Colore ton Monde: March, the Green Lady

I'm on a roll thi month, three minis done and posted, and more to follow. Here's my mini for this month's Colore ton monde painting challenge, which was to paint something green, for spring.

This is a Reaper mini, and was bought to act as a sorceress for my fledgling Bretonnian army. It is a beautiful Werner Klocke mini, and deserves a better paint job than this one, but it will do for now. I'd like to go over the eyes again, as the close up of the photography as always makes them look scrappy.

 

Traditional Oldhammer Goblin Green for the base, but with some very modern flowers, in-keeping with the spring theme.

Warhammer Fantasy, Some Thoughts

After a gap of about 20 years, I played a game of Warhammer fantasy battle last week.

There has been talk of playing 500 point games, as they fit perfectly within the time available to us on a Tuesday evening, and of course do not need many figures, although most of the palyers have many more points than that available to them as we are players of a certain age who grew up with GW products. I do of course have a similar amount of figures, just not at my immediate disposal, and a recent trip to the old country didn't leave me with enough free time in my parents attic to fill a suitcase with WFB armies. This is one of the reasons I picked Bretonnians. It meant I could collect an army from what I found in the bits box at the store (started off with the big bag o' archers I found a while ago), combined with some Perry War of the Roses infantry and some nice Reaper minis.

At the risk of becoming a battle report without pictures (I didn't plan to write a report, so I didn't take any pics), I write for your enjoyment of my thoughts on the battle, and why it seemed to go so badly for me. It also may become a comparison betweeen the current edition of WFB (what is it,6th, 8th?), and my hazy recollections of 3rd Ed.

The basis of the game has of course not changed, and this is of course intentional on the part of GW. They have kept essentially the same stat line, and basic rules of Hit, Wound and Save. There are of course changes to the minutiae, and maybe even some of the larger parts of the game that I have forgotten from 3rd ed, or did not come up in our game. The magic system is one place that seems to have changed the most, and seems more streamlined from 3rd ed. I do indeed recall one of the reasons I dropped WFB with the advent of 4th ed was the changes to the magic system (and I lost interest in the minis that were released with that edition), but that does not mean the system was perfect before. I do recall there being the exceedingly broken Vortex of Chaos, and even worse Vorpal Hurricane of Chaos, which, if unleashed would rip an army in two. Of course this was magnified by the exceedingly cheap points cost of Goblin mages, increasing their chances to have it by spamming mages, still, I digress.
In the game last week, I lost badly. The main problem I seem to have had was my army selection. It seems Bretonnians suffer particularly badly at the 500pts level due to their required picks of a paladin and a banner (which we dropped), and having to have knights as the base unit. This plus a mage of level 2 only left me with enough points to field a basic unit of archers and pikemen. At the 500 point level you really need bodies on the table, and I didn't have those. My opponent took High elves, and his only character was a mage attached to a unit of spearmen, this meant his base troops were more than enough to deal with my peasant horde, and my Paladin is but one man to stem the tide.
The last issue I had was underestimating the charge distance of the High Elf Infantry.  I thought I was safe and well placed to charge him next turn, but no, random charge distances of 2D6 plus Move was more than enough to plug the gap. I think this was more of an issue of me thinking in Warmachine distances rather than 3rd ed, as I have no recollection of how charges were handled there.

How can I fix this? Well, I don't have to take the peasant force that I did. For 500 points, we don't need to take 2 units of Core forces, just 25% of the total, so my unit of Knights alone cover this. What would I then take? Well, with the compulsory Paladin, and tactically compulsory mage, I really don't have too many options. I could fill the field with archers, stand behind the stakes and shoot the hell out of the opponent. Kind of boring, but it may be the only way.

So, in the end, I was stuck with a list that was uncompetitive in two ways, one because of the choices I made, and two because the Bretonnian list seems to be limited in the choices it can make much more at this level than it may be at higher points games. There was also the theory that since the army book for Bretonnians was older than the rest, it was not as balanced as the newer books, or at least not in balance with the newer force books. This is one of the main issues I have with GW, and their games, and what has put me off from playing their games in the last 20 years (that along with their prices and business practices, but you may note, GW have not profited directly from my purchases).

