Blast from the past

Hi all,

Bit of a flashback today.   Got the Beloved to break out her good camera, and tried some pics of a few things in different scales, including this bad boy, who's not yet had his day in the sun, despite having been painted quite a while back.



This is a Bretonnian Lord on Hippogrif I converted out of a Green Knight model, and one of the Elf Lord on Griffon from the old Isle of Blood sets.  He's seen the field a few times, but sadly, as Brets have more or less gone the way of the Squats in Age of Sigmar, he doesn't see much table time these days.



Some interesting focal depth issues in these pics (the Beloved says she has the wrong lens for macro, which may be a hint . . . . ), but they are so much clearer than the ones I was managing I'm quite chuffed.

Next up will either be Russians or Soviets, as we also got pics of them.  Until then, stay safe.

FMB

I feel pretty, oh so pretty . . .

Hi all,

Actually got out to GDub yesterday for real live games of Age of Sigmar yesterday.  The shop ran a 1000 point tournament, and I took my "Free Bretonnians", along with my newly (almost) completed Freeguild General on a Griffon.  The TO rules that the "Free People" and "Free Peoples" keywords were distinct by the rules, but it prompted me to bring a list that was probably better for the scenarios we were playing anyways.

The pride of Bretonnia-that-was

I took two units of Freeguild archers as battleline, a unit of Grail knights, a Lord, a Damsel, a Standard bearer, and the aforementioned FG general on griffon.  Game one was 2 Places of Power (heros claim objectives, you get more points the longer you hold them) against a solid, but not oppressive Stormcast list, with a mix of Liberators, Prosecutors, Drake riders, a Celestant on Dracoth, one of the lantern guys, and the standard bearer from the starter set, the name of which I don't recall.  He'd built for resilience, which I discovered when my Griffon charged into a prosecutor unit that, thanks to stacked buffs, had 2-up saves, re-rolling ones.  Not the smartest move I could have made ;)

Grail knights vs. Dracoth riders.  Not going to win this one.

Griffin vs. Prosecutors.  This one I'll win, but it took much longer than expected.

First couple of turns went okay, I used my mobility advantage to get the alpha strike, sending my Grail knights against his General and my Griffon against the Prosecutors on my left.  The plan was to take and hold two of the objectives.  As it turned out, however, I didn't do much more than scratch the Stormcasts' armour.  Grail knights, while solid, are not as super killy as I recall, and the Griffon struggled to punch through the buff-stacked armour saves of his opponents.  This set up my opponent (a fun player I've run up against before) up to counter charge with his own heavy hitters.  As my units are generally most damaging on the charge, having fired mine to little effect, things weren't looking great.

The Horned Duke charges in.  Still not winning this one.

Standard bearer, in splendid isolation.

Damsel vs. Celestant on Dracoth.  Really not winning this one.

An early lead in objective points was lost as the game turned into an attrition fight.  While the stormcast lack my mobility, they make up for it in equal or greater killing power, and better overall durability.  I tried to cycle a bit, pulling my standard bearer out, and sending in the lord, but even he couldn't do enough damage on his charge to counter the pressure I was facing in the center - and my big hitter, the Griffon, was bogged down, and eventually surrounded.

It wasn't long after this I remembered that the Griffon could fly.  Away.

In retrospect, I should have redeployed the griffon sooner, rather than trying to grind.  I also needed to concentrate my forces a little more.  I forget that my Brets aren't as hard hitting as they used to be, except in large numbers, and I need to use my mobility to concentrate attacks on single targets as much as I can.

Turn four, and a distressing lack of Brets on the table.

Forgetting this led to me being ground down and tabled by turn 4.  Solid learning game, against an enjoyable opponent.

Game two was Border War (objectives scored by number of models, the further into opposing territory, the more valuable) against a Nurgle Demon army led by a fantastic looking Forgeworld Great Unclean One.

Papa Nurgle's Tallyband.

I've played this scenario before, and the key seems to be taking the objective in one's opponent's deployment zone - it's worth as much or more than any other two put together.  In my experience, this usually involved some combination of force concentration (to break through an opponent's line) and sacrifice play (you don't have to stop your opponent, just delay them).  With that in mind, I deployed so as to refuse a flank.  The plan was to concentrate the killy parts of my army in a way that would let me turn one of his flanks, and hold off his advancing units by feeding them peasants.

Massed Bretonnian chivalry cares not for toxic slime.

