WoV #7: Öldenhaller Manor

Seventh battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

The hints found in Dörthagen lead to Pfungzig, a rich city in the Province of Averland. But before following the tracks of the Adventurers is now time for a direct strike to the enemy: the Oligarchs.

WoV #6: Dörthagen

Sixth battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

After battling the Undead in the Moot, Rhobar decides to head to Dörthagen: all the hints found in Hugo's house lead there, so it's the natural place to go.

Badlands start treating us good - my Orcs & Goblins army

The Badlands sang by The Boss (clearly an Orc&roll star, given his strength derivated from his Greenskin heritage) are home of multiple Orcs & Goblins tribes, and mine is no exception. During this fifteen years of hobby, my first army grew costantly and is still growing; we played numerous battles, we lost a very lot of them but always with an Orcish grin on our green face, and the will to take our victory in another, glorious slaughter.

With the release of Warhammer: The Old World (from now on WTOW), I take the chance to make and inventory of my Greenskin miniatures. I think they're the army of which I have more miniatures; however, as you'll see, I didn't paint pretty much anything of it yet. Maybe the future will se my Orcs all painted on the table: it would be an awesome view! Something still need to be build, also: this is one of my goals for the 15th Year Hobby Celebration.

Well, time to go.

Waaagh! Alfray

Da best Waaagh! since Gorbad. Est. 2009

The road to The Old World - So it begins

 The Old World is finally here!

Alfray ready to dominate the new rules!

This afternoon I took my own copy of the new rulebook, a blue tome after a lot of red ones. I’m very excited! I’m still waiting for my copy of Ravening Hordes, the book with the army lists for the evil armies: I play three out of four of the armies inside (Greenskins, Warriors of Chaos and Beastmen; the fourth army is the Tomb Kings of Khemri, which Grimbeorn just purchased with this new edition), so I absolutely needed it.

A screenshot from the detailed unboxing Grimbeorn sent to Michele and me. You can see his proud paw on the prey

During the next days I’m gonna go deep inside the new rules, and Grimbeorn and I are already planning our first game. But the first thing I intend to do is a serious inventory of my Orcs and Goblins. A lot of miniatures still need to be built, and the majority is unpainted, but that’s not a problem: here in the Badlands even the grey armies fight an unrelenting combat against the other forces of the Old World…

All my Greenskins ready to be listed. The cradle on the left is for the Wyvern

Last thing to say, it was announced that Cubicle7, current publishers of WFRP 4th edition, is developing a new ruleset based on the The Old World setting. To cite Michele:

Did we need it? No. 

Will we buy it? Maybe. 

Will we go on playing WFRP 4th ed.? Obviously.

The official annoucement

I look forward to a great year of hobby! The road’s just starting, and the road goes ever on and on for fifteen years now: and whither then? I cannot say.

The road to The Old World - Bad Boys

It’s almost here! My second post while waiting for The Old World is about my Warriors of Chaos.

Do you remember this guy?

During last week I made an inventory of my Warhammer Chaos miniatures. It’s an army I love, but in which never really dipped; so, I don’t have lots of miniatures. However, they are one of the first armies I ever saw, because in the Crown of Fate campaign they were Michele’s army (I played Orcs and Goblins and Grimbeorn played The Empire: those two are our main armies ever since). I soon learned to fear Chaos Knights even when they were just five models; I’ve seen Michele’s character ascend to Demon Prince during a crucial battle by gaining the favor of the Chaos Gods; the silent and statuary units of Warriors scourged the battlefield in a way my Boyz and Grimbeorn’s State Troops could only imagine to reach.

Not a long time after, I bought a box of Chaos Warriors. I remember building them while on vacation with my parents somewhere in Tuscany, I was in high school at that time so a long time ago. Well, among them there was (and there still is) a particular miniature I love. I never bought any true Hero miniature for this army, so I needed a Hero to use on the battlefield, because at the time we were planning a new campaign and I wanted to play Warriors of Chaos.

