Club Night June 15th

It was time for my second league game, this time against Duncan. The last few parts had arrived so my Razorgor chariots now have beasts to pull them and crew. Now they just need painting, but they can be seen below.

Duncan had a new Lizardman army that was lots of skink skirmishers and couple of big blocks, with a Slaan mage using a Skink priest as his range extender. We rolled up the battle for the pass which again was advantageous for my opponent as it meant there was a smaller line for the big units to hold with the skirmishers able to act as a screen. Meanwhile I could barely fit all the chariots across the valley! And with Chameleon skinks behind me it could be interesting.

I started by advancing all the force but a unit of hounds forward. I began to get peppered with blowpipes and magic missiles. In response my shamans could manage little except for more miscasts! My BSB had his chariot destroyed and the hounds sent after the Chameleon Skinks had suffered casualties. But by now I had closed the range and was able to start charging and wiping out the skirmish screens. I made hard work of the cold one riders but managed to get them and was also able to deal with the threat of the Terahdons.

Once I had dealt with the screen I was able to start on the big blocks and begin to whittle them down by charging everything I could from any direction possible. In the end I didn't manage to do quite enough. The Kroxigor with their great weapons had made a difference with one block and a failed charge meant that I was unable to finish off the few surviving Temple guard and almost certainly their charge, the Slaan, as well. Unfortunately the few survivors of these big blocks meant that the VPs did not reflect what was an incredibly close run game.

Club night 13th January

Steve and I decided to play a Dystopian wars game. I have not yet used my new Dreadnought, and the 1.1 version PDFs re-inspired us to play again. Steve had to knock out my big ships to win, while I had to destroy more than half of his fleet, including all the larger vessels. I started with most of my fleet on my right, with a small element on the left.

Above: Early moves

Both fleets moved forward and opened fire.My AA proved remarkably effective against the incoming rockets thanks to some jammy dice rolls that would continue for most of the game, while my return fire caused some serious damage to the FSA battleship. The fleets continued to close and I concentrated my fire on the enemies left, destroying all the support frigates and inflicting more damage on the battleship.

On the other flank I managed to bring my destroyers and frigates to bear in combination and destroyed the enemy frigates opposing them. They then began to sweep towards the centre, despite some heavy losses from enemy bombers.

I was then able to move most of my fleet towards the centre and bring my heavier short range fire-power onto the cruiser occupying the centre of the FSA fleet, destroying them and then turning my fire against the airships, bringing them down. I was then able to board and capture the severely battered enemy battleship.

Although my big ships were damaged they were not out of it, and all the FSA really had left was their dreadnought on their far left. I pulled my air fortress back as it was beginning to suffer against the rockets from the dreadnought.

At this point we called it a day as the FSA fleet was defeated and my Prussians managed to claim a victory, thanks to a bit of luck and a finally better grasp of how to use my fleet effectively and maximise its strengths.

Club Night 9th December

I had finally arranged another Warhammer league game, this time against Colin and his dwarves. With a mass of warmachines and some favourable terrain it looked like it could be tricky. However some gods somewhere were on my side, warmachines misfired and destroyed themselves, thunderers could not hit, even before I used the chalice of dark rain and all my spells went off. Seeing my general under the influence of Mantle of Ghorok chucking out over 10 attacks was an awesome sight! I think my luck was confirmed when they finally killed my giant and for the dirst time ever he fell over on top of the unit he as fighting and took some of them with him

In the end I achieved a good victory and moved up the league table. Whether I can catch Duncan and his Daemons is another issue though.

Club Sunday 2nd October

As the club met for our usual Sunday I decided not to game but to take advantage of our Indian summer and the outside space to get some painting done in the sun so I sprayed the base colours on Steve K's infantry tanks and primed my next wave of Dystopian wars.

I managed to actually get the Dystopian wars ships not just primed but painted to completion and army painted then when I got home, ready for basing and flat-coated. They are looking good and I will bring some photos when they are finished.

Dystopian Prussians - Finishing Touches

I gave the Prussians their anti-shine varnish and I am really pleased with the finish. Hopefully I will get them out and use them soon.

Above: Cruisers and Frigates,
Below: battleship and Frigates

Above: Sky Fortress and Scout Ships,
Below: Bombers and Tiny Flyers

Dystopian Prussians - Decals

I have finally prepared my decals for my Prussians. I drew them up in AutoCAD as I use this professionally, so although it may not be designed for graphics I know I could draw them accurately and size them precisely. I then printed these out at best quality and had them copied onto white laser decal paper. I chose white as I needed the trim to the crosses and though it would be easier to cut them accurate than have to paint on the trim. I used laser paper since I managed to order the wrong stuff! However this worked out well as copying was cheap and I didn't need to use any kind of fixative spray.
I applied them using both Micro Set and Micro Sol to get these tiny decals into place accurately. They all went on perfect with the exception of one of the crosses on the cruisers which took three attempts, but that is exactly why I printed more then I needed. Just need to anti-shine spray these and they are all finished.

