Archos Fianlly Done!

So back in August of 2009, I started working on some Arco-Flagellants but they fell by the wayside on the painting bench. Well this week I decided to bust them back out and get to painting them. So here they are in all of their painted glory!







Here is my Puritan Witchunter that I painted a while ago, but never got to taking pictures of him. I call him Inquisitor Bane and he has had a few adventures, the most recent being sent to drive out Ork looters.


Here is a shot of Lord Bane and his retinue which was also painted a while ago.


And the final shot is with the arcos being released onto some foul Witch cult!


Hope you enjoyed...

TK

Return of 40K to the table!

So, after a long break, 40K finally got back on the table today with Drunkensamurai and I playing not one, not two, but three linked games! We played a 200 point Kill team mission, than did a 400 point Combat patrol mission followed by a 1500 point battle.

Before I go on, let me tell you what I have been thinking about for 40K. You see as some may know, this year was to be the 40K year for me. I had planned on playing more games than in 2009 and even wanted to play in a local 40K tournament. But life has a funny way of getting in the way and other gaming interests always took the spotlight. Also this week Drunkensamurai and I were talking about how we just do not get to play as much as we like and 40K was one game that we wanted to see more of.

My interest in 40K this year was also going to be towards doing some sort of narrative campaign and another friend said he was working toward getting one together. But alas, nothing ever happened. So with talking with Drunkensamurai we decided to just get together and play 40K this weekend. I would take my Sisters of Battle, while Drunkensamurai would take his new Orks. So what follows are pictures from two out of the three games we played today.

First up. 200 point Kill Team mission. My force included 15 Sisters of Battle against 20 Orks. We set the town up as a small settlement and the story was that the Orks were raiding it for loot. My Sisters were to try to stop the vile orks from looting the storage containers.

The Orks swarmed into the town taking the Sisters by surprise. The orks brought a buggy to haul off some of the loot that they hoped to scavenge from the settlement.


The Sisters took up positions at the walls around the containers and tried to keep the orks out. Seeing how the Sisters were caught unawares, they scrambled to fend off the invaders.

Two Sisters made a break for the communications office to radio for assistance and to warn the surrounding area of the invaders.

The Sisters put up a valiant fight trying to defend the storage containers, but the orks were all over their positions and were over running them.

The two sisters that made it to the communications office held off the orks in a brutal hand to hand fight and the warning was able to get sent out, which was received by a local Sisters of Battle Patrol in the area. Needless to say, out of 15 Sisters, only 4 made it out alive and the orks began their looting of the containers.

Game two was a 400 point Combat patrol mission on the same table as the kill team game. This time the Sisters showed up with one Imolater with a Dominion squad inside and 15 more Battle Sisters. The Orks also reinforced their position by bring in 3 Killer Kans, two buggies and a truck with some boys in it.




The 15 Sisters took up defensive positions inside the central building while the Imolater swept to the left flank to try to stop the killer kans.


The Imolater was ineffective against the killer kans but the meltas in the Dominions squad blew two of the machines to pieces.

But a bitter fight broke out as the boys in the truck engaged the Sisters in the middle of town and beat them to a bloody pulp and sending them racing out of town. Needless to say, the Orks defended the settlement and beat back the Sisters.

Game three saw us playing a new scenario out of the missions book, Cut & Run. This scenario has the Orks trying to leave the table while trying not to lose too many kill points. This scenario fit perfectly for the third game as it seemed fit to have the Orks making off with the loot.

I wish I would have taken pictures but I was too caught up in the game to worry about pictures. Needless to say, the Sisters of Battle took their revenge on the orks doing a total of 9 Kill points vs them loosing only three. It seemed that the Sisters wanted the settlement back.

It was a great day of gaming even though I lost two of of the three games against Drunkensamurai. My mind is already spinning about the next time Drunken & I can play. I think it will be another Kill Team game with the Sisters trying to get back the stolen loot that the Orks took. So stay tuned...

TK

Gathering in the Desert Practice Event Results.

Well today we had the First Practice event for Gathering in the Desert 2011. Seven local players came out for the event (3 others had work and Family commitments) but seven was a good showing.

The players and their armies were:

Dominic Winton (new player) with Isengard Uruk-hai
Mike Wilster (new player) with Cirith Ungol Orcs
Howard Beam with High Elves
CJ Beam (new player) with Gondor
Robert Brightwell with Rohon
Tom Opalka with Isengard Scouts
Anthony Pigatti with Gladerhim Elves
Ringer army (me) Isengard Scouts

So here are a few shots from the event:









So here are the results from the event:
Best Overall - Robert Brightwell
Best Sportsmen - Mike Wilster
Best Appearance - Howard Beam

Name Battle Sports Paint Overall
Robert Brightwell 50 18 23 91
Howard Beam 27 18 44 89
Tom Opalka 37 16 27 80
Anthony Pigatti 45 16 17 78
CJ Beam 23 18 27 68
Mike Wilster 20 18 25 63
Dominic Winton 28 13 15 56
Ringer Army 28 15 0 43

A Big thank you to Darren Johnson of Imperial Outpost Games and to all the players that came out.

TK

Gathering in the Desert 2011 Practice Event

Well in one week from today, I am happy to announce the first Gathering in the Desert 2011 Practice event.

When: November 21th, 2010 (Sunday) Start time 10:00am

Where: Imperial Outpost Games (4920 W Thunderbird Rd # 121 Glendale, AZ 85306) Cost: $10.00 What: 600 Points, 3 games, Painted Models optional Maximum 600 Points
Forces must be chosen from one of the army lists from the Legions in Middle Earth supplement or from a valid army list in White Dwarf.

