Return of the Drak...

Guess who's back... back again... 

After an astounding run of 12 games (1 draw, 11 losses...), Lady Genevieve is going to take a short break. The Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Drak'nyah the Ascendent returns from the Chaos Wastes at the head of a mixed raiding party. 

With his former Lieutenant, Hirad Bonehelm having shifted allegiances to Khorne at the collapse of Archaon's force, Drak'nyah embraced his ascent to daemonhood and has been biding his time before getting ready to re-enter the Old World.

The hooves of his raiding party rumble like thunder and the peoples of the civilized world bolt their doors and cower in dark corners....

I should have kept more of a note of my Chaos results, but before the Vamps stepped in I think I had run 6 or 7 games, with 3 wins or so - we'll see how we fare tonight...

Chaos Kiiiniggits

 

Resting in Peace....

Last week I got in my first game post-Storm. Stephen's Ogres met my VC on the field having avoided each other at 2 tournaments. Where Liddle's Ogres had munched their way through me in relatively quick fashion, Stephen and I had a more relaxed, but still competitive game - he's trying to teach me to think more like a tournament as the scene round here is more competitive than I'm used to (as I've mentioned before). I rejigged my list slightly, dropping my L1 Vamp to boost both Genevieve and Kruger, and came out with a 7-13 loss. Turns out that I can put the hurt on Ogres when I hit them with the Ethereals (and when there's no magical shooting to nail said ghostly units!).

I'll be taking him on again tomorrow with a further tweaked list: Genevieve on the Abyssal is resting for the night, and her sister Marie will take control, alongside Kruger and Vorash as I try out a mini-scream list for size.

Thursday has another game lined up, and I think I'm resting the VC altogether for this one. Cry Havoc 16 looms on the horizon, and I feel the call of Chaos once more - time for the Slaaneshi Warriors to boot up and march to war...

The end of the summer looks like it might bring another 1-dayer in September, I think that's the perfect chance to push another 2500-3000pt army and make it 2 completed armies for the year, but Empire or Dark Elves, that is the question?! My VC project has been a lot of fun, but time to shelf it for a bit (still over 1500pts of bits to build and paint, and I'll be honest, I'm a bit burned out on bones!)

Coming off the back burner in the next few weeks will also be Malifaux, thanks to the arrival of both my M2E Starter set, and some lovely resin bases - time to get painting!

A Storm receding...

So, it's been a couple of days since Storm Over Stirling 2016, and what to report? 

Lady Genevieve put in an award-winning performance, well, winning might not be quite right... After missing out on the Wooden Spoon at Fall of the Old World 2 by a point, the sheer un-competitiveness of my army was somewhat brutally exposed in the larger field of SOS. I scraped 14 points from 3 games (10 of those for getting my list in on time & voting for best army!), if I want to be competitive, I either need to drop the Abyssal, put in another Terrorgheist, or go full blender-lord, but none of these appeal to me, so I'll stick to my guns and run my list the way I like to - after all, it's about having fun!

Lined up for Best Army voting once more

My opponents on the day were John's Undead (another Vamp on Abyssal, and dual Terrorgheist set up, lost 20-1), Chris M's Dwarfs (Anvil of Doooooooom, lost 18-2 but it felt closer), and lastly Graham's Dark Elves (Mallus blender bus, another 20-1 drubbing). While I killed more this time than I did at Fall, I was crippled by the tourney bonuses (each game I lost 400pts on fortitude for Blood & Glory, and at least 300pts for table quarters), should have brought more banners! I do think I'm getting better with the Vamps, but my list is hamstrung in too many places by my own desire to run certain models.

It's not all 'bad' news though...

Cue the trumpets.... bum, parrarumpum-pum, puuuuuuummmm... I won the Best Army vote in only my 2nd competitive outing...

Boom first competitive awards...

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty chuffed with this. While I like to game, painting and converting is the big draw for me - so to have my army voted top in a field of nearly 30 is some pretty good validation. I know I'm not a hard gamer, and when I started the VC project, I just wanted to get a few votes for my painting and have a bit of fun playing guys I'd not met before. Massive thanks to Kromlech EU for sponsoring, and to all the guys that voted for my army - made for a fine end to the day!

My VC will probably go on the back burner for a wee while now - summer is on the horizon and I feel like painting something lighter (also I need to stop buying up things for them on ebay!). I've still got about 2000pts to build and paint for them, but that's for picking up again nearer Hallowe'en. For the summer, I'm thinking Empire, and some Malifaux or Zombicide for gaming with Ash and a change of painting style... 

Vampire Counts: Core units

Continuing the story of the Du Sang family's undead army...

The Du Sang Household Guard
Once the proud guardians of the Du Sang family's lands, now doomed to forever serve their mistress in undeath. There is no rest for these faithful retainers, as Genevieve's armies wage war on the living.

The Shambles

Blood-soaked, rotten corpses of former enemies and townspeople who displeased the necromancy, Kriersdorf. The Shambles are mere arrow-fodder, raised quickly and disposed of without a second thought.

