WHFB Empire Airship - WIP

Here is the Revell Pirate Ship painted with the main colors - black, red, gold and the natural wood decking. Still need to touch up here and there, but it is mostly done.

Added a few spare GW parts to "bling" it out. What made me want to get this kit was the skulls already included - one on the rear (taffrail?) and one on the front (figure head?).

I will be adding a few more GW spare parts like shields and a flag as well as more parts from the kit like the rigging that will go up to the hot air balloon. What will be used for the balloon itself is still up in the air. I'd like it to look something like an elongated football. Maybe with some da Vinci-like wings too.

Hochland and Talabecland Handgunners for the Empire

Got the standard bit parts in the mail today - painted them up for the Hangunner units for Hochland and Talabecland.

The Hochland unit is led by Hildegard von Konigsberg - a Raging Heroes figure.

 

I plan to swap the Halberdier and Crossbow Detachments out for these two Handgunner units to see how they perform as individual Regiments.

The Hochland's standard bears the Comet of Sigmar, and Talabecland's simply quartered.The standard bearers' right arms and handguns come from the Pistolier set; their heads from the Archer set.

Now I plan to fiddle around with the Airship.

WHFB Empire Handgunners and Master Engineers - WIP

Since my gaming buddy, Pat L. (Socal Warhammer) had to cancel out of our planned practice game today - I ended up working on two units of Handgunners as well as two metal Master Engineers. I picked all of them up off of ebay - the two Engineers were the price of one of the current new resin/plastic models. The Handgunners were two separate buys, both for about a $1.00 per figure. They are the older models, which match the other infantry types already in the army. Anyway, here they are freshly coated with Minwax Tudor Satin stain.

The Master Engineer with the Hochland Long Rifle will be the Marksman for a unit of Talabecland Handgunners. The other Master Engineer with Repeater Handgun will be used to assist a Great Cannon crew. The Handgunners are painted up representing a unit each from Hochland and Talabecland. I'm still waiting on another ebay purchase - a bits lot with standards and musician parts. The photo below shows them with a basic block paint job. The Handgunners were base coated with a light brown to take care of much of their equipment.

Finally, here is a shot of a 1/72nd scale Revell Pirate Ship model that was on clearance for $4.99 at the local Michael's. I hope to use it as an Airship. Behind it is a Denny's kid's drink cup in the shape of a rocket. I hope to convert this into a zeppelin to carry the Airship. Although 1/72nd scale, the deck is large enough to fit several figures.

Empire Reinforcements from Averland and Stirland

I managed to pick up a brush this weekend - a rather large brush at that. I didn't feel up to doing anything too detailed so painted up a unit each of WHFB Empire Pistoliers and Archers using the Minwax stain process. Here is a unit of Pistoliers hailing from Averland - a land famous for fine horses.

The Pistoliers were painted using a basecoat of Krylon Brilliant Silver which was then given a wash of Vallejo Black Ink/Stain. The Averland colors of yellow and black were only needed on the sleeves and pants - both very small areas. The Outrider champion wields a Repeater Handgun.

Next is a unit of Archers from Stirland - renown for their hunting and woodland skills. The green was highlighted after the stain - to make it pop a bit.

Here are some photos of the fairly simple and quick process used - a basic block paint job for the Archers and horses for the Pistoliers. The Archers and three of the horses were sprayed with a dark tan for an undercoat - which became the base colors for the Archers' coats and bows - as well as the horse flesh. The two other horses were given a coat of white.

Followed by a stain of Minwax Tudor Satin.

My buddy Pat L. (Socal Warhammer) and I plan to play a WHFB game next Friday. He is hosting a WHFB tournament next month at The Game Matrix - which I plan to attend. I had to cancel going to the Wet Coast GT up in Vancouver, B.C. this weekend due to my recent family business in Hawaii. Anyway, I hope you like these new troops for the Empire army and thanks for following the blog.

Just Checking In

Been out of touch for a while - just returned from visiting my family in Hawaii. A couple of weeks ago my brother succumbed to liver cancer - he was only 57. Well, the nice thing was he was visited by a nonstop flow of his friends and family while in the hospital. His funeral was attended by close to five hundred people. At the time of his illness and passing he was the Chief Boatswain for the NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette. The representative from NOAA, a Commander, read a letter from a Rear Admiral which among other things called my brother a legend in the Pacific for NOAA. He will be sorely missed by many, but everyone has fond memories of him to cherish.

