Hobby Sunday 14/05/17- Vampire Counts Bases

This week, I have been finishing off the bases for some of the units in my Vampire Counts. 

First up, we have the Terrorgheist. I had planned to get this finished in March as part of Monster March, but my boarding injury put paid to that! However, it is now complete. I hope to get some games of Age of Sigmar in with this, to see how impressive he is on the table. 

Hobby Sunday 07/05/17- Terrorgheist and Ghouls

Hobby Sunday returns with some continuing work some of my Vampire Counts army. 

First up, I was able to flock the base of my Terrorgheist. Once dry, this will be given a drybrush of Bubonic Brown and Bleached Bone, followed by some static grass. This will bring it in to line with the rest of my army. 

Monster March- Week 1

Welcome to my first week update for Monster March. 

Monster March is an event being run by Swordmaster from the Path of an Outcast blog. I decided that after the success of Squaduary, I would sign up for another painting event. 

I pledged my Terrorgheist for the challenge. I bought this model around 2 years ago, but had yet to paint it. Monster March would be a great opportunity to do so. 

Week 1 was supposed to be for assembling the model. As I already had it assembled, I decided to make a start on painting it. This helps me, as I am away on holiday for a week during Monster March, so can make up for lost time. You can check out the first update post for Monster March over on Swordmaster's blog. 

Monster March!- Path of an Outcast Hobby Challenge

Today, I wanted to highlight another awesome hobby challenge that I will be taking part in next month- Monster March!

I had a lot of fun taking part in Squaduary (run by Rory over at Stepping Between Games), painting up my Veterans squad and seeing all the other hobby content by the many participants. 

Monster March is a hobby challenge to get a monster model painted up over March. The event is being run by Swordmaster over at Path of an Outcast. These monthly challenges are a great way to dust off your unpainted pile collection and show some love to a model that has been waiting a while to get painted. 

I decided to sign up with my Terrorgheist for my Vampire Counts army. This model was purchased back in March 2015, so has been two years with only being assembled! With my plans to get back into Age of Sigmar, I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to finally finish it. 

So, head over to Swordmaster's introduction post and sign up if you are interested in taking part. It doesn't have to be limited to Age of Sigmar. There are various different game systems you could pledge a model for, even the 40k universe has a range of great monsters that could take part. 

Please be sure to check out all the Monster March posts next month. These events are great for building the blogging community and finding and following new blogs. Also, be sure to check out and follow Path of an Outcast. This is a brilliant blog that focuses on Kings of War, with some great battle reports, and Swordmaster has recently started posting some fantastic hobby posts. 

Hobby Season 2015/2016- A Review

With Dave (Confessions of a 40k addict) recently putting out the call for the 2016/2017 hobby season, this seemed like the perfect time to review my progress from the previous hobby year, based on my list of goals that I made up at this time last year. 

1. Run a 40k Campaign

Done and done! This year, I ran the Medusa IV map campaign at my local gaming club. The 17campaign has recently come to a close, lasting almost an entire year! It featured up to 17 players in total and featured over a hundred battles to decide the fate of the Imperial sector. I will need to write up the final turn of the campaign and then do a review of it and where it could be improved.

Hobby Sunday 29/05/16- Spirit Hosts and Zombies

Back in August last year, I made a series of hobby goals for the upcoming year (based on Dave's series over on Confessions of a 40k addict). Recently, Rob posted his updated hobby goals and how he was getting on with them as the season comes to a close.

 

Thinking of my own hobby goals, I have achieved quite a few of the ones on the list, but none of my goals related to painting have even been touched this year. One of my goals was to get my Vampire Counts army finished. With the release of Age of Sigmar, I am unlikely to purchase much more for my Vampire Counts army, so thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get the rest of my army finished and actually have a completed army!

 

I had a look to see what still needed to be done and managed to get my remaining models undercoated in black last weekend. In order to complete my Vampire Counts army, I will need to paint up:

• 40 Zombies
• 20 Crypt Ghouls
• 3 Crypt Horrors
• 3 Spirit Hosts
• 10 Dire Wolves
• 20 Grave Guard
• Terrorgheist
• Necromancer
• Mounted Wight King

This is obviously a lot to do and I doubt I will get it finished before August (I have quite a few White Scars Scouts and transports to get painted before a tournament in July). While waiting for my White Scars units to arrive, I thought I would get started on some of the units in my undead pile.

Battle Report 38- 2000 pts Vampire Counts vs Empire

This week's report features the first Warhammer Fantasy battle report that I have featured on the blog. My Vampire Counts army were awoken from their slumber of over 18 months to face their ancient enemy, the Empire, commanded by David.
 

I was looking forward to this game, as I had not played fantasy in a long time and was keen to get back into the universe. We were playing a standard 2000pts game of 8th edition at the Dundee Wargames Club.


Since the blog and my battle reports are primarily focussed on 40k, I'm not too sure how much of an overlap there is between 40k and fantasy players these days. Throughout the report, I will try and explain some of the aspects of fantasy for those unfamiliar with it. Apologies to anyone who is well aware of the rules of fantasy (probably much more so than I am), you can skip the explanations and get on with the action.

