Fred - 2017 Painting Diary

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

All 👀ing good Fred!

[Techno]

Coo !

I shall have to go back and look at that properly, Forbes.

The little I've checked out looks brilliant.

Cheers - Phil.

[fred.]

Thanks chaps.

It's largely a rehashing of many of the photos on the painting thread - but grouped by type, and mainly ones of finished stuff rather than WIP.

I'm quite enjoying putting it together as it reminds me just how much stuff I have painted (and bought...)

[fred.]

Actually did some painting tonight !!!!   

Started working on some fantasy figures for making camps, but as I had the red out, decided to do a bit more on some Zulu war British

[Womble67]

Looking good fred

Take care

Andy

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice Fred

[DFlynSqrl]

Very nice

[fred.]

thanks chaps

[fred.]

Played a good big fantasy game last night, using our home brew rules - Hordes of War. This time it was Undead vs The Herd (kind of Warband Taurians)


This is the end of my first turn - my whole battle line has moved up. I have a reserve flanking force off table, it will eventually make an appearance on the right flank (but the undead player does not know which flank it will arrive on). The Undead are in a fairly cramped deployment - partly due to the scenario, and partly due to having taken a force filled with cheap skeleton spearmen.


A couple of turns in - I managed to get some Beastmen infantry through the middle, and charge the scarab beetles protecting the spear-throwers, and then follow-up onto the spear-throwers. But unfortunately the spear-throwers had a bone giant on their flank, which tipped the fight seriously in the direction of the undead. In the centre the two armies are moving towards contact. My Giant Eagles have swooped in on the flank of the big block of skeleton spearmen, killing one unit, but then deciding to sit around and crack bones, rather than ploughing into the rest of the block - leaving the bone giant with a tasty flank charge. On the far right, my flanking troops have entered, and are making good progress (as we played on the full 8' of the table, rather than the normal 6' they had rather a lot of distances to cover).


A turn or two later - on the left, my two units of Minotaurs, and some Centaur Archers (out of picture) are doing enough to hold up the huge flank force of skeleton spearmen - who had been deployed against a potential threat, that came in on the other flank. Part of my plan was to refuse one flank, and attack on the other, as the undead are pretty slow so struggle to re-deploy.  In the centre my Wargs did a long distance charge into the spear-throwers and are steadily ripping them up. Further across the skeleton spearmen had charged the line of Headusmen and Minotaurs - and died horribly. It was a total overkill from my troops who trashed the attacking 4 units, then in my turn charged onto the second line and splintered them.
On the right flank my forces have got into contact, with the Rhino Herd trampling the skeleton archers, and the centaurs and hawks getting in the rear of the caster and giant.

Forgot to take a final picture - the Undead rather stuttered in their turn. And I was able to isolate the giants and kill them with flank and rear charges (in our rules flank charges cause an automatic wound, and rear charges cause 2) this is a very effective way to take out isolate big monsters. The rhinos continued to stomp forward trashing the skeleton cavalry on their back line. While in the centre the Headusemen kept going forwards.

We didn't add up VPs, but having done a quick calculation now it was 5 : 1 in my favour, and if we had played the next turn or two it would only have got worse for the undead!!

Steve is off to have a think about what units he selects for his army - going with hordes of skeleton spearmen doesn't seem effective, they just can't kill the enemy, and can't manoeuvre well enough. There are some much stronger infantry units, and I think the undead need to make more use of their cavalry and flyers to take the battle to the enemy, as otherwise they are just large blocks of troops waiting to be attacked - which lets the attacker concentrate force.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Good report Forbes, nice to have the further thoughts too!

[Techno]

 

Cheers - Phil

[fred.]

Thanks chaps. Much of the Herd army is Pendraken - photos of units can be seen over on my blog https://fantasticalarmies.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Herd

nice to have the further thoughts too!

Its good that Steve is having a think about how to build a different army - as the normal approach with home-brew rules is to tweak the rules or the armies!!

[DFlynSqrl]

Nice looking game Fred.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hello Fred/Forbes

Great report and pictures. Nice to see the herds playing Hordes  . Have the rules had any substantial changes from the set you sent me in May?

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[fred.]

No the rules have been pretty stable for a while now. There has been the odd tweak, we have re-introduced counter charges, and are playing with some expanded modifiers for shooting (mainly so that War Engines have different modifiers to bows). Magic has been the main area of re-work and we now have a system that we like and that seems effective (finally!!)