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Kessler

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  1. Kessler

    Firebelly painted

    By Kessler,

    After long pause, after painting lots of Blood Bowl miniatures I bought new Feast of Bones box - ogor half of it. Plus Great Mawpot.
    I started painting them, converted some into Ironguts, Hunter and added Firebelly to the tribe.  I painted Firebelly first, there is small upcoming painting contest and I wanted to try out object source lighting. It took some time and I cannot say I'm content with it, but it's best I could. As an additional remark -  I haven't painted many finecast models, but this will be my last. Such a pain! Parts didn't fit together, a nightmare to cut it from the sprue and clean it, plus it had really uneven surface.
    Now new Tyrant, the Pot and some ogors to go.





  2. Kessler

    Blood Bowl teams

    By Kessler,

    I've really been into Blood Bowl and played/painted AOS much less, so here are my teams so far (2 on them commission, not based). If the upcoming Wood Elves team is nice, that's my next project.







    Edit: and for the record I added my Wood Elves team as well.

    Finally a shot from little Street Bowl league with StreetBowl Cup:

  3. Kessler
    After having played mostly Gutbusters/Beastclaw in AOS, of course I had to try to play Ogre team in Blood Bowl! At first only online, but now I finally finished tabletop ogre team.
    I didn´t like any available ogre models, so I bought 5 regular human GW ogres plus Grak and Crumbleberry from ebay and kitbashed/converted them into different positions. Not much - I changed the heads and arm positions, also replaced one hand with Orc Thrower hand. Just minor changes, but overall look became quite different! Then I painted them in simple colour scheme, but added orange beards to pop out.
    Runts are mixture of Ogors gnoblars and 40K Gretchins.  Both ogres and runts came out much better than I hoped!










  4. Kessler
    Battleplan: Knife to the Heart
    Armies: Beasclaw vs Ironjaws
    Points: 2000
    Ironjaws
    1 Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (Ethereal Amulet)
    1 Megaboss
    1 Grot Shaman
    10 Brutes
    5 Brutes
    3 Gore Gruntas
    10 Ardboys
    10 Ardboys
    +Redtooth and Brutefist or something battalions and Maw endless spell
    Beastclaw Raiders:
    Allegiance: Beastclaw Raiders (Shyish)
    Frostlord on Stonehorn (420)
    - Artefact: Ethereal Amulet
    Huskard on Thundertusk (360)
    - General
    - Trait: Everwinter's Master
    - Pelt of Charngar
    4 x Mournfang Pack (320)
    - Gargant Hackers
    2 x Mournfang Pack (160)
    - Gargant Hackers
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
    2 x Mournfang Pack (160)
    2 x Frost Sabres (40)
    Braggoth's Beast Hammer (230)
    Total: 1970 / 2000
    Pre-battle strategy: Opponent left 20xArdboys and 5 Brutes to his objective and other units to the right. Seeing I had no chance to break through that 55 wound Save 4+ wall even with ALL my army attacking it, I went for minor victory. Put 2 non-battalion mournfangs to the left to bait the Brutes to charge and then counter charge and attack from the wings.
    1st ROUND
    Beastclaw:  had to go first. Did not do much, just moved some inches and used Huskard's bird.
    Ironjaws:  Shaman Mystic Shielded Brutes and moved to the right with Gruntas, Brutes and both Megabosses. Others just huddled around the objective.
    2nd ROUND
    Ironjaws: I won the initiative roll, but Beastclaw is too slow to get to charge range, so I gave initiative to orruks. Brutes, Gruntas and Megabosses moved forward, Brutes and Gruntas were close enough to make the charges. Brutes charged my two non-battalion Mournfang and blocked the from Gruntas. Brutes attacked, two guys with special weapons killed both Mournfang with ease. Brutes reroll all misses against Beastclaw.
    Beastclaw: Didn't get to re-roll wounds, moved 3" instead. Used a bird against Maw-Krusha, Huskard iced 1 Grunta - actually I wanted to kill Brutes, but just said the wrong unit name...
    Moved Frostsabres to block Grunta move to objective,
    2 Mournfangs and 3 Beastclaw Gruntas charged Brutes, Frostlord charged Maw-Krusha, did 5 mortal wounds. Frostlord attacked, could not kill Maw-Krusha, regardless of +1 to hit and re-rolling 1s to wound. But finally killed him thanks to battalion one time power to attack once more.
    Brutes killed Mournfangs and wounded Gruntas. Megabosses attacked Frostlord, almost killed him due to my rolling seven 1s and two 2s. Great...
    My Gruntas kill two Brutes.
    3rd ROUND
    Ironjaws: Didn't win priority. Ironjaws killed one Grunta with Maw endless spell, which left a hole for Brutes, who retreated to my objective and had more models than me around it, so MAJOR LOSS for Beastclaw.
    SUMMARY: Cannot really see how to win that battle plan with Beastclaw. Just not enough bodies and not enough damage output. Maybe just stay arounf my own objective and hope for kill points.
    My clear mistake was leaveng the hole for Brutes to retreat. Even 1 model would have blocked it, but my Huskard was just a bit too far away. Also half of my army was too far away and could not keep pace with Ironjaws - I know it sounds weird, but Beastclaw is not really fast army. 9 inch move is nice, but no boosting whatsoever, Ironjaws clearly outpaced them and in last game the Breyherd did the same.
    I think next time I might try to exchange Huskard and cats against second Frostlord. Or Troggoth Hag.
  5. Kessler
    I finally finished my Troggoth Hag. Very nice model, but a pain to put together - lots of mold lines and hands didn't fit together at all, plus the joints left great gaps. I used a lot of greenstuff to fill in the gaps and make it okay to look at.
    But otherwise the model has many opportunities to try out different painting techniques and colour scemes. Blending the belly, trying to give everything slight greenish tinge was very challenging. 
    Base is Deathworld Forest with Athonian Camoshade, drybrushed with Karak Stone and Ushabti Bone highlights. Slough is Averland Sunset plus Reikland Fleshshade, tipped with watered down Ushabti Bone. Bag is covered with several layers of green glaze.
    I'm pretty happy with scales - Sotek Green with Biel-tan Green shade and lightly drybrushed with Leadbelcher. The latter gives metallic shine to scales. It's not seen on pictures, but if you turn the model, then the shine "moves"; so that sometimes you don't see metallic at all and scales are greenish-blue, but at some places there is metallic shine.
     






