My brother Michael, my brother-in-law Michael, and my friend Michael and I attended Nashcon this weekend.  Aside from being surrounded by Michaels and an occasional Howard, it was a blast.  We played a couple of games of Aerodrome 2.0 hosted by Stanley Kubiak, a mega pirate battle hosted by David Raybin, and Wings of War hosted by Kevin and Steven Duke.

We also acquired some nice conversions of megablocks ship models done by Richard Houston of Houston’s Ships.  He had worked in some pretty wooden floors to make them look a bit less like toys and a bit more like something you’d be happy to have on your gaming table.

The vendor area also contained some surprising Blood Angels conversions of avatar models.  I’m not sure who was selling these, but they were well done.

I’ve uploaded all the pics to a public picasa gallery, which you can view here:

Gallery

Nose Ring vs. Lip RIng

Nose Ring vs. Lip RIng

Musings on Short Bearded Warbands

Tips for Playing Dwarf Treasure Hunters in Mordheim

by Michael Weaver

Their weaknesses:

• Slow movement. Nothing you can do about it really.
• Low initiative. Go with the flow and give two-handed weapons to anyone who can pack one – if you’re always gonna go last in a melee, go last with gusto! Used to be you could give them spears so they could belly-stick all those speedy show-offs as they came in on the charge, but alas no more with the officially revised rules for spears. Note that buying two-handed weapons for everyone is a bit pricey.
• Only four starting heroes: It gets better. Shard-wise they make out fine, but they get fewer cool multiple rolls early on.
• Two of the four heroes don’t benefit from many of the dwarf strengths: specifically, the two Slayers cannot wear any armor and cannot pack any of the extra-long range missile weapons the engineer provides. This weakness never goes away. However, it effectively diminishes over time since once you have two promoted henchmen-heroes, they can carry missile weapons and wear armor so the weird slayers are only 1/3 of your hero compliment, not 1/2.
• Expensive models: You receive excellent value for your gold – Dwarfs have great stats and special racial abilities – but your starting warband will be smaller than average (no pun intended).

Their strengths:

• They can wear heavy armor, pack shields, and still move 3. They become tanks. It’s pretty cool. But all that heavy armor is expensive, so it takes time for this advantage to truly manifest itself.
• Toughness 4 + the “Hard to Kill” rule (OOA only on a 6) = stubby immortals. Together, these rules make them some of the most durable warriors in the game. They may not earn as much experience early on as other warbands (because of their speed), but they also lose very few guys they have to replace, so it adds up. To repeat – you are far less likely to have to replace dead Heroes in a campaign, especially if you take the Dwarf Racial skill Extra Tough, which lets you reroll a result on the Serious Injury table.
• They always find an extra shard. So, even when they have only four heroes they do fine for money, and with five and especially with six heroes, they are going to be rolling in gold. Note also the four starting Heroes can all take the Resource Hunter special skill, which gives them the Elf Ranger ability of adding +/-1 to their die roll on the Exploration chart.  Over time, Dwarf warbands tend to become seriously rich.
• They have some useful special skills. True for the general Dwarf skills and the Slayer skills. I have already mentioned Extra Tough and Resource Hunter, but there are several other really good skills.  For example, the Slayer skill Berserker combined with the Slayer’s WS of 4 means there are a lot of targets he will hit on a roll of 2+.
• Good leadership. When the captain goes Out of Action, nobody really notices… Even the little Beardlings have a leadership of 8, the same as most human captains.
• Long-range missile weapons. Gotta love the engineer. 36-inch range crossbows and 9-inch range pistols is a Good Thing.  Dueling Pistols (one of the best weapons in the game) have their range increased to 13 inches.

Dwarves vs. Orcs and a Beer

Dwarves vs. Orcs and a Beer

The Weaknesses vs. Strengths Balance:

In my experience, Dwarven strengths outweigh their weaknesses, and the longer the Dwarf warband runs, the more their strengths manifest themselves.  And that is the important point to keep in mind: they are slow (hah!) to start in a campaign because they only have four starting heroes and under-perform in snatch-and-run campaigns, but they become exceedingly powerful (and rich!) over time.

