Three Battalions of Himmlisch Drachen Stamm

Episode 8 of War Journal: Flames of War was release over the weekend. If you haven't heard it yet you can listen to it here. The episode is a week late due to various issues, some of which I will discuss in the future when the pain is not as raw. I do want to expand on Episode 8's "Our Hobby" segment. I was a little nervous and I don't think I explain my three Battalions very well.

First I said I was going to named my army the Ruby Dragon Army. I misspoke. What I should have said was that I was going to named a branch of my army the Ruby Dragon Army. I also failed to mention that at this stage all my ideas have a historic mirror. The mirror for the Ruby Dragon Army was the Heer. I'm also toying with names for other branches of my army; Emerald, Sapphire and Diamond. If I go with these names Sapphire will be the mirror for the Luftwaffe and Diamond for the SS. I am more up in the air for what to use Emerald as. If I eventually go into more supernatural fantasy the Emerald Dragon Army could be the force that has steam punk elements like mechs or I could go into the mundane and use Emerald as the mirror for the Kriegsmarine/Navy. As far as I know Kriegsmarine is not in Flames of War in any way so it doesn't matter how I use Emerald Dragon until I bring Himmlisch Drachen Stamm to another game.

I touch on this lightly but the reason I am putting so much effect into the design structure of my army before I paint or even put anything together yet is because it does affect how the model looks. For example take the 3 digit number that is on many German tanks. That first digit refers to what company that tank is from so I need to know what company that tank belongs to when I'm painting it. I am sure there will be other things that are battalion or company specific that will affect the look of the model, either historically or of my own creation.

Bridge at Remagen has 4 German list to play as. Three are Heer and they work together. By working together I mean under the Support Platoons section of each list you can take elements from the other two. The fourth list is a SS one and their options for support are completely different with the exception of the 512th Heavy Tank Hunter Battalion 3rd Company. And the 3rd Company didn't work with the rest of the 512th. This basically means I have a choice between two separate webs/interconnected choices. Of the 4 lists the 512th is my favorite to play with so I pick the web that the 512th was apart of. So those three Heer list are 512th Heavy Tank Hunter Company, 654th Heavy Tank Hunter Battalion and the 506th Heavy Tank Battalion. All three are battalions so I am making my fantasy versions also battalions (the game list name for the 512th is Company but the description refers to it as the 512th Heavy Tank Hunter Battalion). I decided to call my versions of the Heavy Tank Hunter Battalions the Fire Dragon Battalions and for the Heavy Tank Battalion I call mine the Red Dragon Tank Battalion. I haven't decided on numbers yet. However to me it is more important to know what will be my unified forces.

Next I was going to break down what options can be used in other list but at this point it will not matter much. I will be starting with the 1st Company of the 512th and they have no options to take 654th or the 506th (they do have the option to take 512th 1st Company). At my current rate it will be many months before I would be ready to pick up anything from the 512th 2nd Company, 654th or the 506th and there is no telling if my plans will remain the same then. Say nothing of the fact that I still want to build an Italian force at the same time. Nevertheless I think I have address the elements I wanted to talk about. The big thing was the deal with Ruby/Heer which I completely failed to mention in the podcast. Hopefully my ideas are a lot clearer here but I am not sure if that is the case. If not, I'm sorry. In any event I hope you enjoy the podcast as well as this piece. Until next time!

The Border Prince ... is Over?

The Border Prince Campaign has come to a troublesome junction. The Game Master (Vampire Counts) will be unable to participate for a couple of months so my group has decided to end the campaign early. Using the current standings after turn 15 the High Elves are the overall Border Prince winners. Warriors of Chaos took 2nd place and Beastmen took third. As the host and Game Master the Vampire Counts was ineligible to win.