Above: The decals, Below: The fleet with decals applied

Dystopian Prussians - Continuing Progress

Having picked up some new Scout Zepplins for my Prussian Navy I found my self all inspired, and since I had my Airbush stuff out to do my Sanguinary Priests I decided to pant them and finish off the rest of the vessels. I started by painting the last two fighter stands and the planes of the Sky Fortress deck.
I then decided to base my sea going vessels. I have been trying to decide if I wanted to do this for a while, and went for it as some of my frigates has some slight chips so I felt needed more protection. I used some off cuts from the Citadel custom movement tray kits, nice and sturdy and easy to cut to size.
I then started on the newly released Pflicht class scoutships. Cleaned up and primed with Gesso, I then sprayed them and after changing the green a dozen times to match the larger sky fortress I painted them too.
I then added some medium grain texture gel to the bases, and painted them blue again, dry brushed the textured bow and stern wakes and added some blue ink to add some depth and tone to the bases. Now I just need to do Army Painter, and decide if I am putting ship names somewhere on the bases and source some decals for Maltese crosses on the vessels, especially the Zeppelins.

Club Night 18th March

We decided to try out Steve K's new Federal States of America fleet against my Prussian navy. This time I had a better grasp on how to use my fleet and kept them closer together and had all the initial success by destroying a number of the enemy frigates.

However the long range rockets began to take their toll and I lost a number of my Cruisers. But as the fleets closed I got my major piece of luck as I hit the FSA battleship with some long range fire and shredded its defences. Taking advantage of its vulnerability I sent in waves of dive bombers on the defenceless ship, followed by boarder and took the battleship.

However my battleship was also heavily damaged by now and was struggling to defend itself against the surviving enemy frigates.

As the early hours of Saturday morning dawned we called it a day and after totting up the victory points it was a narrow victory to the Prussians. The FSA has lost all their support vessels, their carrier was damaged and the Prussians held their flagship, while the Prussians still had their Airship and 4 frigates left, and a heavily damaged, but still floating battleship.

Club Night 19th Janaury

Steve K, Luke and myself gathered down the club mid-week to have a try out of the Dystopian wars rules. Although my fleet is only half painted, Luke's isn't even started, but since no one else was about we didn't feel too embarrassed.

A simple sea scape with a few islands was all we needed. I started with my cruisers and some frigates on the right and my battleship, bombers, Zeppelin-carrier and a squadron of frigates on the left. As I steamed forward we quickly found the strength of the Britannians as their massed torpedoes devastated my frigates. On the other wing I smashed his frigates for slight loss.

My cruisers rushed up the centre towards his immensely powerful carrier. Consisting of two battleships side by side with a deck non top the amount of torpedoes this could fire was immense, but an opening salvo proved decisive as a lucky round penetrated the hull and exploded a magazine destroying the flagship in as single volley.

This was a major blow for te Britannia fleet, but they still had their battleship and were beginning to damage my cruisers. I quickly realised the secret was to close quickly and get too close for torpedo launches, so this I did, combined with a dive bomber strike and seriously damaged the battleship, but at hefty loss to my self, especially one the cruisers came up to support the enemy.

By this point it was getting very late, so we totted up victor points and found that the Britannia navy could claim a minor victory, which was probably fair, although they would have had really difficulties in attacking my Zeppelin.

The rules were really fun to play and I look forward to doing them again soon.

Club Night 3rd December

Due to the sever weather we have had here (lots of snow if you didn't know) the Haywards Heath team (myself, Luke and Steve K) decided we would game here rather than try to get up to Crawley so we decided to try out the Uncharted Seas rules look had bought on Steve dining table.

Steve and I took the Bone Griffons (undead types) and Luke took the Iron Dwarfs (who are, well, dwarfs!). Lukes fleet was the typical naval dwarf force of steam driven ironclads with plenty of artillery, some in turrets. Out force was a little different. We had oared galleys which we chose to fit with trebuchets and undead Orcas which we could use to tow out vessels for a turn of speed or send into ramming and boarding (by spreading disease) enemy vessels. Another key part of the rules is a card system. The decks are fleet specific and consist of a predefined mix of cards, some common to all fleets and some specific and add a nice little change to the style of the game.

In the first game Steve and I scored a decisive victory, with some cards that enhanced our shooting we hammered the enemy battleship with long range trebuchets fire while we attacked the small frigates with the Orcas and sank them easily. We then turned our fire on the destroyers and destroyed them before laying the Orcas along side the damaged battleship and the last crew succumbing to disease from the animated carcases.

We had time to play a second game so we swapped our trebuchets out for gun decks (a craft piece of magnetising Luke and I had done) and the Dwarfs took some submarine and an airship. Disaster struck from the off. The Dwarfs went first and used there enhanced gunnery card to target one of our cruisers with the combined fire of a squadron of frigates. With a lucky roll it exploded taking its sister ship down and damaging the battleship.

As the battleship limped forward to close the range the Dwarven destroyers and frigates closed and destroyed the other undead cruisers. Although the Orcas dealt wit the submarines the battleship was damaged heavily and under the combined cannon fire of the opposing fleet was smashed to drift wood. 1 game all!

These were fun rules and it will be nice to start tweaking the fleets and trying some different scenarios and adding some terrain to manoeuvre around. Luke has also ordered their Dystopian wars, a steam punk Victoriana game with blimps and airships, presumably with a similar mechanism that should be fun.