Catawba Gamers August 2011 part 1

Once again the Catawba Gamers got together for their monthly gaming day. This time ChuckarooBob had brought his Franco-Prussian miniature collection for a game of Chassepot and Needlegun. The game was played at Parker Banner Kent and Wayne in Cornelius, North Carolina. It was my first visit to their new location and it is nice. They have a much larger retail area and tons more gaming room. The table set up was sixteen by six feet and almost the whole amount would end up being used during the game. The scenario was based off of the Battle of Mars-la-Tour, where an outnumbered Prussian force was despatched to stop the French from escaping the city of Metz and joining the French forces ay Verdun. The Prussain started grossly outnumber with 30,000 Prussians facing 130,000 French. The Prussians were soon reinforced and ended the battle outnumbering the French.




A view of the table. The closest village is Mars-la-tour and the farthest village is Vionville. Each box is a French infantry division waiting to be deployed. Unlike most games put on by the Catawba Gamers we actually had the table set up and models waiting to be deployed by the normal game start time of 1pm. Little did we know we would be there for quite a while.

A French division of two brigades deployed in line on the French left commanded by Brian.

Another French Division of two Brigades deployed on the French right commanded by Jody.

The Prussians start to deploy.

An Overview of the table from the French side, showing The French move toward Vionville with the reserves behind the line of advance.

A view of the Prussian battle line, notice the two artillery batteries on the heights behind.

A French Regiment advance behind the Mitrailleuse battery.

First blood to the French, a Prussian Regiment takes casualties.

The French advance into the ruins only to find a hidden Prussian unit. The French charge home anyway.

The Prussians are blooded but withdraw in good order.

The French push toward the village of Vionville in the center to root out the Prussian defenders.

A Bavarian division arrives behind the French right. the Prussians had a lot of reinforcements and brought them on early. The French players didn't really understand exactly where the reinforcements could arrive from and this left us caught flat footed.

The French Heavy cavalry arrives and charge toward the Bavarian reinforcements on the French right.

More French Cavalry race to stop the Bavarians.

The Bavarians charge in and break a regiment of French infantry.

Even more Prussian reserves advance onto the table.

The Bavarian cavalry form up to charge the rear of the French battery.

The assault on Vionville begins with a Regiment of Brian's troops who are halted by defensive fire from inside the Village. Then my two regiment Brigade closes, forces the defenders to withdraw and takes Vionville. I think this was also about the time Brian showed what a true wargamer is made of by refusing to stop playing after taking a bad stab from one of the wire bayonets. Even bleeding he refused to leave the table.

The Bavarians swarm the French right while the French artillery try to stem the tide.

Vionville firmly in French hands, the 8th Chasseurs in the village and 69th infantry to the right reform to clear the corn field of Prussian scum.

As the French Cavalry close the Bavarian Infantry form square and their cavalry prepare to meet the charge.

The 8th Chasseurs and 69th Infantry take the fight to the Prussians.

The reserve Prussian Guards Brigade marches into the ruins on the French left.

Thr 8th Chasseurs and 69th infantry sweep the Prussians before them and a cowardly Prussian regiment marches into the undefended Vionville.

Come back for Part 2 and the conclusion of the game.

More Chaos models

I have been thinking about playing in a local Warhammer Fantasy Grand Tournament. This has let me looking over my armies and doing model counts to see exactly what I have and if I can build a fun to play and somewhat competitive army. The GT organizers have their own set of guidelines for building armies to weed out some of the more broken power army builds. One army I was contemplating was the Warriors of Chaos and lo and behold Chuckaroo gave me an offer I couldn't refuse.

I now have another thirty chaos warriors to add to the army. I am prepping these for paint soon.

During the model count I found another oldie but goldie

It is a Gargoyle from Hero quest. This is one of two I own and has been in a box in storage for years. They can call it what they want but It still looks like a Bloodthirster to me. Yes he is little but Its not the size of the Bloodthirster in the fight, its the size of the Fight in the Bloodthirster.

That being said, I will still probably use him as a Daemon Prince in the next Apocalypse game.

Here is a group shot of three generations of Bloodthirsters. When you get something right, stick to it.

ColKG

Azazel and other Daemon Prince WIP

I have been working on some more Daemon Princes I had in my bits box. One was missing its head and the other was missing a leg. The head for the first one I believe I used on another model but the missing leg was missing when I received the rest of the model in a trade.

I rummaged around some bits boxes and came up with the head to a newer Daemon Prince and pinned it into place on the old Daemon Prince torso.

Here is a shot with the basic green stuff support.

Here is a better shot after building up the neck a little more. I took it slow and had to reposition the head to make sure that the new head would miss the wings that will eventually be put on the model.

A last shot of the neck. I have started adding details but still have a good bit to go.



The second model is the old Azazel Daemon Prince missing a leg. I originally thought about a green stuff tentacle leg but I found some old steed of Slaanesh extra legs.