Of course this now leaves myself and Chaos Magic in a very uncomfortable position. First of all in general I hate ending a campaign early. Most of the campaigns I've been apart of have ended early and while I agreed with the reasoning to end early for some of them, every campaign that did end early left me feeling disappointed and the experience tainted. Besides my own personal enjoyment of it, the Border Prince campaign was suppose to be the starting point of my campaign storyline. I was planning to play a different faction for the next campaign but the events of Border Prince were going to play a role in future stories. Now that the Border Prince has ended with my story unfinished what am I suppose to do next? Should I remove all the Border Prince material on Chaos Magic and try again next campaign? Should I finish my Border Prince backlog and then leave the story unfinished? Should I write an early ending to the Border Prince storyline? All three options I find very unsatisfying. The first two options is what I've done in the past. My problem with the first option is that unlike with previous campaigns which ended before I got much done on Chaos Magic, I already have a sizable amount of material online with more on the way. The Border Prince Campaign was three quarters of the way of being finish and even thou I did get behind most of what I wanted done did get posted. It would be such a waste to lose all that material. On a similar note, it would feel like a waste to leave the story unfinished which is why I dislike option 2. With everything I have said option 3 would sound like the most obvious choice. However my writing style is such that I reveal small but important details through out the tale with a (hopefully) big payoff at the end. Rushing the end feels like it will undermine what I was going for. That said a good writer can probably make just about anything work. If anything I am probably too stubborn to write a rush ending to do option 3. So what option is left for me?

Option 4, continue the Border Prince campaign with a new group! The choice to use this option was not easy. Getting new players to finish someone else campaign is like heresy. Yet it is the only option that will fulfill my needs as I mention above. The continuation of the Border Prince campaign will not be happening anytime soon. Finding people willing to help me with this will take some time. I also think I will need a break due to the nature of what I am attempting. And lastly I want some experience running my own campaigns for the time being. While I said Border Prince was suppose to be a starting point for my campaign story lines, there were going to be others. Starting one such campaign is one of two options I am considering for my immediate Warhammer future. The other option would be a Border Prince side story campaign. The idea is to explain the story reason why Razeek Twotail withdrew from the Border Prince region after turn 8. This idea requires the original player to pick up the Skaven mantle again. The player said he was willing to do so but also express interest in playing a different army for his next campaign. Can't really blame him as he has 8 armies last I counted. Whether I go with option one or two will be entirely based on what he wants to play. If option 1 happens I will probably be playing Warriors of Chaos again. On the other hand if option 2 happens then I will either play Orcs and Goblins or Bretonnians. I will explain why later along with more campaign details. One thing to say about my up coming campaigns is that they will be very slow moving. A secondary reason for me wanting to run a campaign is to give some local players that I know a chance to play. These players are normally so busy with work they are unable to keep up with a normal campaign schedule.

That in a nutshell is my current plans with the Border Prince campaign. Due to other issues I'm dealing with I will not be able to start the new campaign for at least a month if not longer. Until then I will be working on the Border Prince backlog which includes the Border Prince page. I also have other ideas for material to help expand the Border Prince narrative. When I do get back to the Border Prince campaign, how I report the remaining 5 turns will be difference from my current style. How difference will depend on how much my blogging skills level up by then. In the meantime please enjoy the upcoming works of my current projects.

Shadowrun: Crossfire

The world of Shadowrun. I have a lot of experience with the Shadowrun universe. I got introduce to the setting with a short lived 3rd edition role playing campaign. I found the setting interesting but I was not a fan of the 3rd edition game mechanics. My next experience with Shadowrun was the 4th edition system and that was my sweet spot. I have lost count how many 4th edition games I've been apart of. I'm sure I've been in two or three short lived games that I've forgotten everything about them. I've also been in two difference 4th edition games that last well over a year each and many, many other games that last in between those two extremes. I have not played 5th edition yet but I have not like what I heard about it. I have a slight issue with some of the game mechanics of 5th edition but that is minor grievances. My initial dislike of it deals with the setting. You see each edition is not just an overhaul of how the game is played but in many ways nearly different settings. 3rd edition takes place in the 2060s, 4th edition starts in 2072 and 5th is 2075. The world of Shadowrun also had earth-shattering world changing events between each of the editions which is the main reason the editions feels so different. There is so much more I could say about the Shadowrun setting and most likely I will say more in the future but the focus of this post is about the deck building game Shadowrun: Crossfire.

