Unseen Lerker Issue 8

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ISSUE 08

APR – MAY 2011

PUTTING THE QUO BACK IN YOUR STATUS

Battle Report:

Slave Raid!

Saga of the Quartet, part 1 The Arena of Death:

(now with extra death)

Plus:

Dwarf King’s Hold 10-hour army challenge A Guide to Frugal Gaming NEW! The Army Doctor

A magazine for gamers, hobbyists and collectors

CREDITS

Unseen Lerker

THE UNSEEN LERKER TEAM Editor: Isaac “Bobo” Alexander

EDITORIAL

Business Overseer: Bryan “Ubertechie” Carmichael

Right off the bat, our young comic artist is going to cave in my skull with a watering can if I forget to mention the existence of the Lergy the Lerker comic for the fourth issue running. Check it out below – it makes me chuckle every time. Speaking of Lergy the Lerker, we have a rather exciting surprise to reveal later this year about our furry little mascot. I won’t give anything away, but check out the preview photo on page 56 for a taste of what’s in store...

Editorial Consultant: Chris “Fitz” Fitzsimmons Illustrations by: Max “Brakken” Karpsten, Zach “Rusty” Kin-Wilde, John “The Killer Quill” Blake

Contributors: Michael Biggs, Alan Thompson, Dan Heelan, Christopher Barnette, Matt Birdoff, David Jakowyszyn, Mike Newman, Wayne Kemp, Greg Dann, Dan Comeau Special Thanks: Mantic Games www.unseenlerker.com editor@unseenlerker.com Want to advertise in Unseen Lerker?

Well now you can! A variety of options available.

Email shiny@unseenlerker.com for more info.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER This magazine is completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Limited. The Chaos devices, the Chaos logo, Citadel, Citadel Device, the Double-Headed/ Imperial Eagle device, ‘Eavy Metal, Forge World, Games Workshop, Games Workshop logo, Golden Demon, Great Unclean One, the Hammer of Sigmar logo, Horned Rat logo, Keeper of Secrets, Khemri, Khorne, Lord of Change, Nurgle, Skaven, the Skaven symbol devices, Slaanesh, Tomb Kings, Trio of Warriors, Twin Tailed Comet Logo, Tzeentch, Warhammer, Warhammer Online, Warhammer World logo, White Dwarf, the White Dwarf logo, and all associated marks, names, races, race insignia, characters, vehicles, locations, units, illustrations and images from the Warhammer world are either ®, TM and/or © Copyright Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2009, variably registered in the UK and other countries around the world. Used without permission. No challenge to their status intended. All Rights Reserved to their respective owners.

You might notice a bit of a shift from our usual lineup of articles in issue 8. The Event Spotlight is gone in place of testing out some fresher material, and while I know that the Army Showcase will be dearly missed do not fear - we’re making up for it next month with somewhat of a double-booking for you lovely readers. This issue also sees the first instalment in a new series about...Warmachine. Please don’t set the magazine on fire. Stay calm. It’s all explained on page six.

Also making its debut this issue is Senõr Biggs’s spangly new column, the Army Doctor, which I must say is one of my favourite segments we’ve ever featured.

Not much else to say, really. The two-week European summer is fast approaching, and I’m readying my shorts and sunglasses. Might even go for a holiday...

Yeah, right.

Isaac “Bobo” Alexander, Editor

CONTENTS

Graphic Design: Heath “Mind Razor” Moritz

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A Guide to Frugal Gaming ‘Frugal Dave’ offers us some tips on how to wargame on a budget.

Wayne’s World What has six arms, the ability to fly, and is on fire? Wayne’s latest conversion, of course.

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The Arena of Death It’s combat-tastic as we pit the toughest reader-submitted characters against one another.

We challenge Golem Painting Studio’s Mike Newman to paint an army for us...in only 10 hours.

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Battle Report

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The Test Dummies

The Army Doctor Brand new column by Michael Biggs, helping gamers overcome specific wargaming challenges.

Gone In...600 Minutes

Bobo and Bryan face off in a battle of the gits – Skaven vs Dwarfs of Chaos in a new custom scenario.

Greg and Dan get their hands on Mantic’s new board game: Dwarf King’s Hold.

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Dwarfs OF An overview of the top-class independent army book Featured miniatures are Mantic Games’s newly released Abyssal Dwarfs

The thunder in the distance portends ill tidings – the fire on the horizon is no mere sunset. With the sudden, terrible impact of an Earthshaker Cannon, the Dwarfs of Chaos return to the old world in search of slaves to fuel their dark industry. Originally conceived for use with Independent Grand Tournaments (‘Indy GTs’ for short), Kevin Coleman’s Dwarfs of Chaos army book was released as a free PDF download in 2009, and set the standard for what an “unofficial” army list could be – thanks in no small degree to the artistic direction of Matt Birdoff, only a determined viewer would recognize the book as anything but a true Warhammer publication. As a general of the Dawi’Zharr, or ‘Dwarfs of Fire’ as they call themselves, you will command a diverse army of masters and servants, but with tools of war quite unlike anything you’ve seen before. This review includes all changes made to the book from the FAQ released on 25 February 2011.

Contrary to the Dwarfs of the World’s Edge Mountains, the leaders of Mingol Zharr-Naggrund (the ‘Great-Cityof-Fire-and-Desolation’) include many High Priests who are well versed in the magic lores of Death, Metal, Fire and Shadow. These potent wizards wear chaos armor, and make excellent generals for your budding Chaos Dwarf army – in truth, few armies of any race go to battle without a lord-level wizard. The High Priest is an all-the-more crucial choice as there are NO herolevel wizards in the Chaos Dwarf army. This means that channeling extra power dice is unlikely, and the threat of ‘Broken Concentration’ is very significant. Death magic is a decent counter to the threat of a low power dice roll, as the lore attribute potentially refuels your magic phase. To increase the mobility, survivability and effectiveness of your priest, look no further than one of the most uniquely “Chaos-Dwarfish” (to coin a term) models in the book, the bizarre Lammasu. This great beast causes terror, flies, thunderstomps, and has passable stats for combat, but the true worth of a Lammasu is in its magic resistance (2)… and a truly impressive ability titled Sorcerous Exhalation. This allows the wizard to ignore his first miscast, and if applicable, the spell is still cast with irresistible force. There is no understating the power inherent in such insurance. Try Sorcerous Exhalation with a Power Scroll for maximum effect, and minimum respect!

Almost as crucial in the magic phase are the Daemonsmiths, hero-level characters with a role somewhat comparable to a Dwarf Runesmith. These hell-bent engineers are the masters of the daemonic forge, and are responsible for the construction of Hellcannons, Earthshakers, Death Rockets and other sentient automatons, such as the Inferno Golems. In battle, these craftsmen show their worth with their access to magical artifacts: they can carry up to 75 points worth of magic items, including Arcane items.

They often make good scroll caddies, but another good

Chaos

Unseen Lerker

Written by Christopher Barnette Artwork courtesy of Matt Birdoff

their warriors are trained to be proficient in multiple arenas of combat, with various battle kits. Therefore, the Chaos Dwarf Warriors are also capable of wielding multiple hand weapons, great weapons, and even spears.

Should you decide that the Lore of Shadow is more your speed (or do we call it ‘the Lore of Mind Razor’ these days?), try your warriors with chaos armor, shields and spears, or at least two hand weapons – S9 spear attacks at WS4 should do the trick. If that wasn’t enough to earn a page in the Book of Grudges out of jealousy alone, one unit of the Dawi’Zharr warriors may also carry a magic standard up to 50 points, including any available from the rulebook! Try the Banner of Swiftness for a unit of Chaos Dwarfs with a movement of 4. Another good choice utilizes the Chaos Dwarfs’ own 30-point Banner of Daemonic Tides, a bound 6 spell that allows the unit to move 2D6”.

choice is the Arcane bauble entitled Daemon Bane, a bound spell that casts Burning Gaze from the Lore of Light. With only one wizard on the table, it’s often a good idea in ‘closed list’ games to take several bound spells to throw off your opponent, and have a bit of insurance against broken concentration.

Warriors comprise the heart of any Chaos Dwarf force.

Chaos Dwarf Warriors enjoy (or endure) the same stats as their goodly Dwarf cousins, but our anti-heroes have no Longbeard upgrades, nor the capacity to become Rangers. Despite these setbacks, the worshippers of Hashut have options that even the odds. Chaos armour, anyone? With the right upgrades, these blackhearts enjoy T4, with 3+ armour/ 6+ parry ward save. Only the Warriors of Chaos possess the same survivability at the Core level. Chaos Dwarfs as a race propagate very slowly; as a result, the military machine requires that

Working in tandem with the Warriors, blunderbusswielding Chaos Dwarf Annihilators are a unique take on short ranged support. The true threat of the Annihilators is in how they target and fire upon the enemy – unlike bows or handguns, they do not roll a die for every shot fired… they roll a die for every model in the target unit. This means that, in theory, a unit of ANY size can be wiped out in one volley, assuming all models have one wound. Who needs unit-deleting spells, anyway? These units enjoy a terrifying reputation, but even so, Chaos Dwarf generals debate how to best utilize this challenging regiment. Besides the obvious big fat unit of at least twenty, another tack to try is multiple small units (MSUs) of ten, supported by a High Priest of Shadow. Even if the Annihilator gunfire isn’t at maximum strength, the Shadow hex The Withering ensures they wound to maximum effect, and even a unit of only 5 can wipe out an enemy horde… in theory.

Whatever you decide, don’t go without a musician – the Swift Reform ability is too important for these fellows to pass up.

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Only Warriors and Annihilators count towards your Core requirement, but the Dawi’Zharr rarely take to the field without a sea of goblinoid vassals to swell their numbers.

Despite their many qualities, Chaos Dwarfs are slow, and few in number – they often drive hobgoblin regiments before them to soften the enemy lines. Hobgoblins are comparable to clumsy, cowardly humans, but they are prolific and faster than their dark masters. They have many critical options, like hobgoblin ‘Stikkas” with bows for cleaning up stragglers, wolf rider fast cavalry for redirection, and even the scouting Sneaky Gits, but arguably the most notable goblinoid option of all is the “Rabble”. These are the greenskin slaves who have been huddled together and thrust brutally into the foe.

They’re only two points a model, and that’s about what they’re worth, but considering the power of a Steadfast unit with the Battle Standard and a General nearby, these models become almost necessary. Take care to keep the General close to keep them together, and pray for decent animosity rolls. If the General cannot commit to sticking near the rabble to keep them together, then this unit might not be worth taking.

