Oldhammer Weekend: Bring Out Your Lead review. Part one.

Well then. That was a good weekend! I've been deliberately putting off posting about the Oldhammer event, Bring Out Your Lead, until now because I have been very busy riding a wave of hobby enthusiasm! I've been organising new units, new paint schemes and the inevitable new eBay purchases! Finally I have calmed down enough to start expressing how the whole event panned out in words, I will begin at the beginning by talking about the Realm of Chaos multiplayer game that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Slaves to Darkness book (well done to Orlygg because this was his brainchild).

The Realm of Chaos! Looks a lot like middle England, I know. I always suspected as much! 

The tower in the above picture is one of many historic gaming aids that are available to use at Wargames Foundry, this one was apparently made way back in 'the day' by none other than Nigel Stillman.

Lord Savage shepherds the Beastmen into battle while the swift Ogres go off on a flanking manouevre and the Dark Elven crossbows pepper the Khornate lackeys from afar.

I played Lord Savage as I envisaged him, he makes up for what he lacks in killing power by being cunning and biding his time. He continually used the tough, survivable Ogres (and his foolish allies of course) to hold up units while he encircled them. This plan helped the Slaaneshi faction knock out three enemy warbands in quick succession. It was fun to witness the typical Chaos God's intervention as one Khorne champion rolled up six summoned Chaos Warriors (*gasp!*) for a meagre one turn, (*sigh*). The battle eventually split into two smaller conflicts separated by about three feet of empty table and when the dust settled a large Slaanesh force was facing a small but elite Khorne force. There will be many tales told elsewhere of the legendary number of foes reaped by Jeff's Chaos Dwarf champion with the 'singing axe' but ultimately Lord Savage's patience won the day. Having stood off to allow all his Slaanesh rivals to die horribly while weakening the two remaining Khorne champions he was finally goaded into battle; only for his fear-causing Chaos Steed to tip the balance and bring about the ultimate defeat of the Khornate faction!

As I'm sure some of you recall this wasn't in the script! Lord Savage is only a level 10 hero and the idea was to evolve him into my Undead army's general in the form of a Liche. As it turned out he was the last remaining champion on the battle field at the end of play! The job of Liche will have to go to Mausolus. Savage was suitably rewarded with increased strength and the ability to teleport by a grateful Slaanesh, while 9 Giant Wolves joined his warband. The Beastmen were awarded with growth (x2) and mutated to twice their original size while the Dark Elf crossbow unit can now breathe fire! Lord Savage will be strutting over the tables of Yorkshire for the next 12 months having proclaimed himself 'Champion of Champions' and will return next year to face his challengers once more.

The RoC game was repeated on the Sunday but because the Saturday game took a whopping seven hours to play many of the original champions were busy elsewhere trying to absorb everything else BOYL had to offer (thus rendering it a lesser affair than Lord Savage's triumph of course). ;)

*UPDATE* Special mention must go to Martin's Slaaneshi warband which fought the two most powerful Khorne warbands to a standstill before finally succumbing. I hope to see the return of Kashawa the Bringer of Unknown Pleasures next time!

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The Battle of Broken Barrow (Intro)

Thantsants and I played out The Battle of Broken Barrow today using Warhammer 3rd edition. We didn't have a GM unfortunately so we just role-played it out as best we could. Thantsants took a load of pictures and will likely have them up soon so I won't drop any spoilers. I will say that we had an amazing and fun game though! I will post a full battle report when T emails the snaps to me. In the meantime, here are a couple of phone shots from turn one and the intro fluff I wrote.

Lord Savage's warband is closest occupying the right flank of the Undead horde. His escape route lies through the forest at the far end of the table.

The Orcs are pouring into the valley in search of a buried relic of great power. Give yourself a bonus point if you identified the 54mm Fighting Fantasy Ogre being used as a Giant!

The Battle of Broken Barrow.

The infamous Druchii renegade Lord Savage has made landfall on the Albion mainland after months at sea. He immediately attracted some of the local creatures of Chaos to his cause to replace those of his crew he had murdered to stave of the ennui of a long voyage. These were Beastmen, seven in number, and Ogres, two in number. Shortly after beginning the final march towards the proving grounds chosen by the Dark Pantheon he was set upon by a monstrous, red-skinned giant, one that had the cursed sign of hated Khorne scarred into his flesh, and his cretinous lapdogs. Though Savage’s devotion to his God and his patron Daemon was beyond question none could stand against such raw power and he was forced to withdraw and find another route. One of the Beastmen did not recover from the wounds he received and his brethren rejoiced because instead of seven they now numbered six, the holy sign of the Lord of Pleasure. This was taken to be an omen of their God’s favour.

The longer road led Savage to a fog-filled valley with sides of damp moss and broken rock, like the gaping maw of a marsh-dwelling Troll. There was a path of strewn cobbles that led to an ancient, seemingly abandoned graveyard. Though there were graves aplenty there seemed no adjoining house of Morr, nor any town of the living nearby; just the tumbled grave markers and the stench of death.

As Savage rode slowly through the valley he felt the sentinel presence of the Undead looming in the swirling shadows of the fog. Calling out his challenge to the mists he was answered with a discordant, sibilant growl…

“Thou hast come to Broken Barrow on this path of thine but a crossroads lies before thee now. No living creature has been suffered in this valley for centuries six in number but alas! Suddenly such peace as we are permitted has been shattered by the filthy doings of the Orc, yonder. Stand beside us in this coming hour and passage for thee is our boon. Help us rid our domain of the green cancer.”