I have to say Crossfire was not the Shadowrun game I thought I would be talking about on Chaos Magic. I first heard about Crossfire when I was looking into the game Shadowrun: Sprawl Gangers. I learned that Catalyst Game Labs had planned on doing a massive event called "The Year of Shadowrun". The idea was to release several different types of games set in the Shadowrun universe during a 2 year time period; board games, role playing games, computer games and more. The first year of the event, 2013, was suppose to see the release of Crossfire, the 5th edition version of the role playing game and Sprawl Gangers. Being the miniature gamer that I am, out of the three I was most excited about Sprawl Gangers. While I didn't like where they took the setting, I would still love to play a tactical game with colorful minis in the Shadowrun mythos. Shadowrun has elves, dwarves, high-powered guns, cybernetic implants, magic, hacking and dragons! Fun. Of course that was the plan. How did that turn out? Well, Crossfire is out, 5th editions is out, Sprawl Gangers is ... not. The latest information I found on it has the designers saying they are still working on it and the game will be release ... eventually. So I kind of zone out on Shadowrun events. Until two weeks ago when a friend brought Crossfire over for board game night. Before I played it the only thing I knew about Crossfire was that it was a game Catalyst Game Labs was working on that wasn't Sprawl Gangers.

After an evening of playing two games and not getting very far I had too strong impressions of the game. One, its a really, REALLY hard game and two, I love it! Shadowrun: Crossfire is a cooperative deck building game that captures the feel of the setting very well. The game can be played with 2-4 players. There are four roles to play as, each with a corresponding color and deck of cards. You need to defeat enemies called "obstacles" to complete objectives and earn resources needed to purchase more cards. Unlike most other deck building games (or at least the ones I've played) there are no resource cards. Instead tokens are used to buy new cards so there is no issue about having the right cards to purchase. Having the right cards to do damage is a different story. There are 5 types of damage in the game; spell, weapon, skill, hacking and neutral. The initial decks can do each of the first 4 damage types but they specialize in one. The neutral damage type can only be used when a specific type is not required. The obstacles have multiple levels that need to be destroyed in order and it either takes a single point of a specific damage type (one of the first four) or multiple points of any type of damage to destroy a level. In addition to picking a role players also need to pick a race. Each race (human, elf, dwarf, ork and troll) have different starting hand size, hit points and nuyen which is the Shadowrun currency. There are also some effects that are race specific. In Shadowrun even the best design plans go up in smoke due to some unforeseen event. Shadowrun: Crossfire mimics this potential chaos with the amply named Crossfire deck. The Crossfire deck is played at the beginning of every game turn and its contents changes the rules of the game to the detrimental of the players. Limiting the number of cards that can be played, increasing the damage obstacles do or even allowing obstacles to heal are some of the effects from the Crossfire deck. At the beginning of the turn the current Crossfire card is discarded and a new one enters play. The number of cards in the Crossfire discard pile can affect other abilities. For example some obstacles have effects that only happens or are worst if there is a certain number of cards in the discard pile. To win players need to work together, plan their moves ahead and be ready to adapt to changes caused by the Crossfire deck.

As I said, this is a hard game. In my experience most board games seemed to be design so that new players has a good chance at winning on their first time. Some of those games give options to make their game harder so seasoned players can challenge themselves. This is not the design choice for Shadowrun: Crossfire. New players of Crossfire have almost no chance of winning their first game or even their fifth! However for those that stick with it and tries to learn and then master the game, I can then see people winning more often that they lose. If you like your board games to be more of a casual affair then Shadowrun: Crossfire is probably not for you unless you don't mind losing a lot and can find at least one other like-minded individual.