I had some early success in this game, managing to rapidly clear out his speedbump units (including a FW plague toad he ran as a beast of nurgle, and some Nurgling swarms), which put pressure on him to defend the high-value objective in his zone.

There used to be nurglings in front of those knights.  A good charge, and I think an Arcane Bolt from the Damsel took care of them.

While this left my grail knights exposed in the centre (they'd eventually go down under the combined weight of a unit of plaguebearers and plague drones), it left my Griffon free to sweep around to attack his backfield, and my heroes free to charge targets of their choosing.  Net effect was I ended up holding a central position, with my griffon on the high-value objective in his zone.

Plague bearers dealt with, Plague Drones dealt with (mostly), Herald dealt with, and my Griffin on the sweet spot.

It also meant I was free to hold the objectives behind the lines with scruffy peasants, which added to my points, and put further pressure on him to attack.

Don't discount scruffy peasants.  What they lack in fighting ability, they make up for in stench and numbers.

A critical moment came when he committed the Great Unclean one against my Griffon.  While he was able to do some damage, it didn't take me out, and I had good counter attacks.  A couple turns fighting saw my griffon rider emerge battered, but triumphant.

Post-battle action.  Nothing left of Papa Nurgle but some stains, and I suspect a raging staph infection

Plaguebearers kill peasants, but not quickly enough to drive through to the objective.

He committed his remaining unit of plaguebearers to the fight, but wasn't going to grind through to the objective in time, leaving me with clear control of all four for the two remaining turns.  Big win to me.

This was a game where I think I generally played it right, and a few things went my way when they needed to.  In this list, the Bret Lord and the Griffon rider are the things that actually kill stuff, but I also used my units together well, concentrated attacks, and made sure to eliminate threats before moving on.  I played to the scenario, and it worked.

Third game was Escalation (army comes on in three waves, over three turns, fighting over three objectives), against an army that really showcases what you can do with the new version of the game - a combined force of elves and dwarfs.

Dwarfs, led by an elf.  It's a brave new world.

This was a tight game, and a fun one.  I packed most of my effective force into my initial deployment wave, which consistent of the Griffon, the Lord, and my Grail knights.  These ended up looking across the table at a Dwarf cannon, a unit of ironbreakers (which ignore anything under Rend -1 - and only the Bret Lord and Griffon have Rend -2), and his general, some kind of elven sniper guy).

The cannon is a bit of an issue.  While it's not super accurate, it has (perhaps unsurprisingly) the potential to blow large holes in things, and can, for example, easily one-shot my Lord.  Getting to it is a priority, but it meant exposing my guys to at least a couple turns of shooting - and he could easily hide it behind the line of iron breakers, which meant probably another turn of exposure before I could work my way around.

Knights, about to grin and bear it.

The plan was to try and score some early points, and then put enough pressure on that something could get through to the cannon and shut it down before it could do too much damage.  It mostly worked; I got my first wave stuck in quickly, and chewed my way through to the cannon before it could get more than one effective hit in (I caught a break in that his dice were a little cold shooting), and my second wave brought in my peasants in the backfield to hold an objective.  By turn three, with all forces on the table, I had a decent edge in points, and while he was in a strong position to counter-attack in the centre, I had a good shot at winning.

Love this shot - The Blue Laird under a pile of choppy elves.

He had a unit of elves with these giant falchion things - not sure what they were called, but they got bonuses against monsters, and put the hurt on just about anything they came in contact with.  They chewed through my griffon efficiently (with the help of some concentrated shooting), as well as most of my heroes.  One of my favourit pictures from the day was them swarming my battle-standard bearer, who went down swinging.

Peasants sensibly far from the action.

At this point, the game more or less came down to dueling mistakes.  The aforementioned standard bearer should have gone in the other direction, to intercept a unit of sword masters marching in to take the centre objective.  At this point, we each had uncontested control over one objective, and were fighting in the middle.  If he could take it turn five, he'd catch up and win; if I held it to turn 5, I'd win.  By sending my standard bearer to fight in his backfield, I'd given him a change to reach the centre - and even if he didn't get stuck in, he'd take it by virtue of numbers.  Instead, he decided to shoot the damsel holding the objective off the table (he had a number of small, but really effective "sniper" units), rather than moving up to directly challenge for control.  His mistake cancelled out mine, and I won the game by a single point.