  6. Kessler
    There is an upcoming small 1000 point tournament, so no Braggoth Beast Hammer this time, but for a long time I have wanted to paint and play the Troggoth Hag. So I squeezed her into my 1000 points and had a couple of test games. Both against Ironjaws and with slightly different lists. First game we played the scoring wrong and it was a short game, second was bloodbath. No pictures, because Troggoth Hag has not arrived yet, so I used a proxy. Summary is at the end.
    1st game
    Battleplan: Scorched Earth
    Armies: Destruction vs Ironjaws
    Points: 1000
    Ironjaws:
    1 Weirdnob Shaman
    2 x Warchaner
    10 x Brutes
    20 x Ardboys

    Troggoth Hag Destruction:
    Allegiance: Destruction
    Troggoth Hag, general, Might is Right, Rockeye
    Grot Shaman
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas
    10 x Orruks
    10 x Orruks
    1 x Grot Rock Lobber

    Pre-battle strategy: use 1 unit of Orruks for holding an objective, put Rock Lobber on center objective to score points and bombard enemy heroes, be on the defence with line of Orruks and keep Troggoth behing them to stop first charge, the puke and pile in. Gore Grutas as mobile distraction/sacrificial units/small tarpits.
    I t was a rather short game:
    First round I moved a little, positioned my Orruks and Troggoth a bit, moved my Gruntas a bit. Ironjaws ran forward, except 20 Ardboys who were just sitting around due to Mystical terrain.
    Second round 10 Brutes charged my Gruntas, one was left standing. Troggoth's vomit was pretty good, but failed with all her casting rolls. Rock Lobber killed the Warchanter.
    Third round Troggoth killed some more Brutes, failed casting roll and at the end of the round it was clear that Ironjaws have lost pointwise.
     
    2nd game was longer and the lists a bit different:
    Battleplan: Knife to the Heart
    Armies: Destruction vs Ironjaws
    Points: 1000
    Ironjaws:
    1 Weirdnob Shaman
    1 x Warchaner
    10 x Brutes
    10 x Ardboys
    4 x Ironskull's Boys
    3 x Fellwater Troggoths (they really should be in MY list!)

    Troggoth Hag Destruction:
    Allegiance: Destruction
    Troggoth Hag, general, Might is Right, Rockeye
    12 x Ogors with two clubs
    3 x Ogors with two clubs
    1 x Gorger
    1 x Gorger
    Pre-battle strategy: try to get charge vs Brutes with my 12 Ogors, ambush and kill Weirdnob and Warchanter with Gorgers. As the battleplan requires 5 models to control the objective I had to table him - not enough models to score.
    1st ROUND
    Ironjaws: I gave initiative to Ironjaws. They moved carefully forward, nothing special.
    Troggoth:  Troggoth cast Mystic Shield on herself, Inspired 12 Ogors, but failed with Destruction move. Ogors moved on, Hag stayed right behind them. Gorgers came out of ambush. Gorgers failed with 12" charge, so did the Ogors, which put them dangerously close to Brutes. And initiative roll was 5 for both of us. And the 5 again for both of us. Then I rolled 2.
    2nd ROUND
    Ironjaws: Fellwater Troggoths moved and vomited on 12 Ogors, killed one. Boys moved to defend heroes against Gorgers. Ardboys charged 3 Ogors, killed one. And Brutes charged 12 Ogors, killed 5. I think I saved one wound...
    Troggoth: 6 Ogors were dead and I was quite unimpressed with them. They hit back, but did 2 wounds. Other Ogors did no damage at all. Gorgers ran and charged, but even two of them couldn't kill the Weirdnob. Hag failed with a spell, but vomited and charged the Brutes, was extremely lucky and did 16 wounds.
    3rd ROUND
    Ironjaws: From now on it was simply rolling the dice. Weirdnob retreated, Boys killed one Gorger. Brutes killed an Ogre, so did the troggoths. Ardboys killed 2 Ogors.
    Troggoth: Troggoth failed the casting roll, vomited on Fellwater Troggoths, killed one, killed Brutes (last one ran away).
    And we called it a day, because Ironjaws had no chance to win.
    SUMMARY: Troggoth Hag was super fun and good, but mostly due to command ability and artifact that gave +1 to hit and +1 to wound for melee rolls. Her spell is nice on paper, but hard to get, as it I failed ALL casting rolls with her, maximum I managed was 6. Her vomit is really really good against high armour opponents, in melee she's not that good, without artifacts just bad (4+ to hit and only few hits).
    12 Ogors were nice tarpit, but offencively didn't perform - while damage 2 is good, the lack of rend and 4+ hit... don't know. Probably they need a Butcher to hope for that +1 to hit lucky dice roll. Also, the Iron Fists are also outdated and two clubs better, because it's rare to meet a unit without rend. I still have a feeling that I could get the same tarpit for 240 points with Savage Orruks.
    Gorgers were total waste of points, they weren't even a good distraction.
    Out of the two lists first was definitely more versatile and the other lacked units - it's too hard to play objective game with only 3 units.
    And while waiting for Troggoth Hag, here are my Gore Gruntas, just for illustration :


