The General's Handbook Experience

So it is finally here.

The stars are finally aligning so that we can play the Season of War Campaign for Age of Sigmar.  The General's Handbook is but a few fleeting moments away from all of us.  The Sylvaneth ride at the forefront of this new and glorious revolution for the Age of Sigmar and the Realm Gate Wars come to a close with a not a whimper, but a cacophony of sound. 

Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war...

If you can't tell, I am more than a little excited for the direction that AoS is headed here in the near future.  Nothing is more exciting than the new Battletome Sylvaneth, General's Handbook, and the Summer Campaign.  

I finally got to experience two of the new items coming to us in the General's Handbook the other night, in the form of two excellent games against quality opponents.

Sinscaptain's Skaven vs Quintessential Hipster's DEATHstar

It had to be decided how nuts we could go with the points system to see if there was balance in some of the named characters now.

Short answer:  Nagash and the Mortarchs are still absolutely ridiculous.

In a 2000 point game we had the following armies.

DEATHstar

Nagash (900)
Arkhan (340)
Morghast Archai - 2 models (240)
Morghast Archai - 2 models (240)
Morghast Archai - 2 models (240)

This list is simple, small, fluffy, and absolutely brutal.  Because Morghast become battleline if you play all Deathlords, it was absolutely disgusting.  The matched play rules allow you to resummon dead models and units, as long as you don't go over the original starting points value of your army.  So, having (3) units of super bodyguards and Nagash pumping out 4-5 spells a turn plus Arkhan giving Nagash Mystic Shield (his one job the whole game as it turned out), this is a mean list that takes a lot of umphf to get through.

Sinful Skaven

Verminlord Corrupter (240)
Plague Priest - Staff (80)
Warlord (100)
Plague Furnace (220)
Arch-Warlock (140)
Clanrats - 20 (120)
Clanrats - 20 (120)
Clanrats - 20 (120)
Plague Monks - 20 (140)
Plague Monks - 20 (140)
Plague Censer Bearers - 10 (120)
Plague Censer Bearers - 10 (120)
Plagueclaw Catapult (180)
Doomflayer Weapon Team (80)
Plaguesmog Congregation (80)

This hodgepodge army comes from having to pull from other subfactions of the Skaven in order to make it to 2000 points.  My original intention was to try and make it all Clan Pestilent, but having to pull from other things meant that I had to take a Clanrat tax.  I could have taken only (30) clanrats total, but I figured that it would be a pain to only have a few small units on the table that were going to get eaten by Nagash in one turn.  We were playing the 3rd scenario from the GHB I think.

As it turns out, everything that you hear about Nagash is true.  After 2 turns, I was down to 40 Clanrats spread throughout the table and a Warlord.  Against his entire army still as he'd managed to bring back the (2) Archai that I had killed in one turn with a massive Plague Monk charge.

Word to the wise - if you are playing against Nagash, bring something that can kill Nagash.

He managed to cast hand of dust(?) and roll all 12 wounds off of my verminlord.
This game may not be the best example of a balanced point system, but it did let us put a bunch of models on the table that we though *maybe* might be balanced through the points?  Great game, awesome table, good times and good rolls.  But man alive Nagash hits like a freight train!

GAME 2

Quintessential Hipster's Silly String Skeletons vs Sinscaptain's Putrescent Hordes vs The Knights Who Say Nee

So this was a much, much better game, that lasted the full length (5 turns) of the game that we were playing.  We decided to have a three player game, using the king of the hill type scenario from the General's Handbook (# players - 1 points for holding the center, 2 points for the most wounds dealt, 1 point for the second most wounds dealt, and finally 1 point a HERO killed).  We used the matched play points again, and the allegiance special rules.  Army lists were as follows:

Quintessential Hipster's Silly String Skeletons

Vampire Lord
Necromancer - mounted
Grave Guard - 20
Zombies - 10
Zombies - 10
Zombies - 10
Hexwraiths - 5

Sinscaptain's Putrescent Hordes

Verminlord Corrupter
Plague Furnace
Plague Monks - 20
Plague Monks - 20
Plague Censer Bearers - 10
Plague Censer Bearers - 10

The Knights Who Say Nee!

King Louen Leoncoeur
Paladin Standard Bearer
Knights of the Realm - 8
Men-at-Arms - 16
Field Trebuchet

As I mentioned above, this was a much, much, much more balanced game than fighting against the DEATHstar.  The game did seem to get a little long in the tooth towards the end - I'd recommend having a full day to play anything more than about 4 players (supports up to 6!!!), but it was great.

Some of the 10,000 foot flyby of the game include King Louen killing the Vampire Lord, and then the Vampire Lord being reborn thanks to his magic item that he had from the artifacts section, and then the High King running him down a second time.  The successful murder charge of one of the Plague Monk units to have four(!!!) attacks on the charge, rerolling to hits and to wounds, lead to the successful destruction of the Grave Guard.  And then the successful destruction of the Men-at-Arms when they tried to take the hill at the center from them.

The Verminlord Corrupter is as bad as ever, but I adore that model so it will continue to see the light of day in my Plague Army.  He did manage to hold up the entire unit of Knights of the Realm AND the Paladin Standard Bearer for almost 3 turns before finally succumbing to its wounds that were well earned. King Louen managed to slay his way through all (30) Zombies over the course of 3 turns - with the help of the Zombies tearing down the Plague Furnace and the other unit of Plague Monks.  The Plague Censer Bearers did what they always do and shotgunned up the board to try and nuke the Vampire Lord and Necromancer.  Managed to get the VL down to a single wound before he drank from his blood chalice and healed up - only to be chased around by King Louen.

Game ended after 5 turns, resulting in the following breakdown in points:

Skaven - 15 Points
Bretonnia - 9 Points
Death - 7/8 Points

Knocking Death off of the center of the table fairly early made it easy for the Plague Monks to just grind whatever came close to them and have their way. Zombies provided the Bretonnian player with plenty of fuel for his VP generation, and the Grave Guard and Knights of the Realm gave the Rats the edge they needed, plus plenty of hero kills!

Great games held all around!  I really recommend the General's Handbook to everyone when it comes out.  It is basically Age of Sigmar 1.5, and it should be the standby book that every fantasy gamer has for the rest of their gaming days.  Can't wait to get my grubby mitts on the Global Campaign, as I've already ordered a Virulent Horde to bolster the ranks of my Skaven Pestilence Army...  Soon enough it will be time to go toe to toe with Nagash again...

Looking forward to the rest of the Summer of Sigmar.  Until then, happy gaming!

Rise of Empires Update!

Hey all!

Happy to be back posting for you today.  Nothing long today, just want to direct you guys to my most recent update concerning Rise of Empires in the Age of Beasts Campaign. Posted some pictures of the most recently painted models for AoS that I have done, which include a bunch of Silver Tower models, as well as some characters for my Skaven!

Take a look here!

Or, feel free to look through the pictures of the models here as well:

I've also begun to purge some of my collections off.  As it stands right now, I am selling a good chunk of Malifaux, all of my Guildball, and my Chaos Space Marines.  I felt like it was time to move on from the CSM, just too much baggage with them to be enjoyable anymore.  

As such though, I have opened some of my older boxes of models, and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of Space Marines that I had laying around. Looking at that amount of stuff moving forward, I have decided to get back into Warhammer 40k, starting a Black Templars force.  I have started to rebase a good amount of the models, starting with those pictured below.  I have plans to pick up a flyer at some point in the near future, as well as a couple of other odds and ends to fill out what I have at the moment.  

Silva Towaa and Moar

Some motivation for you my fellows!  Happy Wednesday (or whatever day you guys are reading this, except Tuesdays, they can go rot in Hell).  Hope all of you are doing well!  Today I have lots of talk about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower - nothing crazy like a review or anything, just some quick thoughts on it.  I'll also be discussing the future of my Skaven and my Bloodbound, as well as some of the plans for my other armies - INCLUDING A FLASH SALE!

Let's go ahead and get started on this amigos, and see if we can keep moving forward!

**********

Silver Tower.

This is a game that, quite frankly, has been one of the best purchases I have made in a long time.  For $150, you get 51 models, plus an entire board game!  $2.94 a GW model?  Uh, yes please.  Plus a board game, that's actually quite an exciting time!

Quest for the Amulet of Chamon in #warhammerquest #silvertower featuring a big win for the players! Great way to spend the evening!

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on May 28, 2016 at 9:45pm PDT

 I mean, our group has REALLY, REALLY enjoyed this game, probably more than any other board game that we have played lately.  AND as an added bonus, a couple of people from our gaming group have bought AoS models to use in the game, which means they are one step away from buying into AoS itself!  Truly, a win win for the community here in Atlanta.

As of this writing, we are 5 pieces into the campaign.  All we have left are the shards of Life, Fire, and Light to collect.  (Yes, the piece of light is the tutorial game.  Yes, we died.  Horribly).  I have been playing as the Fyreslayer Doomseeker.  Our group has evolved with their characters into a mostly chaotic group from there.  We have a Dark Elf Assassin, an Exalted Deathbringer with Impaling Spear, and a Slaughterpriest with the sword and hammer.  Tonight we will have a replacement for the guy with the Slaughterpriest, so there will be a new hero.

The game plays great, and each of the trials is unique - which makes its awesome for replayability.  My personal favorite trial has been the quest for the piece of Azyr and the piece of Ghur.  Not to get into the story too much, but both of those quests feel very much like they should, and if you are a fluff-nut like I am, then the story coming to a head in both of those is very satisfying.

After 5/6 hours of work from about 4 people, managed to get base coats down on all of the Silver Tower models and get first round of highlights on to about 80% of them. Another couple days work from myself and these will be fit for table top! Managed to snag a game in of course! Great game! #ageofsigmar #silvertower #warmongers #warhammerquest

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on May 30, 2016 at 10:09pm PDT

We all gathered together to try and get a good bit of it painted, and - as the caption states - we managed to get basecoats and highlights on just about everything from the box!  Which was awesome, because now everything looks pretty good on the table already.  These models just eat up the paint, they are a breeze.  Some of the best models in a long time (so since the last AoS release basically).

Disaster finally strikes! After 2-3 games going easy on us, my group stumbles into the realm of Death and gets ambushed by the Guant Summoner. nEedless to say, we didn't last very long. #ageofsigmar #warhammerquest #silvertower

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Jun 4, 2016 at 9:03pm PDT

I highly recommend picking up the game.  The only complaint I have, and that our group has had, is that the beginning of all of the trials feel very similar, and not a lot happens until you get into the thick of the various trials.  From that point on you feel like you are completing the quests in unique ways, facing the myriad challenges with wild abandon.

11/10, would buy again.

**********

So, on to the second point!  What am I working on currently, and how will we continue to move forward?  Well, dear reader, that is an excellent question!  

I am finding myself more and more at a hobby cross roads.  I have always believed that one should have a couple of main games that they play and enjoy with people all around them.  However, that has - over the course of many moons - turned into a plethora of games that I no longer play or have the desire to even look at in some cases (Uncharted Seas you sad, wonderful game - RIP).  So I have many, many models.  

It is time to cut them down, dust out the cupboards, cull the herd, etc.  I have the following that is all going to be looking for a new home soon:

• Firestorm Armada - Terrans (Stripped)
• Firestorm Armada - RSN (Stripped/unbuilt)
• Firestorm Armada - Relthoza (Unpainted)
• Firestorm Armada - Dendrenzi (Unpainted)
• Firestorm Armada - Misc. (various)
• Guildball - Alchemists (everything but Compound from the line, all but 2 painted)
• X-Wing (I don't even know, I really just want to put all in a box and get rid of it)
• Malifaux - Lucius (unopened)
• Malifaux - Lady J (built, unpainted)
• Malifaux - Ten Thunders
• Misaki Box (unopened)
• Metal 10T Brothers (unopened)
• Samurai (2 assembled, 1 on sprue, unpainted)
• Malifaux - Misc (Again, just want to box and get rid of it)
• Age of Sigmar/9th Age/Kow 
• I have a box of misc. Dark Elves, nothing spectacular, mostly Corsairs that are not assembled and some other bits and bobs.  I would just want to pretty much give this away.
• Warhammer 40k
• This is an oddball for me.  I have a lot of Chaos Stuff, but none of it is very exciting.  I am just looking to get rid of this so that I can justify - in my mind atleast - starting fresh into a game that I have abandoned for so long.  
• I also have vanilla Space Marines that have some Black Templars painted up among their number.  I could be convinced to get rid of these too.

