Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness mustering the Warband.

So now my mighty warriors and warlocks have answered the call its time to fish them out of the Northern Wastes I call my garage and my wife calls my man cave. It’s actually quite organised at the moment, if you can see a box it’s got miniatures or plastic kits in it. A few experimental rummages brought up the correct boxes.

Fishing around in one of the Chaos shoe boxes of waiting brought out the following two miscreants.

 

The dark elves were a harder prospect. Not for lack of choice, quite the opposite. I wanted to go old citadel over marauder so that ruled out some lovely sculpts from my collection. Being just that little bit bigger in size I thought the marauder sculpts would sit poorly with the slighter wizards I’d just fished out. Also I’d be a fool to take shields over crossbows for this unit, so that ruled out the otherwise perfect Manflayers unit. I’m not grinding the shield bosses off these lovely old sculpts. This really only left the warhammer regiments dark elves whose shields are easily left off in construction. But this is RoC the miniatures shouldn’t be carbon copies of each other if I could help it. I did have some warriors without shields in great dynamic poses. In my head  I have yet to assign these into a future unit in my dark elf army, so far so perfect. Unfortunately the best of these have no crossbow either. A flash of inspiration later and I began my quest for the hidden figures and enough warhammer regiments crossbows to strap on their backs.

Another box and another rummage (oo-er misses) and the following recruits were dug up.

Perfect.

I’ll fish out some skellies to summon at a later date.

Slaves to darkness Slaaneshi warband: rolling up the spells.

So now I've selected a figure for him I, "figured", I ought to roll up Dragan Dhampir's spells and those of his apprentice (no name yet, lets see what spells he/she gets and what figure I use).

Dragan is a champion of Slaneesh a level 20 wizard and due to being a half breed level 5 vampire has only an average magic level of 2 rather than 3.

This means he gets 6 level 1 spells and 3 level 2 spells but at each level the first is the relevant Slaaneshi spell. So without rolling he gets Acquiescence at level 1 and Pavane of Slaanesh at 2nd level.
All spell types are rolled for randomly in RoC no chosing which table to roll on from your racial lists. Dragan got 2 Illusionist, 2 daemonic and 1elemental at level 1 and 1 battle and 1 necromantic at level 2. So much for summoning hordes of additional help I can't get summon undead or lesser daemons with this selection.

On to roll and we get:
Clone image (Illusion), Camouflage (Illusion), Zone of Daemonic Protection (Daemonic), Dispel lesser Daemon (Daemonic) and Walk on water (Elemental) at level 1.

Flight (Battle) and summon Undead hero, lvl15 (Necromantic) at level 2.

OK some pretty week spells there, particularly for facing Khorne, where are my fire balls! Having said that the pick for me is the undead hero summoning a pre-battle auto cast is a must for this guy I think and I should probably include him in my painting plan. Often the most useless looking spells can really do some good so I guess there is hope for them all.

Now the apprentice, he is a level 10 so six spells. Also he has not yet received the mark of Slaanesh, Dragan is still his master, so he gets no auto spell. I still went with total random determination to get 3 daemonic, 2 necromantic and 1 Illusion. I rolled for spells and duplicated my roll for the 2nd Necromantic spell and the 3rd daemonic so I get to choose yay! The spells are:

Zone of life (Necromantic), Summon Skeletons (Necromantic and chosen), Bewilder Foe (Illusion), Dispel lesser daemon (Daemonic), Bind lesser daemon (Daemonic), A daemonic spell of choice, summon stead or Familiar I think but yet to choose.

There is enough duplication/similarity of effect there to say the apprentice has learnt his craft from his master. The summon skeletons I got to choose will be another pre-battle auto cast most of the time.

Random Slaves to Darkness as Chaos intended.

OK I'll bite Orlygg, I'll design a warband for this summer but I'll leave it entirely to the whim of Chaos. I lie, you're doing Khorne so my  warband will be Slaanesh.

No I'm sitting at lunch at work so although I have access to SoD I don't have my dice but I do have a dice roller on line. It has options for d100's but not d1000's. So I'll roll up a bunch, say 40 d100s and if a d100 is needed I'll use the very next result, if a d1000 is needed I'll nick the first digit from the next d100 and bin the rest or use it as the first digit of a subsequent d1000 if needed next.

Here is what I rolled:

Starting character:
Race is 47 so human.
Profile is 99! so level 20 wizard.  Awesome, I'll try not to gloat, what the gods give they can take away on the next die roll.

Dedicating myself to Slaanesh I now take a +1 to WP as my gift. That level 20 is pretty powerful and I'm going the totally random route, I'll forgo the extra gift that orlygg suggests.

I also need a mutation so the next roll is a d1000, that's 438 from my table of dice rolls  adding the 8 from the 82 onto the end of the 43.  GM's choice...the temptation is there to abuse this and call myself the GM, equally I could throw it out to the oldhammer community but I want to know now! OK I'll take the next number That 2 from the 82 goes to the front of the 95 to give 295. Crossbreed, I need a d6 and a d12 now!  Back to the roller:

So we have a 5 followed by a 12, that makes my sorcerer half vampire. Awesome. There are five levels of vampire so either I randomize the level or decide to put the coolers on this rapidly over heating champion and just make him a level 5 vampire half breed.

