The Old World is nearly here, so time to resurrect the old blog

 So, the Old World is finally here, and after years of waiting, I’ve dived right in and ordered both the Tomb Kings and Bretonian boxsets, so that I can add to my existing army. Having played Warhammer for nearly 30 years, I’ve got a lot of armies, at various point levels, with the main force being High Elves, which is roughly 5000 points.

I got my Brets, in two parts. Firstly, in 1996, with the 5^th edition boxset. 12 Knights of the Realm and 24 bowmen, painted to various levels of poorness. Then, when in 2004, the 6^th edition force came out, I started again. I got the battalion, a Lord, a BSB, and another box of the Knights of the Realm.

And that’s where I left it. 

The Tomb Kings faired better, my gaming buddies and I had an escalation league, back in 2011, where we would start with 500 points, and then after several games, we would add 250 points. Due to this, I’ve got 2000 points, give or take, for Tomb Kings.  So with these two forces being the main focus, for now, of the Old World. I’m going to start with the Brets. I’ll be writing a blog about my plans for the Tomb Kings box, later.

So, some of the first models I ever saw was the 5^th Edition Brets, in the Friar Lane store, in Nottingham. This was just as they were about to be released. Being history-mad, these instantly captured my attention, and I fell in love
with these pseudo-historical miniatures. Learning about their lore, in White Dwarf, with the mix of medieval history and Arthurian legends, what’s more could a young boy want?

So, a Bret army should have knights, lots of knights. So far, I’ve got 2 units of 8 Knights of the Realm. I’ve got 12 more knights coming in the new starter set, which is boosted by the Grail Knight Command Group.

My next purchases will be more Grail Knights and Knights of the Realm. I wanted to have a core of an army that consists of three units of Knights of the Realm, 12 strong. Joined by a unit of 12 Knights Errant. This will be backed up by a unit of Grail knights. 

The first unit is built, and ready to go.

They’ll be led, initially, by a Lord on Horse, and a BSB. 

Under the preview of the Bretonian Army, they showed that you’ll need at least one unit of men at arms. With the battalion and the new starter set, I have three units of 16. Again, I hope to bump this up to 20.

I’ve also got around 5 units of bowmen. I’ve always run these in units of 10, in days of Warhammer gone by, and will do the same, if the rules allow.

These will be supported by a Trebuchet, possibly a second one as well.

I’ve not discussed the Lord on Pegasus, which is an awesome model, and Pegasus knights. I’ve got the Lord and a unit of 6, and I don’t know how I’m going to incorporate these yet. I’ll need to get some games in and see how the army plays out.

But first to the painting.

With the reissue, GW has taken the sensible approach and changed the background so that the Knights of the Realm take the heraldry of their Lord, this is sensible, as painting 36 Knights of the Realm in individual colours is crazy.

So, of course, I’m going to ignore this, as you can see from the pictures on the side, I’ve already got 2 Knights painted, in different colours. These have been done over the years, and so, it only makes sense to continue with this madness.

Therefore, each knight will have their colours, with the Lord's colours, red and white, on the shield raised on the horse barding. This will make it easier. I’m also thinking about restricting the Red and White, to the Lord and his family (i.e. the nobles), but I probably won’t.

These chaps have been patined for a while. 

I’m also thinking about, how best to plan and paint everything. I don’t want to burn myself painting so many knights in one go. So, I’m going to do, what I did back in 2014, with my High Elf Army. I’m going to paint 200 points a month. So, by the end of the year, I should have a nice force, between, 2000-3000 points.

When writing, I don’t have the Forces of Fantasy or  Ravenous Hordes army books, so I don’t know what the current values are. There are plenty of leaks, now that the influencers are showing off the book, but I’m doing my best to avoid them. 

Having the old Sixth edition army book, I know that a unit of eight Knights of the Realm, with full command, comes to a cost of 230 points. A Lord-level Bretonnian Lord, on a horse with a Lance and a Shield, is going to be 130 points before I add any magic items. So, that should give me, by the end of January, 360 points, to start with.

Next month, I’m going to paint some Peasent Men at Arms, and maybe the Bowmen, to spice up things. See you soon.

 

Blitzkrieg commences

So, with the completion of the Desert Campaign, Terry and I decided to start the Fall of France campaign book as our next WW2 theatre. The opening scenario is a 500 points match-up between Germans and French in a recognisance patrol.

Basically, this means our forces are looking to spot what troops the enemy has in the local area. Victory points are gained for spotting the enemy and even more points if you are able to capture some of the enemies. The scenario also uses the night fight rules in the back of the Bolt Action Rulebook.

This is a simple D6 roll, and you what the game is like. For us, dawn broke early and so there would be no need to use the night fighting rules. A bit of a relief, and it would make it a lot easier to spot those dastardly Germans. 

