Warmaster Battle Report - 500p Wacky Warmaster - Game One

Hello all,

So – Wacky Warmaster. Two games. How did it go? It was brilliant :-).

We managed to play two fun and fast games in four hours with plenty of time for word-bashing each others and drinking plenty of beer.

The rules were basically that each player made two different 500 points lists from any army list but without any of the normal min/max stuff and a free LD 9 general.

Although I feel most of the lists could have been even wackier it was fun to try this out – so much so that our next gaming night will be featuring the same rules – so Wacky Warmaster II :-).

I was planning on doing the whole battle report thing on Battlechronicler – but this hitherto brilliant free program seems to have a serious bug at the moment and wouldn’t let me do any reporting. So instead this will be a picture heavy brief walk through of the first battle. The second will follow soonish.

The armies drawn for the first game were my KaBooom army (all cannons), an infantry heavy Teutonic Order list and Imperial Romans:

My Kabooom!!! (4x Heavy Cannons and 4x Normal cannons)

Uffe’s Teuonic Order (1x Brother Knight, 2x Light Horses, 3x Crossbowmen, 1x Spearmen)

Per’s Romans (1x Vet. Legion, 1xLegion, 2x Archers, 2x Cavalry, 1x Onager, 1xPortent)

First, please say “Hi” to the gang!

From the left it is Uffe (aka Lenin, always plays Teutonic Order), Per (aka grumpy, usually plays Cathagians but thinks the grass is greener elsewhere), and my two sons (aka Wacky and Wackier).

Oh, and the wifey also sneaked into a picture, and that is me on the other side of my eldest son.

The first two turns were dominated by my Heavy Cannons raining down shots left and right, destroying stands and causing tons of havoc.

This was worsened by the Romans failing all orders and the Teutons getting so confused by the heavy cannon balls that they couldn’t get out of the starting boxes. 

All going according to my master plan!

Unfortunately the Teutons kept trying to advance, and got the Light horses into a threatening position.

Luckily I managed to blow them away, but my position was by now severely out of order and both opponents were concentrating mainly on my poor cannons. (Maybe I was shouting KabOOOM a bit too loudly?).

And then disaster struck.

A single unit of Roman Heavy cavalry manages to get within striking distance and with a couple of lucky orders charges right into my artillery bunker.

And in a few seconds half my army is shredded by angry Roman elite cavalry and I break. Sadly. But I had great fun shooting all those shots.

 

By now the Roman player had redirected most of his army towards the Teutons, who were shellshocked and kept failing orders, even though they desperately needed to redirect their facing and get stuck into the enemy.

Unfortunately they do not manage to do so and are instead charged by the Roman cavalry.

The Brother Knights in the background played no role in the game as the Onager early on managed to get an angle wherein it would force them into impassable terrain (forest) whereby they would become auto-confused. They never moved forward in the entire game…(cowards).

After a few rounds of combat the depleted Teutonic Crossbowmen are forced to surrender and the Roman Cavalry have won the day. Almost by themselves having destroyed and broken two armies!

A resounding victory for the Romans.

My own force was great fun – but apart from sowing confusion not that effective. I never destroyed an entire unit and only took out a stand here and there (3x Light Horse, 1x Vet.Legion, 2x Crossbowmen) and, as predicted, once someone reached my cannons I was destroyed quicker than something very quick. The other forces were nice but still fairly balanced and they had fun as well – the Onager is a brilliant piece of artillery but if the Teutons had just had a bit more luck with their dice rolling the game would have been much closer!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures and please do try this concept of Wacky Warmaster at your club, home, airport – it is absolutely wicked fun and promises to become even more so in the future :-). 

Best regards,

Kasper

EDIT: Forgot the casulty list:
Kasper: 2x Heavy Cannons (150), 2½x Cannons (125) = 275 and BROKEN!
Uffe: 2½x Crossbowmen (140), ½ Light Horse (35) = 175 (and almost Broken!)
Per: ½ Roman Heavy Cavalry = 40
Thats pretty impressive!

Wacky Warmaster - more lists

Hello all,
two more lists for tonights Warmaster bash - not the wackiest but one is hard as rock and if you knew the guy who made the lists you would appreciate just how different the second is from his usual armies. Four infantry units is something he would normally avoid fielding in even an 1500 points army....
:-):

Band of Brothers:
3x Brother Knights (3x145)
1x Crossbowmen (1x 45)
total: 490 and a BP of 2 (!)

Band of Searchers:
1x Brother Knights (1x 145)
2x Light Horses (2x 45)
1x Spearmen (pavisse) (50)
3x crossbowmen (3x 55)
Total: 500 and a BP of 4

Looking forward to the last lists and the bash itself :-).
Best regards,
Kasper

Wacky Warmaster - the first lists

Hello all,
as mentioned earlier we are having a bit of a wacky warmaster bash. The rules can be found here, but it is really just 500 points of units from one army list but with no rules.
I finished my two lists yesterday and here they are:

List 1 - "This is SPARTAAAA!"

