Where to next?

coming up to a new year, which like most years, means new army! but which army?..

lets forget about lizos for now - as i seem to have done so - given that they will probably live on my shelves once they are fully done lol.
not to mention i am very wary of starting armies with a non-hardbook army book.
with the lizos, i ended up getting someone elses army for a bargain, and have done so again with empire. problem is with both, i bought em as both a favour, and a good deal, rather than an army ive been moistening over the thought of collecting.
vampire counts, on the other hand, is an army id love to collect. sploosh.
it does mean buying an army from scratch, but hey, its not all bargains all the time with warhammer eh?

now by my calculations, i still need 2x boxes of greatswords, 1x demis, 1x outriders, and a couple character clams to finish the empire list. despite getting 2400+ pts of empire already at an outrageous price, its still a fair whack to shell out though, plus movement trays, mag sheets, etc etc.
vc on the other hand, completely from scratch.
movement trays, mag sheets, a garden of moor, starter set - mainly for the ghouls and hounds, everything else will be a zombie/zombie unit filler or fell bats, corpse cart and skellies included - couple boxes of gg, couple horrors, more zombies and some gargoyle wings. oh and half a dozen character clams. so lots more, i guess. in fact, roughly twice as much.

to recap, here are the two lists, competing for my hobby $$:

VC:
vlord, red fury, asf, 4++, ahw
necro, l4, scroll

vamp, l2, forbidden lore: beasts, ha&s
wight king, ahw, ii
banshee
banshee

 5 hounds,
 5 hounds,
20 zombies, m&s
20 zombies, m&s
20 zombies, m&s
31 ghouls, ghast

6 crypt horrors
35 gg, fc, banner of the barrows
2 fell bats
2 fell bats

vs EMP:

gote, fpa & s, barded warhorse, fear sword, stubborn hat, 4++
l4, light, scroll

cote, bsb, fpa, enchanted s, dawnstone
wp, gw, ii, opal amulet
wp, barded warhorse, charmed shield
whunter, potion of speed, brace of pistols

37 hals, fc
det 5 archers
10 icks, fc, steel standard

3 dgk, muso
32 greatswords, fc, gleaming pennant
det 5 archers
6 outriders, m
cannon
cannon

so lets compare. now this is all subject to change after some playtesting, but here are my current thoughts:

-both armies are fairly small, with a lean towards deathstar. vc in particular are packing a 1000ish pt unit of graveguard, once you add vlord and wk in there. greatswords are a big sink too, with a whunter and wp in there, but not nearly as bad ptswise. way more easy pts to pick up in the empire though, imo.
-both have tricks, and opportunities for magical spam. vc do better in the chaff dept, particularly with the new crumble, and the movement of hounds and bats vs archer det movement. dont really consider outriders chaff, more of a shootin' unit.
-speaking of, one thing the emp wins hands down, is in the shootin' dept. sure theres a couple screams on the vc side - which will be overlooked when they're hidden in units till the last minute, i guarantee you - not really the vc's fault there, but it makes me think twice about some matchups, particularly gregs tks. how would my vc fare there? only one way to find out eh lol. and at least the vc list is pretty much cannon proof, bar the horrors that is. just need my daemon saves.
-magic? starting to compare apples and oranges here, although both lists are a bit lacklustre without a bit of magical support. although the vc would be in a tight spot if they didnt get a big magic phase after getting into combat and not doing so well. 3 channels apiece, farily comparable casting costs, although the vc have the benefit of a second lore. the idea there, if not immediately obvious, is a preference of wildform and savage beasts on the l2, although most of the beast spells overall are fairly useful for this list. imagine for a second, my vlord with 9 s8 asf attacks with red fury. he would solo anything without a ward, believe. or throwing a mountain chimera in the mix for maximum lolz. light is light, we all know how horrible that can be on an empire list, not to mention the better bound spells for wps.
the vamp lore is pretty mean tho, easily attainable for a l4, and the lore attribute is much more useful than the light one. pretty obvious combos too, bubble van hels for horrors and ghouls, while gg get hellish vigour. mmm.
- and what about the stouching? the biffo? well, ive seen how quickly a horde of anything undead can disappear after a bad combat. likewise with greatswords i guess, anything s4+ and you are about to lose their combat effectiveness, and off they go a-hidin'. grave guard should be big enough to deal with a bad combat or two, but with the vlord in there, i should be generating enough res to stop massive crumbles. wk goes with him to take up challenges once the unit champ is dead lol, and another 4 kb attacks cant hurt.
vc are pretty simple, three combat blocks, a bunker or two, chaff, and characters. empire have two big combat blocks, a bunker, a little chaff, but a fair bit of shooting and character shenanigans.
horrors im not 100% sold on, same with a unit of 3 dgk, but cant really find anything suitable for their points and combat output. i guess the main difference between the two lists in this regard, is i can raise up to ten dudes (or 16 zombies) per unit, per casting of invok, of which i have two casters. empire? no getting units back unless i go life, and im not going to. for now anyway