  7. Kessler
    The skirmish campaign  is at it's end - today will be the final battle. So far the Stormcast have been victorious: 1 minor and 4 major victories. As I planned, I mostly invested in high movement and ranged attacks. And after 5 games I can say that movement is one of the most important characteristics in skirmish battles. My warband's damage output is less than medicore, I won only one battle by wiping enemy out (and even there I just killed the general by dumb luck and others models ran away), otherwise I managed to kill one or two models. But I was able to keep away from the enemy, rarely lost any models and just fulfilled the objectives.
    For the last two games I took Vanguard-Palladors (love the models!) - their damage output is rather low, but 5 wounds, good save and good movement. So they are my tanky units. Today's the last game, we'll see, how it goes.
    Here's my final warband, 87 renown:
    Knight Azyros, general (converted from Prosecutor)
    Lord-Relictor (converted from Liberator)
    2xVanguard-Pallador
    Liberator
    Judicator (converted from Vanguard-Hunter)
    Prosecutor
    Freeguild Handhunner
    Doomfire Warlock



  8. Kessler
    I was able to finish my heroes before the next game.  Both of them converted - Knight Azyros from prosecutor and Lord Relictor from liberator. I tried to make them both as similar as possible, so very simple conversions, nothing fancy. I also painted one Paladin Retributor - I have 8 points spare from last minor victory and I am not sure, should I get Paladin now, or collect renown and then take Relictor for 16 points.
    I must say Stormcast are surprisingly interesting to paint - simple, but with many possibilities to make it more challenging.



  9. Kessler
    It's quite long battle report, but there is a summary at the end.
    Battleplan: Scorched Earth
    Armies: Beasclaw vs Slaves of Darkness
    Points: 2000
    Slaves of Darkness
    1 Mighty Lord of Khorne
    1 Exalted Hero
    1 Bloodsecrator
    1 Hellcannon
    1 Chaos Gargant
    10 Chaos Hounds
    15 Bloodreavers
    5 Chaos Knights
    15 Chaos Warriors
    15 Chaos Warriors
    5 Chaos Chosen
    Beastclaw Raiders:
    Allegiance: Beastclaw Raiders
    Frostlord on Stonehorn (460)
    - General
    - Trait: Everwinter's Master
    - Artefact: Tokens of the Everwinter
    Butcher (140)
    - Allies
    4 x Mournfang Pack (320)
    - Gargant Hackers
    2 x Mournfang Pack (160)
    - Gargant Hackers
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
    3 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (140)
    Thundertusk Beastriders (360)
    Braggoth's Beast Hammer (260)
    Total: 1980 / 2000
    Allies: 140 / 400
    Wounds: 98
    Pre-battle strategy: Opponents hitting power was mostly on the left flank, so I decided to tank that side and destroy the other to get points by burning the objectives.
    1st ROUND
    Slaves: I gave initiative to Slaves. They ran forward, quite close to me, player understated the damage ouput of buffed up Mournfangs and Stonehorn. Hellcannon bombarded Thundertusk and Stonehorn, missed Stonehorn, but giving 5 wounds to Thundertusk (and he dropped in damage table, making his Ice Blast damgage D3 and making him useless). Collected 0 points.
    Beastclaw:  Butcher Mystic Shielded Stonehorn and took damage from cauldron. Stonehorn gave his command ability to reroll charges. Everwinter gave reroll saves of 1. Everybody charged forward. Stonehorn got +1 to hit for being close to Ironjaws, charged Chaos Knights, did 3 mortal wounds and killed them. 4 man unit of Mournfangs charged Chaos Hounds, did 20 wounds and almost killed the unit. +1 to hit from being close to Ironjaws helps a lot.
    Gruntas made 5 wounds to Gargant, Gargant killed one Grunta.  
    On the other flank things didn't go that well. Gruntas didn't make the charge, but 2 man Mournfangs made a long one. That allowed them to stay within 6 inches of Gruntas, getting +1 to hit. I rolled pretty well, killing few Chaos Chosen, but one Mournfang died.
    Thundertusk missed with shooting, Vulture missed Hellcannon crew, Ice Blast did 3 wounds to Bloodsecrator. Collected 1 point with Butcher.
    2nd ROUND
    Slaves: as is norm, I lost initiative roll (and all following rolls). Hellcannon bombarded Thundertusk and Stonehorn, who halved the damage and got only 2 mortal wounds.
    Gargant killed one Grunta, wounded the other.
    Chaos chosen killed lonley Mournfang, charged Thundertusk, who magically survived on 1 wound. They came too close to Gruntas, I piled in and killed one Chaos Warrior.
    Mighty Lord charged Stonehorn, did 2 damage (Mystic Shield helped a LOT). Stonehorn failed to kill him (yup, missed most his attacks, did 3 wounds). Fortunately the reality didn' split and Stonehorn remained on board. Collected 1 point.
    Beastclaw: On right flank this time Stonehorn managed to kill Mighty Lord. Mournfangs killed Gargant.
    On left flank Thundertusk Ice Blasted Bloodsecrator to death, killed one crew member from Hellcannon with Vulture, missed with crossbow. Gruntas killed some Chaos Warriors and even Thundertusk killed one. Collected 1 point.
    3rd ROUND
    Slaves: Hellcannons fury couldn't be caged. Chaos Chosen and Exalted Hero charged Gruntas and killed them. Thundertusk was killed.
    Beastclaw: Butcher failed with Mystic Shield, but gave +1 to hit to Stonehorn. Which was VERY helpful, because later Stonehorn dropped on damage table, but due to getting +1 from Butcher and +1 from being close to Ironjaws mitigated that.
    On right flank Mournfangs burned an objective, collected 3 points. Gruntas burned another, collected 3 points. Stonehorn charged to left flank, but was still close to one Grunta and got +1 to hit. Made 1 mortal wound for charging, killed Chaos Chosen. Exalted Hero gave him many wounds, 6 remained (really missed the Mystic Shield).
    Now I used the once per battle ability from Battalion and piled in second time. Killed Exalted Hero and most Chaos Warriors.
    Collected 7 points this round.
    4th ROUND
    Slaves: Chaos Warriors moved to my objective, Hellcannon bombarded Stonehorn, but missed one shot and made 2 wounds with the other. Chaos Warriors couldn't kill Stonehorn. And we called the game, as it was impossible for him to get enough points.
    Major victory to the Braggoth's Beast Hammer.  
    SUMMARY: Interesting game, but I really benefited from killing opponent's weaker right flank. 6 points from this. Killing heroes was also very helpful.
    I like the battalion - keeping Ironjaws and Beastclaw within 6 inches is very restrictive, but +1 to hit is massive. IF you get the charges, Mournfangs with +1 to hit, mortal wounds from charge, damage 3 are simply great. However, 2 man unit actually underperforms even with +1 to hit, so keep the on 4s. The second pile in can be great - it's usually better to do it as soon as you have charged (because later you might not get to charge at all, but this time it was a bit pointless, as only Gruntas wound have attacked. And being able to do that later with Stonehorn was pretty decisive.
    Now Stonehorn is still not worth his points. 460 point monster who even with +1 to hit makes 3 wounds... what? Before the game I actually thought to take 2 additional Mournfangs instead of a Butcher, but he really is a must. Without Mystic Shield Stonehorn dies like a fly and little chance to get +1 is also useful. Especially late in the game, when Gruntas are dead and Beasclaw won't get +1 to hit.
    Gruntas felt quite unimpressive, but actually I rolled really bad with them - mostly 2s. So I just have to try them put more.
    Thundertusk was a waste. Almost complete waste of 360 points. They are great if opponent has no access to ranged weapons, but Hellcannon's range was 48". And he comes down on damage table so fast that you only get to Ice Blast for d3 mortal wounds. In melee he's bad. Missile weapons are bad. Vulture is nice to pick some annoying units, but that is also 50/50 chance.
    Probably next time I take additional Mournfangs to fill the battleline (or Stonehorn Beastriders), and yhetees to try them out. Maybe Hunter/Skal battalion is better to ambush warmachines.
    Or ally in Troggoth Hag (instead of Butcher and Thundertusk) or vanilla Ogors.
  10. Kessler
    There is an upcoming Skirmish campaign in my local shop. I didn't plan to participate, but on the last moment I reconsidered. Which also meant I was in a hurry to get some models. I didn't want to play with my usual Destruction and I have always wanted to paint some Stormcast models.
    I asked from local community for spare Stormcast models and got few Liberators, two Paladins and two Prosecutors with hammers.
    I converted one Liberator to Lord-Relictor and one Prosecutor into Knight-Azyros, still WIP. I changed one Prosecutor's hammer to javelin, Liberator's Hammer to sword and added some existing models. I still don't know if I should take Relicttor or Azyros... Here's my 35 renown list:
    Knight-Azyros/Lord Relictor
    Liberator
    Prosecutors with Javelins
    Doomfire Warlock (old model that I rebased)
    Freeguild Handgunner, marksman with sniper (borrowed from a friend)
    I wanted to make the colour scheme similar to Handgunner (red-green) and the armor either battered steel or bronze. Steel didn't match well, bronze was better, although it still looks too much like gold.
    I hope to get Lord Relictor and Azyros ready this week.