Bull Centaurs are culturally equal to the Chaos Dwarfs, and often are tasked with the sacred role of guarding the temples of Hashut within their great capital. On the tabletop, they’ve got it all – almost. They count as cavalry, can wear chaos armor, strength and toughness 4, two attacks, and movement 8. Give these fellows great weapons, or two hand weapons, and either way, you’ve got a world of pain coming. They do have one significant problem, aside from their cost: Leadership 8.

With their great speed, they simply cannot be near the general and do their job, so it cannot be overstated that this unit does far better with a musician, and a standard bearer carrying the Standard of Discipline. The +1 LD is crucial to keep them together. Throw these killers into war machines, fast cavalry, flanks, infantry, cavalry, monsters, anything. They’re perfect for holding a flank, or for crushing one. Just remember, individual resilience is no match for massed firepower…they’ll still die if the enemy focuses on them.

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Automatons of metal, stone and fire, Inferno Golems are a creation of the Daemonsmiths, and when they’re on your side, you need to get used to smashing your enemies into small, small bits. They have 3 attacks apiece, as well as Movement 5, Strength 5, Toughness 5 and three wounds…but wait, there’s more! 3+ armor, Immune to Psychology, Cause Fear, Flaming and Magical Attacks.

Hydras, Wraiths, Treekin, Treemen – pansies, the lot of them. They’re also categorized as Monstrous Infantry, so don’t forget to STOMP! Just be cautious, as the only way to get a musician (and thus Swift Reform) is by purchasing the ‘Face of Hashut’ for the unit, and he comes in at a smokin’ 50 points. Tack that onto the Inferno Golems’ cost of 65 points per model, and you’ve got a unit of 6 for 440 points.YOWZA! The artillery of the Chaos Dwarf Empire in incomparable to any other army, save the Warriors of Chaos – and that’s only because the Chaos Dwarfs make the Hellcannons!

Hellcannons have been covered elsewhere, and most people don’t need to be convinced of their merits,

Unseen Lerker

but it should be pointed out that Daemonsmiths may accompany a Hellcannon crew. When they do, you get to reroll on the Hellcannon misfire chart. If you are feeling daring enough could even go down the ridiculous, but hilarious path of trying to force enemy wizards to Miscast via the result on the Hellcannon misfire table. Why not take two Hellcannons and two Daemonsmiths for the ultimate ch-ch-ch-CHEESY COMBO!

fire in a way that normal war machines might not. When deploying them, remember: they CAN move and fire.

Keep them practically on your back line; that way, the occasional misfire won’t put them into harm’s way.

Last, but (certainly!) not least, we approach the Kollossus Daemon Tower. This siege tower is seething with daemonic energy, packed with a crew of 10 Annihilators, and can even be taken as a mount. It is a true monster, and with 10 wounds and a toughness of 7, you’ll find that it works very much like an Arachnarok Spider on the table. It is prohibitively expensive at 300 points, but when you consider that its Unbreakable, the Annihilators may fire in a 360 degree arc, and has unique siege rules that allow the crew to gain ‘Always Strikes First’ and ‘Devastating Charge’… Oh, and a S5 breath weapon that causes an immediate panic check at -1 LD… and impact hits… and thunderstomp. Considering all of this, start looking for these monsters even in tournament settings; take a Kollossus, pray for Watchtower, and win the HELL outta that game!

The Earthshaker is a daemon engine, which means it’s a snarling, spitting, furious, sentient cannon that struggles with its handlers to try to close with the enemy. When goaded by the “crew”, it heaves a shell from its maw into the air towards the enemy. It crashes into them like a stone, using the small template at Strength 4 (Strength 8 under the hole). The true worth of this weapon is revealed after the casualties: lay the large template down over the small one – anything hit by it moves at half speed next turn; shooting units may not fire, and war machines only fire if they roll a 4+. Also daemonically possessed, the Death Rocket disgorges a chemical-packed missile in a direct line towards the enemy. It fires like a cannon, but doesn’t bounce after you’ve determined the location of impact. Lay the large template, and everything underneath suffers an armour piercing S3 hit. Brilliant against elves and goblins, this bizarre creation is situational in a take-on-all-comers setting, but is well matched with friendly Shadow magic. As a general warning when using the daemon engines – their miscast table is surprising, and usually ends up with your beast charging forward towards the nearest enemy. They have stats like a monstrous beast, as this is what they truly are, but as such will die to missile

Despite this writer’s ramblings, there remains so much more to discover within the Chaos Dwarf army.

Hopefully, this article has sparked your interest in the chosen of Hashut. With the resilience of Dwarfs, the flavor of the Warriors of Chaos, and the ramshackle versatility of the greenskins, the Dawi’Zharr are truly an army that plays like no other, and has it all. Whether you like brilliant anvil units, heavy shock cavalry, giant snarling beasts, crazed artillery, scouts, fast cavalry, utterly choppy monstrous infantry, or even magic, you’ve got it at your fingertips. Praise Hashut!

Get Yer Rules!

Get Yer Minis!

The Dwarfs of Chaos army book is a completely free resource, written and created by Kevin Coleman and Matt Birdoff. It features some fantastic artwork, loads of background material, rules, magic items, and looks exactly like a real Warhammer armies book. You can view the whole thing simply by going to www.issuu. com/mattbird

Up until now it’s been nigh impossible to represent a Dwarfs of Chaos army using 28mm figures. With Mantic’s great looking (and cheap!) new range of Abyssal Dwarfs, there’s never been a better time to grow a big black beard, try on a ridiculous hat, and work on your evil laugh. Check out their full range of spiky short dudes at www.manticgames.com

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Saga of the Quartet For legal reasons we’d prefer not use the word “tale” when describing this new series.

Or “four”. Or “gamers”. But the premise is fairly straightforward. Four dudes, four issues, a new games system, and a whole lot of head scratching (and explosions – hopefully).

Since the release of Warhammer’s 8th edition, there’s been a lot of rumblings of players ‘rage quitting’ to go and play Warmachine, and its sister system, Hordes. These rumblings proved to have serious basis, and the past 12 months has seen droves of players, on a global scale, take up Privateer Press’s forerunning games systems. In certain countries (Australia, for example) even some of the most regular tournament players have jumped ship, effectively gutting the upper echelons of the tournament

circuit. We’ve have watched this process from the cloudshrouded heights of the Unseen Lerker office with great interest, and thought that it was about time we investigated what the attraction was to these games and why large numbers of people have converted to them.

To further our investigation, some hands-on research was required. As they always do in the action films, we decided to recruit a team of specialists; long-standing Warhammer players who would go where many others feared to tread, and report back on their findings.

Each player will aim to focus* on a different aspect of our investigation, hopefully providing four different viewpoints so that our dear readers can make the decision about Warmachine/Hordes themselves. *Pah! “Will aim to focus”! Let’s see how long this lasts… -Ed.

Introducing your Crack Team….

Alan Thompson

Wayne Kemp

Alan has been playing competitive Warhammer for many a year and has had significant success playing in competitions both in the UK and in the US. He took a break for a few years but steamed back onto the UK scene 18 months ago and has been in the top 10 of several UK tournaments with his Vampire Counts army.

He has a keen interest in the background or ‘fluff ’ of the games that he plays and will be concentrating mostly on that through the series.

Wayne, apart from being the other (better?) half of the double act that is Heelanhammer, is widely regarded as one of the best converters and painters around.

He has won numerous awards for his innumerate Skaven armies and is more often than not working on at least three ‘cool ideas’ for various armies at any one time. With his brain being powered by a mechanical hybrid pin-vice/paintbrush device, it made good sense for us to have Wayne focus on the hobby side of things.

Dan Heelan

Bryan Carmichael

Dan, best known for his namesake podcast (http://heeelanhammer. com) is one of the best players in the UK and regularly achieves podium places with his beloved Lizardmen army (both painting and gaming). He has an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the Warhammer rules and is usually recruited to be a player referee at events that he attends. We will be harnessing this affinity for rules in the series by getting him to delve into and decipher the more intricate rules of the games.

Co-owner of Unseen Lerker and long time Warhammer player, Bryan’s role within the series is like the insulation in your house; you don’t really notice it’s there, but you’re sure it’s important somehow. His primary role will be taking notes and photographs throughout the series, as well as co-ordinating our team of talented individuals and ensuring that they stay on track, ensuring that they are not distracted by something shiny or edible and furnishing them with everything they require, including rules, models, beer and pretzels (and quite probably desserts and cider, knowing this lot).

Unseen Lerker

Getting started Warmachine is playable as a stand-alone system or is fully interchangeable with its sister system, Hordes.

Since our lads are a bit of a simple bunch, we decided to start them off with just Warmachine for now. Maybe, if they’re well behaved, we’ll let them have a peek at Hordes next issue. Just maybe. Thanks to this series’ sponsor should also be given at this stage – Firestorm Games, in Cardiff, are generously providing our intrepid quartet with all of their toy soldier based needs.

After obtaining the main Warmachine rulebook (we recommend getting the hardback version; far better for settling rules disputes) it was time to investigate what exactly our four banditos had gotten themselves into.

negotiations, a hurled fajita and Bryan getting poked in the eye, the players decided on who would collect which faction and eagerly tore open their battle boxes.

Each battle box contains a single Warcaster and between two and four other models each cast in resin.

Unfortunately, dear readers, I am sad to report that we have no painted figures to show you this issue; true to form our dedicated team of delinquents got instantly distracted and instead spent their time playing with their Quick Start Rules which came in their battle boxes (if you’re interested, these rules are available to download for free on Privateer Press’s website – www.privateerpress.com).

Warmachine is set in a steam-punk environment with magic-imbued, steam-powered machines (Warjacks) controlled by powerful warrior mages (Warcasters).

Currently, four of the five factions/races have ‘battle box’ starter sets available to buy. This seemed like too much of a coincidence to be ignored, and after some heated

After an intense but brief assembly session (which included amusing instances such as Alan accidentally gluing an entire Warjack to his hand and Dan dropping a small, crucial part of his Warcaster general then spending half an hour combing the carpet looking for it) and a pizza break, our gamers were ready to crack on and play some games!

Alan – Cygnar

Wayne – Cryx

The blue-skinned gun-toting all-American heroes of the Warmachine world.

The evil undead faction, led by the father of dragons.

Dan - Khador

Bryan - Protectorate of Menoth

Red, obsessed with large robots, the ‘Soviets’ of the Warmachine world.

The religious zealot faction, which is obsessed with burning unbelievers.

Dan, Alan and Wayne open their first Warmachine kits. Wayne: “I don’t get it – where are all the square bases?”