Building a Dwarf Warband.

Heroes.

You have to take all four, obviously (you always take the maximum number of starting Heroes for any warband.  Always).

For the Noble, sometimes I buy the cheap Gromril armor, sometimes not.  Starting out, it is only 25 gc more than heavy armor, for the +1 point of armor save. However, the other benefit of Gromril armor (can be used with a shield without slowing a warrior down) is lost on Dwarfs, who are never slowed by armor. So, a good buy still, but with all Dwarf models being so expensive, it might be better to scrape and save on kit to buy more Henchmen (and the more henchies you start with, the more chances you have to roll The Lad’s Got Talent).

For the Engineer, I pretty consistently go with a crossbow and a hand weapon (hammer or axe) and have him hang back and snipe (so, no pistol). Now as he develops I usually add pistolier and eagle eyes and gift him with dueling pistols, at which point he will more consistently hunt with the pack.

For the Slayers, I usually go with one with a two-handed weapon for the +2 Str and the other the other has a dwarven axe and a mace or hammer (I can never decide which configuration is better, hence one of each; it also makes it easier to remember which slayer is which).

In terms of Henchmen, I usually have a mix of Clansmen and Thunderers.  I never take Beardlings – the more expensive Clansmen and Thunderers have +1 WS, +1 BS, and +1Ld compared to the Beardlings, which is a steal for 15 gold coins, if you ask me.  Going with Beardlings might allow you to make your starting warband one or two stunties bigger, but be patient – you are going to max out you numbers soon enough, so start with the better Henchmen (who, when promoted, will also make the better Heroes).

Stat-wise, Thunderers and Clansmen are identical – the difference is in the kit they can take. Thunderers cannot take dwarf axes or two-handed weapons (booo!), and Clansmen cannot take crossbows (or, for that matter, handguns, but who cares about the handguns? -editor:  argh!  the poor handgun, take pity on it!)  In my first couple of Dwarf warbands I started exclusively with Thunderers, but later I realized how effective short pissed-off Dwarfs swinging two-handed weapons at people’s kneecaps were.  Now I generally go with a mix.  By the way – if you have a Clansman who earns a promotion to Hero, consider giving him the shooting skills as one of his two skill groups, because if he takes hunter, he can use any missile weapon and thus becomes extremely versatile; similarly, if you have a Thunderer promoted, consider allowing him access to the combat skills so he can take weapons training.

Dwarf Treasure Hunters are a great warband – just be patient.

-finis

"Ok, everybody say ‘cut them off at the knees!’"

"Ok, everybody say ‘cut them off at the knees!’"

Thanks for the tips, Michael!  Below are some glamor shots for the individual Dwarfs I just finished painting.  Hopefully they will use some of the tips above and fare well in an upcoming campaign!

Argh! Trollslayer! Argh! Trollslayer!	Dwarf Trollslayer (pretend you don’t see armor) Dwarf Trollslayer (pretend you don’t see armor)	Dwarf Clansman Dwarf Clansman
Dwarf Clansman Dwarf Clansman	Dwarf Thunderer Dwarf Thunderer	Dwarf Engineer Dwarf Engineer
Dwarf Clansman Dwarf Clansman	Dwarf Thunderer Dwarf Thunderer	Dwarf Thunderer Dwarf Thunderer
Dwarf Clansman Dwarf Clansman	Dwarf Clansman Dwarf Clansman	Dwarf Noble Dwarf Noble
Dwarf Campaign marker Dwarf Campaign marker

]]> http://hobbyblog.wargameweaver.com/mordheim/playing-a-dwarf-treasure-hunters-mordheim-warband/feed 0 http://hobbyblog.wargameweaver.com/mordheim/the-dwarven-double-barrelled-pistol http://hobbyblog.wargameweaver.com/mordheim/the-dwarven-double-barrelled-pistol#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:59:34 +0000 jim http://hobbyblog.wargameweaver.com/?p=204 A new weapon for your Dwarf Treasure Hunters to try out!  Click through for rules.

Dwarf Noble battles Orc Shaman

Dwarf Noble battles Orc Shaman

Stamper will be playing Dwarf Treasure Hunters in an upcoming Mordheim campaign, so recently I was going through my pile of unpainted and unassembled minis to scrounge some figures up for them.  Most of the lot is Citadel 80s Dwarves (awsome figures), but I broke open my Skull Pass boxed set to see if there were any good candidates hiding in those sprues.  I didn’t like the Dwarf sprues much in that set, but one bit I really liked was the double-barreled pistol that the Dwarf hero in that set is sporting.  Since I didn’t like the Dwarf himself much (the latest GW plastic Dwarves pale in comparison to the old Citadel figures), I figured a conversion was in order.

“Snip”!  Off came the neato pistol from the clunky-cartoony plastic Dwarf, and “saw, saw, pin, glue, green-stuff” later I had a nice plastic double-barrelled pistol welded to a Citadel 80’s Dwarf miniature.  But with such a neat looking pistol, surely we cannot treat it as just a standard Mordheim pistol!  So, below the pics are rules for such a custom pistol!

Dwarf Noble with Double Barrel Pistol Dwarf Noble with Double Barrel Pistol

Dwarf Noble side view Dwarf Noble side view

The Dwarven Double-Barreled Pistol

Cost: 30 g.c. (60 for brace);  Rarity: 11

Maximum Range: 6″, Strength: 4

Special Rules: Prepare shot, Save modifier, Hand-to-hand, One extra shot

The Dwarven Double-Barreled Pistol is added to the equipment list for both Dwarf Warriors and Thunderers.  It may be purchased by a starting warband at its normal price but without rarity check, as normal.  It has the standard pistol special rules “Save modifier” (-2) and “Prepare shot” (fires every other turn).   A brace allows one shot per turn as normal.

One extra shot:  Once per game, a Dwarven Double-Barreled Pistol allows one extra shot during either a shooting phase or close combat phase.  If equipped with a brace, two extra shots are allowed (one per pistol) during the game and may be taken at the same time if desired.  This extra shot is always in addition to shots normally allowed, and thus stacks on top of any skills allowing extra shots.  The extra shot may be taken at the same target or at a different target if used during a shooting phase.  If used during close combat, the extra shot must go at the same model as the normal shot for the pistol (unless normal shot is unavailable due to use in prior round).

After putting together a bunch of Ghouls, Skeletons, and Zombies, the next sprue from the Vampire Counts Spearhead I’ve tackled is the Dire Wolves.  You get ten of these on the sprue, with a nice variety of heads and leg parts that allow you to create a variety of poses.  The poses are determined by which halves of the torso you combine and which head you choose.  There is very little room for positioning the parts at odd angle to obtain additional poses, but you can always go to your knife and green stuff for conversions.

Games Workshop has a helpful set of pictures for assembling the Dire Wolves on their website:

Games Workshop Dire Wolf Assembly

This covers just about everything you need to know about the assembly basics.

These guys look to be more complicated to paint than the earlier plastic Dire Wolves from GW.  There is a lot of exposed muscle, gristle, and other icky stuff on the sculpts.  This differs from the earlier wolves who were simply fur.  As usual with plastic animal kits, a lot of gap filling is needed.  I used green stuff for this, and sculpted it to fit in with the surrounding fur, gristle, etc.  This takes some time but will make the finished figure look much better.

a couple of gaps at face and where body joins head

a couple of gaps at face and where body joins head

In the pics below you can see I start out with a strand of green stuff pressed into the miniature at a few points, and then sculpt it from there with a wet sculpting tool to minimize sticking.

green stuff in place

green stuff in place

finished gap fill

finished gap fill

The heads are in two parts as well, but not exactly halves.  One piece includes the neck head and half the face, then there is a smaller piece that you select and glue in for the other half of the face.  I got all the way through assembling the models before I realized that some of the faces parts are paired to one another.  For instance, there is one large head piece with a jutting canine tooth that has a corresponding smaller face part with a similar jutting tooth.  Since I didn’t notice this until after gluing things together, my face halves were randomly paired and in a few cases look slightly odd.  This did not bother me at all, though, since these models are already pretty funky looking to begin with.  Asymmetrical teeth can hardly make them any grosser than they already are!