  11. Kessler
    I made a second Bucher conversion for my Gutbuster/Beastclaw army. I used Blood Bowl ogre. It is a little bit smaller than usual ogors, but not noticeably so, and has really nice dynamic pose. Gives some variety to otherwise quite similar and static ogors. 
    So I put Ironblaster ogor head on him and hands from regular Ogors. That required some greenstuffing and cutting, but it was easy enough and I hid the flaws with shoulder plates. Cauldron is also from Ironblaster/Scraplauncher kit, filled with bits. 
     All in all it was fun little conversion and Blood Bowl ogre suits well, I like the forward rushing pose and how he drags forth fresh meat for his cauldron. 
     
  12. Kessler

    Ironblaster completed

    By Kessler,

    On the first day of 2018 I completed Ogor Ironblaster. I was a very nice model to paint, however, as a hindsight I must say that I should have made the cannon darker, more bronze-looking. Would have looked better overall. There can be seen my fist try of OSL shining from the lantern. It does not really look like one, but it's okay for the first try, I will try again next time. I used yellow glaze mixed with little bit of the same yellow I used for lantern.
    Considering its rules I don't think it sees much action, but I just like the model and I will definitely try it out on same game. The main reason for buying it was actually the need for specific bit: scraplauncher bucket for my Butcher cauldron. And that will be my next little project, painting up the second butcher.
    And a picture of converted Butcher, waiting for paint.

