WHFB Empire Great Cannon

This is an OOP model that is all metal except for the wheels which are either plastic or resin. The crew are painted up as belonging to Talabheim. I was considering painting them up in the colors of another city, but the red and white pop pretty good against the cannon.

The crew are a bit on the short/stocky side, but very nicely sculpted nevertheless.

Another welcome addition to the Empire army.

Hopefully, this Great Cannon and the Steam Tank will be providing good heavy artillery support.

Empire Characters for the War Altar & Hurricanum

Finished up the characters that came with the War Altar and Hurricanum. Here's Volkmar the Upset (aka Grim) riding the War Altar. He wears a bling item - the Jade Griffon which gives him the Regeneration special rule. He also wields his Staff of Command which adds +2 Strength to his close combat attacks from the altar. I plan to use the model as a Battle Wizard as he costs too much as Volkmar.

Here's the Arch Lector who can channel Power and Dispel dice the same as Wizards. He also know three Battle Prayers which act as augment spells. The Horn of Sigmar next to him causes Terror on a charged enemy unit.

Here they are on their magnetic infantry bases.

On to the figures from the Hurricanum (and Luminark) kit. Three figures come with this kit and at least one of them can be used as a Wizard - which is what I have done. Here's one of the Acolytes on the forward platform of the Hurricanum. As he holds a cool staff, he could also double as a Wizard.

Here's the actual Wizard model from the kit. With the long cape, he looks more appropriate as a Wizard.

Here's the other Acolyte carrying all the scrolls and such - a pretty cool figure with lots of character.

All of the figures are magnetized and can be removed from the Hurricanum and placed on infantry bases if needed. The Wizard will be on foot and attached to one of the infantry units.

Next up is a Great Cannon. It is an older metal model that Guy Bowers gave to me as a gift when he visited us last month for Enfilade!

Warhammer Fantasy Battles - First Game Ever

Thanks to my buddy Scott A. who brought his Dark Elf army, and mentoring from Pat L. (Socal Warhammer), I was able to get familiar with Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I do have some experience with Warhammer Ancient Battles, so it wasn't too hard to pick up the basics. What was very interesting was the Magic Phase - it really did some damage to both of our armies. Prior to the start of the game I took a few gratuitous pictures of my Empire army to date - the Imperial Griffon wasn't used in the game today, though. Scott only had about 1,300 points of Dark Elves, so being a gentleman, I only used 2,000 points of my Empire guys :)!

In the staged photos, Volmar the Grim is on the War Altar and a Light Wizard is on the Hurricanum. For the game, I used Volkmar as the Battle Wizard.

I finished the Engineer Commander for the Steam Tank this morning, before the game. He did very well as the Steam Cannon and Steam Gun did pretty good shooting. It was great getting familiar with the Steam Points rules. The cannon fire was the same as that as in WAB, which I used a lot with my Late-HYW French army.

The game itself was very close, although Scott's army was about 700 points less than mine.As usual my tactics left a lot to be desired, but I wanted to concentrate on learning the Magic Phase and other minor differences between WAB and WHFB. Not much really, but still a few things to remember and get better at. The photo below is from Turn 4 or so, my army pretty much bunched up on my end of the table. The Dark Elves are a very shooty army - practically all of Scott's units had crossbows which could fire twice! At the start of the game, a unit of Shades flanked my right and later started crossbow double-tapping my Order Knights. If it wasn't for the knights' great armor save, they would've been decimated quickly.

The shot below was kindly taken by our buddy Rod who stopped in all the way from Forks. It shows my Demigryphs rotating around in circles trying to get into contact with those pesky Dark Riders!

No complaints though - I was happy to see both my Order Knights and Demigryph Knights survive multiple missile attacks. My BSB was killed off by a Magic attack, but the War Altar charged into Scott's Corsairs and broke them off the field. The Hurricanum did well enough, it provided some weather attacks and survived. We played 6 turns and feel we both learned a lot, particularly with Pat's mentoring and coaching. We plan to play again next Saturday. I may even get a practice game in prior to as there is a Games Workshop store right down the street from where I live.

Empire Characters - WIP

Started on the character figures that came with the Hurricaum, War Altar and Steam Tank.

Here is a Light Wizard and Volkmar the Grim. They are magnetized and can go on the vehicles as well as on the infantry base. I will use these two as Battle Wizards for a play test tomorrow - my first time playing Warhammer Fantasy.

In the photo above, from left to right: Steam Tank Engineer, an Acolyte, an Arch Lector and another Acolyte. These also have magnets underneath for switching to their respective vehicles or to go on infantry bases. The Engineer's arms are magnetized for optional arms.

Empire Steam Tank - Ready for Battle

Well, it does still need the Engineer to operate it, but the tank itself is done

I initially painted the shields in the Talabheim colors of red and white, but the white got lost in the silver. I decided to paint them in the Altdorf colors of blue and red - especially after my wife agreed that red and blue would look better against the silver.

That's a Hochland Long Rifle mounted atop the turret; the turret itself holds a Steam Gun which functions as a Breath Weapon. The main body houses a Steam Cannon, which works the same as a normal Cannon except the range is based on how many Steam Points are allocated - up to 36" using 3 Steam Points for 12" a point.

The turret can spin 360 degrees and the cannons can pivot a bit up and down. The road wheels could spin, but not after being glued to the base.

I was going to add some wording onto the scroll, but will hold off until I can figure out what to write.

From straight on, it looks like a space capsule.

This was the last component for a 2,000 point army, but I still need to paint the Engineer as well as two Acolytes to operate the Hurricanum, the Arch Lector to ride the War Altar, and two figures that will double as Wizards. All of these figures will have magnets to have them on their respective vehicles are on separate foot bases, if needed. My buddy Scott and I will be playing a WHFB game this Saturday at The Game Matrix. This will be my first such game and Scott hasn't played since the 3rd edition. Should be fun!