Total War: Warhammer

OMG I am so hyped now... Long I could resist, but with the stream offensive and the newest trailer I just can't resist anymore.

Yesterday I got myself a copy and will bring our beloved and destroyed Warhammer world back to life again. What do you think about the game? Heard of it? Interested? You will play it? Tell me! :)

On a side note: I got even more nostalgic and hunted me some very old dragon ogre models on ebay. Can't wait to get them, they will be my Grotesques for my Abyssal Dwarf army :)

#hype


So long,
Paradox0n

ETC in Prague

www.etc-events.eu

Last week ended for me quite surprisingly with watching the livestream of the European Team Championship event in Prague. The event consists of 3 team tournaments in Flames of War, Warhammer 40K and most likely the last time this year Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It is paired with the ESC (the Singleplayer Championship) which I didn't follow.
"Bastion" or "Saper" had a really big bulk of equipment in Prague and made an awesome coverage of the event on Twitch. At the moment it looks like he is uploading the matches and stuff on his Youtube channel, so if you are interested please pay him a visit.

I was quite fascinated because I already lost interest in the GW games but the presentation of the event and the nice mixture in the reporting kept me looking and returning to the stream.

The Flames of War table which was shown was absolutely fantastic and looked more like a diorama than a gaming table. It is only shown partially on the picture stream of the events Facebook page but you can guess how the whole thing looked like:

Flames of War

The stream itself is full of random geekiness and tournament impressions so it is worth a look.

This year Germany dominated in Warhammer 40K and achieved a new points record and  took home the first place. Also in Warhammer Fantasy Battles the team placed first (after some unbelievable close final matches) and in Flames of War they achieved a respectable 9th place. Congrats to all of the players and also kudos for playing in those rough conditions. It was extremely loud and roughly 40°C without working AC.

For the next year there is already a discussion taking place what game they will take instead of WHFB. Kings of War is handled here as follow up, which would be quite cool.

Hope you enjoyed and have a good start into your week!


So long
Paradox0n

The End has come - Farewell old friend!

I am so sad. Really! As it seems I finally have to say "Goodbye!" to an old friend, which was part of my gaming life (even if it was with big breaks) in the midst of the 90tis: This night the rules for Age of Sigmar, the so called successor of Warhammer Fantasy Battles came out. At least the first official glimpse with the free rules and the Warscrolls...
Even with all the rumors and those pictures of the Sigmarines I had a bit of hope left. But this is destroyed now.

I don't know what those guys/girls did take for drugs but honestly, the rules souond as if my godchild had written them, while taking some of the Space Marines from my old Starquest and doing "Pew Pew Chhhhhhhh" sounds. Honestly how can you call that a game with rules like "the count of models defines the army size you play" (as if 30 Skaven are as strong as 30 Sigmarines) and special rules like "If you do as if you ride and imaginative horse you get rerolls and if you even talk to this imaginative horse you get this and that bonus".

And the translations are also as if they where put through Google Translate or something (at least the German ones). Fluent reading not possible. Not that I would require German rules but nonetheless...

There is so much wrong in all this that I can't find words for it. Either it is a (very) late April Fool hoax or I don't know...

How convenient that the Mantic rules will be presented this week and they started a Kings of War offensive some time ago. Maybe this will be the new ruleset for all kind of Fantasy Battles in the future. I am already on that train and eagerly waiting for the Kickstarter stuff to be shipped. Maybe I then can convince my old gaming partner to give it a try, because for him WHFB was aleady dead some time ago. Otherwise my thousands of points of Dark Elves and Skaven will find a dark and silent grave again in my cellar.


What are your thoughts on the new rules? Are you happy with them? Or as disappointed as I? Please feel free to leave a comment below.


So long,
Paradox0n

End Times is near! Rumors about 9th

Today I do something which I normally don't do: I jump on the rumor train and give my opinion to the gossip factory which is working overtime at the moment. With myself getting deeper into the Warhammer Fantasy universe again and having played the games in the 90ies I am deeply rooted in the background of the game(s) and had to see how complete games were shot down from GW over the years (Necromunda, Mortheim etc. pp.) so I am pricking my ears on the newest rumors. And I have to admit that the newest rumors from Faeit and Warseer really worry me.

Disclaimer: This article will contain spoilers and rumors! If you aren't interested in them, please don't read the full length article.
It also contains some personal views and heavy exaggeration on the current rumors and how I will deal with that. But rumors are just rumors. Maybe everything will come completely different and we all are happily playing 9th edition in the summer.

Warning: Big wall of text incoming!

FFotW - The Battle of Finuval Plain

Battle of Finuval Plain from Hoodling

Today again something more hoby related. Perhaps some of you remember the last massive battlereport from Hoodling (The Battle of Hel Fenn) I posted a while ago. And he and his mad crew did it again: An unbelievable battle(report) of 25.000 points forces clashing into each other! Stand wide-eyed (or drooling) and read the madness of The Battle of Finuval Plain.

