Warmachine/Hordes

Bloodstone Marches – Battle of Hawksmire River

ByDankelzahn October 9, 2007February 19, 2022

After talking about it for a while but never committing, my gaming group finally decided to start up the Theater of War presented in the Hordes: Evolution book. For those unfamiliar, the Theater of War is a map-base campaign system Privater Press has created for their miniature games. The first two theaters were created for Warmachine – The Battle for the Thornwood (in Apotheosis) and The City of Sul (No Quarter 8 ) – before the Bloodstone Marches was released for Hordes in Evolution.

Players create detachments from which they can draw their forces to attack each other’s territory. In addition to lands claimed, players accumulate Victory Points each battle which they can spend for various boons. Overall victory is achieved either through claiming a certain number of territories or winning the three Strategic Scenarios for your faction.

For our campaign Saultydog would be manipulating the druidic order of the Circle Orboros (the blue territories) Prorpger would be rallying the scattered Trollblood forces (the purple territories), and I would be leading the draconic Legion of Everblight (the red territories). We decided to allow proxies for the length of the campaign to allow us to try out some of our new models and see how they worked for us.

For the first round initiative was determined by a die roll. I won and elected to use my attack against the Circle to try for my first Strategic Objective and my attack against the Trollbloods to attack the long purple mountaneous area in the center of the map to try to get closer to my third Strategic Objective. Josh declared the final attack of the round against Prorpger at his own first Strategic Objective.

I decided to go ahead and do a battle report for each of the Strategic Objective battles, starting with my first one (the only game we were able to play). At th very least it would give me some more content to post up here. So without further delay…

Warmachine/Hordes | Miniature Painting

Merc Month & Throughput Goals

ByDankelzahn October 6, 2007April 4, 2024

Part of my motivation to put this blog together initially was to allow me to post some status updates and WIP shots of my miniature painting since I only posted completed pieces over at Diminutive Denizens. However it always seems like I have things I rather do than take pictures of uncompleted models and write up how they’re going. At least I’ve gotten a healthy respect for people who do this regularly. 🙂

A few months ago I decided to set a goal for myself of painting as many miniatures as I bought each month. That certainly flew in the face of my figmentia but I figured it would at least give me something to work for. And since I had mostly caught up with purchases for my Protectorate of Menoth and Legion of Menoth forces, my purchases were mostly going to be limited to new releases. Still, I soon realized that keeping up was going to be much harder than I first thought.

Warmachine/Hordes

Trollbloods vs. Legion of Everblight – Smoke in the Skies

ByDankelzahn September 25, 2007February 19, 2022

Smoke in the Skies, 500 pts.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007

About five years ago or so I was starting an Earthdawn RPG campaign for a group of friends. I decided to start the campaign off with the published adventure titled Terror in the Skies which would feature some airships and expose the PCs to that quickly. One character was a Sky Raider so I felt it was appropriate, plus I had run the adventure before and was comfortable with it. The group like using miniatures for combat so I got a crazy idea. The adventure had deck plans for the two large galleons that were in the adventure and would inevitably wind up in a battle in the skies. So one day I scanned the two upper decks into photoshop, resized them to scale for 25mm miniatures, and printed them out. I then took the pages, glued them down to cardboard, and cut them out for use on the table top. The group loved them and they made the boarding actions really fun, but then the ships got tossed into the closet and remained unused until recently. After debating what scenario to play for a little while, Prorpger, Superduck, and I came up with the idea to use the cardboard ships to do a variation of the Smoke on the Water scenario from the campaign in the back of Escalation.

The rules of Smoke on the Water were pretty simple – two barges pass each other on the table. Each barge was its owner’s deployment zone and moving d6″ during its owner’s maintenance phase. Each barge can be damaged like a structure and is ARM 16. When either barge touches the opposite table edge, both barges immediately stop and whichever had sustained the most damage immediately sinks. Whoever holds the last barge wins. If a model was knocked off the barges, it was removed from play.

For Smoke in the Skies, we added a few rules based on the ships we were using.