The game was tight, with Terry (as the Germans) wiping out one of my veteran French squads in combat, taking one of them prisoner. I was also, able to do the same, in the next round. We both managed to spot all of each other's forces and the game ended in a draw.

It was a close game, and hard to see where either of us could have won the game. We suspected that if we had used some of the night fighting rules, which limit the distance you can see, it would have been a very different game.

One week later, we replayed the scenario. Terry as the French, and I, taking my freshly painted Blitzkrieg Germans. We agreed to keep the same scenario rules as we used the previous week. i.e. no night fighting, to see if we would get the same result.

This time, I was able to select a 500 point force, with 4 squads of Germans, along with my trusty officer and his man. This time around the game was different, with myself gaining a victory by the skin of my teeth. I had approached the game knowing that I was going to have to face a strong force, with Terry's veteran French and that I was going to have to do something fun to break through.

So I decided to concentrate on two plans of attack. Wiping out his officer, so that he could not get the victory points from spotting my force, and concentrating my fire on one or two squads, so that I could soften them up, either through kills or pin markers, to take them out in a round of combat. 

Surprisingly, it worked quite well. His officer got wiped out in a hail of light machine gun fire (you got to love the extra dice German machine guns get) And I was able to destroy a squad in combat, taking one of them prisoner.

However, it was a closer game than I would have liked. Terry, despite losing the spotting bonus, was able to destroy two of my squads and captured a man, earning 5 victory points to my 7. 

A good, fun, start to the campaign, and now we are on as the Blitzkrieg commences and the Germans enter into France.

 

Project update

 So, it's been a couple of weeks/months, so what have I been getting up to. Mainly, buying models. With, the recent relaxation of lock down, meant I could get a trip to Warhammer World, and pick up some models for my Vampire Counts army. I picked up Heinrich Kemmler and Manfred Von Carstein on nightmare steed, both of which are helpful for my End Times project. 

I also picked up Konrad Von Carstein, he was there, the model is nice, do I need an excuse. The immediate  next purchase I need, are Krell and Isabella von Carstein. Both of these models are now OOP and going for silly prices, so I hope to snag an eBay bargain, one day. I'd also like to get Manfred von Carstein on foot as well, but he's not important for the End Games project.

My read through of the Nagash End Times books is nearly finished, and there are an awful lot of battles, and I'm slowly chipping away purchasing units, and characters that I might need. There is a lot of expensive models to get, but we'll get there.

I've been able to pick up another unit of Empire Swordsmen, and so now, I need to pick up a unit of Halberdiers, and strip my spearmen that I got in the 6th edition box set, twenty years ago. So, the Empire army is growing. I also want to add more skeletons to my Vampire Counts. I've got a rough idea, of what I want to get for that, so I need to A) dig out my Vampire Counts from 20 years ago and strip them, and B) buy more Zombies, you can never have enough zombies.

I've also been working on my Norman project, I've now got a unit of Spearmen, to go with my unit of archers. I've also added a Warlord to lead the division, so that is slowly growing.

However, next up, I'm buying a large amount of Napoleonic Russians. I already can field the 27th Infantry division, from the forces that fought at Borodino, I'm now going to start on the 2nd Grenadier Division, and moving towards having the complete 8th Infantry Corps.

and that's before I talk about the Barons War stuff.

Is it a bad thing to read

 So, I've been reading. This is not a bad thing, in fact, it's a very good thing. A thing I would commend you for doing. However, it can lead you down an accidental wargaming rabbit hole. The other day, I was reading through the internet, and found myself reading the write up of the Battle of Hastings on the Shedwars website.

Now, the Battle of Hastings is something that every good English schoolboys learns about. How Harold marched from Stamford Bridge to take on William at Hastings, and got an arrow to the eye for his trouble. However, it's not often war-gamed. 

So, having read the write up, I ended up purchasing the Osprey book on Hastings, and now I'm spending free time looking at Norman miniatures. Conquest games has some very nice plastic Normans, and Footsore and Gripping Beasts have some lovely metal models. 

A while back, I purchased some Norman Archers from Footsore, (I need to hit free postage) and so I'm on my way to building a Hail Caesar Army now. It's going to consist of three to four divisions of foot warriors, and a couple of cavalry.

The foot units are going to consist of four units of spearmen, one of which may or may not be unarmoured. A couple of units of archers, and a crossbow unit. As powerful as crossbow are, I feel that they would be quite rare in an army. These units are going to be 16 strong. The archers are on 20mm rounds, which came with my Perry Miniature plastic WW2 desert forces. I'm going to get some bases from Warbases, so I can use them in Hail Caesar, or in smaller games like Lion Rampant.

