No Showcase this week

I did not get any painting done this week and I had to run some errands to today so I did not make it to the shop either.  I thought about doing some painting at home but I do not have enough proper light in my apartment.  Its the reason I've been going to the shop every Tuesday to paint.  I hope to be back at the shop next Tuesday.  In the meantime I will be working on my prologue fiction for the GM campaign as well as an update for the campaign.  Until next time.

Flames of War fantasy?

A couple of my friends wanted me to try out the Flames of War game.  I initially resisted because I thought it clash with my hobby goals.   Flames of War is a historic World War 2 game and I know many in its community take the historic aspect very serious.  And they have every right to.  It is a game that can help people explore events where real people fought and died.  It is a subject that deserves respect.  Truth be told I also enjoy studying history.  However when it comes to miniatures my interest lays in fantasy.  I want to create my own stories with my miniatures and use my own paint schemes to achieve those ends.

In May as I prepared for the GM campaign I also had an urge to try out other types of miniature games.  So I gave my friends a call and they were more than happy to show me the game.  I found the game to be fun, easy to learn and seems to be pretty balance.  Learning the game was help with the fact that Battlefront, the makers of the game, has a series of youtube videos explaining how to play.  After playing a few more games I have fell in love with Flames of War.  It also helps that it is on the cheaper side of miniature games.  My only mild complain is the scale of the game is different from Warhammer and most other miniatures I'm thinking of picking up.  This is only an issue because one of my long term goals is to do a miniature comic with my miniatures and having such a difference in scale (and setting for that matter) will make such a project much harder.  Nevertheless I have a few options make it work so I will be adding Flames of War to my collection list.  My Flames of War army will be on the fantastical side in a similar vein as the anime Pumpkin Scissors or the video game Valkyria Chronicles with my own twist.  Maybe at some point down the road I will do a more historic accurate Flames of War army but for now I am all fantasy.  For this blog I figure the change would be a few tanks in the painting log every so often.

And then I learn about WWPD's Flames of War: Operation Overlord campaign.  Its a world wide campaign where every Flames of War battle you play can affect the outcome of the event.  As cool and exciting the campaign sounded I was not planning on participating.  I currently do not own any Flames of War miniatures and for an event like this I prefer at least using some of my own figures.  But then I learn my friends really, REALLY wants to participate and at the time I was their only German player.  So I decide to signup for the campaign.  The icing on this cake however is that for players' battles to be counted in the event, a battle report of the game must be post somewhere online.  Neither of my friends have a website nor do they want to write the battle reports.  So I volunteered this space to have the Flames of War reports.  I had planned on expanding the number of games I would write battle report on and post them on Chaos Magic, just not this soon.  Oh well.  The global campaign will be starting at the end of this month.  Between the Flames of War campaign and the GM Warhammer fantasy campaign, this space will be getting busy real quick.  Watch this space.

Trio of horses

Sadly this will be a short update.  I put the finishing touches on the troll but since those were small changes I didn't take another picture of it.  I did more work on the Valiant but it literally fell apart when I was trying to picture it.  I have since glued it back together and will picture it next week.  The only thing left that I worked on are these trio of Chaos Knight horses.  Once the Valiant is done I will probably add these to the painting log.  Next week I will be going back to the forsaken but I'm thinking I will be working on only two or three so I can get a few models done.

My troll

I passed on working on the forsaken this week.  Instead I attempted to finish a single troll.  I figure since it only needed small touches I would finished the troll and do some work on the Valiant.  That was a mistake.  Every time I thought I was done with the troll I notice sometime else, usually really small, that needed to be done on it.  I did get to do some work on the Valiant, but not as much as I had hope.

I'm going to spent another hour sometime this week on the troll max and then call it done.  I just realize that it will be the first piece that I have ever finished.  The forsaken break will continue next week as I need something else to work on.  Update on the campaign will be forthcoming later this week.  Until then....

Beach Landing Megabattle

Backstory

Maritime scouts have learn the location of an unknown island.  With rumors of it possibly being the site of lost arcane treasures the scouts pass this information on to their lords, kings,  generals or whatnot.  Many of these rulers determine that the island could provide a valuable strategic advantage and the chance of gaining artifacts was too much to pass up.  The naval forces of these nations/war bands were launched with some of their rulers taking charge of the expedition personally.  The waters around the island soon became a battlefield as these forces arrive nearly all at once.  During the chaotic naval conflict three armies manage to get a small band onto the island shores.  The three armies were Ogre Kingdoms, High Elves and Warriors of Chaos.  All three bands had the same goal and that was to secure a foothold on the island.  However to all three surprise, the unknown island was not vacant.  A large force of Skaven were waiting on the shores to give the visitors the warm welcome the cowardly and cruel race is known for.