Still, I would like to try again, and may do so this week. Afterall, who really gives up on their first love?

Sir Guy, the Red

The perfect mini for the "Paint it red" challenge is obviously this guy (pun intended). Anyway, he was mostly finished last week, but a painting session last night let me get him based (in a very simple manner, there's not much space to play with on a 20mm base) ready for use in a Bretonnian army (at some point).

I'm way ahead of schedule for this month's challenge, but I hope to get a couple of better pics before I sent off my entry.

I also all but finished off the section of 91st Highlanders, with only the tartan to do (what a surprise), so I hope to post them soon. They're good practice for the coming Black Watch section.

Paint it Red

A couple of shots from last night's Oldies session. WIP of sorts, as both minis are very close to completion. I was struggling to find the mini I wanted to paint for this month's Colore ton Monde, as most of the minis I started to paint at the beginning of the month were blue (more on those in a later post).

In the end I decided to take these two minis with me (and the rest of the Section for the Rifleman, but they were not completed to the same level). I had quite a productive evening, with the knight starting the evening as bare metal, and the rifleman having but a base-coat. I'm especially happy with the way the tartan turned out on the rifleman's trousers. That was mostly down to having good lighting. I may have to invest in a good lamp for painting at home. Of course, the imperfections the camera pick up at this level of zoom are not really all that noticeable to the naked eye, but for a first attempt, I'm happy.

You can read about the conversion and scheme of my 91st Highlander's Section here and  here. Of course the knight will likely find a home in my fledgling Brettonian army.

Bretonnian Army I

As a side project, I have been raking bits boxes and bothering friends across the city to pull together a 500 point Bretonnian army. The basis of this army, is of course the bag o' archers, with the addition of a bunch of knights, and billmen. Of course GW is evil, and therefore I have no intention of giving them any money at all. To this end, I have ordered and received a box of Perry plastics, and am awaiting a Reaper Sorceress to fill things out.

I have also decided to make my own stakes for my archers, which, let's face it, is hardly the hardest of modelling to do. Literally, take some wooden sticks bought in the dollar store, and attack them with a craft knife. Child play (not that children these days are allowed to play with craft knives). All that remains is some polyfilla mud and a lick of paint and away we go!


Spikey!

I've also put together my first couple of units. The first unit of archers I based on round bases, so I could field them as skirmishers, and use the movement tray I have that fits round bases. The scheme for this unit, and likely the second unit (for whom the stakes will be used) is taken from the uniform of the Burgundians. This also allows me to use them in historical battles, if I ever manage that. I had initially planned for the skirmish unit to be painted in Sherwood green, and consist of a certain English terrorist and his happy compatriots, but that plan may have to await a further unit (which obviously would never fit in a 500 point army, would it?). Anyway, I'm going to burn through the Delvan Mud at this rate, and will have to buy into another wash system soon.

The finished product. Well, Table-top quality anyway. An appropriate leader has yet to be found and painted.

The mascot

Then on to the Men-at-Arms. Unit of 10, ready to be painted. There will be a movement tray of some kind made for these guys before too long, as there will for the second unit of archers. I really like these minis, they're full of character and possibilities. Perry' plastics really are great value for money, and will of course fill the bits box with all the extras included.

Lastly, a command group for the second unit of archers. Including a musician rather than a standard bearer I think, it fits better with a unit of archers.

All that remains is to paint this lot, and put together the knights. I'll be going through my historicals to pull out a Paladin to lead the unit of knights, and the army. I'm sure there are some options there I can use.

Bag o' archers

An impulse buy at my FLGS, and nothing more, but for $5, you really can't go wrong with a bag of 21 plastic archers. I'm pretty certain they're GW Bretonnians although I'm not certain of what vintage. I doubt I'll use them as such, but they would make great longbowmen, for historic use (maybe War of the Roses archers?). Three have been (badly) painted, but I'm sure I can clean that up easily enough. Two of the bows are broken, but again, that should be easily remedied.

Suggestions for what to use them for on a postcard to the usual address.