so what i think ill do is first tonight after work, is go get some modular movement trays and mag sheets. then once the lizo are painted, ill hit greg up for the empire. ill have a sort through and you'll probably start to see my proxied shame, as i playtest this list. if there are issues or faults i need to address in the vc list, or if i dont like the list after all - hah! - then i can switch back to empire first while i sort it. if not, then the spending shall commence! either way, i get a new army, and a new painting mission.
and thats where we are going next. just needed to justify myself to someone lolol

Wee men with big guns: woc vs dwarves

greg and i went out to hampton for a game before xmas, but found the club had closed for the holidays. so we went back to his house for a game instead. now i was groaning after the last game against gregs dwarves, where his warmachines gave me a jolly good tickling. he had a runelord and bsb with 2+ as, 3 something slayers, 3x5 regular slayers, 2x25 warriors, some hammerers, and longbeards. 2 cannons, 1 flaming, 2x pennie runed and 1x accuracy rune grudger, organ gun and lame cannon. battle line, and i go first

i move up, hellcannon fails rampage, he stops gateway. his first turn one cannon blows up, the other does 4 wounds to hellcannon. organ gun cant shoot for a turn. hooray!

i send wolves to block slayers, discman takes advantage of the gap between dwarf units and charges cannon. hc does a direct hit on the top warriors, and halves em. discman cant quite kill cannon

he kills me wolves, moves up. grudger kills h/c. discman kills cannon and faces organ gun. one unit of slayers overruns into marauders, who eventually kill the unit and the hero, but lose l1. oh well, no scroll or 3rd eye now lol

crushers smash through depleted warriors, and overrun into slayers. discman kills organ gun. i strip a rank of a dwarf block with a gateway.

his characters leave the unit and camp around the grudger. i throw discman in hastily against his bsb, but cant kill it. shoulda send him to the other side of the grudger and kilt it the following turn. anyway, over a couple turns discman gets rezd out from a flank charge from runelord and is off the table. crushers wipe out slayers and reform

off they go into the hammerers. kwar fail a charge into bottom unit, but kmar make it in the flank. fluff and run, with dwarves failing to catch. i throw some more wolves to the slayers

and then more bad luck for greg. he flees from kwar with pursing longbeards ( i think they were longbeards), but kwar roll an 11 and catch em. his other unengaged block flees from the twar, who flee off the board. twar redirect into hammerers. i win, but they stubbs

he throws his bsb in too, but thats rezd out. only the unit champ left locked in a challange at the end of the game, but a mighty convincing win to the woc!

i also bet greg $5 that his dwarf list would be a resub at cancon. yes, its got no anvil, but 5 warmachines, come on. anyway, hope to sculpt those crushers soon, then back to lizos. might also have some g/s pix for ya'll soon too

Take it off tuesday: empire vs dwarves

so this was probably the quickest game of warhammer ive ever played. when greg plays with his dwarves, it usually takes longer to get to his and home again than it does to play, and this was no exception.
his list is 2 cannons, triple rune grudger, flame cannon and organ gun. and some dwarves. 2x25 warriors, some hammerers, no anvil at least, but 3x5 slayers and 3x giant slayers, or whatever. i took life, and the hierotitan on the bottom is a proxied capasus. dawn attack, greg goes first

his cannon nails one of mine, and greatswoards panic forwards. grudges hits knight bus, fail los for general, fail ward save. dead. great. takes a wound off other cannon

i rally, and cannon cant kill his organ gun. get throne of vines off

he then kills 15 halberds with a grudger

i muck about, kill his organ gun, capasus moves up and is cannoned in the face. i also foolishly leave knight bus in organ gun range