Another aspect of the board game that I enjoy is a built in campaign system. If the entire team survives the mission they earn karma. Between missions players can spend karma on upgrades for their character. These upgrades can provide a variety of effects such as an increased starting hand, nuyen or hit points or something more unique like being able to pay 2 nuyen to draw a card once a turn. To maintain the games brutal difficulty, you get a penalty to the karma rewards based on how much karma you already have. For example the karma reward for the default mission is 3. If you have already earned between 11 and 30 karma then the reward is only 2. Missions do have options to increase the difficulty for an increase in the karma reward. One problem I have with the game is that it only comes with three missions and one of those missions recommends the runners to already have 70 karma. There are a few more missions on their website and it sounds like the second expansion for the game will also have more missions. Still I would have prefer the base game to have between four and seven playable missions for new characters.

One last thing about Shadowrun: Crossfire. The game has inspired me to develop a show. I will create several characters and record their progress during a campaign using all of Catalyst Game Labs rules as is. The show should showcase how to play the game ... or showing me putting a lot of effort into losing spectacularly. Either way it should be fun. The first step will be posting character bio on Chaos Magic. Each bio will be their name, race, preferred role and background history to give the character some life. The first episode or two will be a two player game. So far I have only one friend who have played the game enough that I feel they are ready to try this without it being a train wreck. Phil and myself spent this past Friday afternoon playing Crossfire many times and if we were keeping those characters, those characters would have earn 13 karma. The next time we get together we are going to make characters with 70 points of upgrades and test out the Dragon Fight mission. After that we will probably recording the show the following week. As a side project, I will take some of the episodes from the show and write out a narrative short story version of what happen. A few of those and I should have an interest flush out Shadowrun mythos here. Now if Sprawl Gangers ever gets release afterwards, I could immediately do a miniature campaign that has a rich history...

Until next time. You can buy your own copy of Shadowrun: Crossfire here. Or you can visit Catalyst Game Labs.

Dealing with a Mistake - War Journal: Flames of War - Tigers in the Mud

First the newest episode of War Journal: Flames of War podcast is up. You can get it here or at iTunes.

Next I want to talk about an issue that came up with episode 6, Tigers in the Mud. Episode 6 was suppose to have 6 segments and we did record 6. While editing the "That's New" segment, we realize we made a mistake with a rule. You would think the difference between making a check at half and making a check at more than half is a minor thing. However this type of error is what ruined the entire segment. The core of our discussion dealt with platoon morale checks for armored vehicles. The dreaded example we were using was a platoon of four vehicles, 1 operational, 1 bailed out, 1 bogged down and 1 destroyed. For this type of check you ignore the bailed out and bogged down vehicles. That left the 1 operational and 1 destroyed vehicles. We assumed this was a platoon morale check and that assumption was used as the basis of the rest of the discussion. This is NOT a check. You need MORE than half of the unit to be destroyed to require a platoon morale check. We needed either the bailed out or bogged down vehicle to be destroyed instead or added a fifth vehicle that was destroyed for the example to be correct. That means all the various scenarios we talked about while correct on their own their own, in the overall context was wrong because of our previous mistake. We had an disagreement on what to do. I wanted to either record short correction to go with the segment or record a new segment where we talked about our mistake. I felt that outside the error, the segment still had value and though we had some good dialogue in it which included a call back to our mid war battle. Tracy wanted to either drop the segment or rerecord it. Given that it was late at the time and the final episode was over an hour long, dropping it was the correct decision. Still I felt the need to explain what happen which is why I'm writing this post.

We really dodge a bullet this time. We were over half way done editing before we realize the mistake. That means we were really close to releasing a podcast that got game rules really wrong. That is unacceptable to us. While the podcast is our thoughts and opinions on Flames of War, segments like "That's New", "Keep Your Enemies Close", and others like them that are about game rules need to be accurate. For nearly releasing false information I am truly sorry. We will be watchful for errors in the future. That said, mistakes happen. I have learned from mine and I am moving on. If you ever hear us get a game rule wrong please contact us and let us know. Please enjoy the episode and have a good game.