The Corpse Cart and some metal undead figures are next on the assembly line.  After that, I need to get to painting!

Games Workshop River Troll

Games Workshop River Troll

The light-box is just a cardboard box with three sides mostly cut out, creating windows in each side, and then white tissue paper taped over those windows.  You cut a rectangular strip of posterboard (in this case I used white) and curve it inside the box to provide a background.  The lights go outside the box, the tissue reflects the light around inside the box.  You stick the mini in, snap the pic.  I think it’s an improvement!

Here’s one for sale on Amazon: link.  My home-made one cost about five dollars for the white tissue paper (gift wrapping tissue) and a couple bucks for the posterboard.

Grave Guard looks over shield

Grave Guard looks over shield

In preparation for an upcoming Mordheim campaign, I’ve been assembling some of the plastic Vampire Counts models that have been groaning and hissing from my closet shelves in impatience the past several months.  So far I’ve put together the Ghouls, Skeleton Warriors, and Grave Guard from the Vampire Counts Spearhead box, and a box-full of the older Zombie plastics.  A few of the finished models are featured just below (click for slideshow).

Grave Guard looks over shield Grave Guard looks over shield	Skeleton Warrior Skeleton Warrior	Zombie plays with arrow Zombie plays with arrow
Surprised at pic being taken Surprised at pic being taken	Heads up! Heads up!	I am hideous, do not take my picture! I am hideous, do not take my picture!
Ghoul makes off with prize Ghoul makes off with prize

The Zombie set, released a few years ago, is a lot of fun.  Plenty of room for conversions, and I indulged in a few minor ones with this box.  I have two Zombies with Bretonnian man at arms heads in this lot, one poking an arrow through his hand.  The theme of injuring myself started with this model.  After drilling a hole through one of his hands, and gluing the shaft of an arrow into the hole, I grabbed the arrowhead with a pair of tweezers.  The arrowhead had part of the shaft still sticking out of it, with a dab of superglue on it, and my intent was to poke it into the hole in the Zombie’s hand, making the join inside the hand where it would not be visible.  A clever plan, but I did not anticipate the arrowhead firing out of the tweezers with some velocity, streaking right over the top of my glasses and directly into my eye.  There was much cursing and pain, and I didn’t seem to be able to get the little piece of plastic out of my eye.  Finally, I lost track of it, but from the pain in my eye it felt like it was still back there somewhere behind the eyelid.  I couldn’t go to the eye doctor because we were snowed in, but fortunately after a couple of days the pain was completely gone.  I realized that the tiny arrowhead had fallen out somewhere, and that what I had been feeling was just a scratched eye (which heal quickly).  I finished the Zombie with some green stuff for the arrowhead, and he is gloating in the pics above.

Next up were the Ghouls from the Vampire Counts Spearhead boxed set.  These guys are fairly pose-able, despite the fact that their torsos cannot be twisted at angles to the legs.  The arms and heads can be put in a variety of positions, especially if you are willing to fill gaps in the arm sockets with putty.  They look great, and fit in well with the old metal ghouls.

Next were the Skeleton Warriors and Grave Guard from the Spearhead set.  These guys do not strike me as being as pose-able as the old Skeleton Warriors boxed set, particularly the Grave Guard who only have legs in one advancing pose.    If you are using them for Warhammer, the fixed leg / torso arrangement is probably an advantage to ranking up, though.  Since I will be using my models for skirmish purposes, I can’t help sometimes but evaluate a plastic set from a pose-ability standpoint.  They do provide a wide variety of heads and arms, though, and overall the models are better sculpted than the earlier plastic Skeletons, so I set my pose-ability complaints aside.

Both the Ghouls and the Skeletons in this set require a fair amount of gap filling with green stuff.  Below I show some pics of filling in one of the problem areas on a grave guard:  the join in the two halves of their armor.  You will see in the pics above that I have used a different putty, Milliput, on the bases.  I like Milliput when I want something with a shredded or crumbly appearance, but green stuff smooths very nicely and is what I almost always use for gap filling.