Here is the chosen replacement leg. It is a left leg, which for some reason I have four extra left legs for steeds of Slaanesh. I, of course, was missing the right leg of Azazel.

I cut the steed left leg just above the knee and used some brass wire to form the armature for the new thigh. It took many adjustments of the wire to finally get the pose right. Then I glued down the feet.

The basic greenstuff form of the new thigh. I still need to add many layers to build up the thing but I feel good at where it is going so far.

I want to finish these to use in the 1st War for Armageddon game in November but only time will tell.

ColKG

Heart of Oak arrives

I have acquired a set of rules for a new period, Napoleonic Naval gaming. I have been working on using Wooden Ships and Iron Men but Heart of Oak was recommended by Chuckaroo and thanks to evil bay I now own a copy.

Where did this come from you ask? Well back in January, J Womack of The Scattergun Gamer posted a game it forward post offering some 1/900 scale Napoleonic ship for whomever wanted them. I was the lucky recipient. The ships then made a journey of their own. First to Historicon where J Womack handed them off to Chuckaroobob and from there to me. It would seem that Historical gaming is a small world after all. The figures are from Portsmouth Miniatures .
I have only played Wooden ships and Iron men with the board game but I own it so I set about planning a game using those rules. In the mean time I bid on several copies of Heart of Oak and finally won one.
I have started reading the rules and once I get some sheets made up I will try a game. Depending on how a couple test games go I want to try and run some demo games and/or run some games at a convention. Everything is still in flux and I will probably pick up a few more ships from Portsmouth to have two even sized fleets.

ColKG

World Eater Warband progress

I haven't been posting must lately because I have been devoting my hobby time to the World Eaters build up. I have been working on several test lists for the First War for Armageddon re fight this November. Once again I will be fielding the forces of Chaos but instead of my normal Death Guard plague marine force I will be fielding my World Eater Khorne Berserker army.
My goal for the game is around ten thousand points. My plan for the berserkers, at the moment, is to field eight squads of eight berserkers in rhinos and two twenty model squads on foot lead by Kharn the Betrayer. That comes up to about three thousand five hundred points. After picking up some more Berserkers and bits I have built up my original force to fill out this plan.

Twenty seven of Angron's finest. These are some of the newest recruits to the army and many still need a few finishing touches before base coating. All are armed with a close combat weapon and bolt pistol.

My original group of Khorne berserkers with a few I repaired and rebuilt from the recently acquired bits. All these are also armed with close combat weapon and bolt pistol. this gives me seventy two ccw and pistol armed berserkers to build up my squads.

The command models and special weapons. I guess I shouldn't really say special weapons because the only weapon is plasma pistols. I had eight plasma pistoleers to begin with but built another twelve to give me enough for ten squads. This also shows the two icon bearers, I swapped a plasma pistol from my original one so now both are armed with bolt pistols. I also added a chaos standard to the new one I acquired. I plan to run them in the two twenty man squads. For Aspiring Champs I have seven armed with power weapons, seven armed with power fists and one as yet undecided. I am still debating on whether to go from an even mix of power fists and power weapons or max on on one or the other. last is my Kharn the Betrayer model. I have broken it apart to give him a better paint job for the big game.

I have been debating on fielding the Maelstorm of Gore apocalypse formation. Basically it gives three plus squads of Khorne berserkers fleet of foot if they stay within twelve inches of the leading Chaos lord or Kharn the Betrayer. It also has a chance to stop enemy forces from using fleet of foot because of the rain of gore. I can have one of the rhino mounted squads be the third berserker squad or I can build another twenty man squad. The idea of Kharn leading sixty berserkers across the battle field (to their probable doom) is stuck in my head. I have enough bodies for the twenty but will need to scrounge some more close combat arms from regular chaos and imperial marines.

Some more of the army will be a Vindicator Linebreaker squadron with four tanks, an eight man khorne terminator squad, a couple daemon princes, four khorne lords on juggernauts, nine chaos spawn, a World Eater dreadnought and a land raider. This gets me to about six thousand five hundred points. Still shy of the target ten grand.

My answer to break the magic ten grand mark would be a full strength Traitor Shadow sword Domination force. This includes six leman russ tanks, two hydra flak tanks, nine sentinels and four armored fist squads in chimeras. The trick to this formation is that the Shadow sword can pass hits on it to one of the surrounding vehicles and they can pass it down from Leman russ to chimera to sentinel. A full strength force tips the scale at around three thousand two hundred or so points and will put me over the ten grand mark.

The list is still in flux, I am debating on including Raptors, chaos bikers and/or obliterators. I feel that I will take allot of casualties early on and these forces will allow me to have something still on board late in the game. I am also working on some khorne daemons to either use or loan out for some one else to play.

The good thing is I already have all the models I plan to use on hand. The bad is I still need to assemble a bunch and then even more need to be painted.

ColKG