His name was Thorgar.

Here he is! As you can see I chose a grey paint scheme for him... after all this years...

He's a "simple" Champion from the Warriors of Chaos old sprue, but at the time I sawed some horns from his friends' helmets and added some tentacles and mutations to him. I always loved this early idea of mine, and I'm really affectionate to this miniature even if it's just the product of the imagination of a proud young wargamer... or maybe because of that!

Well, Thorgar guided my Chaos troops in various battles. I remember at least two brief campaigns we started (and, I think, never completed): in one of them we had to conquer some territories on a map, and the second was something like a Mordheim campaign (we first tried Mordheim just some years after we were into Warhammer hobby). I have all my notes as well from that time.

Have you seen the first pic in this post? This is not random: the name Thorgar is obviously borrowed from Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, the fantastic videogame I literally consumed. Thorgar the Blooded One was his original name (in Italian it was Thorgar il Purosangue). I loved the game and the plot, and I chose the same name for my Hero. Just look at the epic trailer here: the best description of the Warhammer world.

Even if I never painted him, I often chose a Mark of Chaos (obviously) for him in battle. In my first times gaming, my favourite was the Mark of Nurgle, because at the time (and I think even in more recent editions) it gave -1 to hit and to wound to enemies in close combat: a treat! This granted him a title, because every Champion of Chaos needs a title. But my Thorgar was only on the way of becoming a real Champion, so he wanted to call himself Thorgar the Unclean... but I was called Thorgar the Almost Unclean (Thorgar il Quasi Immondo, in Italian). Not really noble, but me and the guys always called him that and he still has this name today. Poor Thorgar, I really need to paint him.

During the last few year, Grimbeorn and I started lots of little campaigns just for the sake of gaming. I'm often the master, but in one of them I'm just an humble player and Thorgar is my character: the Thorgar Campaign started at least in 2016, I think, and it's still on today. Sometimes we play a game to narrate the violent deeds of Thorgar in Norsca, where he wants to become the new Champion of the Gods and defeat an Imperial army settled near the Sea of Claws. In this story, even if I always loved Nurgle (I possess a Death Guard army for Warhammer 40k, too), Thorgar is a servant of my favourite Chaos God: Tzeentch. Tzeentch is always the main evil force in all my WFRP campaigns, he's the bad guy in Wolf of Vengeance: is the true power of Chaos, in my opinion and taste.

So, in The Old World Thorgar is ready to return to the battlefield with is little but capable army. I don't have lots of miniatures, as I already said, but fortunately the new rules allow Allied and Mercenary contingents, so I can deploy my Beastmen alongside my Warriors of Chaos. This week I took few pics of what I've done.

My Warriors, magnetised in their box. Here you can see my Chaos Sorcerer (I want to paint the base before glueing him), some Warhounds, the Gorebeast from the Chaos Chariot that I use as a filler. I also have the Chariot, obviously, a Demon Prince, the other 5 Warhounds still in sprue and some Marauders I'm building these days. I never painted anything from this army, a part from a pair of Warriors you can se in the last rank, who were just a color try

First ever Marauders I built. I've always loved this miniatures, and I'm just finishing the others. However I want to leave on the sprue 4 or 5 of them, because I'm planning a Norsca Warband for Mordheim in the near future and I want to keep some minis for it

Thanks to Andrea, one of the friends from our club, I possess this magnificent old Chaos Ogres Command. I love old metal miniatures, and they're just a step toward the only old miniatures I really, really, really want to collect... old Chaos Dragon Ogres. I look forward to a time when I will deploy them on the battlefield!

Tomorrow, the Chaos war drums will sound in The Old World!

The road to The Old World - The Hero

First post for 2024! Oh yeah. And it's written under the twin tailed comet, since the day after tomorrow marks the release of The Old World by GW. Warhammer Fantasy is back under a new skin, and I can't be more excited for it.

