to fix their paint jobs and whatnot, they're not a tournament army.  MAYBE if GW decides to ever give them a new rulebook, I'd be willing to put some extra time into them, but for now, they'll be something I pull out on a rainy day.

So to break down what I got...

Treeman

I love the old style Treemen.  I think I'll be playing him as a Treeman Ancient (Lord Character) because I have too many points into rares for a 2000 point army.  Fielding him a Lord makes him stronger and allows me to field all of these guys....  

Waywatchers

A full 10 man unit of Waywatchers.  I LOVE these guys.  WS 5, Killing Blow, Scouts, and you get an addition -1 to shoot at them.  To me, this is what it means to be a Wood Elf.  

Warhawk Riders

These guys require the most work.  6 Warhawk Riders.  I need to get some more Monsterous Infantry bases to put them on so they are on the correct bases to be fielded.  One of the guys was originally fielded as a character on warhawk so that's an option to make them a little more stabby.  Games Workshop charges 20 dollars a model for these things now a days so technically that's an expensive unit.

Wardancers

13 Wardancers.  Some of them are very nicely painted(by the previous owner) others are very poorly painted by someone(not me) who was REALLY bored.  If anyone were to get a touch up on paint it would be that half of the unit.  

If you've noticed that some of these guys are based in white with snow, it's because I used them as Duellists in my Dogs of War army.  

Glade Riders

6-7 Glade Riders.  One of them is a lord on horseback. They were moonlighting as "Light Cav" in the 6th edition rules for Dogs of War.

Glade Guard

26 Glade Guard (or Wood Elf Bowmen as they were called in my day)  Arrows, arrows and more arrows.  Probably will break these up into 2 or 3 units.  

Characters. Standards and Musicians

3 unit standards (the guy on the far right has a broken standard), 1 musician, 2 characters, and 1 mage.  I'll probably play one of the standards as the BSB, and unless I need to pad some point using Hero level characters, I'll use the rest as command models for the archers.(MORE ARROWS!)  

I know with magic items I can do at least a 2000 point army.  Maybe even get it up to 22 or 24 hundred if I max out everyone with magic items.  

I doubt this army is very winnable in a tournament setting, but it certainly will play differently than my Ogres.

-Edit:  I'm a moron. I was calling the Warhawk Rider Eagle Riders.  

Taking a crack at making some feathers

So today I decided to take a stab at making some feathers out of green stuff. I figure if I start now, I can come up with a good repeatable method sometime between now and the next century.  Also it will give me a chance to use my carving kit.

After I had all the trouble making the fire for my Fire Butcher, I figured having the right tools would help.  After an hour or so of making, remaking, swearing, and proclaiming that I'd never do this shit again.

I ended up with 2.  I want them to dry so I can prime and paint them before I officially pass judgement.  I know that I can do better, but I think these 2 will paint up to tabletop quality... or trashcan quality.  

I'll admit they look a little like leaves, but I'm pretty sure that's because of the green color.  

My first piece of Space Marine Goodness...

I haven't assembled the marines yet, because I was gonna wait for the heads to arrive.  (Someday my precious... someday.....)

The Land Speeder Storm sprues only have a Heavy Bolter on them, but I think with the regular land speeder you get the heavy flamer, assault cannon, and multi-meltas. Since I'll be running the Typhoon Missile Launchers on those, I'll have more than enough.  It won't require magnetization, but I might do it anyways, just to keep them from falling off.

I've saw this article today and I think I'm going to steal (well I guess it's not stealing since I gave credit right?) this idea of magnetizing the Scouts that come with it so that I get 5 more Scouts for free.   

Bowie 2k Tourney Aftermath

  Just got back in from doing the 2k Fantasy Tournament.  I considered playing coy for a bit, but since I doubt anyone is actually going to read all of this, I'll cut to the chase.

I WON BEST PAINTED ARMY!

I promise I will only say this once. 

My "Award Winning Army"

Let's let that sink in for second... *deep breath*  I'm sure at this point a certain reader of this blog has just cut his wrist having played against my awful Chaos army for all those years.   Right after I got there and set things up, the flood of people coming over and going "OMG LOOK AT THOSE AWESOME MANEATERS!"  then coming back with their friends to show them too started.  I think I counted at least 20 people throughout the day who came over and said something to that effect. 

The prize was a 35.00 box of my choice so I got a Land Speeder Storm for the space marine army.  

Everything is better when it's free.

Back to the tournament, I went 1-2 for the day, but ended up top 5 overall.  