You may use un-painted models for this event since this is a practice event for the Grand Tournament in February.

WYSIWYG, Weapons, armor and upgrades chosen from the army list Must be shown on the models used. In other words What you see is what you get!

All army list must be turned into the organizers the day of the event, if you do not have a army list you may not play. If your army list does not match what you are playing anytime during the event, you will automatically be disqualified and have all your games reported as Major Loss' and you may be asked to leave the event without a refund.

Forces must follow all rules and restrictions on force selection detailed in "Mustering the Legions of Middle Earth" pages 4-8 in the Legions of Middle Earth supplement.

Named characters (Gandalf, Lurtz, the Witch King, Spider Queen, etc) can only be taken once.

A set of Errata and FAQ's for Lord of the Rings source books will be used and these are maintained on the Games Workshop website. We are aware that many issues may come up in a game that are not covered by the Erratas or FAQ's, If you ask for a rules clarification from the organizers their decision will be final on the situation.

Models with stat lines and point values included in the forces section of the following rulebooks, journey books, source books or any White Dwarfs will be used:

* The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game rules manual (aka The One Rulebook)
* The Fellowship of the Ring
* The Two Towers
* Return of the King
* A Shadow in the East
* The Fall of the Necromancer
* The Ruin of Arnor
* Khazad -Dum
* Gondor in Flames
* Harad
* Mordor
* Any White Dwarf Article lists (such as WD#354).

Evil Forces cannot include Gollum.

Good Forces cannot include Tom Bombadil or Goldberry.

Where the points value differ between a source book and the Legions of Middle Earth supplement, the points value in the source books takes precedence.

Special Rule - Good vs Evil!
The Lord of The Rings is a modern classic of the tale of Good against Evil. As such the Strategy Battle Game is designed for battles between two forces, one Good and one Evil. This causes
a few problems for a format like the GitD where your Evil army of Uruk-hai could conceivably face five other Evil armies over the course of the weekend.

While this may seem like it would not be an issue, there are some problems that arise with the wording of various Special Rules and the effects of various artifacts wielded by powerful Heroes. These rules are typically worded in terms of affecting Good or Evil forces, or affecting a particular race like Orcs or Goblins.

For the purposes of games at the GitD we ask that players determine reasonably who is affected by the rule or item. In almost all cases players can easily determine who is affected by substituting the words Friendly or Enemy models for Good or Evil and when it comes to rules that affect a particular race, that rule will only be applied to one side or the other.

Here are a couple of examples:
• Both players are fielding armies drawn from the Fiefdoms list,
both armies contain Knights of Dol Amroth, and Player A has
Prince Imrahil. While Player B’s Knights of Dol Amroth also
have the Dol Amroth for Gondor! special rule, they would be
unable to take advantage of it, as the Prince Imrahil on the
table is their “enemy” for the purposes of this game.

• Both players are fielding Evil armies. Player A has a
Ringwraith that has the Harbingers of Evil special rule. In
typical play this rule only affects Good models, reducing their
Courage value while the Ringwraith is nearby). For the
purposes of the GT, this rule would affect “enemy” models,
those fielded by Player B.

We know you guys are reasonable players, and we look to you to make the right decision in the myriad of situations this issue could arise. If you are unable to, please call over the Organizers to make the call for you.

***Also if you choose to use any of the new models as detailed in White Dwarf under the Reinforcements section, than you must provide a copy of the article for the event organizers (if they do not have a copy) and as well as your opponents. This is to make it fair for folks that may not be able to get these articles to be able to see the special rules that apply to these new models.***

Scoring for the event will be a combination of Battle Points, Sportsmanship and Paint scores for Overall placement. In order to be eligible for Best Painted, you must have painted the army yourself and you must disclose the fact that someone else painted your army.

Gathering in the Desert organizers will accept payment and sign ups for Gathering in the Desert in February if you are unable to pay via Paypal.

So here is your chance to try out that new army you have been thinking about or to try out LotR for the first time.

TK

Osgilith starts to Rise

First off, sorry for the lack of posts, been busy with work and life, but I have been pretty busy on the game front.

Secondly, thanks to all the folks that made comments on my What Does it Take post on LotR. Some very interesting thoughts and comments. I was going to answer all the negative points about the game, but really that would not help with changing peoples thoughts on LotR. The only way folks will change their minds is if they go out and play it. I will continue to blog about it here so have no fear and I will be doing more posts on Gathering in the Desert as well as other LotR events.

And now lastly onto what has been going on on the game side of things. Well I have been working on terrain for GitD 2011 and started working on the new Osgilith terrain. Now Tom O had donated his terrain for the last two years which has been great, but this year Tom was thinking of letting some of his stuff go for sale. So I decided that I would start to invest in some terrain to replace his. Well I ordered 8 of the new Osgilith terrain boxes from Gamesworkshop and this past weekend started to build some ruins.

Two kits went to Drunkensamurai to build while I worked on the other six kits. below is a shot of the table with seven out of the eight pieces of terrain that I knocked together.


The new kits are nice and with a few extra pieces from other kits (LotR terrain kits) they start to come to life. Now these are still missing the smaller texture but you get the idea.

You may notice some extra bricks that I made out of Masonite to add to the kit, these were cut from 1/4" thick by 1" long by 1/2" tall to match the brick pattern on the kits. All in all these are coming together nicely. So stay tuned for more shots of these and the other terrain projects that I am working on...

TK