This 2024 marks also the 15th Year Hobby Celebration for us, an event between Grimbeorn, Michele and me to celebrate our start with Warhammer hobby back in 2009. Since Michele is in Rome, Grimbeorn and I are gonna carry on the flag by playing a new version of our first ever Warhammer Fantasy Battle campaign.

With The Old World out, I'm gonna take care of my Warhammer armies, define my square bases, fill up my ranks and so on. Only three days stand between me and the new books and rules, so I'm gonna share something related every day.

* * *

The first thing I did was take out my first Orc Hero. In 2009 I started playing with my beloved Greenskins, and the first box I bought obviously was a Orc Boyz box. Their Champion was my first Hero ever, since I played him as my character during out first campaign, named The Crown of Fate (La Corona del Fato in Italian), mastered by the former common friend that introduced us to Warhammer.

His name was, and still is, Alfray Zpakkakrani (in English: Alfray Skullcrusher, probably a more Orcish Skullkrusha or something like that).

This was also one of the first miniatures I painted. This year, since the 15th Year Hobby Celebration is on, is my intention to restore him and renew the paint job.

With Alfray I played my very first two Warhammer Fantasy campaigns during 2009. Just at the end of The Crown of Fate my character fell in the Sea of Claws after losing the final battle between Grimbeorn, Michele and me (Grimbeorn won that campaign), and was rescued by some Norsemen, who took him to see an emissary of Malal, the fifth God of Chaos, the one representing Chaos himself. The deity hired Alfray to become his new champion, a sort of new Kaleb Daark (a former GW character, a powerful Chaos Champion and the only known Malalite hero. You can find something about him here). We started another campaign with our old characters one year after: we loved them! And our armies grew alongside them while we became more and more attracted to the hobby.

I still have all my notes and army lists from that time. A nice memory!

I always use this miniature to represent my heroes: both Gorthul the Red Orc from the Wolf of Vengeance campaign and Okog the Nazty, my Mordheim Orc character, are the same model for now. I really love this Orc, so my future work on the paint job must be something right to bring honour to his story.

So, 2024 is the year of the great return of Alfray Zpakkakrani on the battlefield. The road to The Old World begins with the first green step...

PS: maybe someone noticed that the name Alfray is taken from the series Orcs by Stan Nicholls. Three novels I read in 2009 just when I started playing Warhammer and that I immediately appreciated, as you can see...

Something's up in the Lair...

Given that The Old World is now real, and in 2024 we could finally return in the ancient land of Warhammer Fantasy with a new ruleset from GW, Grimbeorn and I are kinda excited. We almost finished our Wolf of Vengeance WFB campaign: just the epic, giant final battle lies ahead... but next?

Well, today we had an idea... something we can also use when The Old World is out... an idea involving our Mighty Empires set...

It's time to paint some tiles, lads!

#sporktober part III - The making of

It's time! #sporktober is almost over and I completed my entry for our little challenge.

In this painting report I'll show the very simple way in which I painted the Orc my pals chose to be painted during this amazing Orctober. The winner was the classic monopose Orc Warrior Boy from the 6th edition of WFB.

Here he is in all his greyness

#sporktober part II - Vox populi

I'm now ready to get on prepping and painting my models for our #sporktober challenge. However, I've got some models to choose between, and I want my fellows to decide which I will paint. Since Michele is my opponent and Grimbeorn is the jury, it may be biased to ask them to choose my miniature. But this is a friendly challenge, and I'm sure they'll choose the miniature they sincerely like the most to see finished by the end of the month.

After my brief report on the models from the past editions of Warhammer, these are my miniatures I currently possess which could compete in the challenge. Let the people decide!

