After the Hobbit (part1)

Decided to dig out my LOTR stuff this week and after a chat with Rob from a little while back we arranged to play some narrative missions. The task involved a little fore thought on my hobby purchase, but but there are some things I've been itching to buy for a while now (more on that later).

So with models tallied up we began playing a series of missions that retold Balin's expedition to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Moria. Following on from his semi-successful reclamation of Erebor (Death of Thorin would put a bit of a mark on the affair) Balin sets out with Ori, Oin and a host of brave Dwarf warriors to try and kick a bunch of pesky Goblin squatters out of his ancestral home.

EASTGATE

The first encounter was a small affair. Balin and a band of  warriors, commanded by Rob, would need to get a foot hold within Moria's Eastgate. A relatively easy task as the goblin guards had grown comfortable in their dominion of the area, but as the self proclaimed Goblin King, I was going to make Rob pay in Dwarf casualties as best I could. 

Rob only needed to get Balin and four other models through the gate to secure a victory so understandably, his early turns involved clearing the goblins awarded "speed bump" duty whilst I ran the archers towards the gate to summon reinforcement. When the fighting broke out however things took an unexpected turn. The goblins made a daring ambush on Balin's company, slaying several heavily armoured Khazad Guard and even wounding Balin himself! 

Enraged by the hurt dealt to their leader, the Dwarves pushed the Goblin ambushers back against the rocks and made the little blighters pay for for their actions. Meanwhile, the Goblin archers were a stones throw away from the gate. A few Dwarf scouts had taken up position either side of the gate to try and shoot down the messengers, but their archery proved useless. By shear good luck, the Goblins sounded the alarm.

Seeing the Goblins spilling from the gate, Balin ordered his troops to advance. Quickly finishing the the last of the Goblin guards (bar one Goblin that did a runner) the battered Khazad Guard formed up and marched on the Eastgate of Moria.

The Dwarf scouts had stuck their neck out too far. The sudden rush of Goblin reinforcements caught them off guard and the scouts were quickly cut down.

The scouts, out numbered were in serious trouble, but Balin was having none of it. He had lost too many of his kinsfolk and marched with all haste towards the Goblin mob. The follow melee was brutal and put the Dwarves in higher spirits as their axes avenged every fallen comrade. With their numbers dwindling the Goblins began to lose all stomach for the fight.

Balin had tallied too long at the gate. Though the Goblins were now in retreat and his forces were horribly bloodied, Balin ordered the survivors into caverns. As the Dwarves once again entered Moria a loan Goblin Captain watched with hate filled eyes. It looked like interesting times had returned to Moria....

"TO THE VICTORIOUS DEAD"

Rob took victory, but I made him pay for it. The nature of the campaign meant that Rob's actions would have consequences in the final battle and this game had CONSEQUENCES. Rob tried to bully his way into Eastgate by taking ALL of the Khazad Guard he had for the campaign and through luck, Goblin sneakiness and empty threats I'd killed TEN and put a wound on Balin! Though Balin would heal up in time for the next mission, those Khazad Guard would not. Rob only has two left on his roster.... wonder if I can finish the job.

There will be a bit of a hiatus between missions for this, so part 2 will likely be posted next month. Don't worry, I'll be posting other things in the mean time. Thanks for reading. 

New Rules: Making Shrapnel Evil(er)

A quick post today, partly to try and get myself into the habit of posting regularly again. So on that note, a new edition of 40K hit the shelves a few weeks back and I've finally had time to sit down, grab a beer and a bucket o' dice and play. Once again, thanks to Gaz for stepping into the ring, Let's see if a new edition can do anything to to help his losing streak against me.

I took my Orks to the field (nothing new) just to get a feel for the rules and see how the boyz would fair. Gaz turned up with something new: Deathwatch Marines! I'd not had the pleasure of facing this army before so I was not sure what they could do. They were only Marines though, so how bad could they be?

There were four objectives to play for and we had a fairly well covered board to play with. First turn went to Gaz who simply advanced with his Assault Marines to capture the objective nearest him and then tried to get everyone else into a good firing position.

My First turn was a bit more exciting. With the Assault Marines sitting just in front of them, the Ork mob was not going to pass this chance to cause some damage. The charge was slow going and meant only a few Orks made contact.

But the follow up was brutal!

Now... this is where things started to go wrong. My Kommandos tried to do the sneaky thing, but in the face of five shotguns loaded with buck-shot 'n' fire it was not a successful plan.

The Trukk Boyz on the the other flank didn't fair much better either. Despite heavier armour the Marines pulled out the frag cannons and the same thing happened, but on a heavier scale.

So.... to summarize, we played 3 turns and I feel the result can be summed up in one photo

Yeeaaah, those Deathwatch special weapons are nasty. Although we only playeed a handful of turns, everything got a chance to get involved. The new rules are easier to pick up and the game over all is much quicker. That said, I do need to change up my tactics so I'll be adding some heavy fire power and some dreads in the near future.

Cheers to Gaz again and well done on beating me at long last. next time it'll be a different story I think.

SPLOTT MARKET FAMOUS!!!!

A lot of stuff to cover today. As always my excuses for not posting anything continues to be real world related, but enough about that.