The blue edging was deck railing, which provided cover and was effectively an obstacle. It also meant you could get slammed into the wall but not over the edge. However the main deck had weaker railing – no obstacle, and you could be slammed right through it. Basically it was all open ground.
The red areas were the raised decks and counted as higher ground.
You could cross between decks of equal height or from higher to lower, but not from lower to higher. So no going from main deck on one ship to the forecastle on the other.
The green locations were the ships masts that were impassable terrain, provided cover, etc.
Since the ships weren’t flat and weren’t going to line up perfectly, a model could cross the distance between the two ships as long as the distance between was less than 2″. They were either leaping across or swinging on rope or whatever swashbuckler imagery you wanted to apply there. Yes, jacks too. 🙂

With that we put together a couple forces to do battle.

Warmachine/Hordes

Trollbloods/Circle vs. Legion of Everblight – A Family Affair

ByDankelzahn August 24, 2007February 19, 2022

A Family Affair, 1000 pts.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

The gauntlet was thrown Sunday – a team game where Prorpger and Saultydog would each bring 500 points against a 1000-point Legion army. We had to make sure to arrive at the store early so we’d have time to get everything set up and get started quickly, and it’s a good thing we did. There were quite a few models on the table and a lot of strategic decisions to be made each turn.

The table was set up as pictured here and Saultydog and Prorpger won the initiative roll and elected to go first.

Warmachine/Hordes

Surprise, It’s America Hill!

ByDankelzahn August 17, 2007February 19, 2022

Spontaneous America Hill, 350 pts.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

While Prorpger and I were finishing up some delicious food court delectables a couple local players asked me to set up an American Hill battle for them. Considering how long the last oversized America Hill game went I was surprised people still wanted to play but what the hell, right? So four of us sat down for yet another rumble for bragging rights up on high.

For those who haven’t read an America hill report yet, the rules are as follows:

At the end of each turn, the player with the most models on the hill gains 1 VP.
- A unit counts as 1 model, regardless of the number of members on the hill
- In the case of a tie, VPs are awarded to all players tied for most models on the hill
At the end of a turn where a player has his warcaster/warlock on the hill, the controlling player rolls 1d6 and gains the following bonus:

Immediately activate the Yellow Woldwomper

Immediately activate the Blue Woldwomper

Immediately activate the Red Woldwomper

Place any one model currently on the hill or within 3″ of the hill within 6″ of its current location. Model may not be placed more than 4″ above the table surface. There must be room for the model’s base at the destination.

Place 1d4 3″ cloud effects in play anywhere completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. These clouds remain in play for one round.

Place 1 3″ fire storm template anywhere within completely within the warlock/warcaster’s control radius. The warcaster/warlock must make a magic attack roll against each model in the AOE ignoring LOS, cover, concealment, elevation, Stealth, Invisibility, or intervening models. Each model hit suffers an unboostable POW 12 damage roll and the Fire continuous effect.

Warmachine/Hordes

Legion of Everblight vs. Protectorate of Menoth – Battle of the Frail

ByDankelzahn July 27, 2007February 19, 2022

Legion of Everblight vs. Protectorate of Menoth, 500 pts.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007

After I finished trying out a round of Infernal Contraption, Prorpger asked to play a game and actually commented that he wanted to try the Legion out. I was hesitant to let him borrow my models since obviously once a troll player experiences the awesomeness that is Everblight, they’ll never want to go back to their old faction. But what kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t give Prorpger more and more reasons to spend money.

Warmachine/Hordes

Circle Orboros vs. Legion of Everblight – Cat Fight!

ByDankelzahn July 21, 2007February 19, 2022

Circle Orboros vs. Legion of Everblight – Cat Fight!, 750 pts.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

This week one of the local players and I threw down in a 750-point Hordes smackdown. I hadn’t gotten the chance to play him much yet other than in a large multiplayer game so looked forward to the opportunity. We both brought out one of the ladies of Hordes and set them at each other in a fury-filled cat fight.

Warmachine/Hordes

Trollbloods vs. Legion of Everblight – Not America Hill!

ByDankelzahn June 28, 2007February 19, 2022

Trollbloods vs. Legion of Everblight, 500 pts.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

After last week’s massive multiplayer brawl Prorpger and I set up to play some 500-point Hordes games to help him get back into the fury-management frame of mind before he started purchasing Trollbloods in earnest. We were able to squeeze in two games, and after the first one Prorpger decided to swap out his unit of Scattergunners for a unit of Champions and we replayed the game (same terrain, otherwise same forces) to see how the change would effect the game. This second game turned out much closer and more exciting, so it’s the one I’m writing up.