The cavalry divisions are going to be units of 12, and will be three to four units of cavalry, which will be 12 strong. Again, I'm tempted to put them on pill bases, and so I can take them in and out again and use them in a variety of games. 

The second book, I've been reading is the first title in the Warhammer Endtimes, which is Nagash. This, is interesting, in the first forty pages, lots of things happen, characters die, the Green Knight is revealed. It was a big risk, when GW killed of the Old World, but they did it in style. 

Now, reading this, makes me want to play Warhammer again. It doesn't take a lot, so I'm going to start blogging about what models I want to get, and how I'm going to get them without paying a mortgage to get one Bretonnian Grail Knight. 

The first battle in the book, is the Warhammer favourite, La Maisontal Abbey. So this is Bretonnians vs Vampire Counts. I've got some of both of these, but I want to play these games with armies of 3000 points of troops. Time to start thinking and planning. Which reminds me, I've got some Knights Errant I'm watching on eBay.

Update time

 So, it's been a while since I've updated, and in that time, we've been in a pandemic, stuck in Lockdown. So I've been using my time productively and painted, a lot. You can see the Footsore Minotaur to the left, which is one of my more recently painted models. At the time of writing, I've been able to paint over 10% of my miniature collection this year. 

You'll understand how big a number that is when I tell you that I've painted over a 1000 models this year, and I'm on track to hit my target of 4 models painted for each day of the year. 

What have I been painting. A whole mix really, my Russian Napolenoic's have come along nicely. In fact, I had the nasty shock of finding that I had 2 more units that I was aware of. It's a nice find, up until you add them on to your spreadsheet. 

I've had some Warlord plastic ECW, which I brought as part of a bargain at Salute a few years back. I've had a Scott's force for years, but I'm now painting up a royalist force to add to our combined troops.

Finally, I've been painting a lot of Lord of the Rings and making a good headway on the Pelennor Fields project. Haradrim, Riders of Rohan, Corsairs all painted, and ready for the table top. 

2020 has been a bad year, but being able to get so many models finished, has been a highlight. 

Coming soon to a 40K table near you..... Necrons

 So, like a lot of you, earlier in the year I was able to pick up a copy of the new 40K big box, Indomitus. I was one of the fortunate few to get a copy in the early release and didn’t have to wait for it to arrive under a Made to Order (well done GW for sorting out that issue). In the box, you get some Space Marines, which, like my Dark Imperium boxset I brought a few years back, will be converted up to be more Space Wolf-like. 

You also get Necrons, quite a few Necrons, in fact, a good start to an army. Which, is of course how new projects come along. In the box, as well as a variety of cool new units, you get 20 Necron Warriors. Which can either be built with a Gauss Flayer of Gauss Reaper. So, knowing that GW is soon to be releasing these models individually, I built them in two squads of 10. One squad having the reaper, the other the flayer. I intended to pick up another box to flesh them out to units of 15. That will give me a good core of an army to start with.

From there, I'm going to add a Lord to lead them. This will be using the model from the Indomitus boxset. A squad of ten Immortals, an Annihilation Barge. This will bring me to a nice force of 750 points (give or take) I'm going to add the three Skorpekh Destroyers that I got in the Indomitus boxset for a further boost to my army and then either some Tomb Blades or  Destroyers to round it out to a 1000 points.

I've gone for a dirty metal colour for the warriors, to represent them getting dirty and mucky during their long sleep. When I paint more elite troops like the Immortals and Lynchgard. They'll be shinier to represent a better level of care whilst in the deep sleep.

Now I just need lockdown to end, so I can get some gaming in with them.

March update

So, March, is done and really not a lot more gaming happened after my last post. Covid has struck the UK, and since my last post and game, I'm now working at home, and gaming has stopped full stop. 

However painting has not hampered by the pandemic, and by the end of March, I had painted up 225 models this year. It's a good haul, and has seen me paint a unit of Russian Grenadiers (Russian and Crimea Grenadiers), Uruk Hai swordsmen and pikemen that I've had on the bench for at least a decade, and a unit of Chaos Marauders dedicated to Khorne. These last were built from the Blood Reavers that game in the first AoS box set. 

So, the pile of unpainted lead has decreased by 2.54%, which is awesome. So, April is now in full swing and I've set myself a target of trying to paint up the Mordor Orcs I brought from GW last year in one of their made to order weeks. This is a nice 36 models, and try and make sure that I've painted everything I've brought this year. 

This year, I've purchased 60 models (manufactures closing has helped stem the purchasing) and so it's not an impossible task to get through. At the time of writing, 20 of the Orcs are now done, and 14 of the purchased models are done. Things can look up. 

The longer the work from home continues, the more likely I'm going to be at exceeding this years target. I was aiming for over 500 models, or to have painted two models every day (732 models) but I'm wondering if I can get to a 1000 models painted this year. 

We'll see how it goes.