The whole day was a blast.  I had three good games, three good opponents, (big thanks to all three) got to try out a new toy (even without access to the synergistic buff, the Griffon is a big gribbly monster), and learned a bit more about how Brets  / Free People(s) are likely to work in AoS.  I won two games, lost one, and walked away with best appearance, which felt good.  Brets still need the charge, but they aren't an all-or-nothing charge army.  What they bring to the table now are mobility and versatility.  Concentration of force is key, and knowing where to put what resource.  Getting bogged down in an attrition battle is death.  I'm starting to really enjoy playing with them, and will keep picking away at the painting queue, along with my Khorne (which I've been working on as well).

FMB

Puttering and Progress

Hi,

Been a busy week, but managed a couple evenings of picking away at stuff.  For starters, a couple more Bloodbound finished up, one warrior and one bloodreaver.





Nothing too fancy on these guys, just aiming for solid table top.  I'm actually pretty stoked for my Khorne stuff right now, as a new book has just dropped (mine is waiting for me at the store).  Among other things, it makes it much easier to run a combined mortal / demon Khorne list, adds some new toys (eg, new prayers for Slaughterpriests, of which I already run 2), and offers new formations.  I might have to break down and pick up some Bloodletters to go with my Bloodcrushers, and even a herald or two.

I've also been working on the "Bretonnian" Freeguild general.



Still work to do on him - more highlights in several places, more work on the details, and I need to assemble the back banner, but he's far enough along that you get a clear sense of how it'll work when finished.  I don't know if he'll be completely ready by next weekend (when I'm hoping to try him out), but he'll be good enough for gameplay anyways.



The list I'll be running is build around him, a big block of knights, a damsel on peg, and a min unit of archers to fill out the battleline requirements.  That's it ;)  I'm hoping to use my mobility and stacked buffs to be able to focus 900 points on small sections of my opponents' armies.  We'll see if it works.

FMB

Bits and pieces

Hi all,

Didn't get much time for puttering this weekend, but did get an hour or two with the Cub down at the G-Dub, and we brought our brushes.  Managed to pick at a couple more of the Khorne chaos warriors.







Don't know as they'll be winning any awards, but they'll do just fine for gaming purposes, which is where they'll see the most use.

Speaking of gaming, I'm planning to attend a 1000k Age of Sigmar tournament in a couple of weeks.  The plan is to bring my Bretonnians, and I've got a secret weapon in progress.



Although the Brets are legal, they won't be getting any love from GW in the foreseeable future.  That said, there are opportunities in the new game not to be overlooked.  One is that Brets now share a key word, "Free Peoples" (i.e., a thing that fosters synergy) with much of what used to belong to the Empire army - including their heroes.  One of these "Free People" heroes is a general on a griffon, and he comes with a fairly useful command ability (buff a unit for morale, charge, and to hit purposes).  Also, as he's riding a Griffon, he's a bit of a beatstick.



The problem, of course, is that Brets themselves don't have a griffon rider, and the old Empire model doesn't look at all appropriate for a Bretonnian army.  Hence this fella.  It's the griffon from the Isle of Blood set, cut down, and with some Bret pieces and green stuff, (notably bits from the Green knight) added in.  There's a back banner I'll add once painting is done (glueing it now will make it hard to paint).  It'll serve nicely.  Hopefully I can get it painted up in time for the tournament.

FMB

Learning. For the Lady.

Hi all,

I took the opportunity this weekend to bring my Bretonnians to a 2000 point AoS "narrative" day held at the local G-Dub.  We'd been warned in advance that the scenarios would be from the narrative campaign sections of the various books, rather than the matched play scenarios (which presumably are designed to be a little more balanced).  I had to scramble a bit, as the Brets have changed a little since the release of the General's compendium, but ended up running the following list:

Allegiance:  ORDER

Battle Trait:  Defiant Avengers

Hero:  Louen de Leoncour 

-          General

Hero:  Damsel on Pegasus 

Hero: Bretonnian Lord on Steed

-          Arcane Relic:  Obstinate Blade (+1 Rend stat)

Hero:  Damsel on Steed

Hero:  Paladin Standard Bearer 

Battleline:  16 Knights of the Realm (Gallant, Banner, Trumpeter) 

Battleline: 10 Freeguild Archers (Marksman) 

Battleline: 10 Freeguild Archers (Marksman) 

Artillery:  1 Field Trebuchet 

5 Mounted Yeomen (Warden, Trumpeter) 

3 Pegasus Knights (Gallant, Banner, Trumpeter) 

Both Louen and the big unit of KotR were a bit of an experiment.  I'd never taken Louen before (never bothered in Oldhammer, and in AoS haven't played big enough games).  He's hitty, and has a terrific passive ability (makes Free People immune to Battleshock), but a bit fragile at 10 wounds.  Having the knights in a big unit turns them from fairly mediocre into decent hitters (doubles their attacks), but they still rely heavily on charging, something that I would struggle with a bit in the games.  We ended up playing three games, each with fairly entertaining scenarios rules, and I went 1-2 for the day.