The game store is in the process of building some new tables and the plywood isn’t covered in felt yet. So just ignore the bare wood look. 😉

Trollbloods (Prorpger)

Grissel
Dire Troll Mauler
Impaler
Fell Caller
Krielstone Bearer
Champions
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Alten Ashley

Legion of Everblight (Myself)

Thagrosh
Carnivean
Nephilim Soldier
Seraph
Warmongers x3
Striders

I gave Prorpger first turn. He set up with his Champions and Fell Caller as his central block with his Krielstone unit off to one side. Grissel set up in the middle behind the Champions and split her beasts – Impaler to the Kreilstone’s side and Mauler to the opposite. Alten Ashley set up behind a low wall in the center of the table.

With an odd rock central on my side of the table, I split my forces a bit. To my right was the Warmongers, Thagrosh, and the Carnivean while the Nephilim and Seraph deployed to run around the other side of the rock. The Striders set up behind a wall on my side of the table, ready to hunt some trolls.

Warmachine/Hordes | Miniature Painting

Ride of the Menofix

ByDankelzahn May 1, 2007February 19, 2022

I’ve gotten a little bit of painting done lately but not as much as I would have liked. I’m still making progress, though, and I have a few WIP pictures of my latest projects that I can post.

Knight Exemplar Vengers — Exemplar Vengers

The biggest reason for how little I’ve actually gotten painted as of late is my Exemplar Vengers. I don’t even want to try to total up how many hours I’ve spent on these models up to this point, but I’m sure it’s no small number. The gold edging on the armor plates – present on both the mount and the rider – was probably the biggest time sink. Between a black base coat, a coat of silver, a couple coats of gold, and a blackline just inside the edging, I spent a few evenings on that alone. But all in all I’m happy with how the cavalry turned out and I’ve enjoyed fielding them.

My most recent work has been on my Dervish light warjack, pictured to the left. After as much time as I spent on the cavalry, this model was actually pretty quick to paint. I did the purple and tan in one evening, then the metallics in another. A third evening was spent basing and some general clean-up and now he’s just about done. I’m not exactly happy with the menofixes on the forearm plates yet, but once I get them how I like them I’ll be ready to seal this miniature and call it done.

I’ve also been doing a little work on a base for another miniature I’m assembling at the moment. I started by taking a cast of a Cryxian bonejack (sans head) and putting it on a base. After that I drilled some holes where the leg would be and added some wire and brass tubing to look like a broken leg joint system. Then I smoothed some greenstuff in a pool at the neck which I’ll paint up as necrosludge. I have some plans for this jack’s head, but you’ll have to wait for the finished product to see that.

The Harbinger of Menoth — Harbinger Skin Tone

Last night I finally started on my Harbinger of Menoth. I’ve had this model for some time now but have been hesitant to start painting and assembling as I wasn’t sure just what I wanted to do with her. Now that I’ve got that all settled in my mind, I assembled her torso (including the brass rod which replaces the flag pole) and started painting her flesh. Instead of using one of my standard flesh tones – I have a yellowy one and a more pink one – I decide to mix the two. I’m pretty happy with the results so far and am anxious to see how it looks once the rest of the miniature is painted.

Finally I had to do a repair job on my Gorman di Wulf miniature. I loaned it to another gamer to use in a game a few weeks ago and he dropped it, chipping the paint on the helmet and the cloak. I didn’t get a picture of it after the fix, since it really looks the same as it does in my miniature gallery.

So that’s what I’ve been working on lately. I’m going to be concentrating on the Harbinger in the near future and hope to have her done in the next week or so. I’ll be taking my time with her and hopefully she’ll turn out well.

Warmachine/Hordes

4/14/2007 Warmachine/Hordes Mixed Tournament Report

ByDankelzahn April 25, 2007April 4, 2024

Saturday, April 14th, one of the local Pressgangers ran the 500 Mixed Massacre at Dragon King Games using the Steamroller 3.0 beta rules. We had 11 players show up, including two who drove an hour and a half or so to attend. All of the factions were represented as well – there were two Cygnar, Cygnar, and Legion players while Khador, the Protectorate, Trollbloods, Circle, and Skorne had one player apiece.

Although I debated between the Protectorate and Legion until the last minute, I ultimately decided to go with the Menites to try to round out faction representation. I decided instead of bringing lists built for various scenarios, I’d build separate lists for Warmachine and Hordes opponents. With that in mind I put together the following: