DonnyHammer 1.0

Hi all,

Once I had my terrain boards and houses completed I started to really itch for an opportunity to get them on the table for a game.  I've also been getting pressure from my local gaming friends to host another game...and I've been wanting to give the Donnybrook rule set a try on my own.

I've played a couple of low key games with My Boy Airborne Grove in the past but hadn't tried to host one myself...and that required gaining a more complete understanding of the rules and adapting them as much as possible to the Warhammer world and "feel."

If you are not familiar with Donnybrook...well you should be!  This is a fantastic set of historical rules written by Clarence Harrison and Barry Hilton.  The rules are focused on skirmish sized battles in the late 17th and early 18th centuries...though Clarence does include some basic pointers for how to add some fantasy elements to the game as well.  The game has a number of really interesting features...the two most prominent of which are the Card based activation system...and the use of different dice to represent different quality troops.

With the Card based Activation you break the monotony of IGoUGo play...which is standard in warhammer games.  This adds a real tension to the game as it is unclear when your (or if) a particular unit will get to move again.  There is a card for each unit and character in both forces...these are shuffled between each turn so come out in a random fashion.  There is also a Turn End card in the deck which can cut any turn short unexpectedly.

The dice mechanism is equally interesting.  Most actions...shooting...combat...leadership etc. all have a target number for success (typically 5 or 6)...but as the quality of your troops increases so does the number of sides on the dice they use for that test.  Raw recruits use a D6...and therefore have a hard time achieving their goals....while elite troops use a D10 and have a much higher chance of success...heroes use a D12 etc....its very clever and works great in practice.

The challenge comes in adapting this system to Warhammer forces without losing the "warhammery" feel of the game.  I feel I had mixed success with this aspect of the game...but see plenty of area for improvement.

For my game with my local crew I pulled together a mixed bag of "Good guys" consisting of some of my Bretonnian collection and some of my dwarfs.

For the "Bad Guys" I used some of my Orcs, Chaos Dwarfs and a friends Skaven  troops (sadly I did not get a good studio shot of them).

We played a general encounter battle...with no particular mission other than driving the enemy from the field.

The game played out very smoothly without needing to reference the rules overly much.  There was a period of adjustment as we were all new to the rules and all our previous gaming had been with Rogue Trader or WFB 3rd edition.  Plus, other than my stalwart companion Bob (who supplied the Skaven), the other three players are only casual wargammers...the type that rely on me to supply figures, terrain, and rules...but bring a lot of enthusiasm, laughter...and beer to the the game.

Anyway...here are a few more pictures...

In the end I think that most people like the card activation system...though there was a bit of grumbling...particularly when units failed to move at all for a couple of turns. In particular the right flank of the Good Guys force was immobile for a couple of turns in a row.

In an effort to make the game play a bit more like Warhammer I had opted to make the range of bows and crossbows 24 inches...instead of the 12 inches suggested in the Donnybrook rules.  This may have proven to be a mistake as missile fire dominated the game to a large degree.  In particular the attack by the Goodies left flank was decimated by missile fire from the bad guys right flank...which had watched their own left flank destroyed in much the same way by the good guys archers earlier in the game.

For future games I will reduce range to 18 inches and see how that works...perhaps increasing saving throws for the victims of missile fire would be another option.  Also additional terrain would be helpful...the wide open space in the middle of the board was just a killing ground for missile troops.

One other area that I feel needs addressing is the fact that with Donnybrook being a historical set of rules the heroes are powerful...but not in the way they are in Warhammer.  Namely they have just one attack...like normal humans would.  This left many of the players feeling unsatisfied with the heroes and large models (ogres) and in the future I will adopt multiple attacks for heroes and elite troop...perhaps 2 attacks for D10 units/characters and 3 attacks for D12 characters and monsters.  This should allow them to have a more impressive influence on the battle without becoming over powered.

Overall this was a great game...and while we identified some rules that needed refinement we had a lot of fun playing...and of course that is the main goal of any game.  I highly recommend the Donnybrook rules to any interested skirmish player and feel they provide a very adaptable framework for modification to fit alternative environments like Warhammer fantasy.  Stay tuned I'm sure that further adventures in DonnyHammer will be forth coming soon.

Cheers,

Blue

Ewal Dvergar Boar Riders

Hi all,

Once again it has been a long delay since I have had a substantive blog post...but I'm trying something new today.  One of the big issues I've been having with blogging is computer related.  My laptop has been on the fritz for weeks now and that is where most of my pictures are stored...so in order to get something up I've decided to write a post on my phone with the pictures I have stored there.  So if the formatting is a bit weird...I blame the phone and blogger app...:)

Anyway...today I would like to talk to you about chaos dwarfs...or more specifically boar mounted Ewal Dvergar!!  My hook-up for all things stunty and Chaotic...Clam... sent me a batch of his newly released Boar riders a month or two ago and I've finally had a chance to get to work on them.

BTW...When you decide to get some of these...and you will...hit up Clam's Blog to order here:

http://claminiatures.blogspot.dk/

One of the fun things about these figures is that any of the chaotic dwarfy heads that John Pickford has sculpted for Clam (and others) fit perfectly on these bodies.  So this allowed me to have some fun mixing and matching bits and pieces from a variety of sets to make unique boar riders for my army.  as I started to play with the options I laid out all my bits...

Johann Complete!

As promised here is a quick post to show you the final results of the painting I was finishing up on Johann...the fantastic Chaos Dwarf Sculpt by John Pickford...and in fact this figure was painted for John himself! (I hope he likes it!)  I think I have said all the wonderful things that need to be said about this great model...it really is something special...particularly the shield which inspires me to try something new each time I look at it.

Anyway...blah blah...here are the pictures...and below I will include pictures of my personal version to which I have added a Green stuff beard.

I believe that these are still available through Clam's Ewal Dvergar Range of figures...so contact him and get you one....and some of his other wonderful figures as well.

Here is John's Johann...

Johann II...Update 2...Nearly there!

Just a quick update to show how Johann is coming along.

• I added a couple more highlights to the armor to make it stand out a bit more.
• I painted his chest plate Bronze
• Wood grained the axe handle
• painted the chain mail and axehead with my typical metal system
• highlighted up the shoulder pads and gave them red eyes. 

All that is really left to do are a couple of touch ups and the base.

Johann II ...Update 1...Shield Work

Howdy all,

I've been plugging along with the variety of models that I previewed in my last post.  My main effort has been focused on finishing up a copy of Johann from the Ewal Dvergar Range that Clam has graced us with.

I've had this miniature for way too long...mostly because I've had a hard time figuring out what color to paint him.  Obviously I painted my copy Blue...but I couldn't decide what would look good on this copy.  Finally I decided to go with Dark Green armor with Copper/Gold and Grey accents.  To this end I set in on Johann's armor first and then got to the base coats on the wood, metallic, and grey areas....

Here is how he looks right now...

Not looking particularly stellar yet...but once I start to highlight everything else up it will improve greatly....

...However...I really put a lot of work into his shield.  As I mentioned when I painted my own version of this figure the Shield is one of the best parts...John Pickford really seems to have enjoyed making this fantastic face.  With looking at the design of the shield ...and the fairly tame colors of the armor that I chose for Johann... I decided to go a little wild with the shield colors.  In really staring at the shield for quite awhile I really started to see how it looked like flame...

...perhaps this is a demonic piece of armor containing a fire daemon of some sort? ...forced by one of the Chaos Lords to protect Johann from harm....

...thats right...FLAME SHIELD!!! :)

This turned out to be a lot of fun to paint...and it took a TON of layers to make it look convincing.  Having never really attempted to paint flame before I'm pretty happy with the results.  The main portion of the shield is orange flame while the eyes and tongue are meant to look like blue flame.

Here is a quick look at the final product....followed by a short movie showing the steps of the process.

Yes...he has a Gold tooth...my daughter suggested it...who am I to deny her...?

For those who are curious about such things...here are the paints that I used to achieve the flame effect...

I'm not really sure what the Orange paint is...some old citadel color...?  Blood Angel perhaps?