he promptly kills half of the knight bus, which panics, and also panics the halberds. joy

they rally, i cannon an organ gun, he kills my cannon, and the demis charge a slayer

more moving, another direct grudger hit, mounted wp dies

i hide, archers kill slayer and giant slayer, demis kill some more slayers, i lose by heaps. ah dwarves
i bet greg 5$ that this list will be a resub at cancon too, so we'll see. i guess it was my turn for bad luck after our last game at sowrd of khaine, but immensely frustrating nonetheless. lets hope greg gets past this dwarf phase of his.
hoping to get out to hampton for a game on sat, if the world doesnt end by then, so hopefully another batrep to come before chrimbus

sok finals

alright, so fresh from the finals, whilst fresh in the mind. first round, and its those familiar tks! bar the prince kit - d/h & shield - its the usual l4, chariot prince, 7 chariots with +1m, 2x20 skarchers, 2x10 skhorse, 2 kitties, titan and casket. boy i rue the day that man left gw with a casket in his clutches.

poor greg goes first. i say poor not on account of wealth, but luck. ifs smiting as his first spell i think, and then falls down the hole. at least it wasnt b&g buddy. shoots a mangler too

i launch a pumper at his horses, while the other one - proxied btw by woc chariots if you wuz wonderin'. i send the other around to try nab the casket.
then, in its inaugural game, for its very first shot, my homemade lobba hits his titan, and 5 wounds later its officially a king hit. i was so very pleased to see what i had been plotting the entire time i sculpted it. on the other hand, the homemade dd panicked at the loss of the mangler. cant win em all. the other on nibs a couple wound on the centre kitty i think. something does
pumper wins the combat by a lil

chariots send the spiders off the board, and redirect in to pumper. come get your free points everyone. stalkers hear the dinner bell and pop up for some revenge. the wounded kitty crumbles to bits. he starts to if the casket for a couple turns, much to the detriment of all remaining chariot style vehicles.

hey, ive got an idea. ill foot half(-ish) the chariots. not to be outdone, the homemade lobba begins to hit the casket for a couple turns, then the prince after that, maybe 4/5 hits for the game? anyway, cant wound the poop casket, cos its the toughest thing in the warhammer world. tougher than a steam tank, or 6 turns of 40k with charlie.

despite fighting them constantly, those kitties surprise me sometimes. like this naughty kitty, who did 9 breath weapon wounds to the trolls. good thing i had my jammies on, and snake eyed the re roll. 

waaaagh! the trukk saw a cat on the road, and swerved for it. popped, reformed, and sent trolls after stalkers. savages stop for a quick chat with the skarches for directions, before heading off after the casket.

chariots run away after another visit from a certain foot. the lone remaining troll may look quite excited, but in reality he has no idea of the significance of his very existence

i get the casket and its a 13-7. and to make it even better, the to did a mcdonalds run! good on you g.
hilariously by the time we finished, our other top 4 opponents were only turn 2 i think? anyway we had an hour and a bit to kill and had a chance to eyeball their listsa little lol

next up was the he rematch, one id been waiting for. had a much better game this time, hed ditched the light council and had life l4, mounted noble and bsb in a unit of 8 s(ilver)helms, obligatory spear block, unit of 18sh s(word)masters with the itp banner, med and small archers,  16 ish w(hite)lions, horse chariot and pair of eagles. he goes first.

no falling down the hole here unfortunately, as the throne of vines goes up, and f2s on the smasters for some reason. think he nabs and mang with shooting and blows up the other with an eagle later. 

he destroys foot with that damn scrolls, and i pump a few shelms. the other pumper stays locked in a ferocious tickle fight with the other eagle for a few turns till a chariot shows up. i smash his l2 archer bunker with waaghtillery and send it fleeing, but they rally on the edge

some moving about here. a few tumble weeds

then a waaaagh! trolls make it to the spears, trukk fails vs chariot, and sorcbuns fail vs smasters, but are handed up instead. spiders fail animosity and die to wlions. trolls win by a lil, but assassinate his l4. i take back what i said about them being inept assassins. i nab a few more shelms and wound both characters. dangerous terrain accounts for more

chariot flees from shelms, trolls keep grinding, his smasters dont charge. wlions kill pump and eventually a dd

chariot rallies, i hand the trukk over, and get an ere we go on the sorcbun combat, who win along with the trolls. 

