Bretonnian Grail Knights

 A long time ago I was collecting a Bretonnian Army. I painted up several units and even managed to play a game with them. I think they stunk up the joint as my one memory is Dallas being quite astonished that his Skaven clan rats were marginally better than my men-at-arms. 6th edition was the last update for Bretonnia which resulted in the army being virtually unplayable in later editions. As such, I lost heart and stopped work on them in favor of other projects. I looked on with some amusement as GW killed Warhammer Fantasy. From my perspective, Bretonnia was simply the first one into the dust bin.

But now it's 2023 and GW, perhaps recognizing that their older and somewhat alienated customers are now in or approaching their top income level, is preparing to resurrect Warhammer Fantasy in order to squeeze every last cent it can from them before they become pensioners!  Jokes on them though, 'cuz I didn't throw out any of my Bretonnians!

Here's a unit of 6 Grail Knights. The knights are metal while the horses are plastic. This makes for a very top heavy model. The standard bearer is especially bad and is not allowed to ride on any inclines for fear of toppling.

These guys don't really match the ones I painted all those years ago. The colors are basically the same, but my painting style / ability has changed significantly resulting in a far cleaner and detailed paint job.

I'm going to keep going on these. I still have 6 Questing Knights (not the original, but a conversion), 6 Pegasus Knights, 15 Men-at-Arms, 1 mounted Damsel and a 3rd party Fey Enchantress. My goal is to have them done by end of May.

Thanks for visiting.

Painting Challenge Entry - Gamma Wolves North Star Faction

 

I really lost steam at the start of February, but I figured that would happen thanks to work. This is the last group of models I have for Gamma Wolves. They represent the Arcology North-Star, which is built upon the remnants of the last U.S. and Canadian military installation. It was set up as a bastion of freedom after the apocalypse, but it's really just totalitarian dystopia. It's frame pilots are fed into a meat grinder of constant war, so it tends to lack veterans. In game terms, it's frame pilots have to be predominantly rookie pilots which reduces their effectiveness. They are however plentiful!

The models for this faction are from Anvil Industry and Nuclear Shrimp games. Unfortunately, NSG seems to have disappeared. I'd review their models, but I don't really see the point. 

Group Shot. The guardsman is for scale only.

These suits from Anvil Industry are fantastic!

Heavy Suit from Nuclear Shrimp

The plasma cannon on top and the top missile launcher are from Puppets War.

Very tricky to pose as each arm comes in 5 different pieces and no instructions!

Legs come in 4 pieces.

Thanks for visiting!

Painting Challenge Entry - Imperial Militia Rhino's and Land Raider

 

 One of my ongoing projects is my Imperial Guard / Traitor Militia for Horus Heresy. It's a simple olive green paint job that goes on quick and looks decent. Late last year I painted up some Alternative Armies Ion Age Retained Knights to represent Rogue Trader humans in power armor to be used for the Age of Darkness H H rule set.  I decided they needed some transports, so dug out some old rhinos and gave them a 30k makeover with bits from Blood & Skulls Industry. The rhinos are about 20 years old and were originally for my Salamanders Army. They were then repainted and then stripped. As such, they were in rough shape. Here are some work in progress pictures.

The resin parts come in several pieces and you have to saw off the Rhino exhaust pipes to fit the new bits on. It was actually pretty easy, so long as you have a small saw. Here are the completed rhinos:

28mm Infantry is for scale only

The Eye of Horus displayed prominently.

I also picked up the new plastic Land Raider Proteus for Horus Heresy and painted it up for the command squad. I went light on the upgrades as this army is lucky Horus gave them a Land Raider at all!

 

Thanks for visiting.

Byzantines vs. Normans WAB Battle Report

Some time ago Conscript Greg told me he was planning a trip back to Winnipeg, and wanted to set up a game. "What would you like to play?" I asked. The answer was Warhammer Ancient Battles with Greg's Byzantines against my Normans. Wow, what a blast from the past! And a couple weeks ago Greg was here with his beautiful Byzantine army and we played a game of WAB - here is the report!

Greg proposed the battle of Montemaggiore, 1041 as the scenario. Basically this was a pitched battle between the Byzantines (led by their Catapan, Michael Dokeianos) and the Norman/Lombard rebels led by William "Iron Arm" d'Hauteville. The place of the battle was near Cannae, itself the site of not only Hannibal's victory over the Romans in antiquity, but also of a Byzantine victory over the Normans some 20 years earlier. The Normans had been mercenaries in the employ of the Byzantines and served their masters well, but the factions had fallen out over (what else) pay, and William et al decided that seeking their own destiny was preferable to serving under the penny-pinching Byzantines. So Dokeianos seeks to put the Normans in their place and re-establish the authority of his own boss, Emperor Michael IV (the Paphlagonian) over southern Italy, once and for all. 

Greg and I each created army lists of 2,350 points (nice round number eh?) - a sizeable battle by WAB standards, but Normans and Byzantine troops (especially Normans) can be crazy expensive - a Norman mounted knight is something like 35 points! Above you see some of the Byzantine host.

More Byzantines.

Some of their Norman opponents, seen from behind the Norman lines.

Very annoying Turkish horse archers in Byzantine employ. Hope they got paid in advance.

Byzantine heavy cavalry.

