Vorghan Storms Into Battle

Storm clouds boiled and thunder rumbled overhead as Vorghan peered into the distance. After weeks of wandering the chaos wastes, the hounds had finally picked up a scent. Marauder scouts returned with news that the enemy was nearby. Vorghan bellowed his orders and the Ravagers roared their approval. Battle would be joined, blood would be spilled, glory would be reaped by the victorious.

The first skirmish would be fought using the Warhammer 8th edition rules, though I had the softback Warriors of Chaos army book, which was 6th or 7th edition. We played a scenario from the General's Handbook, which was a straight-forward battle but with the chance of lightning hitting units at the start of each turn, causing damage and preventing them from moving.

The rules came back to us fairly quickly, we didn't have to spend too much time checking the book. The biggest problem I have is mixing up all the versions I have played. But for the most part it went smoothly. It was, as usual, a real treat to play in Matt's dungeon of excellent terrain.

On my right flank Vorghan and his warriors, plus a support unit of marauders, nervously faced off against dragon ogres and chaos knights, a spawn, bestigors and marauders. A few pieces of rough terrain kept the enemy at bay for a couple of turns, and the shaman destroyed a spawn with a fireball. The marauder horse foolishly charged into the bestigor - it was at this point that I was reminded that two ranks fought. Needless to say the horsemen a) lost and b) won't be charging into the front of anything in future games.

On my left flank things looked equally precarious. A screening unit of hounds lasted one turn leaving a unit of chaos knights charged by a giant and a chaos spawn. I was convinced that this could only spell defeat, but amazingly the giant was felled and the spawn barely survived, hanging on for one more combat before he was destroyed. I had forgotten how good chaos knights can be. Sadly this fact was confirmed on my right flank as enemy knights tore through marauders, leaving Vorghan exposed to a potential flank charge.

The only chance for Vorghan was to lead his warriors in a charge down the centre, hopefully crush the enemy then pursue out of harm's way. Luckily, both charges crashed home. Vorghan had to charge across a giant skeleton and naturally his ball and chain got tangled in the bones, dragging him to the ground, his knee impaled on a boney rib. Still, he manfully limped forward and bellowed a challenge to the enemy general, Sven the Simple. Hampered by his injury, Vorghan was bested in this combat, though his warriors made short work of the enemy bestigors and chased them from the field.

The battle ended in typical Warhammer fashion, with practically every unit destroyed. Both sets of knights had crushed everything in their path, Vorghan had valiantly led his troops into battle, and much blood had been spilled to honour the gods. They (somehow) decreed it was a narrow victory to Sven, but were so disgusted with his feeble performance that he was gifted with stupidity. Both armies were rewarded with reinforcements - Sven would be joined by three skullcrushers while Vorghan attracted a chariot. After totting up the points we realised this was already a bit skewed, so Matt valiantly sacrificed a unit of spawn, to make it a little more balanced in future encounters. We felt that neither general had proven worthy of reward, but Vorghan's knights had been valorous combatants and would gain a small reward. And the raging storm? It had no effect whatsoever - only in the last turn did lightning strike, and then harmlessly into the ground.

Dark Angels still for sale

For sale - one very nicely painted Dark Angels starter force. I put this up on ebay last week, it didn't sell, so here we go again at a reduced starting price. Please spread the word if you know of anyone who might be interested. Here's the ebay link.

Vorghan's Ravagers

Listen to me and I will tell you the legend of Vorghan the Slayer, as it was told in days of old. A tale of bloodshed, noble deeds, treachery and the quest for glory.....

I am about to embark on a mini campaign down in the dungeon with the dice rolling maestro Matt. It's loosely based on the Path to Glory campaign from the Age of Sigmar General's Handbook - though we certainly will not be playing that ruleset and have made quite a few little tweaks to how it will play out. The first step in the campaign is to pick a warband. We both chose chaos forces and both elected to roll randomly for our starting force rather than choosing from the available options. We also both chose to start with the least powerful Lord option to maximise the number of units generated. I ended up with a Beast Shaman, 10 hounds, 12 warriors, 20 marauders, 5 knights and 5 horsemen. I will probably split the hounds unit into two as shown in the photo. It reminds me of the old battalion boxsets.

The basic idea behind the campaign is to accumulate glory points. These are earned in battle, 3 points gained for a major victory, 2 points for a minor victory and 1 point for a draw or loss. To keep it short and interesting we will play until one side reaches 7 or more points. At that stage we will fight a final battle, The Monolith, again lifted from the handbook.