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Warmachine is like many other tabletop miniature games; players take it in turns to perform all their actions, one unit at a time, then hand it over to their opponent to do their worst. The first game was between Bryan and Wayne. Playing on a 4’x4’ board, both players resolved to discover as much about the game’s mechanics (and as little about its subtleties!) as possible by deploying everything the maximum distance forward and running at one another. Like a true powergamer, Bryan allowed Wayne to unwittingly stumble through his first turn before then beginning his own turn and immediately start ‘creatively using rules’. To explain: Bryan: “In Warmachine pre-measuring is not allowed.

However, you can at any time measure the Command distance of your Warcaster – this allows for pseudo measuring when near your Warcaster, which was an interesting mix of measuring in-game from 7th and 8th edition Warhammer. So I started my turn by measuring my Command distance, something which I expect is a very common tactic in this game. I realised that I could not reach any of the enemy ‘Jacks to fight them, so I ambled forward to blast Wayne from a distance instead.”

Quite sneaky, that man! The dice did not oblige his plan though, and both his Warjack’s fired missile and his Warcaster’s uber-mega fireball spell sailed wide of their targets.

With so many different weapons, spells and special rules, one might think it would be hard to keep track of who has what abilities and has suffered how much damage to which part of their model. Luckily though, the game’s creators have thought about this, and included with each model you buy is a specific card for that model, summarising everything you need to know. The players found it very useful to have them next to each model so that we knew what they did – otherwise to them they were just big robots with pointy weapons!

A P R I L / M AY

Additionally, only the player whose turn it is gets to fight, which is an odd feeling as you see your models getting beaten and cannot retaliate until your own turn – this makes the game feel significantly different to Warhammer (perhaps more akin to Chess on steroids, or Piñata).

Damage When damaging a Warjack, once the amount of damage has been determined, the location of the Warjack that this damage affects must be resolved.

Each Warjack has a number of boxes that determine its ‘wounds’, in six separate columns on its profile card. Each time damage is suffered, a D6 is rolled and the relevant numbered location takes the damage; if this area has already had all of its boxes destroyed then the one to the right is used. Once all boxes are crossed out the Warjack is considered destroyed.

Despite this small initial success the resulting combat tied down Wayne’s forces for long enough that Bryan’s Warcaster could use its Focus powers to support, easily allowing the heavier ‘Jack to destroy its counterparts.

Wayne tried a last ditch attempt, sending his Warcaster after Bryan’s (a worthwhile risk, since killing your opponent’s Warcaster wins you the game), but in doing so left himself exposed and Bryan’s Warjack turned him to mush with more Focus-boosted attacks.

Focus The prime mechanic of Warmachine is called Focus and represents the Warcaster using his abilities to manipulate the Warjacks. Each Warcaster receives a number of Focus points at the start of each turn and must allocate these to his Warjacks to get them to do things, like run at the double, fire extra shots, or make extra attacks in combat, to a maximum of three bonuses each.

The second game was between Dan’s elite and very heavily armoured Khador entourage and Alan’s more numerous and highly ‘shooty’ Cygnar force. Everyone was interested to see which force the mechanics of the game favoured in a head-to-head fight.

Wayne launched the first assault, committing two of his smaller ‘Jacks into Bryan’s larger Heavy ‘Jack. This bore some modicum of success, crippling one of the latter’s weapons and rendering it useless for the rest of the game.

Warmachine has no concept of combat resolution or breaking from combat, which means units can stand fighting each other for several turns until one is destroyed.

Unseen Lerker

Both players advanced, with Dan splitting up his two Heavy Warjacks with the hope that Alan would follow suit and divide his force, allowing him to destroy the lighter ‘Jacks one by one. However Alan had brought his psychic monkey aide with him and so was wise to such ploys, refusing to seperate and advancing as a group instead. Alan’s shooting did dome damage, but not enough to slow down the implacable advance of the huge red Khador Warjacks. After the game, and with some discussion among the players, it was agreed that Alan would have been better initially advancing to within shooting range and then backing off while firing.

Feats Each Warcaster has a unique ability which can be used once per game – it’s their ‘ace in the hole’, if you will. The Feats’ effects vary massively in power and effect, ranging from subtle boosts for your minions or awesomely destructive blasts. Either way, once used they almost always change the flow of the game and can occasionally win it outright.

This game highlighted the need to protect your caster.

The brain trust agreed that the best means of doing so was no doubt using multiple models (to exert zones of control) rather than fewer ‘uber’ units which, whilst devastating, can only control a much smaller amount of board space.

Well, that’s enough jabber from the fifth wheel of the series. Let’s hear what our mangy quartet had to say...

Dan Heelan When I was asked to take part in this article I was a little apprehensive. There has been a large shift in certain regions of the world of people moving from playing Warhammer to this game and as a result Warmachine has always been slightly “taboo” to me. It seems like everyone and their small animal friend that moved over to playing this game are quick to point out how “rubbish” 8th edition Warhammer is and by comparison how “awesome/tactical/much better/fill_in_ the_blank) Warmachine and/or Privateer Press is. All that said, this article gave me a great chance to delve into the unknown and really see what all the fuss is about.

Being the kind of gamer I am I tend to dive headfirst into new projects and this was no different. I raced to learn some more about the game, first by reading the rulebook cover to cover and then hitting various internet forums for information on my faction. I also spent some time looking at the other factions I would be facing to ensure that I understood their rules. At a basic level the rules seemed slick and the object of the game very simple - kill your opponent’s boss-man.

Both players used their Feats early on, and Dan attempted an assassination run on Alan’s Warcaster with one of his Warjacks. Despite taking a considerable amount of shooting damage on the way in, the ‘Jack managed to muscle its way through Alan’s lines and began battering the enemy Warcaster, but not quite managing to kill it. In return Alan destroyed the offending Warjack and advanced two of his own ‘Jacks into a position to make a run for Dan’s caster. Dan, sensing the end was near, went for a high-risk strategy of trying to finish off Alan’s Warcaster using his own, but failed to do so by a mere two points of damage. Alan then proceeded tip the odds well in his own favour, piling in with his two closest ‘Jacks and killing Dan’s Warcaster to win the game.

In both my game and the other games that happened on our first gaming night, the post game discussions really started to get the four us seeing the tactical possibilities in the game. For example I had my ‘Jack beating down on Alan’s Warcaster for a couple of turns with 3 Focus (that is to say, quite heavily powered by the Warcaster) which made it very close to Alan losing him. It was only after the game we realised his caster could have hit my ‘Jack with his weapon and stopped it being able to receive Focus and thereby almost guaranteeing it wouldn’t kill him.

One thing that really struck me was some of the similarities the game has to BloodBowl. These include the concept of models having an area of engagement around them (akin to tackle zones), the need to plan the sequence of activations of models, the fact that the game is won by a single outcome (killing the caster/scoring a touchdown) and that the number of models lost in achieving this aim is largely irrelevant.

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From my point of view I had a really good time playing the game and can certainly see the appeal. The rules system is slick and well worded and the skirmish style movement and game lends itself to minimal rules discussions, all of which we solved easily by rereading (or in some cases just reading) the appropriate paragraph. I can also see the tactical depth that many converts to the game are talking about. That’s not to mention the low entry level for new players from a quantity of models perspective and many other small things that aid getting into the game.

In the time between our first gaming night and writing this column, I have been exploring the game more and learning to understand further nuances of the rules.

Of particular interest, and I think this is where the real character crux of Warmachine lies, is in the synergies between the Warcasters and their Warjacks and what the different factions’ playstyles are – something which I’m looking forward to finding out first-hand between now and next issue!

Alan Thompson I’d never played Warmachine or Hordes before but have heard a fair bit about them. I approached our first ‘Not Tale of Four Gamers’ meet with some interest and was looking forward to seeing some new and different models, but also eager to try a new game that I wasn’t familiar with.

Dan explained some of the very basic rules, then we settled down to play a game. I think in essence the game’s mechanics are very easy to learn but, like Warhammer, will take a lot of practice to learn how to play well. There are lots of thing to learn and know; I know you can ask your opponent what this does or that does, but you need to be looking forward and planning well ahead. As in Warhammer, having this sort of ability is a huge advantage and really does help when it comes to executing your game plan.

I found the background to be interesting, with a good amount of detail on both the world and the individual factions. The front of the book (which is full colour and contains some fabulous artwork) contains a 20 page section on the history of the world and sets the scene for the game. Towards the rear of the book is a section for each faction: this provides a further eight (or so) pages of history for the faction before describing the selection of units available to them. For each Warcaster character (they all have names and backstories) there is a page of text and a lovely full page illustration. The same goes for each unit; there is a full page spread, again with a detailed illustration and some background. This really

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helps you get a feel for the ‘fluff ’ of the game and the character of each individual unit (much akin to how a unit is represented in a Warhammer army book), and allows you to get feel for each faction as a whole. The thing that was in stark contrast to Warhammer was the depth, of the background – or lack thereof, should I say. It all feels rather simplistic and stereotyped. Whilst it was an enjoyable read it just did not have the levels of detail that the Warhammer ‘fluff ’ does, which is a major reason for my continued affair with that system.

I am sure that this will grow over time and I’m looking forward to taking a look at the Cygnar Faction Book and understanding more about my chosen force.

I do like this game and the background and the colour illustrations are particularly good. I’m currently busy painting up my battle force and looking at how I’ll expand. I don’t have much patience for painting (I tend to leave that girly stuff for Wayne), but I’m breaking it up by reading the background for the figures I’m working on and trying to figure out how they’ll work on the table. Hopefully by our next instalment I’ll be able to let you know!

Wayne Kemp I’ll admit that I might have a teensy advantage over my fellow columnists since I actually played some games of Warmachine 18 months ago against my clubmate James Lunn. However that was using the previous edition of the rules, and a combination of seeing the range of Cryx models and being asked by Uncle Lergy to paint them for this article has tempted me to come back and give Warmachine another shot.

When the box arrived I was very impressed with the models. Each comes in its own plastic bag and is made of a kind of relatively hard grey resin/plastic. The level of detail on the models is very good. The Warcasters in particular are comparable in quality to Games Workshop plastic figures, which came as somewhat of a surprise given that the majority of other manufacturers of resin/ plastic miniatures usually do not produce the same level of detail. The Warjack models are again good, but do not have the same level of detail as the Warcasters and are very style specific – I think it’s very much a case of love ‘em or hate ‘em.

The models do not come on sprues (our second surprise). What this did mean was there was no need to clean excess sprue from the model – however the components did all have mould lines (again of a similar level to GW plastics) on them that needed removing with a sharp knife prior to assembly.