Getting (Grimbeorn) ready for #sporktober

A few days ago, my pal Michele (Frontlineminiaturist) sent to Grimbeorn and me a YouTube video which launched a challenge for the month, calling that #sporktober. It's a mix between spooktober and orctober which challenges people on social media to paint an Orc or Undead miniature, and the youtuber chooses a 90s style of painting on one of the Skeletons from the Cursed City range. I leave here the link for the video 👉 YOUTUBE 📺

Michele challenged us to do the same. This isn't exactly part of my Orctober goals, but I wanted to join the ride so I said yes (maybe it will be a chance for me to revamp my painting desire). Grimbeorn said he didn't want to participate, but he'll be our judge. However, he asked if we could send him some info about this 90s style of painting. I was thinking about the info to send to him, but the fact is that I'm kinda nerdy when talking about the history of various Warhammer editions (I'm nerdy just about that, as you can imagine), and so I thought that my info for Grimbeorn could became a whole post.

And so, my dear Grimbeorn... this is for you!

WoV #5 - The Moot

Fifth battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

Here we start the Path of the Winds. This is a cryptic name, compared with the others. There's a reason for that: everything will became clear...

WoV #4 - Orchaeology

 Fourth battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

After slowing down the Orcs in Gisoreux, Rhobar enters the Forest of Arden to unveil the mysterious reason of the Greenskin reckoning... 

WoV #3 - The knights of death

Third battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

This game is set immediately after defeating Max Tarn in our first game. 

WoV #2 - Helping friends

Second battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign.

As I wrote in the previous report, probably this game set in Bretonnia would not be Rhobar's first choice of proceeding after defeating Max Tarn. However, I chose to follow a chronological principle in narrating our games, so to discover the different aspects of the story together with the Hero (and obviously Grimbeorn). From now on, little info about the previous game would be quoted in the briefing if needed.

WoV #1 - The convoy

First battle of the Wolf of Vengeance campaign. After Game Zero, this is the first official battle report of the whole series.

Originally we wanted to report the various games in the chronological order we played them. Thinking about in-game logic, this would not always be the effective order the main characters would manage their movements. However, years passed and our project remained a draft: so, this series of pic showcases and battle reports serve more as a diary of our campaign than a precise narration of the events, and Rhobar's story will be narrated in the briefing before and after every game, in the same order Grimbeorn discovered gradually the plot and the puzzling texture of the world he lives in.

WoV - Campaign setting, rules & Game Zero

In this post I will explain the setting of our campaign in the Warhammer World, the first game we played for Wolf of Vengeance WFB campaign and the rules we created to run this series of battles.

Fantasy Crusade - first battle report

When we posted on some hobby groups on Facebook our first post about the Fantasy Crusade campaign system, some good folks were really interested (and that flattered us a lot). They ask for some clarifications, which I still have to provide through a specific rules post, and I first need to translate to English all our notes and campaign sheets: however, Grimbeorn and I already (so to speak) played the first game!

We choose our armies from respectively his Ogre Kingdom Crusade and my Empire Crusade. However we played full strength, so 1000 pts on the battlefield.

We picked the sixth battle from the WHFB core rulebook, The Watchtower.

Ogres win the throw for the tower, so they start with a core unit inside it. Grimbeorn puts on the battlefield a Bruiser with two hand weapons (General), another Bruiser as BSB, 6 Ogres, 6 Ironguts and 5 Leadbelchers. BSB and core Ogres are currently garrisoning the tower.

My Imperial forces attack with a more various army (even compared to Grimbeorn's Empire Crusade I preferred to mix more diverse units: maybe less effective but I love the background effect). I field 5 Knightly Orders, 10 Greatswords, 15 Swordsmen, Helblaster Volley Gun, 15 Halberdiers with a 8 Crossbowmen as Detachment, 5 Pistoliers. My Heroes are a General on warhorse and a BSB.

Ogres move forward, but I try to start aggressively to avoid their charges, so I try to charge first. I succeed with every attempt (woah), but I lose two knights against the dreadful shooting of the Leadbelchers

Even without two men, my charge is devastating: my General unit obliterate the Ogres by successfully scaring off and destroying them in their attempt to flee

On the other side of the tower, my Halberdiers have a bad time against the Ironguts: they're really strong! We kill just one of them but we lose the combat...

... and the only survivor is the BSB, who holds the line for Sigmar and the Empire!

Its a brief heroic moment: the Ironguts literally eat him and turn to charge 😱 my poor Swordsmen. In just a combat phase this entire unit will be totally wiped out

Grimbeorn and his usual reaction to my double sixes

Turn of the events! With a charge, my knights leaded by my General successfully destroy all the remaining Ogres by pursuing them after winning the Combat phase. Second mark for them today

With just the Ogres on the tower remaining, weakened by my constant shooting, now the Empire just need to wait. Sigmar blessed my Helblaster Volley Gun which suffered just one misfire in the entire game!

My Greatswords charge the tower with the last Ogre still maintaining possession

The end of the game!

So, the first game of our campaign ended with a suffered victory for me. I lost both my core units, but Grimbeorn lost his entire army in battle. Our Crusade rules state that a unit destroyed in battle is automatically restored at its full strength before the subsequent game; however, we had to roll on the death chart for our characters.

I totalize 4 Glory Points with this game (1 for playing the game, 3 for winning) and Grimbeorn 2 Glory Points (1 for playing, 1 for losing). Some of our units gained an enemy standard, which will grant some experience and, maybe, some upgrades for our units. 

It was a nice, fun game, and we liked the Crusade-like army composition. With this game we beta-tested the post-battle sequence and we wrote something more accurate in our rules. More on that later. We decided to ignore, just for this game, the Saga system inside our rules, so we could just try the base rules: for the next game we're already writing down some ideas for this key feature of our Crusade Campaign.

I'm looking forward to fight the Ogres with my other armies: it's a fascinating enemy, and I really want to explore their potential and find their weak spots. I have an entire Crusade to do so...

Fantasy Crusade campaign - The beginning

The last edition of Warhammer 40.000 introduced the Crusade campaign system. Grimbeorn and I absolutely love it, even if we're not really big gamers in WH 40K... (but only because we have so much Fantasy to do).

We love it because it allows you to both expand an army a little at a time, thing that we adore especially since our firsts Warhammer campaigns when we were teenagers, and to pursue an affordable hobby goal. We are passionate hobbyists but not very fast ones, primarily in painting, and set little goals is the key to success.

Would be. I tried a lot but I lack in constancy. Sigh. However, here's what we created based on the WH 40K Crusade.

Grimbeorn and Amarok's

Fantasy Crusade Campaign System

Est. 2022

We both start with a 1000 pts pool from which we create an army following the rules from 8th Ed. of WHFB. We have some rules for Characters mainly given from the Warbands rules (oh we love that and you know it). Each battle grants use Glory Points which may be converted in regulars pts to buy new troops or new equipment (1 Glory Point = 25 pts). With Glory Points we may also unblock siege equipment (from the supplement Blood in the Badlands) for siege battles around the specific Fortress of our Crusade.

Main goal of the Crusade is to gain Glory Points towards battles and a great narrative objective called the Crusade Saga. Every Saga is composed of various Deeds, in-game objectives (such as Kill the enemy General and so on) which grant the player Glory Points if accomplished. An entire Saga may consist in a series of Deeds through a given number of battles: in the end, and in that momento only, the player can spend Glory Points to buy magical artifacts.

We still need a narrative frame for our battles, maybe the Badlands or the Border Princes where various armies gather to fight. The idea is to play WHFB battles like we play Mordheim games: we freely the army we want to play that day to gain more experience and power, we decide a point limit based on the time we have, build a list from the units we already have in our Crusade and just play. In the subsequent battle we may vary our army as well as maintain the same, as we like. A more powerful army would have play more games, so we would want to spread the games around our different Crusades.

We manufactured a Crusade campaign sheet. I post it in Italian, in the original version.

As you can see, we stole from Mordheim the advance scheme for Troops. In the first page there are different boxes for everything useful for playing.

***

Well, from now on we only have to play! We're still beta testing the system, however we got pretty excited and we already have three Crusades each ready to rumble... I'll present mine in subsequent posts.