Overview

The battle was divide into two sides, the attackers and defender.  The attackers (Ogre Kingdoms, High Elves and Warriors of Chaos) each had a force worth 500 points and a free Battle Standard Banner.  The Skaven defender had a force roughly equal to the other three combined.  The objective for the attackers were to get their Battle Standard across the board the fastest.  If multiple Battle Standard die then the one whom made it the furthest will count as the winner.  The only objective for the defender was to make life miserable for the attackers.  The attackers shared the same turn.  They were not allies and count each other as enemies for determining viable targets.  The order in which the attacker's actions are resolved was decide at the beginning of each turn by a contested roll..  Each attacker had their own magic phase.

The Battle

The attackers deployed as close to each other as possible.  Chaos had their eye on the elves and the Ogre had theirs on Chaos.

The defenders waited patiently, some in a wildwood which claim a rat.

Turn 1

The attackers had first turn.  Chaos wanted to march forward but the forsaken had other ideas.  The lure of elven flesh so close to them prove to be too much for the warriors to resists.  The frenzy forsaken failed their leadership test to follow orders and charged the elven archers.

Everyone else march forward.  The magic phase was uneventful.  Not surprising with Chaos and Ogres only having a single level 1 wizard.  The Skaven only had 2 level 1 wizards themselves.  The only unit on either side that had any shooting abilities were the elven archers whom had a forsaken problem.  Moving on to the close combat phase, it was not a pretty sight for the elves.  Losing about a third of the unit and doing no wounds back the archers broke from combat and the forsaken were more than happy to run them down.  Unfortunately for them this essentially put them out of the battle as well.  At least Chaos earn first blood! (meaningless in this scenario)

The Skaven turn was pretty simple.  Giant rats charge the high elf cavalry and everyone else move forward.  Nothing significant happen during the magic phase and no unit was capable of firing in the shoot phase.  In close combat the high elves just edge out the giant rats.  The rats failed their leadership and flee.  The high elves was going to chase until it was reveal that a unit of clan rats were in the way.  So instead the high elves reform to narrow it front now it can ride pass the clan rats for victory.

The line of yellow dices shows the actually location of the clan rats behind the forest.  Being at an angle the clan rats' rear block the cavalry pursuit.

Turn 2

The high elf cavalry charged the fleeing giant rats.  The distance the rats flee was greater than the high elf charge.  Failing the charge only allowed the high elves to move forward a few inches.  This gave Ogres and Chaos a chance to catch up.  The Ogres issued a charge of their own on clan rats and made it.  Chaos had to make a decision.  They could move towards the high elves and try to slow them down with their one spell or to go for a long charge which would put them back into the running.  No guts, no glory Chaos went with the charge and needed a 9 on 2d6.  Rolled 9.

The magic phase this time was a game changer, though not in the way people initially thought.  Chaos single spell was Cacophonic Choir and it has a 12 inch range.  Both Ogres and High Elves were out of range for the spell.  So Chaos tried to cast it at the increase value of 24 so it would hit nearly every Skaven unit.  Chaos hit 24 on the nose with no miscast.  Skaven tried to dispel but rolled mostly 1s and 2s.  Every unit that was wounded by Cacophonic Choir gains the Always Strike Last and Random Movement special rule for a turn.  The caster also gets to roll one die for each wound cast by the spell which will increase his weapon skill, initiative and attacks due to the lore attribute.  Chaos only got 2 successes on 19 dices.  The close combat phase was extremely bloody for the Skavens.  The Slaanesh Chaos Warriors decimated the clan rats and ran them down, which place them into first place at the moment.  As bad as Chaos beating was, Ogres deliver an even bloodier result.

The pile of rats were the numbers the Ogre killed and only received 1 wound in return.  The only way the cowardly Skavens were going to hold their ground after that assault would be to get insane courage on their leadership.  Their leadership roll was ...