First game was against a dwarf player.  Interesting list, 2 cannons, a unit of longbeards with 4 characters in it, and a gigantic horde of miners.  Having seen this unit as he put it on a movement tray, I knew that I wanted to make sure that he couldn't get to the flank of me with their scout deployment, so I put 1 sabretusk on each flank as far out as I could.  

My maneaters tore into the first cannon and and wiped it out first turn.  This is where my opponent made the fatal mistake of this game.  He turned his unit of longbeards around to deal with the maneaters in the corner. My unit of ironguts and unit of bull ogres chased off and overran the miners, while the sabretusks had closed in on the final cannon and destroyed it.  At this point, I knew his character bunker was so far out of position, I could just avoid fighting him (Movement 3 dwarfs vs Movement 6 Ogres)  and I'd win.  I spent the next 4 turns just firing magic spells and leadbelcher rounds into the unit.  My Ironblaster eventually blew itself up turn 2.

Victory me!

Round 2 was awful.  I forget the name of it(I wanna say surprise engagement.....)  was the scenario.  Basically divide the table into 6 blocks and take turns placing units in the blocks will there is 1 unit in each block, the rest of your units have to walk from the table edge.  My opponent was playing an extremely shooty Dark Elf list (I believe he was the eventual tournament winner.) 

Because the crazy deployment rules, my maneaters weren't allowed to use their scout special rule.  They aren't designed to walk across the field into combat, they are supposed to be in the shit by turn 2. Dark elves basically picked me apart with shooting and magic.  

Loss for me.

Round 3 was against a Lizardman army.  A Slaan-less Lizardmen army.. I didn't even know people did that.   His list was 2 hordes, (one 30 man and one 40 man) of saurus, Saurus lord on Carnifex, Stegadon w/ skink priest and a Salamander.  Because of the way VP are calculated, I got my ass handed to me.  I don't want to take away from anything my opponent did because he certainly won, but I killed all but 3 of the guys in 1 of the hordes, wore down the other just a few, and killed the carinifex but not the lord, so even though all those points worth of stuff was dead, I got 0 points for it. (Take that back, I got 25 points for taking the standard bearer of one of the hordes.)   I did get points for killing the Stegadon and skink priest, but he did lost of damage to full units.  

Another Loss for me.

I feel like I performed better than my win/loss record indicates, but I had fun and I can now say that I have won something at a Warhammer tournament.

When I got home, the sample axe from The Assault Group came.  I'll do a seperate post about that later.

I won Best Painted Army!.............. nope still doesn't sound right.

2k tourney list for tomorrow

Doing my first "official" GW tournament since doing Rouge Trader Tournaments back in 6th edition. (Oh how I miss my Dogs of War army) 

Slaughtermaster, General, 2xHw, lvl4, Talisman of Preservation, Scroll, Lore of The Great Maw - 357 Pts.

Bruiser, Ironfist, HA, BSB - 138 Pts.
Firebelly, 2xHw, Potion of Speed, Talisman of Endurance, Lore of Fire - 157 Pts.

6 Ogres, Handweapon & Ironfist, Lookout Gnoblar, M, S, C - 227 Pts.
7 Ironguts, M, S, C, Lookout Gnoblar - 336 Pts.

4 Maneaters, HA, 4 x Brace of Ogre Pistols, Scouts, Sniper, M, S, C, Banner of Eternal Flame - 304 Pts.
6 Leadbelchers, M - 268 Pts.
1 Sabretusks - 21 Pts.
1 Sabretusks - 21 Pts.

Ironblaster - 170 Pts.

Total: 1999


I'm feeling a little naked without my Hellheart, but I've convinced myself that at 2k points, I should be able to deal with my opponents magic without it.  Plus I hate taking anything that random to a tournament.  With it's range being D6x5 inches.. I know I'll be rolling a 1 when I use it.

I've never fielded a leadbelcher unit this big before so I'll be interested in seeing how well it does.  After watching a 10 man unit of HE Dragon Princes disappear in a single volley, I wanted to try my luck with them.

Mathhammer time

6 Leadbelchers get 6d6 shots (average of  21)
Hitting on 5's(7 shots)
STR 4 vs tough 3 (3-4 wounds)
Then -2 for their armour save. 

That doesn't seem like alot, but if you select your targets right, that's downright evil. 

Will try to get some pictures tomorrow if I remember to charge the camera.

Resin Bases

  I think I have my base choices down to 2 options.  After doing some thinking, I've decided that I might as well go ahead and get some resin bases.  It's gonna add a little cost to the army, but it will give it a very finished look to it, as well as, if/when I start doing 40k tournament, having resin bases is just free points in the paint score department.