5x Spartan Bodyguard: 400
1x Sacred Band: 70
1x Skirmishers: 30
500 points with a BP of only 3 (inspiration credit goes to Simon, thanks!)

List 2 - "KaBOOOOM!"

4x Heavy Cannons: 300p
4x Cannons: 200p
500 points with a BP of 4.

Two very diverse armies... If you do have any quick feedback or ideas, please do tell - there is still time to change the lists :-). The tactic of each should be evident - see any elephants shoot them down or kill them with your superior skills.
I think those are the two hardest and weirdest and wackiest lists that I could field. Gonna be fun! I will be back with the other four lists...

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 27 - Clanrats

Hello all,
A few more skavens - this time some clanrats or nightrunners. I really loved those plastic sets - it was so much fun putting those rats together and the diversity was brilliant.

Beware the flailing rats!

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 26 - Wounded Skaven 074406/14

Hello all,
well if 13 is the sacred Skaven number - wouldn't 26 at least carry some importance for the little critters? If so I guess we should feature something special for the 26th post in this cavalcade of old models...

 A dead skaven! That must be pretty special - something not seen everyday in Skaven society. Oh, wait, actually there would probably be more dead skaven lying around than cheesy Lizardmen armies at a large tournament. Anyways, I have no idea where this casulty model is from but I have always appreciated that instead of just being dead, the rat is clearly dead in battle - he is missing his right arm and clutching the remains of a spear in his chest.

 The scavenging vermin move in to feed on its larger and more evolved cousin.

Not that special I know but I am running out of pictures that have been uploaded. I guess I will have to bring up a new batch from the basement soon.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 25 - Skaven Heroes

Hello all,

A few heroic (if such a thing is possible?) Skavens today.

The rat on the left is (apart from the rather huge Skaven head, which makes me regret not having known about Green stuff at the time :-)) mainly one of the oldest models I own. It came with the first roleplaying Game I ever read and owned (I think it was called "Drager og Dæmoner" (Dragons and Demons) and was made in Sweden?).

With the starter set came this rather small fighter. the head was terrible but I have always loved the pose - so I guess that was enough for me to give him a new head, and let him be a unit champion.

 The other guy is again a Harlequin model and once again a brilliant model. A lot of character in him and I love the epaulets on his shoulders. The sword.... well apparently it wasn't only GW who sculpted massively overdimensioned swords :-). With one of the newer barbed swords he would look excellent I feel.

 Oh - and just for fun - here is an old cowboy model - probably the first human I painted. Not the best skintone, looks a bit zombie-ish...

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 24 - Skaven Sorcerers

Hello all,
A few more Skavens today - two more of the sorcerers that I think are from the old Harlequin fantasy line, now apparently sold by Black Tree Design. "Ver'men" they are called. I cannot find them on their website so perhaps the moulds broke or something similar.
These are small but very nice models and, at the time, provided a cheaper alternative that also provided some diversity to the Skaven.

 Pretty gloomy characters, but very nice. Unfortunately one of the horns have broken of.

Best regards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 23 - Clan Eshin

Hello all,
as the weekend disappears so do the Eshins are performing their evil deeds...
Wasn't that an artistic introdution? Let's just see a two more of my old nightcrawlers and a group shot:

 The one with a club and net has always been a favorite of mine - looks more likely to maul someone in a backstreet than to sneak around. Even the eyepatch is cool :-)

Brilliant models.

Best regaards,
Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 22 - Clan Eshin

Hello all - while I would still love suggestions for the "Wacky Warmaster Challenge", there is plenty of Skaven images to get through, so to speak.

This time it is time for those deadly ninjas of Clan Eshin. I alwys loved how the authors got ninjas into the warhammerian and Skaven lore - a lost clan, heads east and becomes ninjas; simpel and effective :-).

The old models (the ones below) were really diverse and each felt "alive", i.e. had equipment and a style that set him apart from other vermin. I really enjoyed that. Also they do not look like organised soldiers at all, the ninja "warfare" style is really predominant.

 I love how individual these two are (even though it clearly is the same model used as a base). The barbed net is brilliant and so is the sling - although that is a pretty massive slingshotstone :-). What was the rule for nets? Extra armour save or something?

More Eshins next time.

Also, I found this LLH cartoon which really represents my attitude towards GW. I really want their minis but, golly, they are expensive!

Anyways, all the best,
Kasper

Wacky Warmaster - 500 points of radical thinking

Greetings all!

Apart from reliving my years of collecting Skaven, I am a warmaster player at heart. So, given that I am teaching at the University of Greenland for a few weeks and do not have the time to do any serious wargaming, we decided in our small gaming group to do something different for a quick evening worth of Warmastering.

The idea is that instead of playing one, normal and time consuming, game we will have some fun with smaller armies. Back when we began Warmaster we had a series of evenings with 500ish point armeis, just to get into the rules and armies. And these were brilliant fun - fast and furious, and very unpredictable.

So we are back to 500 points, but this time with a, perhaps foolish, twist.

The plan and challenge for "Wacky Warmaster" is that we will play two games, using two different armies.