The Battle of Finuval Plain was a turning point in The Great War against Chaos in 2301 IC. The Dark Elves and their Chaos allies conquered the Blighted Isle and Nagarythe and started their raiding camapign on Ulthuan. After long fights favoring the Dark Elves and pushing the High Elves into some kind of geruilla war Teclis and Tyrion gathered a huge force and gathered on the Finuval Plain for a last stand fight to turn the tide of the war.

Take some time and read those many posts on his blog and enjoy the awesome (and pictured!) documentation how this battle went. Did the history books really tell the truth? At least you can read one version of this story today.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Welcome abroad to The Lord of Excess. Hope you found some interesting stuff here.

Dark Elves - Harpies WIP (color scheme)

Just a short update on my Harpies: I tested out a color scheme with just priming them gray, heavy black wash and cleaning the puddles up... Didn't work and don't like the result so I repainted the whole miniature in black, the wings purple and gave it a heavy drybrush of increasingly lighter graytones. Then glazed the wings to tone down the gray tones again to purple.
One thing I want to try after cleaning everything up is to gave it a marble look (yes my Harpies will be made of stone as I use the Gargoyle models from Mantic here). First time I try this, curious how this will turn out.

Please excuse the crappy picture but my camera goes havoc at the moment and I just didn't want to use my photo bucket for this short update (or buy a new camera :) ).


Have a good start into your weekend,
Paradox0n

Dark Elves - Harpies WIP

After pillaging through my whole Kickstarter stuff I found the Gargoyles from Mantic which could be a nice
replacement for my Harpies I used this far. So I spent the last two evenings (first time using my laptop cushion) with removing the mold lines and trying to get these thingies into a state that I can prime and paint them.

And oh boy... They have lots of mold lines. I am somewhat disappointed by the quality of these miniatures (as with the Orcs I started for Orctober and stopped painting before I threw them out of the window). But at least here the details work and you don't have to question yourself which part of the model this is you look at...

To be honest I like the sculpt pretty much, the mold quality is the problem here. But as with all the Mantic stuff: Its cheap and you get a good deal for your money.
The first miniature is already primed and awaits color getting brushed on. I want to do them in a very easy and simple color scheme: black/gray with the folds of the wings in purple. That should be just a lots of drybrushing and stuff.
So lets see what I can do here :)

Stay tuned and have a nice Sunday.

Paradox0n

Dark Elves - New miniature videos from Games Workshop

With the new Release of the Dark Elves it seems I have to rethink my complete army and stop my projects like my own Cauldron of Blood and the like. And I finally have to go to do the Harpies/Gargoyles I got from the Mantic Kickstarter and all the other stuff lying arround. Too many things to attend to, don't know where to start first...
But first some look at the new miniatures after the break.

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs. Empire: Battle Two

The forces ready themselves for battle

As promised in my last battle report there is another battle we did on our "Warhammer Battleday". As said, Labschi had only one army list ready, so we decided to give it another try and didn't change our setup for the gaming table. I just picked up my second list and we fielded our armies. This time I had some minor changes and swapped the Cold Ones against the Black Guard.
The Empire stood much better after deployment so I had to think a bit what to do this time. For magic I again was very lucky and had some strong spells. My Shades deployed in the small village, just outside reach and sight to get a fast charge on the cannon and my Dark Riders were setup on the far left to flank the empire army.

The game lies some days in the past so I have to try to remember everything with my pictures. It could be possible that I miss one small thing or another, but in the big scheme it should be alright. That is why I decided to not do a turnwise report but to give a bigger summary of the battle this time.

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs Empire: Battle One

I smell a battle coming

Lord Xanthus looked at his small warband and grinned: The small human village would bring him enough slaves to refill the flock in his mines. The only thing between him and his slaves were those pesky human soldiers who readied there weapons. He could also see some knights and even those blackpowder warmaschines he hated so much. Nonetheless he needed those slaves. Silent he gestured his Knights to trod aside his unit of crossbowmen. With the spearman and his shades blocking the right flank he didn't worry too much about the knights and artillery there, he just had to get grip of this human who chanted some blessings and prayers to this fool god the humans worship. As he felt the muscle tension of his Cold One he grinned and with a relieving: ATTAAAAAAACK! he sent his forces to slaughter.

Friday Finding of the Week - Epic battle report

Battle of Hel Fenn from Hoodling

This week just passed by in flight and therefore its time for another Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW). This time I have found some really epic battle reports I want to share with you. Ever wondered how the Battle of Hel Fenn, where Mannfred Von Carstein was cornered by an alliance of men of the Empire and Dwarfs could have looked on the battlefield? Then jump over to Hoodling's Hole and read this epic and unbelievable insane battlereport with 20.000 points (each side) of warhammer madness.

But if this wouldn't be enough, he also has some very nice summarization of the different magic lores, some tournament battlereports, insights into his Warhammer thinking and even more epic battlereports. I think I lost some hours there with only reading these fantastic narrated battles. Big thanks for putting this much effort into this!

And since Hoodling also joined the journey a hearty: Welcome aboard!


So long,
Paradox0n

WIP - Base for the Cauldron of Blood

And another WIP for my Cauldron of Blood today. At the moment I am trying to build me a base for the Cauldron. Since it should be a bit more scenic I thought of a small "hill" where the cauldron stands, two witches behind it and the standard bearer in front of it.
Since I have lots of bark in my box I used some of it to get a rough layout (which will be painted like rock). Too bad my Fimo dried out, so I couldn't finish the other parts of the hill. Any suggestions how I could do it without Greenstuff or Fimo? aybe just sanding the whole thing could work too...
For a better understanding how this should look like in the end, I placed some models on the base (sneaky skaven-ratlings are everywhere!).

What do you think of it?

So long,
Paradox0n

Sunday Afternoon WIP - Dark Elves: Witch Elves

2K primed Witch Elves

A day off, a delicious asparagus menu and a painting afternoon with a friend, what a wonderful and quite ending of a long weekend. And since I really managed to paint something I can show you some WIP shots of my Witch Elves for my Cauldron of Blood.

First I did a two component priming for a better definition of the lighting of the miniatures. You don't believe how tricky this is when it is a stormy weather like today. But after seeing of some pictures from Mr. Lee I know now that I can achieve this with my airbrush too. Therefore as soon as my aerosol cans are empty I will buy me a black primer from Vallejo since I am really pleased with their primers.

Saturday Night WIP - Dark Elves: Cauldron of Blood

After a rather restless night, I can show you some WIP shots for my version of the Cauldron of Blood for the Dark Elves.
The Cauldron is not the one from Games Workshop it is the Spawning Vessel from the Legion of Everblight. The acolythes will be used later as beastmasters for my hydra :)
Since I am a rather classical RPG player the thought of a statue carried by three wicked witches was not really appealing to me. It is too heavy, too clumsy and doesn't fit to my imagination of the Cauldron. And I was not willing to pay ~40€ for a modell I don't like and where I had to cut off half of it... The old model (more a chariot than anything else) is also not the best one (but fitted to the old rules) and only buyable via the Bay or similar places. So I bought myself a witch commando, the spawn vessel and a battle standard (more of her in a future article) and started thinking.

HowTo: Building a tower - Part 4

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. I thought a while about the roof I want to build for my tower: Just a flat one with battlements or a pointy one with roofy shingles? Since I already invested so much time I decided to make the pointy one. So start the video and read the rest of this article :)

Review - Warhammer Battle Magic

Hey there, since I have shaky hands at the moment (fever and outer temperatures of arround 35°C aren't a good combination), I can't paint and concentrate on doing some reviews of stuff that arrived in the last few weeks. I'll start with the Warhammer Battle Magic cards from Games Workshop.
For the older of us, not to be mistaken with the old Battle Magic of the fourth edition :) 

Warhammer Battle Magic cards

HowTo: Building a tower - Part 3

After building and painting the core for my tower, it is time to build the upper level of it. Somewhere the guards or other inhabitants must live.

First I built a core of styrofoam which diamater was a little bigger than the stone structure. Then I glued everything on the top of my stoneworks and let everything really dry. Meanwhile I sorted and cut my wooden "swizzle sticks" into the same length. You need more than you think, I had to borough some of my friend. Lucky enough you get them for free in every fast food restaurant. I used some clippers. The edges don't need to be plain and exact.

Cutting everything to length

HowTo: Modular Gaming Table - Part 4

Ok, we already went through a lot of steps. First we prepared the six basic modules and shaped some with hills and then we started coating everything with our structure paint. Now it's time to adding detail to the whole thing. This part is again not really magical, but you should take care in this process. The most importan thing is that every module must be completely (!!!) dry. We had a kind of "oven" on my balcony on which the modules could dry for a complete summer day.

Drying station for our modules

[Update] Battlereport - Skaven gainst The Empire

I will try the first time to give a short battlereport of a 2400 points game of warhammer fantasy battle. It was held at my place following the actual ETC (European Team Championship) draft at this moment. The opposing armies where my Skaven Warhost and The Empire Army from Talabheim (with the rules of the old Empire book). Since the game was held some time ago, I can only recapture the match and will therefore sum up the battle. I only shot a few pictures because my camera went insane on this day and messed the pictures.

The battle begins

[Update]: I just found my played Skaven List and put it in the post down below. Perhaps this makes the battle a bit clearer than before.

HowTo: Modular Gaming Table - Part 3

It's terrain thursday (nah just kidding, atm I am in the mood to do so) so I will post another part of my modular gaming table series. After preparing the six basic modules and shaping some with hills it is time to get dirty and put some paint onto our modules. Therefore we mix our own structure paint (the paste/paints you can buy are WAY too expensive). Besides a big bucket (~5l bucket is big enough) we need:

Bucket of PVA/white glue:

Approx. cost:  ~ 8 Euro

Bag of bird grit:

Approx. cost: ~ 90ct

Bottle of brown paint:

Approx. cost: ~ 5 Euro

Pour everything together, in the end we used a mixing ratio of about 1:1:1:1 (water, paint, sand, glue). Just try it out what suits you best. The structure paint should not be too runny and should not be as thick as toothpaste. You should be able to spread it out easily without the paint beeing transparent or only gluing sand...

Applying the structure paint