Anyway, I'm back in WA State and have a few small projects I hope to start on once I get back in the mood - whenever that may be. One thing I did while in Hawaii that was hobby related was stopping in a fantastic store called The Armchair Adventurer. It is run by a gentleman by the name of Glen Fong. He had a store at another location many years ago where he steered me into my first 28mm figures - Redoubt Trojan War figures. His store consists of several rooms with models, books, kits and board games stacked to the ceiling. He has untold boxes of old lead like 25mm Essex Napoleonics to newer plastics like Warlord Games and Perry. As for model kits he has one of a kind stuff like the submarine from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I picked up a long OOP Warmaster Empire Hero on Griffon. It was just too cool not to get. Incidentally, Glen and I have little bit in common, we're both '79 high school grads from Hawaii and served in the US Army.

Raging Heroes - Hildegard and Gretchen

Here are the lovely Von Koningsmark sisters - less their oldest sister Brunhilde from Raging Heroes. (Actually the camera light is a bit harsh on their complexion - they're really not that pasty faced). I  had found out about this French company via James Wappel's amazing work here. Although these aren't up to James' standards, they will do well enough as a Master Engineer and Witch Hunter in my Empire army.

That's Hildegard on the left with a Hochland Long Rifle, and appropriately attired in Hochland colors. Gretchen the Witch Hunter has drawn a brace of pistols, and in Ostermark colors - as that's where she was trained in the art along its Southern borders against vampires and other nasties.

Both figures come with optional arms, and Hildegard is actually posed as firing the Long Rifle. I modified the pose to have her holding it upright as I didn't want to obscure her face and other assets. Gretchen also has an arm with a saber.

Both of their leather cloaks have embroidered borders. Gretchen's motto is Den Teufel mit dem Beelzebub austreiben - the translation according to the Raging Heroes site: Suggested by T. Pichler (Austria), who wrote: "Basically it means 'Exorcising one devil with another', since Beelzebub is another name for the devil (Teufel), so it plays upon the sci-fi version's motto of the devil sending a woman when he can't make it."  Hildegard's motto is Die Götter würfeln nicht - which according to the Raging Heores site:  Suggested by D. Tornier (Germany), who wrote: It means: "The gods do not roll dice; a variation of Einstein's quote about his disdain for the inherent randomness of quantum mechanics; I assumed the middle sister is the engineer/sniper of the trio…"  He added: "It is her firm conviction that there is no randomness or uncertainty to either the rules that govern this universe or her unerring aim. Ultimately everything, from the trajectory of a cannon ball to even the ebb and flow of the astral winds, can be calculated and likewise any enemy who finds himself in the sights of her skillfully designed rifle are already dead."

That's a lot of background storyline for a border of a cloak, but very interesting nonetheless.  Finally, here's a shot of both sisters next to an older and more experienced Witch Hunter from Citadel.

As you may notice, the girls are slightly taller and far more sleek than Herr Witch Hunter, but blend in well enough. Oh, and the Raging Heroes figures are slotta-based metals. They are comparatively priced with Citadel Finecast models which are resin.

WHFB Game - The Empire vs. Vampire Counts

These are pictures from the game Pat L. (Socal Warhammer) and I played this past Friday at The Game Matrix in Tacoma. The pictures were kindly taken by Rod F. who dropped in after some business in the area - he actually lives up in Forks - about 3-plus hours away!

Pat and I are practicing with our 2.5K WHFB armies that we plan to use at a tournament up in Burnaby, B.C. in a few weeks. The event is called the Wet Coast GT. I know I just started playing WHFB, but want experience this event with over 30 other players with various armies. Well - onto the photos (just a few though).

First up - early in the game, Pat charged his Ethereals into my Order Knights. As we played the Meeting Engagement scenario with troops positioned diagonally across the board, these two units were very close to each other. I only found out after being in combat that only Magic can wound Ethereals. Interestingly enough, because the Ethereals were a small unit - one rank - and I had two ranks, a standard and great armor saves, the Ethereals lost a couple of rounds of combat. I later managed to roll a 1 and lost a Knight.

Same thing happened on the other flank with the Demigryph unit and another unit of Ethereals.

I managed to roll a Misfire on my Steam Tank, and then blew the engine. The shooting wasn't successful either. My Great Cannon did very well by taking out the Necromancer. The Hurricanum also did well against the Grave Guards - I think that's what they were.

The Warrior Priest in the Swordsmen Regiment was killed off along with the Regiment after a one-sided combat against a unit of Crypt Ghouls with the Vampire General and Wight King. My BSB was also in the unit - Oh, and early on, the Witch Hunter was targeted and killed off by his Winged Vampire Lord. I had used the Witch Hunter's Accusation rule against the Vampire Count.

The Empire General took some revenge by defeating the Champion of the same Crypt Ghouls unit - after the Vampire Count refused the Challenge to single-combat.