Crusade system is perfect for hobby purposes, and I really realized that I want to concentrate more on some aspects of hobby thanks to this new gaming idea we developed. More on that later. It's time to build and paint!

Waaagh!

A little hobby update #1

This is the first post entirely written and posted from my smartphone. Not exactly an exciting news, but definitely an update for me 😂

However, just a little update from the Lair’s workbench! In this days I finally picked up my brushes from lethargy and prepared from new stuff for various project. I’m planning on concentrate on something new very soon… maybe some Warbands for Warhammer Fantasy to smash Grimbeorn on the battlefield. In the meantime, here it goes.

I made some tokens for the national Mordheim campaign we’re attending. With these we can mark the dead models which return on the battlefield as Undead… we hope to use them the least possibile!

A couple models I built for my Empire Army and obviously for Mordheim purposes too. These are Luthor, a special miniature designed by Tuomas Pirinen, the author of Mordheim game, representing a lone mercenary from the ruins of the City of the Damned, and a Mage from the Lore of the Beasts, or alternatively a Priest of Taal, made from the bits of the Imperial Griffon kit.

My newest project is building my first ever 3D printed miniatures! I purchased an STL file from the manufacturer Reptilian Overlords, Priests and Penitents, and with the first batch printed I will have two Warriors Priests of Sigmar on foot and ten Flagellants. Perfect miniatures for my Empire Army (and for an upcoming Witch Hunters Mordheim Warband too…)

“I smell some hereeeeeetiiiiics!” 😈

Technical update: Blogger is not exactly optimised for smartphone, at least not for my iPhone. I’m currently using Google Chrome as browser (I though that with Safari would have been even worst, but I still have to try that out). Writing and pic posting went well, but all format options are hard to pick due to bad viewing on screen… not the best. I couldn’t modify the font of the captions under the photos. However, it worked and I can now post even without my computer.

Magic & muscles 🔮💪🏻

Yesterday Grimbeorn and I played a little 1000 pts WFB game, High Elves vs Ogre Kingdoms. This was the first game ever for Grimbeorn's Ogres, newly purchased and built. Nice battle indeed, even if my poor Elves perished against the smashing hits of their colossal foes...

A simple deployment with some terrain elements: a couple of forests, a swamp, a haunted mansion, some obstacles and a sinister statue. The field is almost too big for just 1000 pts

Both armies are made of elite warriors, so few models. The big Ogres dominate the battlefield with their tonnage. The empty base on the Elves' side near the swamp is a Lion Chariot

Nice magic phase for the Elves: a triple one in the first spell of the first turn...

My Elves move forward but the Silver Helms stay away from the Mournfang Cavalry and their devastating charge

The Ogres move forward too, but they didn't charge. In the second turn, The Phoenix Guard and the Lion Chariot charge the vanilla Ogre unit with the Firebelly

A nice Grimbeorn shows what finger must be used when you save two sixes with two sixes

Third turn! Bad things here: the Ogres are wiped out, but the Ironguts and Leadbelchers surround the Elves, and the Mournfang Cavalry finally charges the Silver Helms

"My sire, they're big..."

"My sire, they're too big!"

With a nice tactical move, the Leadbelchers destroy the Chariot, make an overrun move and impact on the other flank of the Phoenix Guard. The Elves look like an hamburger between two Ogre buns!

It's a slaughter, and it could have been worst but the Phoenixes have an exceptional ward save thanks to High Magic 

There can be only one BSB on this field! The Ogre is now devouring the Elf banner. This shall not be forgotten

The survived Elves flee, but their enemy catch them: it's the end for the champions of Asuryan

Triple one to wound for the Silver Helms: the Fate has turned against us once again!

I can still hear Grimbeorn's laughter in seeing his mounted Ogres run over the Elven cavalry

The outcome: an absolute massacre. The Ogres showed their strength and power!

It was a nice game, we had fun and we could try the Ogre Kingdom Army Book for the first time. Grimbeorn was really happy of the outcome, and I cannot wait to take my revenge!