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The models all fitted together well, with good ‘plug and socket’ or ‘ball and sucker’ type joins that are largely unique, making it almost impossible to assemble them incorrectly despite the lack of any form of assembly instructions (though Alan did seem very determined to put his Heavy Warjack’s torso on backwards, insisting it would fit). Also due to the nature of these joins none of the models required any form of pinning, which was a pleasant surprise given the size of some of the larger models. As the models are resin they need to be assembled using superglue which is of course a bit more of a pain to work with than polystyrene cement, but if you use an accelerant in conjunction with the superglue most of the problems can be overcome (apart from the occasional sticking together of fingers, but I have plenty to spare).

This quality of the models had me immediately enthused for the game and I am really looking forward to painting up my battle force in a suitably evil colour scheme and shall share my thoughts on how easy the models are to paint in the next instalment.

Bryan Carmichael This series is really going to prove an interesting experience for me, I think. From what I can tell, the players that have moved games systems from Warhammer to Warmachine are generally rational people who have had a significant investment (both time and money) in Warhammer; I was really intrigued to understand what the attraction was. Participating in the series is going to give me a much better understanding of this as I come from a background of no understanding or familiarity with the system other than a few quick chats with people. So, what comparisons and resolutions can I draw so far?

1: The Rules Part of the ongoing criticism of Warhammer is for its lack of rules clarity; although 8th edition has improved this significantly there are still issues especially around unstoppable force / immovable object type interactions.

The core Warmachine rules are smaller in size than the Warhammer but are well written and supported by diagrams of a similar quality to those found in the Warhammer rulebook. As with most rulesets they require a complete read-through to make total sense and I would recommend starting with the Quick Start sheet that comes in the battle box to give you an idea of the flow of the game. In comparison to the Warhammer rules the Warmachine rules are a bit more explicit and provide rules that cover of those hard to cater for

circumstances including a specific rule for immovable object / unstoppable force situations (the object is moved). From a rules point of view for I can definitely see the attraction for more competitive gamers or “rules sticklers” for the sheer clarity alone.

2: Cost of Entry It’s a labour of love to get a Warhammer army finished: buying the figures is expensive, assembling and painting them is an arduous process (unless you’re a freak like Wayne), storage needs to be considered and you also have to produce a variety of movement trays.

Warmachine, being a skirmish rather than a tabletop battles game has a much lower cost of entry both in financial and time terms, probably in the region of a third of that of a Warhammer army, plus it is easier to transport and requires no movement trays. Again this one would have to go to Warmachine 3: Theme Warhammer has a rich background that has grown over a long period of time. I am not a huge ‘Fluff Bunny’ but like to read the army and rule books not only to understand what the ‘killer’ combinations are but to get a feel for the world in which we game. The races’ rules also tend to reflect the background and this makes for a very rich gaming experience. Warmachine on the other hand is a much newer system and does so its background is not nearly as developed: what does exists is fine but to me adds nothing to the game, meaning I am pushing around toy soldiers with that I have little emotional investment in.

4: Enjoyment I am a die-hard Warhammer fan - I love playing it, I love reading about it and I love talking about it. For me there is not a lot better than playing at a tournament against a bunch of opponents with well painted armies. The scale of the system (as in the number of men involved) is fantastic and really captures the flavour of large scale battles; one of the main things that got me hooked in the first place. Warmachine on the other hand is a skirmish game and whilst enjoyable to play does not have the same grand scale or cinematic feel to it.

Looking back I’d say it’s two points apiece on my Ultimate Hobby checklist. Again, I’ll be interested to see if that balance shifts one way or the other during this series. Next issue sees us looking into Hordes, which is meant to be more like WHFB (Warmachine, with all its guns’n’robots can feel 40Kesque sometimes), so let’s see if that proves to be the diamond in the rough.

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A Guide to Frugal Gaming David Jakowyszyn

(No, we have no idea how to pronounce it either!)

Let’s try a little experiment.

Put the magazine down and go and look at your collection of games, books, terrain and miniatures.

All done? Now, do you have any unplayed games, unread books, unfinished terrain projects or unpainted miniatures? If you answered yes to any part of that question, then let me welcome you to the World of Frugal Gaming.

It’s been joked that if a wargamer ever manages to paint all the models that they own, they will drop dead on the spot. From speaking to other gamers, it’s not a risk that any of us seem to want to take.

A few years ago, I realised that I was spending more than I wanted to on gaming, and all I had to show for it was a pile of unpainted miniatures, unassembled projects and unplayed games. Things had to change.

I decided to severely limit my spending on gaming, only buying the essentials, only playing the rules that I already owned and not buying any more miniatures until I’d painted the ones that I already had. This was my first rule; ‘Spend Less’. After a bit of thought I realised that simply trying to spend less money could lead to some problems (like just giving up gaming altogether), so I had to ensure that I would get the most out of my money. This became my second rule; ‘Game More’.

Needless to say, with rule #2 working somewhat counterproductively against rule #1, this is where things got interesting!

In addition, it all seemed a bit sudden; permanently limiting what I spend on my hobby. Could I really give it all up? Forever? Of course not. To make my task a bit more achievable, I decided to limit myself to a single year of being frugal and see how I got on.

Armed with my two rules and my timescale, all I then needed was a method to track my progress and keep me motivated; the blog ‘A Year of Frugal Gaming’ was born.

Writing a blog can help keep you focused on reducing your spending.

If you want to spend less or even if you’re happy with the amount you’re spending, why not try some of these tips I’ve picked up to make sure you’re getting the most out of your money.

List all expenditure – This should be your first step if you want to save money. List every hobby product you buy for a couple of months to get an idea of where your money goes. Keep a running total, you may be surprised (or a bit scared).

Set a budget – Based on what you found from listing your expenses. Work out how much you spend each month and set this as your budget. If it seems too high, reduce it to a level you feel comfortable with. Keep a track of your spending and compare it to your budget. If you struggle to meet the budget, don’t panic, adjust it to something slightly more realistic and try again.

Cheaper is not always better - I initially thought that the key to spending less, was to find the cheapest products I could, I soon found this wasn’t the best approach. Instead of buying cheap miniatures that don’t get used, spend a couple of pounds more on miniatures that you will use again and again. After buying a pack of cheap figures to use in Necromunda, I found that the quality was awful, they were difficult to paint and they looked rubbish on the gaming table. I decided to spend my money more wisely and spent the same amount on a single miniature which was great fun to paint,

Unseen Lerker

Painless Joe by Heresy Miniatures; a few more pence makes a lot more sense

looks good on the table and gets used every game. The cheaper ones are stuffed in a box somewhere.

Adopt a ‘Paint One, Buy One’ strategy – If you want to clear a backlog of miniatures, get them painted!

The best way to do this is to only allow yourself to buy as many miniatures as you have recently painted. So instead of buying that box of Orcs, why not paint the unit of Night Goblins stuck on your shelf first? If you don’t want to paint them or have no use for them, (why did you buy them in the first place?) then sell them. If your unpainted backlog is particularly large, you could even use a ‘Paint Two, Buy One’ policy.

a shelf for a month until you find time to start it? Why not wait a month and then buy it? Hold onto your money and shelf space. Who knows, a better deal may come around in the meantime!

Play every set of rules you own – This is pretty much the same as the tip above. If you’re tempted by a shiny new set of rules, just think of all those rulebooks that you have at home that you’ve never played. Do you really need another? If you really want to play a new set of rules, play one that you have at home already. Or… Sell it! – There are lots of places to sell your unwanted gaming paraphernalia. If that box of ‘Giant Fighting Robot’ figures has been sat on the shelf next to the ‘Giant Fighting Robot’ rulebook for two years and neither has been touched, then it’s probably time to sell them.You can try bring-and-buy sales, advertise on gaming websites or even speak to people at your local club. In my experience though, the best place is eBay, as this gets the most attention and you’ll usually end up with a good price, just don’t forget to take seller fees and postage into account!

Have a go yourself – You may be happy just painting models out of the box, but why not have a go making your own? Converting, kitbashing and scratch-building can save you loads of money and will make your army look a lot more individual.

Be patient – Perhaps the greatest tip that I can offer is to wait.You may have seen something that you want, but do you need it? Okay, do you need it now? Today?

Can it wait a week? If you buy that brand new dragon kit today, will you start painting it today, or will it sit on

The author’s scratch-built Goblin Rock Lobber. Less than £5 worth of balsa wood and a few hours effort can create an eyecatching centerpiece to an army.

So, there you go, the basics of frugal gaming in a nutshell.

These tips aren’t set in stone, use them as a guide and adapt them as you see fit. My blog has been running for over two years now and I’m still being Frugal. Others have joined me as contributors, or have started their own blogs along similar lines. People out there are spending less and gaming more, are you one of them?

David Jakowyszyn, AKA Frugal Dave, runs the ‘A Year of Frugal Gaming’ blog, plays wargames badly, rides a bike quite well and has a cat. Check out his excellent blog at www. yearoffrugalgaming.blogspot.com.

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WIN STUFF

By subscribing to Unseen Lerker you automatically go into the draw to win the following: • Mantic Games Abyssal Dwarf War Conclave set • Dwarf King’s Hold board game (as reviewed by the Test Dummies on pg.54) • Gale Force 9 charge markers • NEW! 10 custom red Unseen Lerker dice Congratulations to last issue’s winners:

Thomas Laurfelt, Denmark (GF9 Battlefield Status Markers), Febo Troilo, UK (GF9 Psychology Tokens), Bart Koeler, USA (Civilisation: the board game), Jerzy Pietrzyk, Germany (Maelstrom Chimaera)

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Wayne’s World

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Hobbying where none have dared before...

BY WAYNE KEMP

Welcome to this month’s chop-fest!

At the moment I am working on a Daemons of Chaos army, of which one or two models have featured in the series previously.

For my army, I’ve decided to have Heralds rather than a Greater Daemon. I’ve already made the Nurgle and Khorne Heralds, but, as always, I had a dream… Here’s how I made my Tzeentch disk rider.

Somewhat unusually (for me at least), I started with the base. This was made from the Ruins of Osgiliath set, forming a nice basis of a craggy tower-type apparatus. The thinking behind this was to create height and have more visual impact, rather than just the normal flying stand. This was finished off with some large rocks to represent fallen masonry, and then the usual sand.

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Now, onto the disk itself! I wanted a completely different look from the disk you can buy over the counter. After some wee ponderations, I came up with the idea of a flaming slipstream trailing behind the daemonic vehicle. This was conveniently achieved by using the wrecker ball from the Plague Furnace set. I trimmed the wrecker ball of any chains so that I was just left with the ball, the fire and the smoke. I then added to the top of the ball a metal washer, big enough to be a platform for the Herald. I added some extra detail to the front of the ball by using some spikes taken from a 40K Chaos tank sprue.

Now for the Herald. I started with a classic Chaos Sorcerer and added new plastic Horror bits. Four arms to the Sorcerer’s back and the banner top would now be the Herald’s staff.