more failed charges, and more failed terrain tests, bsb and another couple shelms die. trukks in combat, sorcbuns win, but dont catch. good thing fleeing troops give away pts

i kill the last shelm and spears. victory to the greenskins, to the tune of 15-5

going into the final round, and im in the lead. my doc opponent isnt confident with the match up, and im praying to the dice gods.
do i really need to go through the list? thirster with everything, 2x30 letters, 2 heralds, 1 bsb with -2 casting banner, 6 flounds, furies, crushers, and fiends. oh and a tz l2 with 10 horrors. he goes first

 heres a photo of his t2. hed moved both letter blocks up, and then cheekily glean magicked the hand to move one even further, so i had to put sorcbuns in its face to stop a combo on the trukk.
what this also meant, is i had 1 turn to kill the thirster, before i lost the game. queue homemade lobba.
direct hit, wound, thirster wards it. curses. 2nd lobba hits, wounds, wards it. so unimpressed. mangler goes through a letter unit for 4 wounds. boo. chariot kills a fiend tho, as do the spiders. ruh roh

whoomph. goodbye savages, fortunately, the way the chariot was positioned meant he could only attack the blorc in the unit. killed it easily, but gave me a turn. trukk fared better, but chariot didnt. on the unseen left flank, basically everything dies eventually. despite a cheeky hand to move a lobba

 i clear out the furies and reform. chariot hits thirster for no wounds. pumper kills crusher. warboss takes 2 wounds.

savages die and letters pursue off the board. thirster overruns. trukk holds

trolls and pump try to save the day, but general dies and thirster rezzes errone out. boo. in the end i had a mangler and a dd left, and lost 19-1

two things here that cost me not only the game, but the tournament, was taking hand over ere we go, and nick making a pair of 5+'s. ah warhammer.
but i ended up second equal with greg, which was tie broken down to 3rd. only 1 pt between us and the he player who came first, and 1 pt below us was doc. tight. ah well
did end up winning best painted for the waaghtillery, picking up a voucher for wh $, so thats mean.

so there we go, swoard of khaines all done. the club are hosting another one next year, so we'll see how that goes. might take the woc to the nec one. thanks to the dudes that ran and organised it too.
so better get started on them crushers next, and back to the lizo grind. it just never ends eh

Its quiet.. too quiet...

some mad radio silence this week, but fiiiiiiiiiiinally finished sculpting the new waaghtillery for this weekend. some last minute shit, straight out of dave's playbook.
also started a band, so have been spending heaps of time on that, and playing guitar in general.
nonetheless, heres the step by step doom diver:

measured it out, built a rough frame, and used a bit of movement tray as the ramp

stage one didnt even take that long, compared to stage two, with the bungee cord

the heat in my room really effects how and how long it takes for the g/s to set. something ill need to factor into my future sculpting calibrations. regardless, was quite pleased with the result

and painted

the business end. bring on your knight bus fools

so thats the doom diver. the lobba was a bit more work. first i started with a blueprint

then built a frame out of sprue

and now we sculpt! here was the first hoon

quite happy with the woodgrain. then the finished result:

didnt quite have time to add a million tiny rivets, but i reckons its pretty passable. will be able to tell once i get them painted

and now its painted. like magic

voila. so there we have it. dont spend $90 on a rock lobba you suckers, make one yourself like i did. it was (kinda) easy lolol

so finals tomorrow for the soward of khaine, expect some batreps later in the weekend. fingers crossed for your favourite ex pat warboss, with any luck you'll see me brandishing the swoard of khaine itself. only 6 pts between 2 and 1st place at the mo, and im taking double trouble:

orc warboss, stubborn, 4++ armour, shield, +1 to hit swoard

orc l4, scroll, ii

blorc bsb, 4++, shield

sorc l1, head

blorc boss, fencers blades

5 spiders

33 boys, fc, shields

24 sorcbuns, fc, ahw

6 trolls

2x1 w chariot

2x lobba

2x dd

2x mangler

2x pumpers, s5, 4d6 m

not my usual list, but you people have driven me to this! hur hur. stay tuned...