Himmlisch Drachen Stamm

I have not gotten much work done on my models as I would have like this year and I've gotten even less done on my Flames of War stuff. That said I have spent a lot of time thinking about my fantasy Flames of War force. Ideas are still in flux but I'm beginning to have a framework for how my fictional army is organized and the in-game, on the table composition of my force. For now I am calling my nation Himmlisch Drachen Stamm which should be German for Heavenly Dragon Clan. I thought this would be fitting as I used to name my German list on Easy Army after dragons: Blue Dragon, Fire Dragon, Eastern Dragon and so on. Continuing with this theme I will be naming my companies after dragons as well. When I started playing Flames of War I knew nothing of how real armies are organized. Since starting the War Journal podcast I have learn more about how German was organized during World War 2. I'm still no expert but I now have the desire to learn more. I will be adapting what I learn to my dragon companies so my fictional Himmlisch Drachen Stamm can somewhat mirror historic WWII Germany.

As for what my Himmlisch Drachen Stamm will look like on the table, I have a little more concrete ideas for that. Since I've started playing Mid War I have gain a liking for Italy. That means my army will be a mix of German and Italy forces on the gaming table. The storyline behind Himmlisch Drachen Stamm will be that of a single nation, not two ally nations. From here on I will be purchasing items from two separate intelligence briefings. An Italian mid war briefing that will most likely be the Parachute Company in the North Africa book. The other briefing will be something from the Bridge of Remagen book which will give me a late war German force to use. Once I have enough assembled models to make lists from either briefing, the next step will be to pick up the Fortress Italy book. Hopefully I can find an intelligence briefing in it that would allow me to use elements from both of my previous lists. I am undecided on how I will paint my force. Right now I am leading towards painting infantry in mostly historic colors while vehicles would be half historic, half my own creation. It doesn't help that none of the paint I currently own lends itself to being historically accurate. I will be designing my own logo to have on my vehicles instead of the Iron Cross.

As I write this I realize after playing Flames of War for almost two years I am still at the beginning of my hobby. I suppose it make sense given that I have invested most of what little resources I have into other games. Also until recently I had no idea of what I wanted my army to look like and even now I just have a rough draft. But I now have a direction where to head towards. While I can't paint anything until I decide on my schemes (and get those colors), I can have my vehicle assembled and primed. Infantry I want fully painted before I glue them to their base so it will be a while before I can finish my Volkssturm Platoon. My two Wirbelwinds on the other hand will be on the gaming table much sooner. Once they are assemble my next purchase will include my personal favorite tank, the Jagdtiger...

Border Prince - Turn 14 Map

The two undefeated forces face off last turn and the Vampire Counts walked away with a crushing victory and remains unbeaten. Dieter's forces continued winning against Beastmen and Warriors of Chaos as well. When the dust settled, Dieter decide it was time to go on the offense! After all movement the Turn 14 Map looked like this:

B1. Bloody Hooves
B2. Bloody Sky
B3. Herd of Rusty Fang
B4. Graby Taz
B5. Banner 5
H1. Amendial
H2. Elendir
H3. Elendrial
H4. Aeylan
H5. Tarwen
H6. Zarial
H7. Samari
H8. Fariel
H9. Basui
H10. Banner 10
V1. Unholy Undead
V2. The Night Riders
V3. Ethereal Enemy
V4. Ghastly Fingers
V5. Creeping Death
V6. Death Dealers
V7. Death's Head
V8. Vampire Toothpick
V9. Necro-Mongers
V10. Blood Drinkers
W1. Pandemonium
W2. Vanacyr's Blade
W3. Sun of Corruption
W4. Nature's Curse
W5. Chaos Black
W6. Blood Rage
W8. Darker than Chaos

Things are quite interesting this time around as we have 7 battles. Besides one between Warriors of Chaos and High Elves, they all involved Vampire Counts.