I now need to combine his stats, add them together and divide by two rounding down to the nearest whole number or 0.5. Those 0.5s of a point are important as other rewards can add or remove 0.5 which can make a whole number. Until such a time the stats with a 0.5 in them are treated as rounded down to the nearest whole number. With Ld onwards the value can have a positive modifier, I've averaged that out too but always rounded down.

So  M4 WS5.5 BS5 S5 T5 W4 I5.5 A2.5 Ld 8+1 Cl 9+1 Int 8+1 WP 9+1

Magic level 2

So I've gained in my physical stats but dropped a little in my mental stats and lost a magic level. Overall neutral perhaps. Now I should roll to see how the half breed looks but vampires and wizards look close enough, I'll just sort of work it out later.

Now for my retinue, here I'll follow Orlygg's suggestion because otherwise if I rolled say a d4 for rolls on the follower table I could end up with a very powerful warband. So 43 gives me d6 dark elves (appropriate) and 94 gives me a wizard, hell yes, an apprentice. Now I just need 2 more d6s.

To give me six dark elves and a level 10 wizard apprentice.


So I have a sorcerer half vampire, with an apprentice and a body guard of six dark elves. I'm a bit lacking in troops here so I predict much summoning in my future, undead (well he is half vampire) and daemons!

He shall be called Dragan Dhampir, a murderous, "noble", from the boarder princes who found himself seeking ever darker secrets in a sensual lust for power over life itself. He's got his wish so far...

Oldhammer Box sets close up!

A bit ago I promised to post up some close up pictures of some of my 80's citadel boxed sets. GW at the time had a knack of making the box itself something that you wished to posses, so much so that many but not all of my originals bought at the time ended up cut up and displayed on my bedroom wall. Often just the presence of a box pushes the price to the collector up a notch but for the right box I think its worth it.

Here are a couple I haven't seen posted before on other sites(it's beginning to dawn on me that photos that looked in focus in my library don't look so in focus now, I'll replace those that need it soon):

We've all seen the model but I don't recall seeing the box.

Who doesn't love the stories on the back of these boxes, well if you can read them.

Possibly my favorite box set ever. Good value even now on the collectors market.

Love the art work, and we have a nice set of stats and a description.

More great art work and a truthful statement of value.

Super stuff, makes me come over all giddy just looking at it.

Another story. Always struck me as a lopsided set this, four units of baddies two of goodies.

More Stats if you can see them.

Now this little scenario on the fantasy regiments box set has always intrigued me. If you go by the points on the box you get 305 to 230 points so the cost of the orc unit extra (these points seam to ignore the fact the Skaven has armour on). Its a bit of an advantage to say the least but I think this needs playing out, I wonder if anybody ever did, I certainly haven't over all the years and I can't think why.

I'll set up with just one boxes worth though a couple is also suggested on the box I'm going to keep things simple. The terrain is described adequately I'd like to see if the Dwarf/Elf alliance can pull it out of the bag.

Realms of Chaos: taking stock, close ups.

OK so I think I've teased you all long enough, after the replies here and on the Oldhammer forum I think I'll have to award the warrior to Orlygg for speed of response pretty much leaving nothing for anyone else to name. (I'll get the figure to you when we meet for a game or at salute. Failing that I'll post it if you mail me your address but I'd rather meet up.)

So on to some close ups. Sorry for the focus on these:


First a close up from the center of the table only because it clearly shows the warrior I have three of, a Champion called Sword 9 in the red catalog. Also to be seen are some hounds with my early paint job on and a few sorcerers and thugs.

 

Now to start more systematically going round the table:

A mix of citadel and marauder minotaurs, I just noticed have quite a few of the same marauder Minotaur, perhaps I should have given one of them away? Anyone got some minotaur swaps I'm all ears. Also some half finished Marauder trolls, actually for my O&G butu fit in here too.

More of them trolls, you can see a citadel fellow there to but I think he fits in well. Also a Lord of Change needing a tail and a strip. Some familiars, two harpies from Bob Olley I have another three somewhere. Finally you can just make out the chaos dwarf swivel gun, I got four of them in a bargain bag from GW Luton in 1994, currently I can't find the fourth gun. The rules are in the same white dwarf as the rules for the CD crossbows.

More on those swivel guns but also the previously mentioned crossbows. These guys give any Khorne army a decent ballistic capability. With good armour and high toughness they just may be able to take on the lord of pleasures dark elf cross bows. Speaking of which I've just realized I haven't even placed out any of the dark elves. Need another table for that though.  There is one whirlwind and one tenderiser, one mortar and one bazooka. Could do with more of these I think. A large unit of CD and the beginnings of a berserker unit.

And that is probably more than enough for now.

Realms of Chaos: Taking stock.