It’s tiny, but a little dab will do ya

It’s tiny, but a little dab will do ya

To fill a crack like this, the first thing I do is roll some green stuff between my fingers to form a thin cylinder of it.  Then I tear a small bit off, and stick it onto the miniature approximately where the crack is, either with my hands or a sculpting tool depending on how accessible that are of the miniature is.  Then I use a wetted sculpting tool (the kind with a beaded end), to push the green stuff onto the crack and press it into place in two or three points.  Wetting the end of the tool keeps the green stuff from sticking to it instead of the miniature.  Then I wet the end again, and smooth and sculpt the crack into the shape that I want to fill the gap.  If I use too much green stuff, I just tear bits of it off with the tool as I work (press in to make the green stuff thin at the point where you want to tear it off, then just sweep it aside with the tool).

Stuck onto the general vicinity

Stuck onto the general vicinity

Smoothed with wet sculpting tool

Smoothed with wet sculpting tool

All of these miniatures required a standard amount of trimming with a razor knife, and as I had just changed the blade before starting I cut myself a number of times.  Added up with the eye injury, these fifty or sixty undead miniatures took a toll on my body!

Next up are the Dire Wolves and Corpse Cart from the Spearhead.

You can view the mini-campaign rules here:  The Scarlet Cabal

A Touch of Evil is a great horror-themed adventure boardgame set in early America.  It plays very quickly and is easy to pick up, and seems like it would be a great game to include your non-gaming friends for a game or two.  We play with two expansions, Something Wicked and Hero Pack One, but this mini-campaign would work with the basic game if you use Investigation or something else for Resolve Tokens.

This mini campaign involves fighting three Villains in sequence, with the Shadow Track not being reset between games.  You are trying to prevent Town Elders from joining the Scarlet Cabal (I love doing that).  The more Elders that join the Cabal, the harder the game gets.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Orcs leap from gatehouse

Orcs leap from gatehouse

The object of the allied player warbands is to stop a gang of Orcs from getting off the table with a wagon loaded full of loot. And, of course, to obtain said loot for themselves. The Orcs can be played by a GM or by auto-pilot rules provided in the scenario. The scenario is intended for experienced warbands.

Here is a link to the online version of the scenario:
Looting the Looters, Google Doc

It is missing a detailed list of what models the Orc groups contain, which we will get attached to the scenario soon.

You can read a battle report for this scenario on our site:
Da Big Mordheim Battle

The two primary mechanics for the scenario involve random/concealed placement of Orc groups and a dice roll each turn that cumulatively determines when the primary group of Orcs has finished loading the wagon and begins moving to exit the table. I’m sure the scenario could be modified to substitute any racial type you desired (Skaven, Undead, etc.) for the Orcs.

Kingsbury and Michael setting up

Kingsbury and Michael setting up

My brother Michael ran the scenario (called “Looting the Looters”, to be posted here soon) and also ran an experienced Dwarf warband.  His wife Stacy ran Sisters of Sigmar, our friend Stamper ran Adventurers, my brother in law Mike Kingsbury ran Lizardmen, and I fielded a Bretonnian warband.

The scenario involves fighting a mess of Orcs, with the player warbands cooperating to prevent their leader from getting a pile of loot off the board.  And of course obtaining said loot for ourselves if possible.  All five of our warbands were very experienced (in the 250 to 350 warband rating range).  The Orcs were given several improvements over standard stats, and there were over a hundred of them available to drop on the board.

The table layout consisted of three new 2×4 foot grassland boards.  The North end of the table features a road coming down from mountains into a village.  The road leads down to a castle which dominates the west long end of the table.  Opposite on the East end is a murky pool surrounded by buildings (including one with walled back yard in which the leader’s Orc pack is hunting for the loot).  At the South short end of the board the roads winds through a toll house and between two hills to leave the table, with several surrounding buildings.