Game one was against Stormcast, using a battlescroll that I think the Cub used in our most recent game.  It basically allows the army (or at least most of it) to deepstrike.  He had a mix of Liberators, Judicators, Prosecuters, Retributers, and the Paladins with the big swords (which I think look cool, but of which I never remember the name. For heros he had the Knight Azyros (super-sniper / assassin), the other winged hero with the lantern (which lets him control the deepstrike to a greater degree), a Lord Celestant on foot, one other that I can't recall, and a Hurricanum.

Had to borrow Puddin's camera for the day, but couldn't figure out how to make it focus.

The scenario had us struggling to move a boundary back and forth.  It moved randomly once a turn, and if you damaged or killed the opposing general.  It also offered benefits if you were fighting in your territory, but as we both forgot to use them, it was moot.  Having learned about the potential awfulness of a Stormcast unit (or army, in this case) showing up in your backyard, I bubbled up, with a ring of scruffy peasants around my shiny knights.

Add caption

It was a good thing, too, as turn one, my opponent dropped a metric crapton of stormcast in my rear.  The peasant bubble meant that he'd have to charge my chaff units, hopefully giving my harder-hitting knights time to regroup, and get in a charge.



Initially, the plan worked fairly well, especially as my opponent couldn't seem to roll to save his life.  Never seen so many bad rolls in one place at one time.

I manged to break away, but sent the regular Lord back on a suicide run to hold up the stormies until I could regroup.  Ordinarily, he's pretty choppy, but evidently the bad roll disease was catching, and rather than laying waste to a unit of stormcast (which he's done pretty reliably in the past), he ended up whiffing.



Of course, they couldn't kill me either ;)

Things were looking pretty good, until I managed a turn where two key charges (Louen into his backfield and my knight block into his flank) both flubbed, despite a reroll.  This left my Banner Paladin high and dry (and quickly dead), and gave him the chance to fly in his Prosecutors, tying up my knights (who again, couldn't roll to save their lives).  He bought enough time to swing his army up, concentrated his shooting on Louen, and ground me down.  First loss.



Game two was against Seraphon / Lizardmen.  The scenario had my opponent start with only a third of his army on the table, with the rest to come on turn 2 from a predetermined (but secret to me) table edge.  My goal was to eliminate his starting units, his was to stop me.  He began with a unit of Temple guard, some kind of Saurus hero, and a Dread Saurian (super-giant dino beasty) on the table.



I ringed him, with my peasants as a screen, in case he took the first turn (which he did).  Turns out, his Saurian moved quicker than I had expected, and he managed to move out past my archer screen, then charge in behind it at my knights.

He tore them up some, but in the meantime, I sat my two damsels about 17 inches from his Temple Guard, and poured Arcane Bolts (and my horse Lord) into the unit.  The Guard are able to get pretty ridiculous armour saves (basically 1+ with a couple of buffs in effect), and ignore lower levels of rend.  The Mortal Wounds inflicted by Arcane Bolt get around this, and my Lord habitually carries a magic sword that boosts his rend stat to 2.  In the meantime, the rest of my army poured damage into the Dread Saurian.  Over two turns, it was enough to eliminate both before his reserves poured on to the table.



His reserves consisted of a mass of Sauraus and Skinks, along with a hero on a carnosaur, but at that point, I just needed to kill the hero left from his original forces, which I did at the top of turn 3.  My game.

Game 4 was against a monster-heavy Sylvaneth list.  I flat out played this wrong.  The scenario was a variation on the ritual - one of my models was being sacrifices, and I had essentially as many turns as that model had wounds to stop them (by killing the model running the sacrifice - in this case, Alarielle).  I gave my opponent a peg knight, as otherwise I'd be losing a hero, and figured I'd need them all.  What I should have done in this game is used the treb and my damsels to pound Alarielle from turn 1.  Instead, I let myself get drawn into a broader tactical fight, using the aforementioned units to try and clear a road for the rest of my army.