So since Orlygg pointed out that it was 25 years since slaves to darkness first darkened our doors I though now would be an opportune moment to take stock of my realms of chaos collection. I spent some time digging through the garage and cellar and promptly came up with several boxes of varying sizes. Anything released specifically for realms of chaos or at least for the chaos and released at the time went on the worktop in the kitchen. Now I know for a fact some of the painted Khorne stuff is missing, taken out of the box to play Mordheim using SoBH probably about a year ago. That’s a little box that needs finding. There are at least 6 trolls missing and I have a sneaking suspicion that another large shoe box of assorted lead is waiting somewhere for me.

Never mind what’s missing, above is a slightly blurry teaser of what I have found. Lets see how much you can identify from the wide shot. I noticed some duplicate Chaos warriors when sorting, if anyone truly amazes me  with there identification skills from this photo I’ll send a duplicate or two off to you.

I’ll start running through some close ups in a few days time.

Beer, games and friends, an appraisal of 2012.

Wow what a year! Not only did I restart my blog to other peoples actual interest , GM a return to WHFRP online with the full cast of TEW characters but the whole Oldhammer thing has exploded, well a few hundred people out of all the interweb is sort of an explosion.

Anyway I certainly didn’t get done half so much as I wished and that includes commitments I made to group endeavors. My postings to the Enemy Within Campaign became briefer and less frequent, a sorry state for a GM. My postings to the DnD (LL actually) game I play in became sporadic, same with my attention to the Blood Forum. My intention to bring out a fanzine fizzled despite others hard work. For all this I’m truly sorry. I’m never one to overly share personal information but with such a stack of people let down, people I now regard as friends, I feel a brief explanation is in order. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fickle and often lack motivation but this year has been quite a year.

Work commitments have increased as have child care commitments for two ever growing and demanding young boys. This is great, a similar situation that many of us share and I wouldn’t change either thing for the world even the three weeks of exams, onwards and upwards as they say. However they do eat into time and energy.

On top of that I lost my last grandparent and last parent this year. Jack was a wonderful Gramp and a veteran of N.Africa, Italy, France and Belgium. He had a great innings, in his mid 90’s but was slowly loosing his faculties. It was no surprise and I can only be pleased he was one of my heroes for so long and that he had loved life. My Dad, my hobby and modelling inspiration, also was no surprise and it was a blessing for him, I’ll say no more than that I’m Stoic about this one. That said bereavement at least where I’m concerned saps the will to do anything other than watch funny TV and buy expensive toys to add to your collection as the sub-conscious adapts to the new reality. Though the desire to post to the internet remains the motivation is somewhat sapped. Add to that all the legal stuff that happens when a final parent dies, the clearing of houses as well, it’s all a big time sink. I mean a garage and loft full of model trains! What a geek.

Finally towards the end of the year I’ve had three months of pneumonia to deal with. Now past the very ill stage and on the can’t shake it, always tired and out of breath stage. It was also great news on New Years day to get the worst ever toothache of my life. No emergency dentist available and well long story short I’m still waiting though in much less pain for a root canal to be finished.

So please accept my sincerest apologies if your one of the many people I let down a little this last year. I promise to try to do better this year, perhaps by not committing to so much in the first place.

Really enjoyed painting this one.

 Don’t get me wrong I’ve had a great year in spite of other things. Purely on a hobby front what I did get painted I’ve been very pleased with. The paper buildings have been popular and I’ve really enjoyed seeing the different communities that have posted them up for all to use. There will defiantly be more of these in the future. 

The brother in his gaming room, losing as always...

 

I had some great games, mainly with my brother but also some great face top face games of Talisman plus beer with old friends.Oh and a few funny games with my four year old son. Brilliant.

The collection has grown monstrously once more with Fimir, Norse, Amazons  and yet more goblilnoids playing a significant role much but not all of my 80’s stuff is reaching sort of content stage (nah I didn’t believe me either). My collection of old box sets still in the boxes has expanded and I'll do some closeups of the boxes soon for you all to enjoy. I’ve also branched out into the 90’s a bit more, collecting most of the specialist games released in this decade as well as starting collections of 4^th ed Orcs and Goblins, Chaos, Brettonian and High Elves. For 2^nd Ed 40K more cartoon Orks, Tyranids, Genestealer cult, Chaos and Sisters of Battle have joined the lead pile with several Necromunda and Gorkamorka gangs. Good prices can be had for much of this period and when looked on with fresh eyes a lot of it rocks. I predict the decade will become hot for collectors in the next few years, you heard it hear first.

2nd ed. so much fun, so child friendly!

My collecting and painting plans for the coming year is to try to get a unit painted at least every two months, six units painted would be awesome and possible. I’ll stick to what inspires me at a given time rather than aiming towards a project or specific army. I also need to put the breaks on collecting a little; I have a heightened nostalgia at the moment so find it hard to say no. This must change.

But there are great friends.

Finally most importantly I’ve made some great new internet friends in a growing community of enthusiasts. What more could one ask for? Well actually high on my list of gaming things to do this year is meet a bunch of you for beer and even a game. After all once family is safe what more is there to life than beer, games and friends?