Darker than Chaos (2800) vs Aeylan (2800)
Unholy Undead (3300) vs Vanacyr's Blade (2800)
Ghastly Fingers (2600) vs Blood Rage (2800)
Bloody Hooves (3200) vs Necro-Mongers (2800)
Herd of Rusty Fang (2500) vs Vampire Toothpick (2600)
Elendir (2600) vs Blood Drinkers (2600)
Samari (2800) vs Creeping Death (2800)

Chaos Samurai, Podcast and Battle Lore

First of all the second episode of War Journal: Flames of War is up at http://neaceul.podbean.com/ (you can also get it at iTunes). In our Off Topic segment we talk about the game Samurai Battles. This game has been occupying my attention lately and I wanted to go into a little more detail about it here as well as mention my future plans concerning it.

Samurai Battles is more of a board game that has miniatures than a more "traditional" miniature game that I normally play. It is actually two separate games: Art of Tactics and Command & Colors. When we were talking about how much we love the game, we were talking about Art of Tactics. At the time it was the only one of the two I had played and it was the reason I started buying packs. Since recording the podcast I have played BattleLore which uses the same system as Command & Colors so I now have an understanding of both games. While I enjoy Art of Tactics much more, I still think BattleLore/Command & Colors is a very fun game that plays much faster than Art of Tactics. Both systems is something I will be investing in.

Here is a short descriptions how each game plays. Both games uses multiple troops on a hex map board. In Art of Tactics models are place in trays to form units. How many models per tray is based on unit type. Each unit has its own stat card that describes what actions it can take and its game stats. If you have multiple units of the same type, each unit would need its own copy of that stat card. Each model in the unit attacks so casualties reduce the units effectiveness. At the beginning of each turn both players write down their orders for every unit in secret. When both are done, everything is reveal and all actions are resolve at the same time in a specific order. In Command & Colors models are usually group in units of four and are place directly on the hex map. The game map is split into three sections which is a major element of the game. There is a deck of cards called command cards. Each player has a hand of these command cards and at the beginning of their turn will play one. These command cards decides what units are able to act and after resolving those units actions the player will draw a replacement command card and it is now the next player's turn. The number of dice used for attacking is determine by unit type and its not affected by casualties unlike Art of Tactics. One model in the unit will carry a banner and they are the last one to die. When the banner model is lost, it is claimed by the opponent and count as victory points. The first player to reach a per-determined number of victory points wins the game. Here is a picture of how each game arranges its units:

Art of Tactics on the left, Command & Colors on the right

Any game that interest me enough to play more than once is a game I'm looking for ways I can craft stories with it through the use of campaigns. And it is no different for Samurai Battles. The story line I'm thinking about at this point is pretty simple. A Chaos force (and maybe a few other armies depending who I can get to join) invades a new land across the sea. This new land has its defenders but the power of Chaos is relentless and its touch is corrupting. Very bare bones now but it will be greatly expanded upon as my Chaos Lore grows. Now taking a story that has been portrayed with Warhammer Fantasy and then start using Samurai Battles with it is a multi-step process. The first step is to stay with Warhammer. Beside the 15 playable armies in the Warhammer game, Games Workshop has mention many more nations in the background that they have never given rules to. The blog site Warhammer Armies Project has made and playtested fan rules for many of these nations. Of the many armies they have up there, they have two that interest me; Nippon and Cathay. They are pretty much fantasy Japan and China respectively. Using their fan made Nippon rules I can play out the initial battles with the Warhammer Fantasy system. With the setting of the story move to one the that is based on historic Japan, using Samurai Battles to represent some of the battles makes sense, at least battles with no supernatural element. As for doing battles with supernatural elements, I have two options for that (besides just playing Warhammer). One is to create a magic system for Art of Tactics. I briefly talked about working on magic rules in the podcast and I think if done right would create some interesting games. The other options is to pick up another game, BattleLore Second Edition. BattleLore has a fantasy setting that is somewhat similar to Warhamer with knights, monsters and magic (even has their on version of Chaos). With a little work I should be able to adjust the Command & Color system of both BattleLore and Samurai Battles to have them work together.