We will use the tables and charts from the campaigns, tweaking them as necessary to fit our own purposes, as we will be playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle to begin with, maybe tossing in some Fantastic Saga or Dragon Rampant along the way. It's deliberately unplanned at this stage - we have a starting roster each, the first game scheduled and a rough idea of how it will end. By my calculations we will get between three and seven games before the final confrontation, so about a month or so of weekly gaming seems about right.

I have recently blogged on Vorghan the Slayer and the shaman and knights, these additional photos complete the picture. They are not new figures, they have all appeared on the blog in ages past, but it seemed a good idea to have a group photo while I was preparing them for their trip to the Chaos Wastes. Notice the marauder unit happily mixes together new and old versions of the figures.

Onward to glory........

Lady Alice Liddel and friend

Lady Alice Liddel and her pet rabbit, Lewis. These are the first of yet another new project, the South Kensington Ladies Amateur Dramatic Society. Both figures are from Guild of Harmony and are quite possibly the finest detailed metal figures I have ever painted. The size of some sculpting detail is completely mind-boggling. The ankles on the boots and the steam rabbit have tiny cogs, with all the spokes perfectly cast. It makes you wonder why some insist on using resin. I made a slight change, using the key on the rabbit rather than in Alice's back, which seemed a bit weird to me.

These have been painted as a birthday gift to my wife (obviously I have been sworn to secrecy on her age). She is quite a fan of steampunk and Alice in particular, so they were an ideal present.

When it came to palette, I was keen to avoid the pastel blue dress and blonde hair that is prevalent, but wanted to make a nod in that direction. I went with red and white checks on the apron, then added the blue/turqouise dress, then worked outward from there. The hair colour is auburn or red, to complement the red of the tunic. The stock of the gun is a rosewood colour - I thought this was the most appropriate to use for the flamingo head carving. The model is mounted on a 2p piece with a layer of cobbled plasticard. And for those wondering about the photo background, it's a sample of wallpaper from the local DIY shop - a wonderland of backdrops. There are plenty more amateur dramatics to add to the group, it's just a question of finding the time and deciding which of the wonderful models to paint next.

Chaos Knights and Beast Shaman

These figures are not recently painted. The knights must be at least ten years old, the shaman probably a bit less. The knights are part of a small Tzeentch force that I used to play. Originally it included daemons - horrrors, screamers and flamers - because they were all part of one book, but then the chaos book split into three and my force was much diminished. I have had plans to resurrect (ie rebase and add to) the force for some time, and recent events make that more likely, perhaps in 2017. The Shaman is one of just two painted beastmen I own - I have always liked the models but have never had the time to paint up a full army. Now that I play mostly skirmish games that might change.

The reason they are here today is that I have quickly added some snow to the bases. They have been recruited by Vorghan the Slayer and will be taking part in a mini campaign, some time soon (I hope). The rest of Vorghan's retinue were already snow based, at some point I will get the whole lot photographed and explain a little more.

It's interesting to see these old figures. At times it feels like nothing has changed down the years, but looking at older work does show that my painting has altered. I would certainly paint these figures differently today - a different palette and using different techniques. They are nice enough, but do not have quite the impact or finesse I would aim for nowadays. I guess that is no bad thing.

Vorghan the Slayer

Vorghan the Slayer, ready to lead his troops into battle and seek glory in the name of Khorne. This is, of course, the free figure from the recently relaunched White Dwarf. I made a slight modification by removing the head trophy that protruded from his back, as I felt that it ruined the profile of the model. I wish I had gone a bit further and swapped the large blade for an axe, and possibly changed to a different (non-helmeted) head, but that's hindsight for you. He looks a bit cramped on his base, but my chaos army is a stickler for tradition and he wouldn't be allowed to join on one of those new-fangled round bases. At some point in the future, he will be joined by a unit of marauders/warriors, I am not sure which as yet, but for the time being he is a lone character model. An infamous character, in fact, from the annals of lore - only the true Warhammer nerd will recognise the name. He does have a sizeable retinue at his command, ready to take on a rival chaos champion, but more on that in a future post.

I was particularly pleased with the armour. Black is quite a difficult colour to bring to life - strictly speaking it's an absence of any colour, so perhaps not surprising. I have always been hesitant to highlight it with blue as so many tutorials recommend, that gives a very silky appearance to my eye, best left for clothing. So I tried stippling and highlighting with grey, then washing in browns and reds. It seems to have worked out well. 

I was even more pleased with the flesh. I used my own base colour, glazed it quite harshly with chestnut and browns, then glazed with the original base colour to tone down the harsh contrast. Again, it seems to have worked well and it's a technique I can come back to on other models. Luckily, I blogged quite a bit of my painting progress so here's a handy list if you want to give any of the methods a go yourself. 

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