The last was spoken as a command rather than a request. Lord Savage had always understood there was to be trials along the way, only the most worthy of the Dark Champions would arrive at the appointed place at the appointed hour, and he made his choice swiftly.

“The pact is made! We will kill that which knows no pleasure beyond the brutish lust for the taking of a foe’s life and you will stand aside at the end.”

As if in response a mighty drumming reverberated through the fog. The clamorous rhythm almost seemed to come from all directions at once. Perhaps it did…

Victory Conditions.

The Shaman of the Orc tribe has been plagued for weeks with visions of a mighty relic weapon that lies within one of the tombs of Broken Barrow. No doubt one of the Dark Gods is responsible; playing some incomprehensible game of their own device. The Orc army must get a unit into the central graveyard and spend a turn successfully digging for the relic in order to win the game. For every turn spent digging roll a dice; on a 4 or more the dig was successful!

The central graveyard contains the entrance to the lair of a powerful Liche and this will be defended at all costs, though it is not a victory condition. To achieve victory over the despoiling Orcs the General must die along with all Shamans.

The path to the Proving Grounds lies directly through the warring factions of the Undead and the Orcs. For Lord Savage to win he must either be alive when the Undead victory conditions are met or escape from the opposite short board edge from the one on which he is deployed. The Slaanesh warband must be deployed within 18” of a short table edge.

Check out Thantsants' blog for more on the Battle of Broken Barrow, or check out my own (strictly unbiased of course!) take on events here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lord Savage and the Seahawks (all of them).

As promised and only a week late; the whole of Lord Savage's Slaaneshi warband. Ready for the Oldhammer weekend no less!

The Seahawks, roaming the wastes searching for some fine booty.

The 'Enthralled', a Beastman Slaanesh-worship cult.

The big man (elf) himself, Lord Dibdin Savage.

The 'Corsairs', Savage's original crew and his first followers.

The 'Bloodlusters', an Ogre unit consisting of Vigareux and Grollo.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. I can speed paint or I can paint to a respectable standard, not both. I have tried to make as much time as possible for these guys and I actually like the current look very much. My freehand needs a lot more work, it's a very new skill so that's to be expected I suppose. I have never been able to draw and have never painted detail on a flat surface, ever. These shields and banners are the first attempts and are as good as it gets for this year but I like having something to aim for so I will keep banging away until I get the hang of it.

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Lord Savage and the Seahawks.

I have taken a few snaps of some members of my Slaaneshi warband that I'm taking to the Oldhammer Weekend, mostly ones you haven't seen before.

Lord Savage himself.

On the charge.

Third pose, he is Slaaneshi and therefore more than a little narcissistic.

The surviviors of the original crew of Savage's ship.

Vigaraux the Ogre pirate. Feared from Marienburg to Magritta.

I have a finished warband now but now I know I have some time I am going to add some more detail to the Beastmen (including a freehand banner hopefully) and paint up a replacement for Grollo (whose colour scheme wasn't very exciting because I still wanted him to fit into Golgfag's Troopers) so they will appear in a day or two, along with a team photo of course.

The Elves are in need of quite a bit more highlighting, particularly extreme highlights, and the bases need a quick lick of brown in one or two patches but I am pleased with the amount of progress I have made with time to spare.

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General update of warband and gaming progress.

Here is the first of my Slaaneshi warband's four Dark Elves, done to tabletop standard. As a test model I am quite pleased with the colour scheme, which matches my painted Ogre. I want to get the other three finished (almost there, I always further one test model before I get too committed to a scheme though) and then start adding in a few highlights to make the metal and cloak pop.

Ruberon Blackbrow. Vile Druchii corsair and Slaanesh worshipper.

I already have an advanced Lord Savage (my champion) model but having acquired this beauty for around a fiver (thank you eBay, you have not gone completely downhill) I have decided to remove the previous incarnation from the awesome base and replace it with this instead. I will hold on to the other one in case I have to model on a chicken head or something, no way I am chopping this up.

The new Lord Savage model.

We played Talisman at my club last night, the game was a cruel and capricious one and was only made more difficult thanks to an 'enthusiastic' new player who used his magic wielding Elf to hamper progress at every turn. After a coalition of disgruntled adventurers banded together to turn him into a toad and bludgeon him to death while he was thus discomfited things improved but time ran out after the Troll also got toaded and all three remaining key players were teleported back to the outer region. We now have a little board games club within a club on the go, while we are playing Zombicide and possibly Axis and Allies next I hope to get more Talisman in soon, definitely with one of the expansions. By the end of the year I hope to get a game or two of Diplomacy in too, which is basically about as old as Chess, awesome. A chum at the club has Rogue Trooper which is on the cards too, I will get a photo of that one when it takes place.

Next time, it will be mine!

Finally, an apology. I was part of an online conversation recently about the disgusting habits of Fimir, as part human, part daemon creatures they have unsavoury reproductive rituals. The good lady in question quite rightly registered her distaste at their antics and described it as fluff that need never have been. It made me think of my own attitudes to the Warhammer universe, I quite like the dark and mature content of Slaves to Darkness and used the tone of that whole period to design the background for my warband (which upon reflection is a bit icky) but I failed to put up any warning and didn't take others into consideration when I posted. I remember there being quite a fuss from parents when StD was originally published and I am sure the combination of little mens and adult content still has the power to shock today. I won't remove the potentially offensive content, but I will add a preface which warns of what to expect. Sorry if you were upset by the fluff I wrote.

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