First on the agenda, Age of Savagery! once again the deadline for this are drawing ever closer and the talented artists and writers involved are really putting in everything they have, like this gentleman HERE;

I bumped into Josh a few weeks back in Swansea Comic & Gaming Con. He was showing off some of his work and he was good enough to hear me out on my pitch for AoS. A few emails later and he's been putting work together like a demon. It really is stuff like this, from new artists and indy writers, that make this project what it is. I was always afraid that this would struggle, but with all the work we've had submitted and all the great talent that has been put forward, I honestly can't wait to get the book published, looking forward to seeing it all in print.

This week saw me pick up the brush and finally finish my Night Lords kill team. I still have the cultists to paint, but the heavy lifters of the crew are done and ready to ruin someone's day.

As many of the wargaming community are aware, 40K got a shiny new edition recently and in honour of that fact, I bought a new army. I'll put some WIP shots up when I have the chance, but after some dodgy deals at my local gaming store I aquire two sets of the new Nurgle army. They'll be a bit different to my normal army (Orks) in both painting and playing, so I'm looking forward to spending some time on them.

And finally for this week, The Goblin King and his little Shaman buddy have been sold and will be off to their new home with Andy at FourAMiniatures. He should hopefully have them up for sale soon, but don't worry, I'll give everyone a heads up when they are. On a related note, the Dwarf command I sculpted have been released by CPmodels, so if you picked up the warriors, now there are a couple of captains and what-nots to give orders. The Dwarf characters won't be far behind I imagine.

I shall leave you with this little anecdote, I was at Splott Market today and what should I see on a stall of game?

Oh yes, that is a copy of Camelot: The Build and about 5 years ago I did the art for the back of the box. Don't believe me? Here's a scan of the original piece plus some line art that wasn't used.

I'm now SPLOTT MARKET FAMOUS! What ever that means? The stall owner and I had a fun chat about it and even asked me to sign the box. What an odd world.

The King of Nothin' Much

Between (moaning about) the heat wave and trying to not melt in work, progress on stuff has been a bit slow this week. I've still been ding arty, painty goodness, just not a whole lot of it. That said, I do have a few pictures to show off. First up the finished Dwarf characters! These hansom fellows will be whisked off to CPmodels in the next few days

Next up, along side the Dwarf sculpts, the Goblin King and his pet wizard also got finished. Really happy with this li'l guy.

I've also been putting some time into painting my Shadow War Night Lords. I'm having a bit of fun with these. They were built out of scraps and now I want to put some real consideration and time into the painting. The lightening work on the armour looks pretty cool in my humble opinion, but I still have plans for tattoos and script along certain parts of the armour and weapons.

The marines also got some flunkies added to their merry band in the form of some equally kit bashed cultists. Not much to say about these fellows. They'll have the matching blue colours of the marines, but will be painted to look a lot more shabby than than their flashy Night Lords masters.

And finally, a quick bit of shameless self promotion. Once again I'll be out and about this coming weekend at CICE.

Go check them out and hopefully I'll see a few of you there.

The Clansmen of Raven Cliff

Took a lot longer than planned to get these guys painted but I am super happy with them. I went with a colour scheme that was similar to Thorin Oakenshield, who I painted a while back. There will be more to add to this lot once I get the royalty finished and CPmodels put the command up for sale. For now this happy bunch can be bought HERE

To add to the fun. I'm currently working on a Goblin King and Shaman to go along with the Goblins I sculpted for KOTHwargames last year. So to showcase the two races I've sculpted from the ground up, here are a few action shots.

When I've got the characters all sculpted and cast up then I'm looking forward to running some larger games with them. Until then, thanks to Mark and Henry respectively for taking an interest in my little projects.

"To The King!"

Caerphilly Comic Con's debut event was a phenomenal success. So many people turned up and it was a fun day out for the families that exceeded everyone's expectations. I got to say, I've never attended a Comic Con which was aimed as "Family Friendly". This isn't a negative term, it's just my usual range of con attendees are early teens and up. But Caerphilly Con was a different atmosphere altogether. The local council and the schools had all been invited to get involved with costume contests for their own made-up super heroes. It was a unique event that had so much imagination and joy on show, I can not recommend this con enough to any families out there.

Now back to our original programming. Once again the ol' sculpting pin has come out to work and this time I'm steering away from the rank and file. Following the command figures I sculpted a month ago...

I've been requested to work on some proper leaders for the Dwarf army. A bit of sketching and some back and forth with Mark at CPmodels and I've began work on some Dwarf Royalty.

Of course this is the Grinning Loon project and I feel the Goblin nation has been somewhat under represented of late. So for your enjoyment, MORE GOBLINS!!!!!

Castles and Comics

Hello everyone, a little shameless self promotion this week. I will be attending Caerphilly Comic Con this weekend. It's shaping up to be an awesome event and what's more it will be Caerphilly's FIRST comic con! I'll be there with my usual bundle of stuff as will Kev from Deadstar, Kathryne Mills and several other talented Comic Con buddies of mine. (There will also be plenty of talented people there who aren't buddies of mine, but they deserve a plug too)



I will be bringing more finished work from the up-coming Age of Savagery project which is really gaining momentum as the deadlines draw in. If anyone fancies submitting something for this anthology, Kev and I are still accepting submissions until the end of the month. All the details can be found HERE so if you want to get in on something really cool then now is the time. Here's another sneaky peek at what I've been doing.

Also, coming up next month, Cardiff Indy Comic Expo will be back, so if you don't make it to Caerphilly, then hopefully I'll see you in Cardiff.

More art and minis next time, promise.