  13. Kessler

    Blog import

    By Kessler,

    I just imported my old blog from other hosting site to here. After some initial troubles it seems to be working now.
    It will be the place to post my painted miniatures, WIPs, conversions and occasional battle reports. Mostly Ogor or at least Destruction related stuff. I started with the hobby quite recently, therefore I'm still a beginner in both painting and gaming.
    Currently I have an Gutbuster Butcher conversion in progress and unpainted Ironblaster waiting in queue.
  14. Kessler

    Converted Butcher WIP

    By Kessler,

    The second Blood Bowl Ogre was meant for Butcher conversion. I wanted it to pose him differently from Tyrant, use other hands etc. While converting the tyrant was easy kitbashing, there was much more to do with a Butcher. I attached normal Gutbuster ogor's arms on it and used Grot Scraplauncher bits for cauldron, both required some greenstuffing and messing with wires for chains. Anyway, now the greenstuff is hardening and it looks rather nice. I probably add some body parts fallen from the cauldron to the base as well. However, I'd like to change/hide his gutplate, but don't have any good idead how to do it easily.
     
    View the full article
     
  15. Kessler

    Converted Tyrant

    By Kessler,

    I just finished new converted Tyrant for my Gutbusters - some day I want to try out running two tyrant list. But mostly I just wanted to paint the Blood Bowl Ogre and kitbash some weapons to him. I really like the dynamic pose of the model. It's very good alternative to any Gutbuster hero model. Or it can well be made into Maneaters. My next idea is to convert an additional Butcher from the same Blood Bowl model, but this requires a bit more than just kitbashing. I added some pictures for comparison as well - Blood Bowl Ogre compared to normal ogor and my firts converted Tyrant. I was a bit worried that Blood Bowl ogor is too small and don't match, but you can hardly say that. He might be a little bit smaller, but that can easily changed with higher base and big weapon.

    View the full article
  16. Kessler
    Haven't had much hobby time for a long time, but now the mojo is back and a little bit more time as well. I had few games in the meantime, tried out my regular Gutbusters list (Tyrant, Butcher, ogors, ironguts and leadbelchers) and irongut heavy list (Tyrant, leadbelchers, and lots of ironguts). The last one feels good, definitely want to try it out more. Ironguts really need some luck to be effective, but if they have luck... wow, can they up the carnage! From the last tournament my ogors won a box of Blood Bowl. I had never played it, but it was interesting enough to paint the miniatures. That took ages, from May to December. But now both teams are finally finished and I am especially content with the orc team - yep, seems I really enjoy painting orcs more than those puny humans! I tried out some freehand on their shoulderplates and worn look on armor. I also converted one 40k ork and bloodreaver to star players. Pictures below. Now I'm in the middle of converting second Tyrant from Blood Bowl ogre (very cool dynamic model) and plan to paint an Ironblaster and convert a second butcher for ogors.

    View the full article
  17. Kessler
    Short writeup, but summary is at the end.
    Battleplan: Scorched Earth
    Armies:
    Points: 2000
    Free Peoples/Bretonnians:
    5 Grail Knights
    8 Knights od the Realm
    5 Freeguild Outriders
    10 Freeguild Handgunners
    3 DemigryphKnights
    16 Peasant Bowmen
    16 Peasant Bowmen
    10 Freeguild Greatswords
    1 Empire General (general)
    1 Noble Champion
    1 Battlemage
    1 Damsel
    1 Trebuchet
    Beastclaw Raiders:
    1 Frostlord on Stonehorn (Tokens of Everwinter)
    1 Hunter (Pelt of Charngar), general (Everwinters Master)
    1 Butcher
    3 Gore Gruntas
    3 Gore Gruntas
    4 Mournfang Pack
    2 Mournfang Pack
    2 Frost Sabres
    2 Frost Sabres
    Braggoths Beast Hammer
    Skal 
    Free People put down some points less, rolled on Triumph Table and got to reroll wounds.
    1st ROUND
    Free Peoples: I gave initiative to Free Peoples. They did not move, just collected points and were caful to position themselves so that Hunter would not ambush Bowmen or Trebuchet. Trebuchet bombarded Gore Gruntas but rolled low damage, handgunners` chief missed. Bowmen could not shoot - I had deployed far back.
    Beastclaw:  There was no point in sitting and taking fire, so I ran forward, hoping to get double turn. Butcher gave Mystic shield to Stonehorn and +1 to hit from Cauldron. Everwinter powers did nothing.
    2nd ROUND
    Free Peoples: I didn`t get the double turn. Trebuchet did 6 damage to Gore Gruntas. Grail Knights (pale shadow of their former glory after GHB 2017) did 2 damage to Stonehorn. Bowmen arrowstormed Gore Gruntas, did some damage. Outriders rolled snake eyes for charge.
    Beastclaw: Charges for the Beasthammer! Butcher gave Mystic Shield, Everwinter gave reroll Saves of 1. Hunter appeared behind Bowmen. ALL my charges were successful, buffed up (+1 to hit from Butcher) Frostlord on Stonehorn did 3 (!) wounds to Grail Knights. Gore Gruntas managed their 8" charge and got D3 for damage. Gore Gruntas and Mournfangs attacked in team, killed 6 Knights of the Realm (2 remaining fled after Battleshock) and and other group killed Outriders. Frost sabres charged into Bowmen (to deny the arrowstorm) and Greatswords. Did no damage but somehow survived and therefore Greatswords could not charge Hunter and Bowmen could not arrowstorm later. Hunter failed in shooting.
    3rd ROUND
    Free People: Trebuchet wounded Mournfangs, Handgunners killed Gore Gruntas. Noble Champion wounded Mournfangs. Mournfangs were now without bonus to hit, therefore did nothing against Noble Champion. Greatsword and Bowmen killed Frost Sabres. Demigryphs killed Mournfang.
    Beastclaw: Butcher made Mystic Shield, but failed in other things and gave himself 4 mortal wounds. Stonehorn charged Greatswords, killed them all. Mournfangs killed Demigryphs, piled in to Hangunners, one lonely Mournfang killed Noble Champion.
    4th ROUND
    Beastclaw: Stonehorn ate Tokens killed all Bowmen. Gore Gruntas killed Empire General, Mournfang some Handgunners and Bowmen. At that point we ended the game - no chance for Free People to get more points.
    SUMMARY: Free Peoples list was everything he got plus some proxies, it missed heavy hitters and chaff. Also, Bretonnians lost Free People keyword in GHB2017, so his army didn`t really work. Mostly I wanted to know how Beastclaw does.
    After that one game Frostlord on Stonehorn does not seem that great: if he gets his attack and buffs (to hit from the Butcher), he`s better, but without buffs... well, 3 wounds to Grail Knights is not really anything you expect from 25% of your whole army. Against bad saves he can do a lot of wounds due to damage 3, but high saves really bring damage down. Mounts` 4+ to hit means he rarely hits anything. Tokens of Everwinter really helps to keep the damage higher (but this does not help the mount) and keeps him alive. I still cannot decide between this and Pelt of Charngar. After his damage halving nerf Mystic Shield is almost a must!
    Mournfangs` +1 to hit from battalion REALLY helps, they finally do some damage. However, it is hard to keep them close to Gore Gruntas - the latter don`t get Everwinter move bonus, they cannot get Command Ability bonus to charge from Frostlord (if he is your general), and Mournfang have charge bonus from banner bearer. I got lucky, but they were lagging behind Mournfangs. And immediately after Gore Gruntas died, they were back to usual 0 damage level. Groups of 4 work much much better: you lose ranged attack, but damage output is more constant.
    And battalion ability to pile in and attack once per battle can be VERY powerful. 
    Otherwise solid battalion, but - as expected - low model count make it hard to contest for objectives and it is hard to fulfill all there requirements required to get batallion bonus - compared to other battalions that just get the bonus automatically. But IF you get the bonus: Mournfangs can be very terrifying, Gore Gruntas less due to their damage characteristic 1 and no rend from Gore Gruntas.
    Skal was weak: hunter didn't do any damage, sabres didn't do much either. Deployment to useful place was hard due to enemy positioning. I could achieve the same result without skal and probably fared better with additional mournfang unit instead of hunter+sabres. 