By the end of the attackers second turn it was an extremely close race.  Whoever manage to get move first between Chaos and High Elves on the next turn would be able to march off the board and earn the victory.  Ogres were still in it if they could break and overrun the clan rats on the Skaven's turn.  That was what the standing were ... that was until we remember most of the Skaven units now had the Random Movement special rule.  That rule allowed the Skaven to make charges that were impossible before.  Chaos got reared charged by plague monks and High Elves got flank charge by more clan rats.  Ogres got the side charge they knew was coming.  Still in close combat things went to the attackers favor, well mostly.  The High Elves beat back their opponents and didn't pursuit when the rats broke.  The Ogres erased the clan rats in their front which caused the flank unit to panic.  The Ogres also choose not to pursuit.  Chaos had a much harder fight but they also prevailed.  Unfortunately for them the plague monks did NOT break which pretty much sealed Chaos fate.  Chaos reformed to face the monks so they unleash their full hatred on them for being deny victory.

Turn 3

With nothing to hold them back now the High Elves marches off the board for the win.  Ogre still had a fair amount of ground to cover and was afraid that Chaos might annihilate the Skaven too fast.  So the opportunist Ogres charged Chaos in the flank.  The move also place Ogres' battle standard past the Chaos one.  The magic phase gave Chaos one last chance to change its fortune by casting an irresistible Cacophonic Choir on the Ogres.  While the miscast did nothing, the damage was not enough to make much difference.  Chaos was routed in the close combat phase.  Since the Ogres' battle standard was further than where the Chaos battle standard had fallen, Ogre Kingdoms claimed second place and the battle was over.

Valiant at last!

I finally got started on the Valiant.  It only has two colors at the moment but at least its a start.  I will be finishing the black and adding red this week.  I also made progress on the forsaken though its a little hard to tell in these pictures.  Everyone horns is painted bone white while the scythe blades is painted silver.  That and they are based now.  I will probably only dedicate another two weeks to the forsaken as I am getting close to the point where I am just working on small details/mistakes in which I make more mistakes that needs to be fix up.

I am still working on the mega battle report.  I hope to be done with it by tomorrow .

Lore and Labels

One of my goals with the next campaign (which kickoff yesterday) is to maintain an updated record of my participation.  I will accomplish this through writing short stories of campaign event from my armies point of view and summary reports of battles, player interactions and campaign meetings.  To make it easier to know which post are campaign related I will be using two labels: "Lore" for the fiction and "Report" for the summaries.  Logos for each will be displayed at the top of the post as well.  Said logos are shown below.

I still have a fair amount of work to do before the GM Campaign's first meeting this Friday.  I need to write up a 5000 point list and decide on the storyline behind my army.  I have used two different storylines in campaigns before though neither got very far.  The first storyline center around the army's leader Chaos Lord Amirren.  Amirren was a powerful warrior, cunning tactician and an accomplish sorcerer.  His greatest strength however was his charisma.  Using only his persuasive wit (and martial prowess for some) he earn the complete loyalty of 9 Lords of Chaos.  These lords do not like each other at best but they held Amirren with such respect that they would do anything for him.  I did not have names for all 9 lords but I did have personalities and characters traits for most of them.  I really like the story opportunities with this setup because it would allow for personalities to grow and clash.  I was a little hesitate to continue this storyline however for two reason.  For one that campaign was a disaster from a narrative point of view.  The point of doing a campaign story is to let the results of the battles decide the fate of the story.  In that campaign most of my characters were captured or killed by the end.  On the flip side that campaign had a few other issue with it that I will not go into here.  However I do feel I have enough of a case to "reboot" the storyline even though I feel conflicted about it.  But the second reason I was hesitate has a much stronger case.  I can not give Chaos Lord Amirren the stats to properly portray him in the new Warriors of Chaos book.  In the new book I have lost the item "Book of Secrets" which allowed a Chaos Lord to also be a sorcerer.  Being a warrior and a sorcerer on the battlefield was one of Amirren's central themes.  An option would be to run the army without its charismatic leader but that would feel a little wrong.

The second storyline I have used in a campaign was in the brief Blood and the Badlands.  The Arkyrian Cabal was a secret society of sorcerers whom members have infiltrated various armies around the world.  The idea was that they reveal themselves right before the start of the Blood and the Badlands and I do want to tell that story when I redo that campaign.  Since so much of the Arkyrian story was made for a campaign that has yet to happen, I am unsure at what direction to take it in the GM Campaign.

I do have ideas for a third Chaos storyline but much of that is still being develop.  I also want to kick that army off with a series of short stories that I have yet to start.  That means I am left with using either Amirren or Arkyrian storyline for the current campaign.  Decisions, decisions...

Tomorrow I will post a battle report of yesterday's mega battle