This may seem like a lot of work just for a game and it is. However I think when done right campaigns adds so much to your average game that it will make all this work well worth it. Campaigns allow players to craft stories around their games and building a campaign upon the history of others makes the experience even richer. Another reason to make a campaign around three different games is that it will allow more people to be involved. My friends that would be interested in playing BattleLore and Samaurai Battles is mostly not the same group who would be interested in playing Warhammer Fantasy. This will allows my friends to share a gaming experience they normally wouldn't share together. Nevertheless I'm a ways off from being able to put this campaign together. I need to pick up more Samurai Battles figures, buy a copy of BattleLore Second Edition and build a decent size Nippon army from the ground up. I will be talking about this project off and on as I am sure a lot of these models will be up on my gallery page.

If any of the games I've talk about interest you, feel free to check them out at the links below.

Warhammer Fantasy
BattleLore Second Edition
Samurai Battles

Border Prince - Turn 13 Map

Dieter's Vampire Counts appears to be unstoppable. His forces crushed both Chaos banners. Despite all of Dieter's victories, Amendial is unafraid of the undead and a showdown between the two is inevitable. A confrontation that could lead to the future ruler of the Border Prince region.

B1. Bloody Hooves
B2. Bloody Sky
B3. Herd of Rusty Fang
B4. Graby Taz
H1. Amendial
H2. Elendir
H3. Elendrial
H4. Aeylan
H5. Tarwen
H6. Zarial
H7. Samari
H8. Fariel
H9. Basui
V1. Unholy Undead
V2. The Night Riders
V3. Ethereal Enemy
V4. Ghastly Fingers
V5. Creeping Death
V6. Death Dealers
V7. Death's Head
V8. Vampire Toothpick
V9. Necro-Mongers
V10. Blood Drinkers
W1. Pandemonium
W2. Vanacyr's Blade
W3. Sun of Corruption
W4. Nature's Curse
W5. Chaos Black
W6. Blood Rage
W7. Rage of the Dragon
W8. Darker than Chaos

This turn we have 4 battles all involving Vampire Counts. Beastmen and High Elves have one battle each while Warriors of Chaos has two battles against the undead.

Graby Taz (3100) vs Death's Dealers (2800)
Amendial (3300) vs Creeping Death (2800)
Unholy Undead (3300) vs Rage of the Dragon (2800)
Ghastly Fingers (2600) vs Nature's Curse (3200)

FoW Podcast

I've start co-working on a Flames of War podcast with Tracy George. Its called War Journal: Flames of War and we will talk about various subjects related to the game and our own personal twist to the hobby. The first episode is done and while its pretty rough I'm confident that over time our podcast will get better and sound more natural. You can listen to the podcast here: http://neaceul.podbean.com/.

Future episode will be out every other week. You can post comments or questions either here or at the address above.

We are now up on iTunes here.

Plague Angels

One of the reasons I enjoy this hobby is because good project ideas can come from your left over bits. My newest kitbash project came about in this way. This project has a bit of a story behind it that starts with the release of the latest Warriors of Chaos book. At the time I was more than a little miff that when the book came out Games Workshop also raised the price of Daemon Princes and Chaos Spawn boxes. Given that the new book made those models more or less mandatory, I was irritated enough to look for other models to use as my Daemon Prince. The only thing I found on the shelf of my local gaming store that I would consider were the Kings of War Basilean Elohi Troop. I like the look of angelic characters (both good and evil), and I figure I could painted them up with a fallen angel kind of look. I knew they came on 40 mm base. While the daemon prince is on 50 mm base, a lot of my models are big for the base they come with and I figure the Basilean Elohi being on a larger base wouldn't make them look too out of place. I was wrong. Opening up the box I quickly realize they were much smaller than I thought they were going to be. They were a little small for a 40 mm base so there was no way I could make them look okay on a 50 mm base. At least not as an army centerpiece. That means at the time I had no use for the models so the Elohi got thrown into my miniature closet. The King of War's boxes make good traveling cases so I had the Basilean Elohi Troop box around for carrying various models. Now fast forward to today. Recently I pick up Games Workshop new Putrid Blightkings. It a nice kit with many options. Looking through my options while being near my Elohi carrying case, I realize I should enough left over bits from making the Blightkings to convert the Elohi into something resembling Nurgle like angels. They both are on 40 mm bases so I don't have my previous issue with the Elohi.