Next up was to add some flames to the Herald’s platform. This was done by rolling out some Green Stuff and applying it evenly around the edge of the platform.

Gently spike up the Green Stuff, pulling it upwards with a small pointed sculpting tool until you get a flame effect. Don’t worry if this doesn’t look too great as painting will finish the effect.

I added some Green Stuff to extend the sorcerer’s hood over the shoulders of the arms I had just attached. This made the arms look as if they were coming out of the folds of the cloak, rather than just four arms just glued to his back!

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The next step was to glue the Herald to the disk, and then drill and pin the disk to the ruins.

Below you can see the finished project all painted and ready to roll. All in all, the whole project was quite straight forward, and I’d estimate it only took a couple of hours from start to finish. A fairly easy one to replicate if anyone wants to give it a shot themselves!

It was a quick project this month but that is due to the big project that I’m working on for the next issue.

I hope this shows that with just a little bit of creative thinking, something original can be achieved in not much time at all. That’s all for now. Happy chopping!

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We’ve been pondering for a while what to do with our tactics column.

There’s lots of neat tricks to be learned about the intricacies of our fair wargame, but we thought that an interactive approach might be more interesting than cut-and-dry tactics. And so we proudly introduce our new column!

Michael Biggs is a former UK Grand Tournament Final winner. He is the current Team England ETC Captain. But now, he is also...

THE ARMY DOCTOR Dear Army Doctor, After reading the tactics article in the last issue of Unseen Lerker I have started using my High Elf Star Dragon again. But my regular opponent plays Skaven and I find that with masses of ranks, unit champions, and many multiwound shooting attacks my big expensive critter just can’t get his foot (claw) in the door...We play mostly casually, but with ETC-style restrictions (ie, no total cheese!). My army is a fairly standard mix of missile and combat troops with elite infantry (White Lions & Phoenix Guard) support. I like to use Shadow magic most of the time, but if there’s a better way forward my ears are open!

Help!

Regards, Mitchell Mauric, Australia

The Doctor: Well Mitchell, as the doctor’s first patient, you’ve come up with a tough case that’s for sure. Skaven have lots of tools to deal with Dragons with cheap infantry that can tie it up in combat, Warp Lightning Cannons and Doomwheels to damage the big beastie and the virtually ubiquitous Storm Banner that also hampers the Great Eagles you’d normally use to re-direct and get in the way. Furthermore, Skaven spells are brilliant at dealing with the expensive but fragile elves that accompany your monster. However, the Army Doctor is nothing if not an optimist and with an assiduous approach, a well thumbed army book and a dash of inspiration hopefully I’ll find you a force that will allow your Dragon to rule the battlefield once more.

When designing an army to fight a specific foe, my preference is to start by looking at what units and tactics they can utilise that are likely to cause me problems and what weaknesses they have that I can exploit. Looking at the Skaven army in particular, I reasoned that the things that could cause me the most problems would be the Storm Banner and Howling Warpgale spell stopping me flying and reducing the effectiveness of my shooting, the Scorch, Plague and Dreaded Thirteenth spells crippling my oh so brittle troops, the Doom Rocket obliterating half a unit or more and Gutter Runners ambushing my Repeater Bolt Throwers. Finally the Abomination can potentially smash any High Elf unit in combat and even a Star Dragon could struggle against it with a few poor dice rolls or lucky regeneration saves.

Skaven weaknesses were harder to come by but there are some things that gave me hope. Firstly, Skaven have poor basic leadership, relying on their strength in numbers to boost it up to more respectable levels. I figured Death Magic and Spirit Leech specifically could be a way of exploiting this fact by killing champions in units the Dragon would likely engage and, more importantly, potentially killing a Storm Banner toting battle standard bearer, a Warlock or two or even a Grey Seer who’d left the warrens of Skavenblight without a ward save keeping him safe. Secondly, with a few exceptions like the Abomination, units in the Skaven army are pretty weak in combat compared to a High Elf unit and certainly weak compared to a Star Dragon! If I could make sure the Dragon didn’t get stuck in a series of challenges and flank charges it could quickly thunderstomp its way through the Skaven.

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Army Doctor Top Tip: Your ‘Unmodified Leadership’ is the highest Leadership in the unit, without any other modifiers.

That means a Ld8 High Elf Mage in a unit of Ld9 Phoenix Guard would use their Leadership, not his own, for the Spirit Leech spell.

Bearing all that in mind and as this year’s ETC uses 2400 point armies I came up with the following 2400 point list and with some figures kindly loaned out by Middle Earth Studio (and a little judicious proxying!) took it for a test drive against the editor of the magazine himself, the always devious wargaming troubadour known as Bobo.

High Elf List #1: Prince, Halberd, Heavy Armour, Charmed Shield, Opal Amulet, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (Death Magic), Star Dragon Battle Standard Bearer, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Banner of the World Dragon Level 2 Mage, Seerstaff of Saphery (Spirit Leech & Doom and Darkness) Level 1 Mage (Death Magic), Sigil of Asuryan 25 Spearmen, Full Command, Banner of Swiftness 10 Archers, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 14 Phoenix Guard, Full Command, Banner of Sorcery, the Skeinsliver

cavalry if the opportunity presented itself. Finally, I included the Skeinsliver to give me +2 to the roll to go first to try and ensure I got the jump on my opponent with my Death Magic and the Charmed Shield and Opal Amulet to give my Prince a bit of cannon protection.

Bobo rocked up with a Grey Seer led list, with the usual Clanrats and Slaves backed up by a trio of Engineers, a Battle Standard bearer, a Plague Priest on a Furnace with some Plague Monks, an Abomination, a Warp Lightning Cannon and a couple of Poisoned Wind Mortars. A couple of units of Gutter Runners with poisoned slings rounded out his force.

The game was a tough one. It quickly became apparent during deployment, that with Bobo having so many more units than me I’d never have the chance to hunt down the Abomination with the Dragon Princes and, despite me getting the first turn, Bobo had me on the back foot throughout most of the game, with the Dragon having to be wary of the Warp Lightning cannon and Howling Warpgale stopping it from flying and putting a serious crimp in my shooting. Fortunately an uncharacteristic error from the Masters regular allowed me, after a cheeky combat reform, to flank charge the Plague Monks and Furnace with the Prince and Star Dragon who set about chopping up the unit and the Slaves that tried to come to the rescue (although they did cheekily wound the Prince in the fight and then again when they “exploded”). Unfortunately, in the crucial turn, with the Plague Monks reduced to just a few models and when Bobo was about to rear charge the Dragon with a Clanrat unit, my magic phase let me down and I failed to kill the Champion in the Clanrats giving him the chance to challenge my poor Prince when he only had the damaged Furnace left to kill. A failed Toughness test caused my Prince to die to the fumes from the Furnace and almost saved my Dragon as it could no longer be challenged.

6 Dragon Princes, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame Tiranoc Chariot Tiranoc Chariot

I sought to mitigate the problem of the Storm Banner by making sure the Prince could do some damage outside of the combat phase and by not including any of the normally useful Great Eagles. The Banner of the World Dragon would stop the Dreaded Thirteenth Spell wiping my Phoenix Guard, who I included for their resilience compared to the other elite elves, off the board. I hoped the speed of the Dragon Princes and Chariots could help me win combats where the Dragon could potentially be challenged and with speed in mind I used the Banner of Swiftness to give the Spearmen a little more. I also planned to hunt down the Abomination with the flaming

The Star Dragon, having destroyed the Plague Monks single-handedly, runs off to an ignoble death as the Clanrats rear-charge it.

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Unfortunately, although it killed the Furnace and stamped all over the Clanrats at first, a slew of sixes for Bobo in the next round of combat and a poor thunderstomp roll meant that the Dragon drew the combat in the final turn of the game. A sharp toot from a Clanrat on his horn left me needing to pass a leadership 8 break test – the Dragon failed and 600 more victory points went to my opponent. The game ended in a narrow draw.

Army Doctor Top Tip: If you can engage a Plague Furnace or Screaming Bell unit in the flank it’s nearly impossible for them to combat reform as it would reduce the number of Plague Monks or Clanrats fighting.

Still, even with that bad piece of luck and with the fact that it was only Bobo’s mistake that meant I was in with a chance of winning the game at all, there were several positives that I could take from the battle. The Death Magic forced Bobo to jump through all sorts of hoops to keep his Grey Seer alive and got me a couple of Warlocks worth of victory points along with helping to kill off the Abomination. The Phoenix Guard and Battle Standard Bearer were fantastic, initially providing a safe, immune to magic bunker for the Mages to hide in and then later in the game going through a Slave and a Clanrat unit without taking the, rather embarrassing casualties that some of my other units suffered from exploding Slaves. On the downside, the Dragon Princes got easily hunted down and killed with a combination of magic and mortars and the chariots really did very little. The Gutter Runners were also a pain to deal with, picking off my small archer units while Warpgale made it difficult to shoot them back.

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So, as my first solution did not work to my satisfaction, I did what any good doctor would do and tried another one. With the last dice roll of the game turning my victory into a draw, I was easily able to goad Bobo into a re-match…

High Elf List #2: Prince, Lance, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Vambraces of Defence, Crown of Command, Moon Dragon Battle Standard Bearer, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Banner of the World Dragon Level 2 Mage (Death), Ring of Corin, The Skeinsliver Level 2 Mage (Death), Sigil of Asuryan 25 Lothern Sea Guard, Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame 25 Lothern Sea Guard, Full Command 16 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Sorcery 16 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Arcane Protection Okay! So I bent the rules a little, I know the original problem was with a Star Dragon, hey, at the end of the day a Dragon’s a Dragon, and the points I saved by taking the Star Dragon’s oft overlooked smaller brother allowed me to fully kit out the Prince without exceeding my six hundred point Lord limit. I turned him into a real tough nut to crack and still had points spare to make him and his Dragon Stubborn.

The Phoenix Guard really earn their keep where the other elites may have failed, wading through wave after wave of rats and emerging the other side unscathed.

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After all, if you don’t care about combat resolution, you can afford to get stuck in combat for a turn or two, especially when that combat is preventing a Warp Lightning Cannon from shooting you.

The rest of the army was rather compact and bijou. I figured that, with the archers getting easily picked off in the last game, Lothern Sea Guard would prove to be useful multipurpose troops that also filled out my core requirements and, by having a few big units, I wouldn’t have to worry about having my small units wiped out.

Being able to shoot (a bit) and fight (a bit) would also make sure I got to use my Banner of Eternal Flame on the Abomination. After their sterling performance in the last battle, I doubled up on the Phoenix Guard, giving the second unit magic resistance 2 for a 2+ ward save against magic. I upgraded the second Mage to a level two to make Spirit Leech a bit easier to cast and to give me a chance of getting one of the other sniper spells. As Doom and Darkness didn’t really do anything in the last game, I dropped the Seerstaff and added in the Ring of Corin just in case Bobo tried to thwart my Death Magic with an Obsidian Lodestone or something similar.