For all of these, just ask me what I have through email (olearypr@gmail.com) and I can send pictures and hash out prices.  I am looking to get rid of a lot of this, so I can't imagine asking more than around 50% Retail for any of it.  

I'd be willing to look for some trades as well, including the following:

• Imperial Guard - Catachans a plus
• AoS (ordered by level of desire)
• Skaven
• Khorne Bloodbound
• Tzeentch Daemons
• Savage Orcs
• Uncharted Seas (ordered by level of desire)
• Ralgard
• NEW SCULPTS Empire/Humans
• Elves
• Sky Pirates
• Dragon Lords
• Anything else would be a case by case basis.

As for things that I am actually working on, besides flash sales, I am just working on painting up more rats for the Rise of Empires in the Age of Beasts Campaign.  I have been slacking lately, and then with Silver Tower popping up all of my painting time has been sunk into that.  For this month, I would like to actually finish my half done Plague Censer Bearers and all of my Warlock Engineers and Arch Warlocks.  IF I get that done, then I would be happy to finish up my Stormfiends and get my Verminlord built.  

On the NEW 40k front, I would love to start building a Catachan force.  Something totally unique from all other armies I have collected.  Plus, I should probably play a good guy at some point in my tabletop escapades.   

Looking forward to writing to all of you again in the near future, hopefully with some painted models and empty shelf space!  Until then, happy gaming!

Zulrot - Rival to Malkk, Painting Progress, and New Shinies

Suh doods.

Hope everyone is doing well out there in internet land!  Lots of KUH-RAZY things going on out there with points and narrative and open (oh my!) coming to our favorite fantasy setting, AGE OF SIGMAR!  Also, Season II for Guildball dropping it hot like a fresh new groove yo.  Plus we have the craziness that is Halo Ground Command from Spartan Games coming out, new Malifaux silliness on the way, Bloodbowl teases us DAILY it seems, and to top it all off?  Some got-damn sexy looking mo-fo Orruk Ironjawz.

So, lots and lots to coming up in the very near future, es fookin' noots m8s.

Let's start off small, shall we?

Zulrot, a PoS Plague Priest who is doing everything in his power to stand up against the one true Plaguemaster, Malkk, in the Narrative Internet Campaign that I am participating in.  Sounds peachy right?  Well, I got a good amount of stuff painted up to represent this homeboy on the tabletop.  Check it out:

Es nice, no?  Muy bien.  

So yeah, that all happened about a month ago, no big deal, because since then? 

Plus no time with the end of a bunch of classes coming up here in the next week or so.  I got good amount of stuff squared away with base coating, but nothing that is even remotely tabletop worthy.

I had started to work on a good amount of "Skyre Stuff" ™ What does that mean?

- Stormfiends

- Skyre Acolytes

- Weapons Teams

- Arch Warlocks (plus a sexy converted "Baron von Rattus")

New kitbashed warlock engineer for #festerscar in the Rise of Empires Campaign. He'll need a suitably Doc Oc inspired name with his backpack looking like that. #AoS #warhammer #warmonger

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Mar 23, 2016 at 8:53am PDT

- Warlock Engineers

- Warplightning Cannon

- Doom Wheel

 PLUS

- 17 Plague Censer Bearers (ooooooohhhhhhhh yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh)

Heres the family WIP shot

#ageofsigmar painting and base paring on a lazy Sunday! #wip #warhammer #skaven #ageofbeasts #riseofempires

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Apr 3, 2016 at 1:53pm PDT

Loving it.

So what else is new then, eh?

These are:

So it this:

And so is this, among other things....

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Apr 16, 2016 at 8:19am PDT

Truly, we are in the absolute GOLDEN AGE OF GAMING.  I am so happy to have Age of Sigmar here, along with all of the other goodies that we have here in 2016 for our gaming needs.  I love it all, with the exception of how many releases Space Marines get every other week it seems, minus the 30th Anniversary Space Marine, hes pretty baller.

So with that, go out and look at pretty shit and buy it.  Age of Sigmar points and "competitive play" is coming, the General's Handbook with 22 scenarios, points for ALL (yes that means Tomb Kings and Brets) warscrolls, 5 (FIVE) Styles of campaigns, and even more coming down the pike.

You have no idea how pumped I am.

Lets rock.  Peace out sweet readers.  I have to go paint something.