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  18. Kessler
    Finally my braggoth's battalion is ready. Just few weeks before new GHB release, it would be just my luck if it makes this battalion unplayable...
    I had this battalion idea from April and already had Frostlord on Stonehorn and four mournfangs. So I bought new mournfang set and start collecting Ironjaws (and took only gruntas from it and traded the rest for 3 additional gruntas). Since May I have been converting and painting these 10 models...
    Mournfangs were okay, but painting the gruntas seemed to take ages.
    So I converted new mournfangs to other poses, painted and started to convert/kitbash the gruntas. I wanted to have some difference between them, so I played with heads and hands, converting the gruntas was beyond my capabilities. 
    So my gruntas have Brutes' heads and hands, ogor weapons (they are part of the Beastclaw), ardboyz heads etc. I am especially content with two weapon guy and two-handed weapon orruk. 
    I tried to make their armor unpainted and battered/broken. After watching YouTube for tutorials how to do it I could not find any that suited for me: either the outcome was wrong or painting too complicated. So instead I covered it with leadbelcher, covered with two layers of heavy nuln oil, then highlighted with silver and finally lightly drybrushed with ironbreaker. 
     








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  19. Kessler
    While the forum was down I managed to get converted mournfangs painted.
    I like the outcome, the poses are quite natural. I usually don't like banner bearer models, so I made my own that is much cooler than the "official" one. 
    I started with gore gruntas, but it's summer and there has been a very long pause. So I have only one painted. I wanted to make him brown skinned like my bonesplitterz, but the is would have been just one big brown model. I am not entirely happy with the colour scheme, but I really can't think of anything better. Especially because I want to keep its metal parts "metal", not painted. 
    Also, I haven't had time to play with Braggoth's battalion, I hope to do it before GHB 2: in case there are too many changes in points that makes this battalion impossible to play in 2000 point game. 






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  20. Kessler
    Just a small update of my Braggoth Beast Hammer progression.
    From the pictures the gore gruntas riders were nice, but mounts' pose was too relaxed. I wanted to make gore grunta mounts a bit more dynamic, like I did with mournfangs, but it is VERY hard to convert these models. Therefore I settled with grunta riders instead, giving one Brute's left hand and other mournfangs leader weapon and changing their head position a bit. I really like the one with two weapons myself.
    Here's the idea I wanted to make one of them:

    And the final result:


     
     