One of the Norman mounted milites (knights) units, screened by skirmishing archers. 

Opening moves, view from the Norman table edge... the Normans fielded three units of mounted milites center left, center, and in reserve at center), three of dismounted milites (two in the center and one at far right), a unit of skirmishing archers (at left) and one of skirmishing crossbowmen (barely visible at far right). 

A sturdy unit of mounted milites (containing William Iron Arm and his younger brother Drogo, the army standard bearer) stakes out its position, waiting for the other mounted unit in support to arrive. 

It faces off against the Byzantine heavy cav unit. Typical of the Byzantines, it incorporated a rear rank of archers that continually loosed off arrows. Super annoying.

The kataphractoi advance in support. Even scarier than the heavy cav, these guys rocked a 2+ save on their barded mounts, PLUS had archers in the rear rank!

Action shot here from behind the Byzantine line. Byzantine skirmishing javelinmen are about to get swept by the main unit of Norman mounted milites who crash into the heavy cav (center). After a (brief) moment of consideration, the second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh of Eu) charges the Varangians to the left.

How wouldja like to see this coming at you! Norman milites are super-scary - good saving throw of 3+, lances give +2 S on the charge, and most terrifyingly of all, "Ferocious Charge" ensures that as long as they win the combat in which they charge, the enemy automatically fails their morale check and runs. And this includes counter-charges against enemy cav who charge the milites!

And that's what happened - main milites unit evaporated the Byzantine heavy cav, swept through and reforms to charge to their right. Second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh) ran over the spearmen facing them, took two turns to blow up the Varangians (they were Stubborn so Ferocious Charge only works half the time) and swept on into the spear block behind.

Meanwhile over on the Norman right flank the axemen get stuck in.

Propaganda shot for "Byzantium Today" - this was about the only part of the battle that went right for Greg. His kataphractoi absolutely levelled a unit of dismounted milites spearmen but in doing so, took themselves out of the main fight... just as well for them, they could legitimately disavow all knowledge of the disaster unfolding behind them. 

And with that, we called the battle as a Norman victory - even though the axemen on the Norman right would likely be overcome by the large Byzantine spear units it faced, the Byzantine centre and right flank had largely evaporated. While the scary kataphractoi still were hanging around, they were only one unit and there were still three Norman knight units milling about in the Byzantine backfield.

This result certainly wasn't inconsistent with the historical one - although outnumbered by the Byzantines, the battle was a Norman win, attributed largely to the fighting prowess of their heavy cavalry. In WAB, these mounted milites are indeed game-breakers - 3+ save, +2S on the charge with their lances, and most importantly, Ferocious Charge. They are a point-and-shoot weapon though - while they're likely to take out whatever they hit, it'll take them awhile to get themselves oriented for another assault. Of course it's best if you can wipe out the first target and sweep forward into their supporting unit, as happened both at the real Montemaggiore battle, and on our tabletop.

I'm thankful to Greg both for proposing the WAB game and for bringing his beautiful Byzantine army all the way to Winnipeg. The game looked fantastic and was super-fun to play; WAB (and its inspiration, Warhammer Fantasy Battle) were long-time favourites of our group and it was great to get back to some square-based wargaming. Hope we can do it again soon!

40K-Scale Warhound Titan!

Here's the last post I made in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - Canis Negris, a 40K-scale Warhound Titan of Legio Krytos.

This is another 3D printed model I got from the same chap who printed me Apostolus Tenebris, the Reaver Titan I painted earlier in the Challenge. The Warhound is an awesome model too, and also adheres pretty stringently to the "Codex Look" of Warhammer 40K Titans. In terms of intellectual property and other awkward considerations, sometimes it's better to do as the great Harry Flashman was advised once upon a time: "lick up the honey, stranger, and ask no questions."

Anyway, the Warhound was quite a bit less fiddly to assemble than the Reaver. One thing I did, though, was to grind down the neck somewhat as it stood too proud of the carapace as cast. I like the hunchback look of Titans and a sticky-out neck is not for me. Of course the weapons look grand, don't they? Turbo-laser Destructor and Plasma Blastgun for the win. There's also a Vulcan Mega-Bolter that will make an appearance farther down the page.

One of the shinguard armour plates has some wonderful cast-on detail which I customized to my own build.

Plasma Blastgun!

Rear view of the Warhound. Some nice cast-in aquila detail on the panels. 

Vulcan Mega-Bolter taking the place of the Turbo-laser.

Standing beside the Reaver.

As for scoring... I submitted this model for the "Books Studio", reserved for models related to books that would make a great movie. I haven't read a ton of Warhammer 40K novels (many of them are dreck and merely "bolter porn") but I LOVE the work of Dan Abnett, his Eisenhorn and Ravenor books are fantastic, and "Horus Rising" (the first book in the Horus Heresy series of 400+ novels) is sublime. But one of my all-time favourites of his is "Titanicus", a novel about engine (Titan) combat in the 41st millennium. It goes into great detail about how the god-machines work with their "mind-impulse units", sarcophagi full of amniotic goo, etc. but doesn't forget the PBI either. The descriptions of Titans from an infantryman's point of view are awesome, and all the details he includes about the Chaos titans and their sirens wailing scrapcode just bring so much life to the setting. Great book and one I would LOVE to see made into a movie.  

Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the post!