The freshly risen

Well, its been a long weekend but I've finally managed to complete the 50 strong Skeleton unit.

Whether I'll ever field a full 50 unit remains to be seen, but it never hurts to be optimistic about Invocation rolls. Other than that I've also recently built a Terrorgheist and Kemmler and Krell.

Although recently assembled, I have used Krell and Kemmler in an intro game I had with Mart and whilst I kept things basic so the intro game flowed, I was happy with how Krell in particular worked. His Heroic Killing blow is going to be useful against Ogres and other Monstrous Infantry Characters and Champions, however the fact that it is restricted to challenges seems somewhat rubbish.

I've just received Vlad and Isabella as late birthday presents but other than those two, there are only 20 Zombies left to assemble of the Vampire Counts models I already own, which is just as well as May isn't that far off and I have a lot of Blood Angels models to assemble for Chris' Spring wargaming weekend.

I just can't get away from those blood suckers!

Darklands Campaign, Turn 1

I am currently taking part in a campaign based in the Dark Lands with Ben, Sam and Chris and we have just completed the first turn. The campaign is being played using the Blood in the Badlands supplement with a few adjustments.

I am using Vampire Counts and have two armies: One led by the not so magical Abdemanechus, a Vampire Lord, the other led by the Lichmaster himself: Heinrich Kemmler.

My first battle saw Abdemanechus face Ben's 'Archlector' let Empire (I'll provide a bit more info on these at a later date). It wasn't going too badly until the latter stages, but sadly the Flagellents wore down my Ghoul unit and that really swung the battle.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to field the army I really wanted to as I am still waiting for parts of it to arrive, though i think that Ben was in a similar position so i cannot complain too much. Especially since I deployed and used a unit of Hex Wraiths for two turns before realising they weren't in the revised list I'd written!

Because of this I'm quite glad Ben won the battle as I think that their presence changed how he had wanted to deploy and for them to be simply removed meant that part of his army had to readjust its position to be of benefit, so the fact that it didn't stop him winning means he may eventually forgive me. Eventually.

So I'm in need of a win and sharpish! all the others seem to be getting interesting bits and bobs and I want me some of that!

So, I'm behind on the tile claiming and the relics

In absentia mea, ego vigilate te

Well, since my change around on this blog three weeks ago, I've been rather quiet. The reasons for this, simply, are that I don't have enough time! Between work and University, real life and trying to squeeze in some games now and then, I've not had much time left for recreational writing.

That isn't to say that I've not been busy as I have been working on army development! Although it is old news now, the Vampire Counts have had a new book and lots of new miniatures, and as such I have been busy assembling my forces.

It always strikes me as odd that I seem to have sufficient models for a reasonable sized army until the new book arrives, at which point I seem to need to spend weeks assembling basic units all over again, let alone all the new units that get released. However, I am now on my way to a viable force. The goal is to have a Kemmlar army, but to do so shall require a lot of Skeletons, as well as time and funds. Sadly, the Winds of Magic aren't real, and even if they were, I suspect that the Invocation of Nehek wouldn't work on plastic skeletons. So in the meantime the intention is to run a Vampire list including a large unit of Crypt Ghouls to get me used to the army once more and slowly turn it towards the Necromancer list. I have only used the force once since the book came out, and frankly it didn't fare well, though admittedly this was against Ben's own Vampire Counts army. Essentially I lost through a mixture of attrition, terrible luck with magic and a lack of experience, the latter being something that despite it being a force from a new book, I could have mitigated by spending more time using the army when the previous book was in use. Instead I darted from army to army never really giving myself time to become use to it.

So now I have a lot of work ahead to get the army I want assembled, but am eager to get going. In the meantime, however, I shall likely be an irregular poster and may or may not get time to look over your own blogs, but I shall do so eventually!


Take care all.

Brax

Also, whose cat?

Had two very enjoyable games against Ben today with the Ogres. The first game was against Ben's own Ogre army which I thought may well be an uphill struggle. The list i used for both games was as follows:

1 Tyrant w/ Ironfist, Ironcurse icon, Armour of Destiny, Ogre blade, Luckstone 315
1 Butcher w/ Ironfist, extra level, hell heart 188
6 Bulls w/ fc, Ironfists, look out gnoblar 227
6 Bulls w/ fc, IronfistsI look out gnoblar 227
7 Ironguts w/ fc, look out gnoblar, Dragonhide banner 386
4 Leadbelchers w/ bellower 182
4 Mournfangs w/ bellower, standard, Ranger's Standard 350
1 giant 200
1 Ironblaster 170
10 Gnoblars w/ trappers 50
10 Gnoblars w/ trappers 50
10 Gnoblars w/ trappers 50


Both games didn't start well to be honest but in the end swung back a bit. The Ironblaster was so-so for me, and the giant, as much as I loved it didn't really do much in game one, and game two, although he 'killed' a unit of Cairn Wraiths and a Vampire, we aren't entirely sure whether he could really have done this against ethereal models. Most of his results were yell and ball which is fair enough, but the vampire was picked up and thrown back in to combat.

The Mournfangs were immense, and even when they rolled badly they still managed to do well! I'm glad that I chose to give them the Ranger's Standard which certainly made them more versatile! The Gnoblars were a mixed bag: in both games two units did next to if not nothing of use, but the 3rd unit did spectacularly earning their points back and then some! i think they chipped a couple of ogres (though one i think was badly wounded) with traps and thrown weapons and combat hits, and they took out quite a few zombies chipping them down enough to make a difference in the long term!

The butcher died in both games, but in the game vs the Vampire Counts i predicted the imminent death of the unit he was in, so i managed to achieve a magnificent set of miscasts with the Hellheart! I reduced the ethereal vamp and a necromancer on a corpse cart to wizard level 0, caused a few deaths to some ghouls through magical feedback and a wound to the other necromancer and the standard bearer.

Other than that, the bulk of the army did ok, but I think i just need to get used to them a bit more, so all in all a good start!