As it happened Bobo had chosen to keep virtually the same army, with swapping the Poison Wind Mortars for Ratling Guns being the only change.

Unfortunately, the game did not go to plan. Despite my Skeinsliver, Bobo won the roll for the first turn and moved aggressively to try and punish me for taking such a small number of units. My first magic phase resulted in 2 miscast Spirit Leeches, killing one Mage, reducing the other to a single wound and leaving Bobo’s Grey Seer wondering what all the fuss was about (Bobo rolled a six to my one both times for Spirit Leech). He then casually Thirteenthed the unit of Phoenix Guard off the table due to my Mage with the Sigil being no longer alive, and then surrounded the rather surprised remaining Mage with Gutter Runners and leaving only 5 models in a Seaguard unit after a laser guided hit from the Doom Rocket. After I put my toys back in my pram, Bobo very kindly agreed to start another game as seeing how the Dragon did on his own against a whole Skaven army didn’t seem too interesting.

This time, the game went somewhat more to plan, I won the roll for the first turn and promptly took the Plague Priest of the back of the Furnace with Spirit Leech, allowing the Dragon to get into the Plague Monks again. This time I used a trick I’ve been waiting a long time to try out. By moving the Dragon 1” away and extremely offside (still blocking), it meant the Furnace couldn’t wheel into contact when the Plague Monks charged (Doom and Darkness forced them to fail their Frenzy test – a sneaky use for that spell after all!). I then combat reformed into contact with the Furnace thanks to Stubborn Ld10, so I had two combat

phases in which to kill it before it could use its wrecker ball attack. The bigger units still really struggled though.

The MR2 Phoenix Guard died to the Abomination as, thanks to the Storm Banner and Warpgale my shooting didn’t hurt it at all and the large units of Seaguard actually made the Skaven magic and template weapons much more potent while still being harassed by Gutter Runners. The Death Magic helped the Dragon save the day though, as from their immune to magic Phoenix Guard bunker, the two wizards eventually broke through Bobo’s magic defence to kill the Grey Seer and to help the Dragon panic a couple of units off the table with Doom and Darkness. Despite me losing three out of my four infantry units, the game ended with a win of almost 500 victory points to me as the combination of the Dragon and Death Magic, with a little help from a unit each of Phoenix Guard and Seaguard took over 1500 points from the Skaven army.

Despite my win and being much happier with my character setup, I still felt the army could be improved.

Taking so few units was a mistake and the Banner of Eternal Flame didn’t really help in dealing with the Abomination as the flaming shooting just showed Bobo the best target for the Doom Rocket. With a final game against Ben Johnson of Bad Dice podcast fame lined up, I came up with the following list.

High Elf Army #3: Prince, Lance, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Vambraces of Defence, Crown of Command, Moon Dragon Battle Standard Bearer, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Banner of the World Dragon Level 2 Mage (Death), Ring of Corin, The Skeinsliver Level 2 Mage (Fire), Sigil of Asuryan 24 Spearmen, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame 24 Spearmen, Standard Bearer 10 Archers, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 12 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Sorcery 20 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Arcane Protection The biggest change was taking Fire Magic on one of the Mages. Death had been fantastic so far, but the army really struggled to deal with the Abomination, so I looked to the magic phase to give it more help. I went

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The Doctor’s tactics come into play – forcing the Plague Monks to charge, but being so close that the Furnace can’t be brought into contact. Sneaky!

back to an Archer/Spearman split to give me more units on the table, although, as my shooting in previous games was pretty ineffective, I took more Spearmen than archers. As one Phoenix Guard unit has tended to be mostly a bunker for characters and a late game mopping up unit, I changed the numbers round a little to give me a real main line unit rather than two midsized ones.

Ben rocked up with another Grey Seer led list, with a Plague Furnace for a bit of punch (it seems like, after a few months of being out of favour, they’re all the rage at the moment) and the interesting addition of a Plague Catapult for a bit of extra shooting, otherwise though his army was a pretty standard Skaven affair.

I’d like to say the game fully vindicated my new army selection. Ben however, living up to his reputation as the destroyer of the hopes and dreams of many a fresh faced tournament goer, fired his Warp Lightning Cannon on turn one and promptly took the Dragon out from underneath the Prince, who was fortunately saved by his 4+ ward. Without the dragon to keep him occupied, Ben set to trying to take all my poor elves off the table with an unusual zeal. Of course it would be petty and wrong for me to mention that this might have been because I reduced his Skaven horde to a single Giant Rat pack for the loss of a Hellcannon and level one wizard at the recent UK masters tournament, so I won’t…

Back to the game and Death magic was yet again a star as I killed a Warlock and the Grey Seer with Spirit Leech, but Ben’s Furnace was bearing down at a frightening pace. I could have tried to hold it off it

with some building shenanigans, and by sacrificing my large Phoenix Guard unit, but instead opted for a more aggressive move that required a bit of luck to pull off, while actually giving me the chance to win the game.

Unfortunately it didn’t work out, and in retrospect I should have been more cautious, especially as I was able to keep the Prince alive for the rest of the game and thus didn’t give away any victory points for him or the dragon.

Despite the game being so heavily influenced by Ben’s turn one Warp Lightning related jammyness, something I think that you’re going to have to just accept will occasionally happen if you want to take a dragon led list.

I still managed to get a feel of how the changes affected the army, and have come up with this final roster.

The most difficult problem I’ve had throughout this exercise is what to do with the High Elf core. There are only three units to choose from and they’re all expensive and very susceptible to a Skaven army’s spells and shooting. Furthermore, unlike in 7th edition, you actually have to have a significant amount of them in your army. As Scorch, Poisoned Wind Mortars and the like have been so effective over the four games I played, I think the best option is to take multiple small units despite their vulnerability to being picked off. The larger core units have never survived to see combat with more than seven or eight models remaining and have never really been able to hide away to avoid giving up their points. Similar things are likely to happen to the smaller blocks, but as there are more of them it should be less painful overall.

Unseen Lerker

Michael lines up for his final game against Ben Johnson. Andy Isherwood provides the cheer squad element.

High Elf Army 4: Prince, Lance, Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Vambraces of Defence, Crown of Command, Moon Dragon Battle Standard Bearer, Heavy Armour, Great Weapon, Banner of the World Dragon Level 2 Mage (Death), Ring of Corin, The Skeinsliver Level 2 Mage (Fire), Sigil of Asuryan 15 Spearmen, Standard, Musician 15 Spearmen, Standard, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 10 Archers, Musician 15 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Sorcery 16 Phoenix Guard, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Arcane Protection 5 Shadow Warriors With regard to the rest of the army, I was not impressed with the large unit/small unit split of the Phoenix Guard. In the game against Ben the 20-strong elf unit died just as easily as the smaller units I’ve used and would have been unnecessarily large if I was able to get them into a favourable combat. I’ve been really happy

with the character set up, and found the Ring of Corin to be pretty useful at times and a little gimmicky at others. A more reliable choice would be a Dispel Scroll, but I think the Ring is well worth taking, especially as I’m sure your regular opponents will start to wise up and take some form of magic resistance or ward save on his most important characters. Finally, the Shadow Warriors are included as a useful way to stop your opponent bailing his characters out of units and keeping them at the back of the board as Bobo did against me, or as a pinch re-director to stop a tough unit bearing down on you if your dragon has died, as happened in my game against Ben. At the end of the day, taking a dragon against a Skaven army is never going to be the best possible option any army has available to it, but I’m confident that the above list gives you more than a fair chance of winning against the verminous horde and allows you to use what’s probably the coolest model in your army – which is, sometimes, the most important thing.

Do you have a Warhammer ailment that needs curing? The Army Doctor is here to help. Write to him today for your free consultation – you could even become famous. Please include what composition (if any!) you usually use and the latest version of your army list (if you have one)

armydoctor@unseenlerker.com

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The Sixteen Arena go in.

Beastmen – Jack Belumi (USA)

Dwarfs – Paul Scott (UK)

Boris Skullsmasher

Snorri Grimgrudge

Doombull: Fencers’ Blades, Glittering Scales, Many Armed Fiend, Potion of Strength

Dwarf Lord: Master Rune of Gromril, Rune of Resistance, Rune of Preservation, Master Rune of Spite, Rune of Luck, great weapon

Bretonnia – Chris Willcox (Aus)

High Elves – Chris Cousens (Aus)

Sir Audley

Ponce Flame-Hair

Duke: Grail Vow, barded warhorse, shield, Sword of Bloodshed, Armour of Agiluf, Luckstone, Potion of Strength

Prince: Glittering Scales, The White Sword, Talisman of Loec, Guardian Phoenix

Daemons of Chaos – Nick Legrand (Aus)

Lizardmen – Jack Armstrong (Peru)

Stinky Pete

J’aq Bissep

Daemon Prince: Immortal Fury, Etherblade

Saurus Oldblood: light armour, shield, Dragonhelm, Dawnstone, Revered Blade of Tzunki

Dark Elves – Todd Perkins (USA)

Ogre Kingdoms – John Broome (UK)

Tolne Warstaff

Busta Bloodvessel

Dreadlord: heavy armour, sea dragon cloak, Pendant of Khaeleth, Sword of AntiHeroes, Other Trickster’s Shard, Enchanted Shield

Tyrant: heavy armour, Luck Gnoblar, Potion of Foolhardiness, Tenderiser, Talisman of Preservation

Unseen Lerker

of Death!

One comes out.

Orcs & Goblins – Nathan Goodchild (Aus)

Vampire Counts – Richard Laking (UK)

Chopper

Vampire Lord: Red Fury, Infinite Hatred, Beguile, Crown of the Damned, Nightshroud, Other Trickster’s Shard, Sword of AntiHeroes

Savage Orc Warboss: Martog’s Best Basha, Glittering Scales, Amulet of Protectyness, Warboss Imbad’s Iron Gnashas

Skaven – Lergy the Lerker (UL HQ) Whisky the Risky Warlord: Fellblade!

