Battle Report- Baldur vs Zaal 350!

I went over the Mansfield last night with Rich to play some 350pt Hordes games. These were my first games using Baldur the Stonecleaver as my warlock and also the first to use my freshly painted Woldwarden (pictured).

The win condition for all games was caster kill and my list for both games I played was:

Baldur the Stonecleaver

Warpwolf

Gorax

Woldwarden

Game one was against Nathan’s Skorne.

His list was:

Supreme Aptimus Zaal

Titan Cannoneer

Tyrant Rhadeim

Praetorian Swordsmen (10 models)

This was my first time against any of these models. I know the titan had some hitting power and a big gun. The tyrant is a dragoon so was fast and hitty. Looking at Zaal’s feat (gets tokens when troopers die and can use them to boost attacks through the army) it became clear to me that my main way to win this fight was to avoid killing the swordsmen to starve him of tokens. I deployed in a smallish block, heavies at the front, Baldur and Gorax at the back. We were due to advance into a patch of rough terrain so Woldwarden and Baldur were aligned to walk into it (using All Terrain and Pathfinder, respectively.) Nathan deployed his Praetorians to his left, with Zaal behind, Tyrant in the middle and Titan on his right opposite my guys.

Nathan had turn one and mainly ran forwards, popping some upkeeps on the Titan (free animus use) and Praetorians (unhallow making them tough and undead). On my turn one I advanced everything. Warpwolf warped for armor and had Earth’s Blessing cast on him by Baldur. Baldur also created a 5” forest in front of the Warpwolf to cover our advance and block charge lanes. Gorax was riled to max fury and advanced.

On Nathans turn two he ran the Praetorians round the side of my newly created tree and followed them up with Zaal. The Titan advanced and fired a cannonball at the Woldwarden hitting and doing minor damage to it. The Tyrant also advanced to ahead of my Warpwolf. My turn two and it was time to make my play. I leached back to full fury and dropped the upkeeps leaving a nice big charge lane for the Warpwolf. The Woldwarden cast Earth Spikes on the titan, getting a crit with boosted attack roll which knocked him down and did minor damage. Gorax cast his animus Primal on the Warpwolf. Warpwolf activated, warped for strength and charged the Tyrant. One word- gibbed. I think I may have overbuffed the wolf and he only needed his basic hits to cream the dragoon. My final action for the turn was to move up Baldur and pop his feat. This meant that nothing in Nathan’s army could enter Baldur’s control zone and nothing already in the control zone could end its move closer to Baldur than it started.

Nathan started turn three in a bit of a bind. The Warpwolf was in charge range of his warlock and ready to kill…and he couldn’t make a play on Baldur due to the feat. He stood up the Titan and fired a shot at Baldur which didn’t really do anything. He then charged his Praetorians into the Warpwolf but could only get two in due to the feat. They did a bit of damage to the wolf but I used the reactive warping to put all the damage on his spirit aspect. Zaal had a full tank of fury and then charged in. He hit and the effect on his stick is to destroy all the spirit aspect on a beast before rolling damage. As I had put all damage on that aspect already, this only netted him another 3 damage. He then proceeded to whack at the Warpwolf until on 2 fury. This didn’t kill the beast. For my turn I leached fury on Baldur and then had to activate the Warpwolf immediately. Because he had Primal cast on him the previous turn, it meant he would auto frenzy. He duly attacked the first thing in front of him (Zaal) and tore him to bits. Nathan should really have transferred to the titan at this point, but the game was effectively over by this point.

Lessons I learned:

I was very happy with my fury control, managing to have full fury each turn with no trouble.

I should have charged the knocked down titan with the Warpwolf. He would have almost certainly killed him in two hits and left Zaal with no fury source. This would have left me using the forest to block Baldur from the Skorne army while the wolf did the nasty work and the Gorax provided defense for Baldur by getting in the way and being a transfer target.

Leaving the Praetorians alone and just stopping them moving at me saved me a ton of headache from Zaal’s feat.

I think I was too cautious with Baldur, he mainly sat at the back casting upkeeps. I guess I am mainly just too scared at the moment to stick him in the mix in case he gets smacked down.