My army swoops in to save their fellow knight.

This was a bit of a mistake, as in addition to two fairly big units of treekin, he had two of the big treemen (including the special character Durthu), and Alarielle herself, who's a top-tier SC and a complete bad-ass.  The big treemen ended up posing a real problem, as they operated under armour saves comparable to the Templeguard, and healed to boot.

Against  the woodsy castle.

This turned into an attrition fight between me and a bunch of stuff I didn't have the tools to kill.  That would have been okay if I'd concentrated my ranged ability on the target, but I was distracted.  This one I was just straight up outplayed.

Turns out, he has a thing that kills my guys and turns them into a forest that kills me.  Yikes!

On the plus side, his paintjobs, and especially his basing, were fantastic.  The bigger models had pools, moss, flowers, little spiders, all kinds of crazy details.  Just lovely stuff.

Overall it was a fun day.  I found gauging the charge distance trickier than I'd expected, although the basic plan worked pretty well.  The use of chaff screens, in the first game especially, was key, but I found myself a little underwhelmed by how the knights worked.  My Lords seemed to underperform, my knights, while decent, never really got off the mass charge that would make them shine.  Part of the issue was that they need to be a large unit to get the extra attack, but getting a large unit completely stuck in turns out to be fairly difficult.  They are decent, but they aren't chaos knights, and the relative lack of buffing synergy is an issue.

On the other hand, it was great to get my Brets on the table.  I might bit the bullet and try out some lists that go all-in on knights.  There's a formation that costs something like 1300 points, but it leaves room for some wizards and trebs, so maybe we'll give it a shot.

FMB

Kn-iggits

Hi all,

I've managed to get a few things finished over the last couple weeks.  First up is another "updated" Bret knight, with the old metal riders on a modified new-style plastic horse.





The plan with these guys was to do them in Space Marine colours.  The last one was Dark Angels, this one Blood Angels, though I'm not happy with how the heraldry turned out.  The idea seemed funny when I first considered it, but it's starting to pale a little.  I told the Cub I'd do one in Salamanders' colours, so I'll do that much, but after that, we'll see.





I also had the chance to finish up one of the Khorne Chaos knights.





While the effort to get things done for Armies on Parade did motivate me, and I get through a fair whack of painting, I also found myself rushing, and cutting corners.  With the pressure of the deadline off, I've slowed down, and am taking my time - which also means I'm enjoying the process more, and doing better work.





They're not the best I can do, but they're pretty solid table top, and I'm much happier with this outcome than what I crammed in before the deadline.

Next weekend there's an event at the G-Dub I'm hoping to attend - points-based, but narrative play.  I put together a few more of the Bret modified knights, and will be taking a mostly-painted 2000 point force - pics on that to come.

FMB

First of a new (old) breed.

Hi,

All the AoS stuff of late has had me going back to my Bretonnians.  I rebased them on to rounds / ovals over the last week, and got around to finishing another knight - one that's been sitting on my shelf half done for quite some time.

Old school meets new school.

There's actually a fair bit of conversion going on here.  I have, through a variety of trades / eBay purchases, a reasonable stock of some of the older metal Bretonnian models.  The trouble is, those figs are all on the 5th edition horses, which are notably smaller than the current models (take a look at my Prophetess compared the to knights in the picture below).

Dainty horse for the damsel.

The difference is enough that I wouldn't want to use the different horses in the same unit.  The downside is that the older models came with alternate heads for the horse, often with funky decorations that matched the helm crests of the riders.  So I dug out my razor saw and files, and got to work.

An angelic presence?

The overall effect is pretty subtle - unless you know the Bret model range, you're unlikely to pick up on it, but I know what's been done, and I'm chuffed to be able to use the old models (which I love) in a way that's compatible with the more recent stuff.

But maybe a little dark, and broody.

Keen-eyed observers may recognize where the colours and heraldry come from.  I had a cheeky idea to do up a unit of these converted models with strangely familiar iconography, to those suitably initiated into the G-Dub mysteries ;)  As it turns out, I need to get a bunch more of these painted anyways.  The points provided for Brets in the General's Handbook, while welcome (since GW no longer supports the line, bothering to do this at all is appreciated), are clunky - units are bought in atypically large chunks.  Taking more knights is hardly a big problem, however, and it's an excuse to paint more knights.

FMB