And here is a shot of my wet pallet showing all the different layers that I created with these paints and their sequence (ignore the green...that's from the armor).

I think that is going to look pretty sweet on that green armored model...so...

I better get back to it!

Cheers,

Blue

...and a Special Surprise!!!! I mean it this time!

So in the post I did last week on the fantastic Ewal Dvergar Xbows that have been recently released by Clam I hinted at something special in the title...

...and then forgot to mention that "something" in the post!  DOH!!!

Sorry about that.

A Touch of the Chaos...

So...if you follow the blog you will have noticed a rather dramatic drop off in posts about painting.  There is a very obvious reason for this...my painting mojo has left the building!  I have  been extremely short on time this summer and when I have had a few minutes I just can't bring myself to paint for some reason.

...that is until this last week!  After seeing all the wonderful pictures from the BOYL event I've started to get really excited about the Oldahmmer in the NewWorld event coming up this fall.  So I've been back in the saddle for a few nights and it feels good to be waving the hairy wand again!

The first thing on my plate was to finish up a couple of commissions ...pieces of which you have seen pop up on this blog and in various forum over the last year or more.  Well...I've completed two of them and managed to get some decent pictures before shipping them back to their rightful owners.

The first commission was a group of five chaos figures for my most patient client Hashut's Lil Helper (HlH).  You may remember that I have been painting a series of Chaos warriors for HlH that match his already painted MM90s.  Well in the last batch of figures he included 5 additional figures for me to paint as well.  These included one more Chaos Warrior and four Citadel chaos dwarfs.

Lets take a look at the group first and then each of them individually.

Ewal Dvergar Crossbows ....and a Special Surprise

One of the great things about the current state of the "Oldhammer" Community are the number of small companies...and in some cases individuals...who are designing and producing figures that have that "Old School" vibe.  One of my absolute favorite ranges of this sort are the Ewal Dvergar being produced by Clam.  The Ewal Dvergar range takes its inspiration from the classic Chaos Dwarf models produced by citadel and Marauder during the heady days of the 2nd and 3rd editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  Clam's figures allow a general to build a sizable force of evil stunties without having to collect innumerable duplicate copies of very hard to find and expensive classic figures

LPL Round 4: Chaos Comes to Town...

Howdy all,

Time for the weekly update on the LPL.  The last weeks "competition" has been the closest contest I have ever been involved in....and is perhaps the closest in recent LPL history.  When I last checked nearly 500 votes had been cast and the two teams were still within 3 votes of each other.  As of Friday ...midday...we were tied!  My team was up against that of Professor Witchheimer...who I consider one of the best painters and photographers in the LPL...his entries are consistently of VERY high quality....so I'm quite happy that my team is even holding its own against such talent.

Anyway...on with the show.  This was a un-themed round...so I dug into some work that I've been meaning to do for many months...some more Chaos figures for my CDO compatriot Hashuts Little Helper (HlH).  The three chaos warriors in this team are a continuation of some painting I did for HlH more than a year ago ...where he sent me some painted Marauder MM90 Chaos dwarfs and I painted the Chaos Warriors that inspired them...in colors similar to his MM90 color choices.  The two citadel chaos dwarfs on this team are a part of a small batch of a few other figures I agreed to paint for HlH.

Anyway...here they are as a team...

Now let's look at the three warriors and their corresponding MM90s...

First up are the copper twins...

Here I stuck very close to the "source material" that HlH sent to me...even down to shield selection.  Luckily this is a CW that can pull off the smaller shield....which comes from the Marauder chaos/undead sprue.

Next we have the Blue meanies...

Again I tried to mimic the color of the CD fairly closely....and again I turned to my stash of marauder shields to give this guy a bit of protection.  I picked this particular shield because I felt that the bull skull motif mirrored the shape of the horns on the warrior helmet...also this CW can handle a much larger shield than the copper one.

Finally we have the Pinks...

As you can see HlH used metallic pink for his CD...and I did some experimenting with making my own pink metallic paint....and those experiments didn't go well.   