The Red Duke

Warriors of Chaos –

Asger Sams Granerud & Hans Kristian Roemer (DenMARK)

Lord Skumsvaerd Chaos Lord: Mark of Khorne, Glaive of Putrification, Potion of Strength, Blasphemous Amulet, Bronze Armour of Zhrakk, Word of Agony, shield

The Empire – Bernard Lewis (UK)

Wood Elves – Simon Harris (UK)

Captain Crunch

Elthyggranhanoth, of the Mourning Wood

Grandmaster: full plate armour, barded warhorse, Charmed Shield, Sword of Fate, Holy Relic

Treeman Ancient: Murder of Spites

Tomb Kings – Klaas Luyckx (Belgium)

Dwarfs of Chaos – Kevin Coleman (USA)

Toot-Ann-Kay-Mom

Dirtspit Double-Deala

Tomb King: Flail of Skulls, Golden Ankhara, Dragonhelm

Hobgoblin Chieftain: Daemon Eyes, shield, Armour of Devious Fate, Crooked Dice, The Other Trickster’s Shard, Soul Eater

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The premise for this whole debacle is quite simple, if you’ve not seen it done before. Last issue we asked our readers to send in the toughest combat character possible from their favourite race; we then picked our favourites and pitted them against one another in a battle to (as the title suggests) the death. We’d be doing it knock-out style, like a tennis tournament, with each competitor having to defeat several tough opponents on their way to the top.

Our dice rolling volunteers for the spectacle were Mr Michael Biggs and Mr Bernard Lewis, so you can be sure to blame them for any spectacular failures.

Round 1 We determined the first round matchups using a highly complex method. That is to say we stood all combatants in a loose circle and then rolled a Scatter dice to see who was going to fight whom. As the lineup was determined there were a few “oohs”, a couple of “aahs” and one notable exclamation of “oh, bollocks” (we’ll leave you to figure out which one). The pairings were as follows:

Snorri Grimgrudge vs Tolne Warstaff We thought the Dwarf vs Dark Elf matchup would be a nice easy bout to ease ourselves into this Arena malarkey. How wrong we were.

With a 1+ re-rollable armour save on one side, and the blasted Pendant on the other, it took nine rounds of combat before even a single wound was inflicted on either side. Things accelerated somewhat from here, and it quickly felt like the Dark Elf was under a lot of pressure and all Snorri had to do was keep hammering away with his great weapon and wait for the Pendant to burst. In the 14th round of combat Snorri completely fluffed his armour save rolls though, being reduced to only one wound remaining! In the 15th round though he struck 3 wounds back, and the Dreadlord rolled two 6s for his Pendant, dying on the spot. Let’s never fight that matchup again, m’kay?

Whisky the Risky vs Sir Audley It was somewhat of a shock to us that the only race no one submitted a character for was Skaven. Luckily our furry little friend Lergy the

Lerker stepped up to the plate and blew us all away with the sheer evil genius of the Fellblade toting Warlord.

Sir Audley, having come all the way from Australia to compete in the Arena, discovered just how nasty this weapon is firsthand. With slightly lower Initiative the poor knight didn’t even get to strike, as the Fellblade scored 3 hits and 3 wounds. One bounced off the Blessing’s ward save (despite the forced re-roll), but the remaining 2d6 wounds multiplied into 5, slaughtering the Bretonnian where he stood. Next!

Toot-Ann-Kay-Mom vs Busta Bloodvessel This was much more of an interesting encounter.

The Tomb King looked to be in a good position early on, smashing 2 wounds to the Tyrant with the Flail of Skulls and suffering none in return after an abysmal round of attacks from the Ogre. However, the lack of Strength on the flail after the first round really began to tell, and in the third round of combat the Tomb King scored 4 hits which converted to precisely zero wounds. Uh oh. In return the Tenderiser managed 4 hits and 4 wounds. One was warded, but after multipliers the Tomb King took no less than 7 wounds and crumbled into dust. Fortunately for us the Ogre passed his Curse test – we really had no idea what we would have done if he’d failed!

Lord Skumsvaerd the Putrifying vs Captain Crunch The classic matchup between Empire and Chaos seemed very fitting for the first round, and we were interested to see how this would go. Things started in style with the Grandmaster failing a Toughness test and taking a wound from the Blasphemous Amulet – not a bad start for the forces of evil! The Chaos Lord did his best to capitalise on this, shouting out with his Word of Pain and inflicting a further wound, which the Grandmaster just managed to ward save. The Chaos Lord’s remaining attacks managed to get through the saves though, leaving the Grandmaster on just 1 wound left before he’d even got to attack! In return the Grandmaster, still reeling, scored a single wounding hit which did not multiply into more. The Chaos Lord desperately tried to finish his opponent, but despite the Empire lord now only being S2, T2 his armour and wards still held up, and then the Sword of Fate descended once again, inflicting 6 wounds and ending the contest. Ouch.

Unseen Lerker

Elthyggranhanoth vs Stinky Pete Now here was a good’un – the battle of the big boys! Things were looking very promising for the Daemon Prince initially, as he inflicted 4 wounds over three rounds of combat to the mighty Ancient while suffering only 2 himself.

However, in the fourth round of combat he couldn’t quite finish the lumbering behemoth and, much to everyone’s surprise, the Murder of Spites leapt at him and inflicted 3 wounds, finishing him off! That’s going to be a hard one to explain to the Chaos Gods...

The Red Duke vs Dirtspit Double-Deala This encounter, I am sorry to say, was extremely brief and bloody. The Hobgoblin began by failing his -3Ld Beguile test, allowing the Vampire to re-roll failed wound rolls against him. Combined with Red Fury this meant that poor little Dirtspit Double-Deala was chunk into several large chunks before he even got to strike.

Damn, that Vamp is nasty!

J’aq Bissep vs Lord Ponce Flame-Hair Our prediction for this bout was that if the Elf didn’t Killing Blow the Oldblood then he would be dead within one, maybe two rounds.

As expected the Prince used the Talisman of Loec, giving himself the best possible chance of doing the deed. He managed 3 successful wounds – but not a single one of them a Killing Blow! However, when the Lizardman then failed all 3 re-rollable armour saves and died on the spot we all had to stop and pick our jaws up off the floor. That ain’t meant to happen! Herr FlameHair moves through to the next round.

Chopper vs Boris Skullsmasher The final bout of the round, and our expectations were high. In our ponderings and theoryhammer sessions we’d determined that these two were among the nastiest characters in the Arena, and having them fight so early was a bit of a shock! With equal Initiative, they struck simultaeniously. Chopper scored 2 hits which converted to 2 wounds. A good start.

The Doombull managed 3 hits, which also converted to wounds. At this point we had to look up what defensive equipment the Savage Orc had. The Amulet of Protectyness? What on earth does that do? .....Turns out it gives you the same armour and ward save as the model attacking you. We looked at the Doombull. He had no saves of any kind. Ah. The Savage Orc keeled over, dead.

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Round 2 The pairings for this round were a great deal easier to determine, what with half the number of combatants.

At this stage it’s tempting to introduce some fluff text about how carrion birds were circling to feast on the flesh of the fallen heroes corpses, but we know you’re only here to look at the pretty pictures anyway so let’s cut to the chase, eh?

Whisky the Risky vs Boris Skullsmasher Now here was a match worth watching! In this reporter’s humble opinion this was probably the most interesting bout of the tournament so far, since realistically speaking the Skaven had a better chance of killing the Doombull than anyone else in the competition! Striking first, the Skaven prepared to unleash his D6 wounding weapon...

And promptly failed his Fear test. Combined with Boris’s Glittering Scales this left Whisky the Risky needing 6s to hit, which resulted on four misses. Uh oh. Boris retaliated, sending a message to the other combatants by pummelling the poor Warlord with no less than 6 wounds – and then stomping on the corpse as well for good measure. Ouchies.

Elthyggranhanoth vs Lord Ponce Flame-Hair A Treeman against a weedy High Elf? This could prove messy. Lord Ponce struck first, electing not to use his Talisman in favour of staying alive longer. He did superbly well with his first lot of attacks, inflicting 3 wounds on the Ancient. The smirk was promptly wiped off his face though as the now infamous Murder of Spites poked him in the eye for a wound. The Treeman itself managed a further wound, and just as the High Elf was about to regain hope and prepare for his second assault the Treeman raised its huge trunk legs and thunderstomped the crap out of him. Hardly sporting, but a win’s a win I guess!

The Red Duke vs Snorri Grimgrudge The deadly against the dull – who would triumph in this clash? Things started badly for Snorri as he failed his Beguile test, allowing the Vampire to inflict 4 wounds. However, the ever reliable Dwarven armour prevailed, with the last wound being caught on the ward save and Rune of Luck for a total of zero damage sustained. In return the Dwarf Lord raised his unadorned great weapon and demonstrated that, while not enchanted or magical, it was still a sharp

lump of metal, inflicting 2 wounds to the Red Duke after saves! Wowzer! Next round the Dwarf again failed his Beguile test, and this time the Vampire managed to get 2 wounds through the Dwarf ’s armour. Both 4+ ward saves were passed, only to be re-rolled and failed thanks to the Other Trickster’s Shard! This granted the Red Duke two additional attacks via Red Fury, of which one got through the Dwarf ’s armour. The ward save was again passed, but another forced re-roll from the Other Trickster’s Shard saw the Dwarf take a sword through the chest and die instantly! Man, don’t mess with the Duke!

Busta Bloodvessel vs Captain Crunch What a match to finish the round on – the Tenderiser pitted against the Sword of Fate. Things started well for the Grandmaster, inflicting 2 wounds on the Tyrant. But one successful ward save plus a Luck Gnoblar re-roll meant he sustained no damage.

He raised the Tenderiser for revenge. Four hits became three thanks to the Charmed Shield, but two failed armour saves and two failed wards meant 2 wounds got through, which quickly multiplied into 5 because of the Tenderiser’s nasty properties. The Grandmaster and his horse became a very refined pate as the huge metal club pummelled them into the ground. Captain ‘Crunch’ indeed...

Round 3 Well, it was coming down to the wire now, and the Red Duke was suddenly looking very small and alone – he was the only combatant still standing that wasn’t at least monstrous infantry in size!

Elthyggranhanoth vs Boris Skullsmasher It was battle of the big dudes this round, and all bets were off. This bout began with Boris chugging his Potion of Strength and ripping 4 wounds out of the Treeman’s bulk, grievously crippling him. For once the Murder of Spites did not rip the face off their opponent, contenting themselves with knitting and inventing rhymes or something instead.

The Treeman’s attacks were only slightly more effective, hitting three times and wounding once. There was still a long way to go on that Doombull before it was out of the race. As it turned out the Ancient would get no second chance at finishing the job, since even without the Potion bonus this turn Boris the Doombull hacked the last 2 wounds off the mighty behemoth and killed it outright. *Insert joke here about Treemen falling in the woods and no one being around to hear it, etc.*

Unseen Lerker

The Red Duke vs Busta Bloodvessel As mentioned above, the Vampire seemed very small and insignificant compared to his remaining competitors. Even a single blow from the Tenderiser would be enough to flatten him.