We called the game soon afterwards. We mainly wanted to get a better feel of our respective armies - Pat will do some tweaking with his, but mine is set as I sent in my list to the GM already. We should be able to get in at least one more practice game before the event.

2.5K WHFB Empire Army

Here is the Empire Army at 2.5K points. Actually still need to add a Master Engineer, but this is pretty much it for now. In the future, some options will be added - like Archers/Huntsmen, Handgunners, Greatswords, Outriders and a Helblaster Volley Gun. This is probably not the best setup for a competition/tournament army, but it has the pretty stuff like the War Altar and Imperial Griffon. Another Great Cannon and/or Steam Tank, as well as Archers/Huntsmen would likely be a better expenditure of points.

For actual battle, the BSB and Warrior Priest would join the Swordsmen Regiment, and the Witch Hunter would join the Halberdier Detachment.

WHFB Empire Witch Hunter

I picked this guy up yesterday at the GW store I played at. I put him in the Halberdier detachment, but forgot to use his Accusation ability at the start of the game.

He has a lot of bells and whistles for a fairly low points cost. Some of his special rules besides Accusation are Killing Blow, Sniper, Grim Resolve - auto passes Fear tests, and Tools of Judgement - re-roll Combat To Wounds against Wizards and Undead/Daemonic stuff.

Here he's armed with a Great Weapon here, but I will also have a model with a Brace of Pistols.

He also has a Leadership of 8, so he's pretty good all-around.

WHFB The Empire vs. Ogre Kingdoms

I ended up going to the local GW store down the street and played a pick up game pitting my 2.5K Empire army against a 2.5K Ogre Kingdoms army. The Ogre army was heavy on powerful close combat troops - which I had not experienced before in my one-week long WHFB experience. Here is a shot of the Empire troops with the Demigryphs and Great Cannon just out of the picture on the left and right flanks. This time I was able to get my Empire General mounted on an Imperial Griffon on the table.

Early on, my opponent focused his cannon fire on my Steam Tank and put it out of action by Turn 2. He said he hated Steam Tanks - well it appeared so. My Knights, with an Empire Captain, foolishly got too close to the Ogre's Stonehorn. He ended up charging into the Knights and after defeating them in Combat, pursued them after a failed Break test - and overtook them!

The left flank had the Ogre's Mournfang cavalry hit the Demigryphs in the flank. After couple of rounds of combat, the lone Demigryph survivor actually returned to take them in their flank and broke and over took them after winning that round of Combat!

The center saw a lot of back and forth action with the Hurricanum successfully sending some bad weather to some of the Ogre units, as well as adding Portents of Battle to nearby units which give them +1 to Hit in combat. The War Altar and Arch Lector riding it gave nearby units Hatred and successuly cast Hammer of Sigmar prayers - which gave them to Wound re-rolls. With my die rolling they all came in very handy!

The Ogre Tyrant challenged the Empire General, which was of course accepted. After a couple of rounds of combat, the General was killed, but the loyal Griffon remained to take on all comers. As a consolation, the Hurricanum defeated and broke an Ironguts unit. The Empire Swordsmen did well by first defeating and overtaking a Gnoblar unit and then hitting a Leadbelchers unit in the flank. The pesky Leadbelchers were defeated and overrun on the pursuit.

Thanks to the warhorses and Arch Lector, the War Altar was able to kill off the Stonehorn in Turn 4. We called the game at the top of Turn 5 - I still had the bottom of 5, but my opponent had to leave to attend to family business. No problem as I learned a lot again, and surprising killed or chased off a lot of the enemy to boot.

Empire Knight & Realm of Battle Terrain Board

Needing one more knight to get a rank bonus for Combat, I did a kit-bash of sorts. I used the body of the Empire General that came with the Griffon kit, a helmeted head and shield from the Demigryph kit, a horse head/neck from the Knights kit and a Bretonnian horse body. I had the horse body for a long time - never painted.

He'll be the Preceptor for the unit.

I painted the cloth barding a gray to have it blend in with the rest of the unit's plate barding. There appears to be mail under the cloth barding which matches the horse head armor.

As the lance is rectangular, I decided to paint it length-wise instead of spiraled.

I also painted up a 2X2 feet Realm of Battle board which I plan to use to display the army. After washing it to remove any oils or debris, it was sprayed with flat black. Over this the rocks and skulls were dry-brushed grays. The rest of the boards was painted with a watered-down coat of brown.

Static grass was then glued over the brown areas. I understand there is an electric applicator to ensure the grass stands up when glued down, but didn't want to invest in one of those and just went ahead and sifted the grass and then tilted the board on its side to remove any grass excess.

Probably not to everyone's tastes, but I rather like the numerous skulls in the pits.

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.