These armies should be below 500 points (but with a free LD 9 general) and apart from having to choose from one armylist, no further restrcitions apply!

So, for instance one could field 500 points worth of warbands, Falx units or something similar.

My question is: what would you field? What army would be the best and most extreme that you can dream up?

My thinking at the moment is that the armies should be extreme; i.e. only one thing, but taken to an extreme. 

Current suggestions and ideas centre on armies of two elephant units and some light cavalry; only mounted English Longbowmen or perhaps only Roman elite legionaries.

I do have one or two secret ideas that are currently on the top of my list - but there are spies ("Spies, Spies everywhere, I tell you!") on the internet so I might keep them secret until the day arrives.

But I welcome any wacky and fun and efficient ideas - so set free your imagination and let me know what you dream up. The games will of course be featured in battlereports on this site - so if your armylist is picked you might see it in action as well :-).

All the best,
Kasper

Reaching new hights (with Chain Mail Bikini Babes)

Hello all - a small pause in the Skaven horde of pictures today. 

Yesterday evening I checked the always entertaining Google Statistics for this blog and, lo and behold, the site has reached a cornerstone in any blogs existence: over 10.000 visitors (not pageviews which is a lot more, naturally, but visitors). 

 I am pretty happy about all your visits and would like to thank all of you and especially the ever-increaing number of people who decide to follow my ramblings. I hope they do not bore you and the last months detour into Skaven-models have not scared anyone away. 

When work permits I will return with more Warmaster Battle report - Google knows, the net needs more of those!

Chainmail Bikini Babes, and I do hope I have not offended anyone - these are merely a service to all those who stop by the blog to find exactly this. And to lessen their disappointment :-). And to compensate everyone else for having had to look at a picture of a freezing me below. (Thanks to armourdude for sharing the picture).

There are of course some pretty interesting facts hidden in all the statistics from Google. The one I giggle the most about is that the fifth most common search words that lead people here are some combination of "Bikini", "Babe", "Chainmail" and "Amazon". While I enjoy a bikini-babe as much as anyone else, the few posts I did concerning the fun little painting excursion into the Amazon 10mm warriors (way back) still generates load of hits. 

How disapointed most of them must feel when they look at my bad paintjob on "babes" the size of their fingernails :-). But, should any of them have become addicted to these pages I feel like rewarding them with a picture of a pair of sisters who definately may be called "Chain Mail Bikini Babes" (and Google knows there are a lot of them on the internet...):

But the most popular posts are by far the Warmaster battle reports and judging from the time you guys spend on those pages it really seems you read everything on them - so our mistakes are made public, but I hope they entertain and perhaps lure a few more people to the Dark Side of wargaming (10mm).

Even though I always hope for a few more comments, I must say that I really appreciate those who do comment and the number of page hits and the comments that are made, really encourage me to continue this blog.  

I also noticed that while the "western"-countries do dominate the picture of where vistors come from, there are quite a few visits (and not only Bikini-babe-visitors) from more exotic areas such as North Korea, Mongolia and Sri Lanka. If any readers stems from such countries, please drop me a line about how the gaming situation is there and how you stumbled across this site.

The blog author, on top of a mountain outside Nuuk. The highest and coldest point I have been in a long while - nicely coinciding with the 10.000th visitor to the blog. BTW - that thing I am holding? It is a Geocahche, a brilliant little worldwide game that I really recommend checking out if you do not know it (Geocaching.com). The bottle represents a little tresure someone hid on top of the mountain half a year ago, and I became the first to find it - pretty proud about that :-).

Anyhow - thanks for all the visits, comments and a good year of blogging - I hope you will all continue to enjoy this blog.

Best regards,

Kasper

Old Skaven Madness - part 21 - Grey Seer and Slaves

Hello all - more Skavens!

This time it is "only" Grey Seer Lord Snik-Snak, the religious and factual leader of my old Skaven Clan Ressak. 

Although he is pigmentally-challenged he is a Grey Seer (as he will tell you in a very, very violent way). He suffered the change in skin after a failed ritual and was thrown out of the "guild" due to his lack of Greyness. As a result he has become even more of a religious maniac and has more or less taken over the entire clan as his own, leading it in a very fanatical way.

 Ive always¨loved this model (I think it is an old Grey Seer - but very aggressive in its stance) but wanted one with additional handweapons, often a magic sword or similar, and had to do a few hand swaps.
EDIT: The cold must have gotten to my brain - this is, of course, the old Thanquol model (cool special character and brilliant rules).

 At the time I quite liked the horns (tyranidoid origin if I remember correctly) but today I would judge them as just a wee bit too large :-).

 As a "Aprils fool" day- special here is a shot of a champion and standard bearer from one of the slave units. BTW I would love if someone could tell me what the new rules are about these slaves - I keep hearing something about them blowing up?

Thats it for today - its -10 degrees (plus a strong wind) and snowing here in Nuuk, Greenland, and I´ve decided to climb a mountain tomorrow! Wish me luck!
Best regards,
Kasper