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  21. Kessler
    Today was my first tournament ever. So far I have only played against bretonnians/free people and twice against chaos demons. Therefore I was really looking forward to it.
    Battleplan: Take and Hold. 
    Armies: 1000 points
    My list:
    Savage Big Boss, general (Bellowing Tyrant, I used it with his command trait giving additional hit rolls on hit rolls of 6)
    20 Savage Arrow Boys
    3 Ogors
    3 Ogors 
    5 Savage Boarboys 
    Huskard on Thundertusk
    First game
    First opponent was Sylvaneth. I was fortunate to get a table with lots of scenery, so he had trouble to fit his wildwoods. 
    He had Ancient Treelord, 3 Kurnoth Hunters with Bows, 10 Dryads and 5 Tree Revenants. He had first turn, did not do much, but killed few Arrowboys. 
    I moved closer, hoped a double turn. Killed one Kurnoth, Boarboys charged 14" and killed all revenants. 
    Then I double turned and moved closer, but did not charge. In his turn he teleported behind my Arrowboys with Treelord, but failed to charge with snake eyes. 
    In my turn I saw I can win by killing one hero and move to opponents objective. That I did and was already feeling victorious, but after remeasuring it turned out that one dryad was 5.5 inches away...
    Then it turned all bad. Arrowboys shot Treelord, but he was -1 to hit and immune to rend, so they didn't do much. 
    And charging into wildwoods was a mistake, I should have retreated. Most my guys got killed, and then I was saved by time limit and I won a minor victory with kill points. Mostly because he had killed on one whole unit and I two, altogether he killed definitely more. 
    But still, a minor victory. 
    Second game, Blood and Glory
    Against death list: Vampire on Zombie Dragon, Vampire on Abyssal Terror, and 40 skeletons. 
    Seemed like easy match, no shooting. How very wrong I was! He took first turn, moved closer. 
    In my turn I charged VLoZD with Ogors, who got killed. The power was surprising for me, so I shot him with Arrowboys and 6 mortal wounds from Huskard. He was left on 4 wounds. 
    And then it was over. In his turn VLoZD healed and attacked my Arrowboys, killed 12. 24 wounds... And when I thought it is over, he just smiled and used his command trait that allowed him to attack again! So my Arrowboys were wiped out. 
    Then he cast a spell that doubled skeletons' movement and attacked my Huskard and Ogors. 30 skeletons, 90 something attacks... Huskard was left on 1 wound, one Ogor also.
    In my turn Huskard failed to heal himself, VLoZD killed the Boss and the game ended. It took 30 min.
    A loss. 
    Third game, Border Wars 
    Last opponent was my "usual" playing partner with Bretonnians/Free People. 
    I had the first turn, killed his general and handgunners. Then he didn't get a double turn and I took off his grail knights and other knights. Pretty much like on our "training" games, we had the same lists. 
    Major victory. 
    Summary: I could see that my list was good against my usual opponent's list, but struggled with others. Mostly because I didn't know what opposing units could do, the lack of rend and overall poor saves.
    But it was fun and altogether I got third place, after this VLoZD player and Sylvaneth player, both my previous opponents. I think it's great, as other players were old WHFB veterans, 40k tournament players etc.  

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  22. Kessler
    I'm in the process of making a Braggoth Hammer battalion. I already had 4 mournfangs, so I wanted to make next models a bit different to get some variety. Currently I have 3 gore gruntas, but when I get the other 3, I'll make something similar with them. If the result turns out okay.  
    I want to make some of them in rearing position, although repositioning their legs is much harder than it seemed. But repositioning the riders is even more difficult, because if a mount rears you lean forward. And I cannot turn them so, their gutplate gets in the way. I haven't found a solution for that yet.
    Otherwise I just kitbashed a lot: saddles and weapons from Stonehorn, something from gore gruntas etc.
     



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  23. Kessler
    I finally finished Wurrgog Prophet. I like the model very much, great details and very enjoyable to paint. I don't really need it for games, I just wanted to paint it. 
    However, I messed it up a bit: tried out new glaze medium, which worked fine at first, but left paint very glossy after painting. Then I soaked it in denaturated alcohol to get the paint off, but it is finecast model (?) and it went soft and I lost small details. Also I could not get the primer out from the smallest cracks. 
    But now it's painted and I am quite happy with it.
    After giving some thoughts what to paint next, I ordered Mournfang pack and Orruk gore gruntas, I'll try to make Braggoth's Beast Hammer battalion. Mournfangs are my favourite models, I already have four of them and with next ones I have some small conversion ideas as well. 


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  24. Kessler
    Our small tournament will be in the end of May, so we tried some more lists. I exchanged Butcher and Tyrant for Huskard on Thundertusk, Bretonnians came with the same list. We played two games, Blood and Glory and Escalation.
    First game:
    Battleplan: Blood and Glory
    Armies:
    Points: 1000
    Bretonnian army:
    5 Grail Knights
    8 Knights of the Realm
    5 Freeguild Outriders
    10 Freeguild Handgunners
    1 Empire General (general)
    1 Paladin
    1 Paladin Standard Bearer
    1 Battlemage
    Orc army:
    3 Ogors with ironfist
    3 Ogors with ironfist
    20 Savage Arrowboys
    1 Huskard on Thundertusk (Battle Brew)
    1 Savage Big Boss (general)
    5 Savage Boarboys
    Both had exactly 1000 points, no Triumph Table.
    Pre-battle strategy: I put Arrowboys and Boss on the right, Huskard in the middle and both Ogors to the left flank, Boarboys far right. Bretonnians put most of their cavalry units to their left, against my Arrowboys, and quite near the edge.
    1st ROUND
    Turn 1: Orcs started - I didn't want Outiders to reach my Arrowboys. Arrowboys moved forward with Boss, Boss gave them +1 with Bellowing Tyrant plus special Command Ability that allows extra attacks on roll of 6 (due to +1 to hit I got rerolls on 5 and 6). Others did not move much, not to give Bretonnians a chance to charge. Arrowboys shot Outriders, killed 4 and last one fled. I left 20 Arrowboys in the middle to stop charging Bretonnians.
    Turn 2: Handgunners gunned my Arrowboys, some died, many fled. Cavalry moved forward, did not get charges, but hoped for double turn. 
    2nd ROUND
    Turn 1: Double turn for orcs. Lucky me. Arrowboys shot, killed 7 Knights of the Realm, last one fled. Incredible luck with dice, I think most rolls were 5 or 6 and I rolled lots additional attacks. And Knights failed with their 4+ Saves. Huskard blasted with ice, 3 Grail Knights died. Some Arrowboys shot Handgunners, some died.
    And here we ended the game, there wasn't much Bretonnians left.
    SUMMARY: Arrowboys with Big Boss' +1 to hit and Command Ability are rather devastating. But my rolls were incredibly good, mostly sixes and fives, I won initiative etc. And Bretonnian dice just hated him.
     