UK Games Expo 2009

I went down the Clarendon Suites in Birmingham on Saturday and Sunday for my first UK Games Expo. Wow- brilliant event. Boatloads of stalls selling everything imaginable. It was quite eye-opening and also very reassuring to see the support that my favourite hobbies have. All the main gaming areas were covered- RPGs, Miniatures (both fantasy and historicals), CCG/TCGs and Boardgames. In fact the only related gaming aspect not included would be LARP I guess.

On day one I went down with Rich with primarily my miniatures head on. One of my main goals was to get the final models I need for this tournament on 21st June. There were a lot of stalls selling Privateer Press stuff which was really reassuring and the vibe I got was very much one of a growing hobby. The PP stall itself was well manned and getting a lot of people going with starter games. They had a stunning centrepiece board (pictured) with Trollbloods vs Circle Orboros. I had to shop about a bit to get the models I wanted, but I came home with eKreuger, Blackclad Wayfarer, Ravager Whitemane and Ravager Shaman for Circle and Titan Cannoneer and Cataphract Cetrati for my fledgling Skorne force. Some stalls were doing some great deals working out at 20%+ off! Hi to SMG!

For the PP games, the core of the weekend would be the UK Masters for WM/Hordes which were going on in a pair of side rooms. There were some lovely armies on show and we chatted to a few players. Big shoutout to John from the Boosted Damage podcast who chatted a while. It seems eMorghoul was popular for the assassination run! Maybe next year I will enter the Masters!

There were some huge participation areas for all sorts of games especially Esdevium hosting a ton of boardgames, a large DND starter dungeon with a dedicated GM and quite a few places to try CCGs. In the middle of the main thoroughfare was the full size Tardis accompanied by some Daleks and a rather enthusiastic Doctor Who. We also caught site of some other costumed roamers like this guy:

On sunday I went down with John, of Photowalkthrough fame, to mainly check out the boardgames. We had a great time checking out the hundreds, and I mean hundreds, of games on sale from so many vendors. We got to spend some time chatting to a few designers about their games and finding out more. We chatted for a while to Alessio Calvatore (yes, him of GW fame) who was there showing off his game Shuuro. This game looks really good- a mix of chess and wargaming. We also watched a demo of Snow Tails, a wonderful game of husky racing in the vein of Ave Caesar. John picked up both these games. We tried Snow Tales last night and it was great fun. controlling the sled while going too fast is hard! The game I have on my wishlist next is Canal Mania. Not only does it look fun, but one of the towns you can build to is Skipton, my home town in Yorkshire!

For the coming week, my main panic is going to be getting the rest of my Circle guys painted for the Altrincham Altercation. I still have 4 models to paint, which may be a struggle for me in 10 days, especially as I move house at the end of June! Pics to follow as I finish the models!

Bolstered by beasts

A few new painted minis to show you today. I know that I have used Kaya the Wildborne as my warlock in all my games so far, but I want to try another warlock out also. The influence the warlock has can make your army play like a totally different force, I am told. Here is Baldur the Stonecleaver. I think the model is great, very characterful and yet understated. Whereas Kaya was all about moving and affinity for beasts, Baldur is the king of control. He can control space usage with his feat, knock people over, jump from forest to forest. He also is the only warlock who can heal elemental constructs. I have got a couple of these woldbeasts to go in this list.





First I have the medium sized Woldwatcher. He is like a mobile piece of terrain and can bunker down to provide a form of cover. His animus allows you to put Vigilance on one of your guys so if an enemy comes close they can attack out of sequence. The other elemental construct I have is the mighty Woldwarden. He is only partially painted, so pics to follow...


Finally for this entry I have the Pureblood Warpwolf, and alpha heavy warbeast. I think the model is great, but am not too keen with my paintscheme. I feel he looks a bit "stripy" and am almost certain this is not using enough water when putting on the highlights. I know I need to use more water as I already posted...

This guy is neat on the battlefield, especially with his synergy with the Warpwolf, my main heavy hitter. The first time I fielded him he took down a Direborn Troll! Rawr:)