Before the scenario starts, the Orc horde is divided into thirteen squads. One of the squads is the boss group, which is placed in the center of the table. In this case that was a stone-walled farmhouse with upper story barn and a walled yard.  This group will remain where they are until a certain count is reached by adding the results of a single dice roll made each turn (they are searching for loot, but when they find it they will try to get it off the table).  The other thirteen packs will appear on the table during game play, as they are encountered. Twenty playing cards are placed face down in a spread around the table. Thirteen of these cards correspond to an orc squad, seven are dummies. When players get close to a card, or a card is close to an ongoing battle, there is a chance the card is turned over and corresponding Orcs are placed on the table in that location (if not a dummy card).  Any Orcs with missile weapons are allowed a free round of fire when revealed, even though it is the player turn when they are placed on the table!

Hero Turn 1

Stacy’s Sisters and my Bretonnians entered on the South side of the board, in two mixed groups. Kingsbury added about three of his Lizardmen to each of these groups.  The western-most group in the South headed for the mill.  The eastern-most group split, with Lizardmen and Bretonnian archers along with the Skink Priestess heading for a two story building to provide covering fire, and the rest headed for a large ruined building.

Stamper’s Adventurers and Michael’s Dwarves came in on the North end of the board, on the slope descending from the mountains. The rest of Kingsbury’s Lizardmen, including a Kroxigor, were in this force. All told, we had somewhere around seventy models for the forces of good!

During the shooting phase, the heroes approaching the mill in the South discovered a pack of around eight Orc warriors hiding in the building.  At the same time, a group of Orc archers, around the same number (led by Skag the Assassin, armed with a crossbow and poisoned bolts) revealed themselves from behind a screen of trees on a hill adjacent to the road.  To add to the fun, a third group of Orc warriors was observed hiding in a toll house building that straddled the road beside the hill.

Approaching the Mill

Approaching the Mill

On the North end of town, the Adventurers descending the from the mountains found a group of four Goblin archers led by two Orc archers blocking their way amongst ruins on the slope.  The Dwarf and Lizardmen group in the North found no immediate opposition, but a large group of mostly Black Orcs, however, led by the dreaded Barfgutz, were visible heading towards them from town.

Surprise missile fire from the revealed Orc archers on the hill in the South knocked down several Bretonnian henchmen, all of them within charge range of Orc warriors lurking in the mill.  The point blank shortbow fire from the Goblins in the North was brutally effective, taking out of action no less than three of Stamper’s Adventurers!

Orc archers firing from a hill

Orc archers firing from a hill

Stamps and MIchael resolving combat on the mountain slope

Stamps and MIchael resolving combat on the mountain slope

Orc Turn 1

The newly revealed Orcs hammered home the advantage gained from their surprise missile fire.  The Goblins in the north took out a fourth Adventurer, putting Stamps’ warband in rout check territory on the first turn of the game!  Barfgutz’ Blackorcs ran towards the hated Dwarves and strange scaly green-skins they’d sighted.

In the South, the Orcs in the mill charged out and sent a Bretonnian henchmen out of action.  A second Bret henchmen, though knocked down, managed to twist and turn on the ground and somehow avoid being taken out by a charging greenskin.  The Orcs in the toll house rushed out of that building to head for mill combat.

Close-up of mill combat

Close-up of mill combat

Orcs leap from gatehouse

Orcs leap from gatehouse

Click through to the second page, below for the more of the battle report!

The surface is coated with brown-tinted hydrocal. I used a very thin mix on the rock surfaces, and applied it with a brush. Over the grass areas a soft-serve ice cream consistency of hydrocal was used and applied with a spatula. I sprinkled some sand around the edges of the rocks, and fixed some large, irregular stones with a hot glue gun.  The road surface is a mix of sand, glue, and spackle.

The road and rock surfaces were painted with craft paints. I used about six colors on the rock surface, with a base color that was a dark chocolate brown. Three tones of gray dry brushed over that, and then some spot drybrushing of reddish brown (same color as base for road) and green for a final touch.

The base coat of flock is Woodland Scenics blended turf, sprinkled in sections on top of Liquitex Matt Medium. Once this dried, I shook off the excess and liberally applied another layer of matt medium on top and let it dry for another day. Then I added some spots of coarse turf and clump foilage, then some yellow and light green drybrushing here and there on turf and foilage.

Click on any of the pics for a slide show!

One more board to go.