Once I make my Plague Angels the question will be what do I use them for. Probably the most common answer will be as extra Blightking models. But that is really just the beginning. In campaigns down the road I have the opportunity to write storylines and rules around them. Writing up new fluffy will no doubt lead to new interesting ideas that I could add to the angels. I've been in campaigns before where I could have made custom units and it would be nice to have something ready next time. But all this for now is in the future. I have a few other things to work on before I can get to the Plague Angels, among them is my custom Hell Cannon. Progress on the Angels and Hell Cannon will be up on a gallery page. For now here is a picture of the boxes to the Putrid Blightkings and the Basilean Elohi Troop.

Border Prince - Turn 12 Map

This was a depressing turn for Warriors of Chaos. Chaos lost all three battles with Chaos Black being pushed back a territory. Vanacyr's Blade and Sun of Corruption on the other hand were completely crushed and scattered back to the capital. Vanacyr is on her back foot now. Chaos huge empire is now beginning to slowly deteriorate.

B1. Bloody Hooves
B2. Bloody Sky
B3. Herd of Rusty Fang
B4. Graby Taz
H1. Amendial
H2. Elendir
H3. Elendrial
H4. Aeylan
H5. Tarwen
H6. Zarial
H7. Samari
H8. Fariel
V1. Unholy Undead
V2. The Night Riders
V3. Ethereal Enemy
V4. Ghastly Fingers
V5. Creeping Death
V6. Death Dealers
V7. Death's Head
V8. Vampire Toothpick
V9. Necro-Mongers
V10. Blood Drinkers
W1. Pandemonium
W2. Vanacyr's Blade
W3. Sun of Corruption
W4. Nature's Curse
W5. Chaos Black
W6. Blood Rage
W7. Rage of the Dragon
W8. Darker than Chaos

This turn the campaign is settling in on having two fronts. One in the south that pits Vampire Counts against Warriors of Chaos for the very survival of Vanacyr's presence in the Border Prince. The other is the Beastmen and High Elf alliance pushing deep into Dieter Geheimnisnacht's territory. We have a battle on each of these fronts. In the north the Beastmen Bloody Hooves at 3700 points attack the Vampire Counts Creeping Death at 3400 points. In the south Warriors of Chaos Blood Rage launch their own attack against Dieter's very own Unholy Undead. Blood Rage has 3000 points while Unholy Undead has 3300.

Border Prince - Turn 11 Map

Amazing enough at this point in the campaign that there were no battles during Turn 10. Turn 11 was a different story

B1. Bloody Hooves
B2. Bloody Sky
B3. Herd of Rusty Fang
B4. Graby Taz
H1. Amendial
H2. Elendir
H3. Elendrial
H4. Aeylan
H5. Tarwen
H6. Zarial
H7. Samari
V1. Unholy Undead
V2. The Night Riders
V3. Ethereal Enemy
V4. Ghastly Fingers
V5. Creeping Death
V6. Death Dealers
V7. Death's Head
V8. Vampire Toothpick
V9. Necro-Mongers
W1. Pandemonium
W2. Vanacyr's Blade
W3. Sun of Corruption
W4. Nature's Curse
W5. Chaos Black
W6. Blood Rage
W7. Rage of the Dragon
W8. Darker than Chaos

As you can see Turn 11 has 3 battles, all of which involves Warriors of Chaos. The banners and point totals of each is as follows:

Unholy Undead (3300) vs Sun of Corruption (3000)
Elendrial (2600) vs Chaos Black (2800)
Elendir (2800) vs Vanacyr's Blade (2800)