 

My army consisted of:

Vampire Lord- Armour of Destiny, Ogre Blade, Quickblood, Red Fury, Shield, Level 3 wizard. (with Z)

Necromancer- Master of the Dead, Level 2 wizard, Dispel Scroll (with SW1)

Necromancer- Level 2 wizard, Book of Arkhan (with SW2)

 

25 Skeleton warriors- Spears, Shields, Full Command (SW1)

25 Skeleton warriors- Hand Weapons, Shields, Full Command (SW2)

40 Zombies- Standard Bearer (Z)

5 Dire Wolves (DW1)

5 Dire Wolves (DW2)

10 Black Knights- Heavy Armour, Shield, Barding, Lances, Full Command (BK)

3 Crypt Horrors (CH)

3 Spirit Host (SH)

Corpse Cart- Unholy Lodestone (CC)

Terrorgheist (T)

First up, my army is led by a Vampire Lord. This is a very tough combat character, as well as being a magic user, not very common in fantasy armies. He is armed with a shield and the Armour of Destiny, giving him a 4+ armour save and 4+ ward save. What is different in fantasy is that a ward save is an invulnerable save that can be taken in addition to an armour save, adding to his durability. He is also armed with an Ogre Blade, giving him +2S. He also has the vampiric upgrades of Quickblood and Red Fury, allowing him to always strike first in combat and get additional attacks for every wound he makes in combat. I also upgraded him to a level 3 wizard. He is a very tough character who provides valuable buffs to a Vampire Counts army.

I like a lot of magic in my army, it is pretty much essential in an Undead army as it provides serious bonuses to them. I took two level 2 Necromancers. One has the master of the dead upgrade, allowing you to raise skeleton units above their starting level and a dispel scroll, allowing you to counter your opponent's magic phase. The second Necromancer took the Book of Arkhan, a magic item that allows me to cast Vanhel's Danse Macabre (I will come to this below).

Vampire Counts Army Showcase

This week's battle report on the blog will be a first, in that it will be a fantasy game featuring my Vampire Counts. Before that, I thought I would get to something I have been meaning to do for a while and showcase my vampire counts army.

I first got into the Undead back in 5th edition, with White Dwarf 211 that showcased the new Undead studio army and gave an in-depth tutorial on how to paint skeletons using the Eavy Metal method. The new studio army looked so good that it tempted me to the black arts and my budding undead army began. My love of the models was further cemented when they released the Red Baron vampire lord model, which I thought was (and still is) an amazing model.

With the release of End Times, I decided to get back in to fantasy as I always loved the Undead and Nagash. I chose the Vampire Counts over the Tomb Kings as I preferred the aesthetic of the Vampire Counts over the Tomb Kings (but do miss my Screaming Skull catapults and Chariots). Fortunately, the rules for End Times allow a combined Undead army, so if I really wanted, I could have them in my army.

When I re-started my collection, the first model I had to purchase was the Vampire Lord. This is still a great model to me, and I was glad I picked it up again. I decided to have a green colour scheme to my army to contrast the bone of the skeletons (plus, almost all my armies have some form of green colour scheme).

St Andrews Wargaming- 2015 in Review

As 2015 draws to a close, I thought I would take the opportunity to look at what has happened in the past year with respect to my hobbying. So put your feet up, grab the leftover turkey and join me in reminiscing over the past 12 months.

Have a random picture that in no way represent this post.

The Blog

By far the biggest change in my hobbying for this year was starting this very blog you are reading right now (or at least, quickly skimming through until you find something of interest).

Despite playing 40k for over 10 years now, I have only become a recent active member on the online community. It is only in the past 18 or so months that I have become a more active member of 40k online. I used to read the occasional blog or rumour site online to keep up to date with what was happening, but never dreamed of commenting on any posts or articles, never mind starting my own blog.
That all changed when I became more active in the St Andrews University gaming club. I became the wargames rep for a year and starting running a campaign and organising apocalypse games within the club. As part of the campaign, I started sending out weekly updates to the group with battle reports of my games that week. I started wanting to share my opinions on gaming with others, to highlight some of the terrain projects that I had been working on and to comment on some of the changes to 40k that were happening.
This all came to a head when I signed up to attend Blog Wars 9. Since I would be attending Blog Wars, I decided that I wanted to have my own blog. It was something I had been thinking about for a while and finally took the plunge in April. Fortunately, I had the club's upcoming apocalypse game as a nice starting point for the blog, allowing me to showcase a huge battle in my first few posts.

I want to give a big shout out to Dave (Confessions of a 40k addict) and Alex (From the Fang) for their advice on starting the blog and for the continued inspiration that their blogs provide. It's highly unlikely you are not aware of their blogs, but if you are not, check them out.

I have found that having the blog has been a huge boost to my own hobby progress. Wanting to share my progress on projects and games has led me to spend a lot more time on 40k than I have been previously; playing on a regular basis, actually getting stuff painted in a timely fashion, attending tournaments for the first time in over a decade, reading and commenting on many of the fantastic blogs I follow. Having the blog has given me a lot of excitement towards 40k at the moment, and I hope it continues into the future.

Age of Sigmar- Battle Report and First Impressions

I know, I know, I'm a little late to the party with the Age of Sigmar, I've just been enjoying the new Space Marine and Dark Angels codex too much to get in to it. I finally got round to playing my first game of Age of Sigmar at the club last week against Matt's Orcs and Goblins.

 

My army consisted of:

Vampire Lord

Necromancer

9 Black Knights

3 Crypt Horrors

30 Zombies- standard bearer

20 Skeletons- Champion, Standard bearer, Musician

Corpse Cart

 

I took a nice mix of troops and heros from the war scrolls to try and have a bit of variety for my first game.

 

Matt's army consisted of:

Orc Warboss

Orc Shaman

18 Boarboyz

27 Wolf Riders

2 Stonethrowers

Doom Diver

Spear Chukka

Giant

 

Some fast moving units and a lot of shooting to go up against.



Battlefield