The Slavering Hunt
Lady Genevieve's father was a renowned huntsman. There was a time that his annual beast hunt brought the greatest of Bretonnian chivalry to the castle. Since her dark ascension, Genevieve has maintained the tradition, only now she prefers to hunt more heavily armed prey.

The Blackblood Brood
Ghouls had long lingered in the dead places of the Old World, often small family groups gathered in the crypts and graveyards of the towns surrounding the Du Sang family's ancestral home. Since the arrival of the Strigoi, however, their numbers have grown unchecked. The armies of Genevieve are often accompanied by hordes of ghouls, throwing themselves on the enemy in a mindless feeding frenzy.

Fall of the Old World 2 - My review

So, time has flown in since I played the Undead Legions at FotOW2, and what did we learn from the 3 games?

First up, tournament play is hard. As a guy who's used to playing 1 2000pt game of an evening or afternoon (and maybe watch a 2nd game while talking over the best moments of the last), concentrating for 3 games in 1 day (at 3000pts), starting at 9am is exhausting! but it was fun, and I even got a few photos to prove my army was there!

Might not be that competitive, but damn we look pretty! 

I went with a classic Vampire Counts line-up. Maybe not playing to my strengths, but it looked pretty (well, as pretty as mouldy undead can look). Neferata (thoughts on her later). Neferata, Necromancer, Strigoi Ghoul King, Ghouls, Skeletons, Zombies, Hexwraiths, Dead Dogs, Ghosts, Terrorgheist, Morghasts, a Banshee, and a Cairn Wraith.

 

Look, the Hexwraiths killed a thing... Just not this thing, it killed them... 

Game 1 was against High Elves, and my opponent was a good lad, we were both playing relatively new armies but managed to keep each other right. A thoroughly fun, fast paced game so me lose 14-6 eventually, as Neferata and the Terrorgheist went down and his big cavalry blocks were left pretty much untouched. Neferata did spawn her freebie vamp, and munched through a couple of units, but she's a points-sink and too easily killed. I did knock out his chariots, fast cavalry, and bolt throwers with relative ease, but it didn't add up to enough points in the end. So far so good.

 

The observant among you may notice that Nefereta isn't dead yet... 

Game 2 and I was up against the other Undead Legions army. Only he had come to play hard, and had Nagash, a Casket of Souls, his own Terrorgheist... It was fun, another good opponent, but ouch was it hard - Nagash summoning piles of Hexwraiths and armoured snake-riding tomb kings behind my army meant I was effectively fighting 3000pts vs 4000pts, and it showed. Again, Neferata spawned her freebie vamp (which helped me take down the Casket of Souls), but she wasn't nearly survivable enough. Eventually I went down 15-5, but again I didn't do enough damage to move off the bottom table. 2 more kills and I would have wiped out his ghouls, and we'd have seen a very different scoreline, but you (un)live and learn.

And again, Neferata hasn't been eaten by a Carmine Dragon yet... 

Game 3 against the Dark Elves was the stinger. Final game of the day, and I crumbled. It looked alright early on, but then the Carmine Dragon hit Neferata and it was a slow descent to a near-tabling from there. While it was fun, Dale ran a very hard list for me to beat, and although it was a small field, I doubt he'd really thought that he be on the bottom table at the death. I killed a few things, but the loss of Neferata so early on made for an uphill struggle, and his Dreadlord on dragon blitzed through whatever the Carmine Dragon didn't. In the end, all I had left was a Spirit Host which had spent most of the game tying up some Shades on the flank.

So what did I learn? Tournaments are fun, a nice way to get a few games in, but too competitive for me. I much prefer a narrative game, and some character development over a small campaign. Secondly, I can't roll magic dice for sh*t... or maybe I need to buy new dice, 3 games (plus practice games) of dismal Winds of Magic rolls really makes the Vamps suffer (can't raise your guys back if you keep rolling 4-6 dice a phase while giving your opponent 4-5! My insistence on fielding units that I liked painting, and sub-optimal choices, makes it hard to pull out a win in an environment where everyone is running hard lists, and I have struggled with the Vamps. I love the models, the painting mission was a joy, but out of 8 games I've had 7 loses and a draw. Chaos Warriors they are not... I miss the raw damage output, but I'll stick with them, even hamstringing myself with the dread abyssal (how can a model look so good, but be so easy to kill?!). Also, she's much more survivable as a generic Vampire Lord than as Queen Neferata - only 6+ armour, no ward, and -1 to hit means she gets whittled away by shooting before any of her benefits kick in.

There's been 2 practice games since the tourney, and another lined up this week before Storm on Sunday. The list evolved a little as I was tabled by Ogres and ran Dwarfs close-ish (i.e. not that close, not the 19-1 loss against the Ogres, but not a draw either). For better or worse, the list is submitted, and the theme is ghouls and ethereal - go ghostly or go home!