    Second game:
    Battleplan: Escalation
    Armies:
    Points: 1000
    Bretonnian army:
    5 Grail Knights
    8 Knights of the Realm
    5 Freeguild Outriders
    10 Freeguild Handgunners
    1 Empire General (general)
    1 Paladin
    1 Paladin Standard Bearer
    1 Battlemage
    Orc army:
    3 Ogors with ironfist
    3 Ogors with ironfist
    20 Savage Arrowboys 
    1 Huskard on Thundertusk (Battle Brew)
    1 Savage Big Boss (general)
    5 Savage Boarboys
    Both had exactly 1000 points, no Triumph Table.
    Pre-battle strategy: I deployed Ogors on the left and Ogors on the right. Bretonnia put Handgunners to the left with General, Knights of the Realm to the middle. I wanted to put Arrowboys to the middle next round and overwhelm the objective, while holding right objective and fighting for left objective.
    1st ROUND
    Turn 1: Bretonnia started. Did not move. 
    Turn 2: Orcs held their ground. There was no points to get and I wanted to stay away in case Bretonnia gets the initiative. 
    2nd ROUND
    Turn 1: Double turn for orcs. Lucky me. Again. Arrowboys arrived with Big Boss who gave them +1 with Bellowing Tyrant plus special Command Ability that allows extra attacks on roll of 6 (due to +1 to hit I got rerolls on 5 and 6). Moved to middle objective and claimed it. Then last battle repeated itself: Arrowboys shot, killed 7 Knights of the Realm, last one fled. Incredible luck with dice (AGAIN!), most my rolls were 5 or 6, lots of additional attacks.
    Ogors on the right got to the objective, on the left they didn't.
    Turn 2: Bretonnia put Paladin next to Handgunners, Outriders to cover close to Ogors and left objective, Battlemage next to Handgunners. Handgunners shot Ogors, Paladin charged Ogors, one died, Ogors didn't do any damage against the Paladin. General moved to get Victory Points.
    3rd ROUND
    Turn 1: Orc won initiative again. Huskard arrived with Boarboys. I deployed all to the left side. Huskard killed the General with ice blast, Boarboys forgot to move. And lost a Victory Point with that. Ogors fought instead of retreating and lost a Victory Point due to that, didn't do any damage, Paladin killed one. Arrowboys shot Handgunners and Outriders. AGAIN, incredible dice rolls, all Outriders die, some Handgunners as well.
    Turn 2: Bretonnia put Grail Knights and Paladin Standard Bearer in the middle, charged Arrowboys. Didn't do very well, but 6 Arrowboys died. I rolled for Battleshock and got 1, so no-one fled either... my luck just didn't seem to stop.
    Paladin Standardbearer killed the Big Boss. And Arrowboys were zero after that. I think they did 2 wounds after that.
    Paladin on foot missed ALL 5 attacks (1s and 2s...). Ogor did some damage to Paladin. 
    4th ROUND
    Turn 1: Orcs won again. Huskard moved to the middle and ice blasted 3 Grail Knights, Boarboys forgot to move, but opponent generously let the do it later, so they charged to Paladin and killed it. Before that Paladin missed all 5 hits (again!).
    After that Bretonnia only had 2 Grails, handful of Handgunners, 2 wounded characters and no chance to get enough points for 5th round to beat the orcs.
    SUMMARY: My dice rolled incredibly well. Opponents dice incredibly bad.
    I would like to say that Arrowboys are crazy good with Big Boss even in unit of 20, but actually was just very lucky, I rolled mostly 5s and 6s and their victims mostly 1s, so actually I don't know.
    I could not really try Boarboys with their cool retreat and attack ability.
    As I hindsight I feel that Bretonnians actually deployed badly: their second reinforcments should have been Grail Knights to kick some ... before Huskard arrived. Second deployment had Outriders and two heroes, so he played all the time understrength. 
    Altogether I liked the scenario a lot, much more different than others. Although 1000 points on normal sized table kind of forced us to fight for 2 objectives and "forget" the third.
     
    The list itself seems very powerful.
    Weak side is Saves: all have either 5+ or 6+, only Huskard has 4+. No magic users to give +1 to Save. Against rending units it can be awful. Maybe it would be good to change boarboys for wardokk to get some spells and probably triumph roll. 
    But otherwise: first round the Arrowboys shoot at their full power and delete one unit from afar. If they are lucky, they kill another next time. After that, when there is more combat, they serve as great chaff: there are usually less of them and/or Boss has died, so they suck at killing, but 40 wounds is hard to kill even if there is no save. Huskard snipes characters or kills elite units with good save. Ogors take objectives, fast Boarboys support them where needed.
    However, it is probably much weaker against armies that can alpha strike etc. Our Bretonnians don't have really competitive and tuned army, the player has mostly just bunch of cool models that he uses.
    We could see the winner in the second round both times, so I would not use it again in normal friendly games. But I have no idea what kind of gamers/lists come to the tournament, so I think I'll stick to that.
    And as a side note: I have no idea, how people play these games so fast: we had 1000 points, last game we played only 3 rounds and it took us 3 hours...

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  25. Kessler
    I had some leftovers from Savage Boarboys, so I made Savage Big Boss and Wardokk from spare legs/bodies. I have Wurrgog to paint, then I think I'll stop painting bonesplitterz - as it turns out, horde armies are not my favourite to paint, I tend to get bored and therefore hurry to finish the models. Currently I cannot imagine that painting another 20 savage orruks could be very interesting. Single models are more like it. 
    Big Boss has body/legs from boarboy, hands from Big Stabbas. I stretched out one boarboy leg to give him charging pose and filled the gaps with greenstuff.
    Wardokk has greenskins legs, boarboy body and Big Stabba hands, a bit repositioned.

     

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