So after consulting with HlH I went for a non metallic finish for the armor.  Still I was quite nervous about trying to pull off this much pink as it was not a color I have used much in the past.  And right up till the final layer I was convinced that I was going to have to start over...but something about that final highlight pulled the whole paint job together.  Now I can't wait to try this color again on a few of my own figures!

The two citadel chaos dwarfs on this team also deserve some mention as they are both great figures in their own right.  

This guy just looks like a loony!

And this guy just looks....well...awesome....the leather thigh high leggings and the big glaive thingie make him one of my new favorite chaos dwarf sculpts.

So they they are....Team four....they've done me right this week no matter who finally comes out with the most votes.

Cheers for now!

Ewal Dvergar "Unit Shots"

Building on my last post which featured the Ewal Dvergar that I painted up for Round one of the LPL... here are a few pictures of all the Ewal Dvergar that I have painted up to now.  In total I have 9 of these fantastic figures painted (though a few are still missing shields)...in order to round out the unit to two nice ranks of 5 I have also included the MM90/WK conversion that I refer to as the "Green Knight"...though I've stuck him in the back rank.

While this isn't a huge unit its starting to look pretty good!  I had orginally thought that I would mix in Clam's sculpts with my MM90s to make a big unit...now after seeing these guys all together...I'm thinking I need two units :)  One of MM90s and one of Ewal Dvergar!

Anyway...here are the pics.

LPL Round 1: Ewal Dvergar

Well...the time has finally come!  Round 1 of the Lead Painters League has closed for voting and Round 2 has begun....therefore I'm allowed to post up my first round entry for public consumption.

The entry requirements for this year's LPL have changed from previous iterations of the contest.  This year you are allowed to only enter one picture of your team...with no composite images allowed.  In the past I had the option of using a combination of images to best illustrate the details of my figures....this year one picture only.  So this was picture that I submitted...

Chaos Dwarf Comparison shots...

About a week ago Four A Miniatures released the Chaos Dwarf/beastmen that I covered in earlier posts.  These wonderful figures were sculpted by John Pickford...as were the Ewal Dvergar that Clam is sharing with the world.  When I put up the post about the Four A minis several people asked for some size comparisons...I promised to do some shots...and never did.

...Well today is the day!  I had the camera set up to take my first three rounds of LPL photos...so while I was at it I grabbed a few other Evil dwarfs and put them all together for some Glamor shots.

Four A Miniatures... Chaos Dwarfs II: "Thats 'Mister Tower Head' to You!"

Hello all!

Another of the fantastic miniatures that John P. asked me to paint for him is the other Chaos Dwarf that Four A Minaitures will be releasing in the future...a figure that John and I have been referring to as "Tower Head" (though I understand that another name may be forth coming...).

Warhammer Skirmish Homebrew fun game

Howdy all,

Last night I managed to convince a couple of my buddies to have a game of Oldhammer...and we opted to do something a little different....we played a total skirmish game.  I home brewed a set of rules using 3ed as the base with some input from Rogue Trader and Realms of Chaos as well as other ideas that randomly popped into my head.  The idea was to have a fairly fast flexible game with smallish units (8 max).  I think we succeeded...and most importantly we had a lot of fun doing it.

The forces engaged consisted of Dwarfs and Humans (my 5th ed Brets) on the side of light...commanded by Brian....and Chaos Dwarfs and Orcs and Goblins on the side of Chaos...commanded by Tom.

Here are a few pictures of the nights activities...sorry for the quality...they are all done with my iPhone and under the crappy florescent lights in my garage.

Here is an overview of the table with Tom starting to move his forces of Chaos (chaos dwarfs and O&Gs) onto the table...

No smart ass comments about the exercise bike in the background...

As you can see we had a fairly dense set of ruins in the center of the table representing a burned out village...this is composed of card building from Dave Graffam.

Modern crossbows for classic figures

While I have tremendous respect and admiration of many of the sculpts from the classic period of WFB I've have never been a fan of the plastic crossbows that some of them were armed with.  These plastic pieces were used by troops of many different armies including dwarfs, empire, orcs, bretonnian, and chaos dwarfs....and they looked terrible in all their hands...