  After doing some research into more resin bases that I'd like to admit, I've narrowed it down to 2 choices... I think... 

  I want to make sure that whatever I buy, I'll be able to buy a full set of them.  I saw some really amazing bike bases, but since they didn't make that style in Dreadnaught size and in standard round size, they aren't really going to be useful for me going forward.

  The first option is from Dragon Forge.  I really like the cobblestone rubble bases.  

Standard Bases

Terminator Bases

Dreadnaught Base

Bike Base

Attack Bike Base

   Dragonforge also has a "Flight stand".  They will drill the hole in the base for you, so I won't have to worry about doing it myself and possibly screwing up my fancy resin base.  I can't stand the GW flying bases.  Seeing that clear plastic bubble always seems to cheapen the look of an army.

  

The second option that I like is from ForgeCraft Games.

Standard Bases

Terminator Bases

Dreadnaught Base

Bike Bases

Attack Bike Base

I really like that both sets have an Attack Bike base, even GW doesn't have a base of that size. 

Pro's and Cons of Each

Dragon Forge

Pros:

1.  They also make a large oval base like the ones used on a Storm Raven or Imperial Valkyrie.  I don't currently have the need for it, but it is nice to know its there.

2.  Flying bases.

3.  Very simple to paint.  Just prime it black, then drybrush the red bricks. Then just paint the smaller details.

Cons:  

1.  Less variety in the different bases.  

2.  When it comes time to do a display board for the army, making something that will go with the red bricks will be difficult.  

ForgeCraft Games

Pros:

1.  Greater Variety of bases.  

2.  Cheaper than the Dragon Forge bases.

3.  With the exposed dirt and grass, there is an opportunity to put some static grass down, and really make each base it's own individual thing.

4.  Very easy display board.  I can just go to Home Depot and buy a couple squares of Diamond Plate and glue that to my favorite Ikea tray.

Cons:

1.  More difficult to paint.  

2.  I fear it might come off as a little bit too shiny with the white armor of my Space Marines.

Since I'm still waiting on the heads (darn you Poczta Polska),  I don't think I need to make the decision anytime soon.   

Tau Piranha and Devilfish, 2k WFB Tournament, and Flames of War????

I did a little painting today but these are by no means completed models.  Since I'm still waiting for the Space Marine stuff to show up, I did some work on some of the Tau I have sitting around.

Tau Piranha

I wasn't planning on starting the Devilfish, but a great big glob of paint

 shot out onto my palette and I didn't want to waste it.

Next point of business,  Looks like January 16th the Battle Bunker in Bowie is going to have a 2000 point WFB Tournament.  I'm going to write up 2 lists, 1 with Mournfang Cavalry, and 1 without them, then we'll see if I get the Mournfangs done in time.  12 days might be cutting it a little close, even for my style of wait till the last minute and start slopping paint.  I don't even know how feasible it would be to field them in just a 2000 point army list.  (Expect a 2nd post with army lists sometime soon)

I've always wanted to break into some kind of historical game, but since there are only 10 million different ones to choose from, I never pulled the trigger on it.  However, I think I may have the one that suits me in Flames of War.  I've got some friends that play and it seems like something I can get behind.  It seems to play more like a tabletop game rather than a accurate historical representation. People seem much more relaxed about having accurate camo patterns to match squad numbers.

Originally what I wanted to do was a Early Polish Kawalerii army from the Blitzkrieg Book (shhhh you can read it on Scribd pg 38.)  However, its an Early War army and because people love TANKS TANKS AND MORE TANKS, early war doesn't get it's fair shake.  Even on the Flames of War site, there is only a single Early War tournament listed for this year.

Then Guybrarian pointed me to the Poles in Italy briefing on the Flames of War site.   It would give me a late war army that is apparently decently competitive, would get my foot in the door so to speak on a Polish army, and it has rules for "Wojtek the Soldier Bear."  That's not a nickname folks... It's a real bear.  A short history of Wojtek can be found in the briefing for those of you who are unfamiliar.

So I guess I'll add playing Flames of War to my list of projects after I

1.Finish Ogre Army (Although in my defense, I'm pretty damn close.)
2.Space Marine 40k army
3.Finish my Tau(once the new book comes out)
4.Trollbloods for WarmacHordes
5.Get my Empire army back in shape so that its playable.
6. Infinity????(Not totally sold on this game... still need to make it out to play the demo at my FLGS)

One day they will release a statement that says over exposure to acrylic paint, super glue, and resin/plastic/pewter causes cancer, and I'll just immediately fall over and die.