Lucky, then, that the Tenderiser never got a chance to strike! Even with the Ogre passing its Beguile test the Red Duke inflicted 4 wounds to the Tyrant, slashing straight through the ward saves once again thanks to the Other Trickster’s Shard. This granted the Red Duke an additional four attacks, which saw the Ogre suffer another 2 wounds after saves. Busta dropped to his knees, blood bubbling from his lips, before being neatly decapitated by the Vampire.

The Finale The Red Duke vs Boris Skullsmasher Well then, ladies and gents, place yer bets. Both these mighty characters have decimated all before them in the Arena so far, and only one of them can be crowned champion. It’s worth mentioning that this ringside reporter’s bumcheeks clenched in fear at the result of the first round of attacks.

OVERALL CHAMPION Boris Skullsmasher – Beastmen Doombull Well done to Jack Belumi who wins a professionally painted version of his character for his victory.

Thanks to everyone who entered a character, and commiserations on your bold heroes’ corpses. Better luck next time!

We almost thought we weren’t going to have an exciting Finale to report on, since the Vampire scored 4 hits and 3 wounds on Boris, and then a further wound thanks to Red Fury, leaving the Doombull on just 1 wound remaining already! Good grief!

Boris chugged his special magic Potion and did his best to retaliate, but three hits, a double ‘1’ to wound and a successful ward save later left the Vampire unharmed.

Erm, okay?! In frustration the Minotaur kicked out, stomping on the undead lord and inflicting a wound.

The Red Duke licked his lips and launched forward to finish what he’d started....only to be struck down by a horrendous case of dice voodoo. Despite his Infinite Hatred he managed a paltry one hit, which then failed to wound. No Red Fury this turn either left him looking 50% embarrassed and 50% weeing himself in fear.

Boris Skullsmasher roared and lashed out once more, inflicting three hits and two wounds on the Red Duke.

One of these glanced off the Vampire’s ward save, leaving both combatants on a single wound remaining. This was getting a bit too intense!

Then Boris raised his massive hoof again and killed the Vampire with a stomp, ending the bout. Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

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Gone In… 600 Mike: Here at Golem Painting Studio, one of the things we specialise in is producing armies quickly and to a high table top standard, so when Lergy got in touch to challenge us to produce a finished army from scratch in only ten hours, I picked up my paint brushes and settled in for a long weekend of hardcore painting.

Lergy’s idea was that ten hours is probably the average amount of time you’d spend painting an army over a free weekend, or over a couple of nights a week. This article will explain how we set about our painting projects, and help you to understand how to manage your time effectively to produce a fully finished army.

Luckily for me, there was a Lizardmen army lying around in the Studio – almost like it had been planned!

(These lads are far too organised for my tastes. I don’t trust ‘em. –Ed.)

– especially if you’re on a time limit. There’s no use in getting halfway through and realising you need to run into town to pick up something that you’re missing. As it is, I’m painting here in the Golem Studio so I have everything to hand. So, let’s get started.

When building the army, generally it’s better to work on the units box by box – that way there’s no getting confused, and having to search through piles of sprues trying to find that one piece that you’re looking for.

The army will be led by an all-powerful Slann, supported by a collection of other characters: an Engine of the Gods, and two Scar Vets, (one mounted, one on foot.) The army bulked out with two units of 18 Saurus, one unit with spears, one with hand weapons and shields and three units of ten skinks, two with blow pipes and one unit with javelins and shields. Twenty Temple Guard create a solid centre to the army. A unit of six Saurus Cavalry gives the army some fast, hard hitting troops while six Chameleons provide a small but deadly scouting force. That’s over 100 models of varying size in only 600 minutes.

00:16:52 – And the first set of models is built, ten Temple Guard.

00:00:00 – Be prepared!

There’s something in that scout motto of old. It’s always best to be fully prepared before you undergo any task

When cutting the models off the sprue, try to get as close as possible with the flat of the clippers braced against the model. Cutting the model off as cleanly as possible saves valuable time, as it leaves less work to do to clean up the model later on. We always build every unit the same way. First, we glue all the legs to the bases: this gives the models a solid base, meaning we can stand the models up as the glue dries after each stage. Next we attach the bodies, and then the arms, leaving the heads until last so we can turn them in such a way that suits the build of the model, and creates a dynamic pose.

Unseen Lerker

Minutes

By Mike Newman

02:01:48 – So, with the army fully assembled it’s on to the basing.

are applied means you can be less careful about your drybrushing, as any mistakes will be covered up later.

We usually base the models before we spray them, so we can give everything a good coverage of undercoat in one go. It’s also important to add a second layer of watered down PVA to the base to seal the sand so it doesn’t come off whilst painting later on.

Drybrushing is a harder technique to get right than most people give it credit for, and if you look around you will often see examples of bad drybrushing. The key is to get the brush as dry as possible (generally make it as dry as you think it should go, then half again). For this I use the wood of my paint station rather than the palette as I find the rougher and more porous material helps dry out the paint better. Then, apply in a circular motion as this helps prevent streaky drybrushing from occurring.

02:39:16 – Now that the army is fully based, it’s time for a lunch break while the glue dries.

03:28:49 – So with the army all drybrushed, it’s on to applying the basecoats.

The most important thing when applying the basecoats is to get a good solid colour and keep it neatly applied.

02:46:27 – Back to work, and I’ve sprayed the army.

Firstly, with an undercoat layer of Black, and then with a coat of Army Painter Navy Blue over the top. Spraying the whole force in its predominant colour not only speeds up the painting process later on but also helps create a unified feel across the army.

The next step is to drybrush a highlight over all the blue. Doing this now before the other base colours

Although I still watered down my paint, it wasn’t as thin as if I were painting highlights per se, about one part water to three parts paint.You want it wet enough that it flows freely, but not so wet that it floods the area of the model you’re trying to paint as this makes it hard to control. Likewise, if you’re finding it difficult to apply the paint to the model, or if the brush bristles are starting to spread then the paint is too dry and needs a little more water. It takes practice, but once you find that right consistency you’ll never go back.

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As for how I control how much paint I have on my brush, at most I have paint up to around ¾’s of the length of the bristles.You want to be able to still see the shape of the nib of the brush, combined with keeping a sharp point on the bristles will help you apply the paint accurately to the model. It also prevents you from applying the paint too thickly, thus losing some of the detail from the model.

The aim is to get a good solid colour applied with every stroke. I always aim to complete my brush strokes, making them travel smoothly along the model for the full length of the area I am painting rather than applying many short, sharp strokes which not only takes longer but also, the constant stopping and starting creates a fractured layer of paint.

I generally paint from the inside out. Inside areas are usually hard to get to so you’re more likely to make mistakes. Painting inside out means any mistakes will be painted over later as you progress outwards. I also painted the Khemri Brown first, coating not only the cloth I wanted to be finished in brown, but also the gold and bone areas – this gave me a solid base for the gold, and allowed me to apply the bone as a quick and simple highlight.

For the shields I chose Mechrite Red as it provided a strong contrast to the blue of the skin. Having a strong contrasting colour breaks up the solid blue appearance of the models (and as units) and helps the viewer to focus and be drawn into the models. I also painted the eyes yellow to draw the viewer to the face of the model.

When painting an army, faces and standards are the key points of each unit, as they’re the areas which receive the most attention from the viewer.

I painted all the models in one batch - all the brown, then all the bone and so on. Painting in this way speeds up the process as it cuts down on time moving from each unit, changing paint and sorting your brush as you go along. I also had two staging areas set up: my paint station and a handy tray. Once the model had received a coat of paint it was moved from one staging area to another. When one area had been emptied it meant that all of a certain colour of paint was finished, and it was time to switch to another colour and begin the process of moving them back over to the other staging area.

This prevents any model being missed and stops time being wasted having to work out where you’re up to.

06:47:36 – Now, with all the models basecoated, it was time to apply a wash.

For the wash I used mainly Devlan Mud, but mixed in a little of a few other washes – blue, red and sepia. The Mud shades everything, while the little added wash of the other colours (which are based on the colours used in the basecoats – a useful tip for all painters) helps tie the whole model together.

07:04:41 – With the models all washed, it’s time to leave them overnight to dry - ready for the next step.

With the wash completely dry, I applied a quick highlight to the red to make it really pop against the blue, as well as an overbrush of Mithril Silver to the gold because mud wash tends to take its shine away. I also concentrated on adding a little detail onto the face.

Unseen Lerker

As I alluded to earlier, faces are one of the most important features when painting models, as that’s the area the eye of the viewer is naturally drawn to, so it’s always worth spending that small extra amount of time detailing the face. I applied a quick highlight to the skin and picked out the pupil on the eyes - this added little touch of detail really gives the unit that finished touch.

Okay. Phew! All finished. Now it’s time to check the stop watch and see how I’ve done.

The key to painting detail quickly is to maintain a sharp point on your brush and to use a little bit of thinned paint. Unlike before, when I was basecoating, the paint was about one part paint to one part water, and I never had more paint on the bristles than ¼ of the way up.

Even though I was painting with a basecoat sized brush, maintaining a sharp point on the brush made it easy to apply the detail sharply and quickly.

08:23:16 – With the models painted, I had just over an hour and a half to finish the bases.

I went for a simple coat of brown with a bleached bone drybrush over it, before applying some grass. I used plastic glue to apply the grass, as the thicker consistency over super glue helps create better looking tufts of grass.

Finally, I applied the rim colour around the bases’ edges.

It’s usually a good idea to try a few different rim colours out before settling on a final one, as different colours can look better on different paint schemes. Generally speaking, if you’ve got a particularly light or dark colour scheme you want the suitably opposite light or dark base to help the model stand out. Both Catachan Green and Chaos Black are useful generic rim colours that can be applied to any model as they are dull enough to not impose themselves.

09:54:56 – And there we go, mission accomplished. Couldn’t have cut it much finer but it just goes to show what you can do when you put your mind to it.

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Issue 8

A P R I L / M AY

BATTLE REPORT:

SLAVE RAID! Isaac “Bobo” Alexander VS Bryan “Ubertechie” Carmichael Introduction

Scenario Outline

Still buzzing from last issue’s mega-scenario-a-thon*, we couldn’t resist but get out some of our less frequently seen toys and have another fun bash. With the excitement of Mantic’s newly released Abyssal Dwarfs buzzing in the air, plus a review of the Indy army book elsewhere in the mag, it made perfect sense (to us at least) to have none other than the Dwarfs of Chaos star in the battle report.

Right, so what do these ridiculously dressed chaps desire, we thought? Why, slaves, of course. We then hit upon the idea that perhaps going off on a subjugation expedition wasn’t quite always as clear-cut as spotting an innocent little village, then rape, pillage, burn, enslave and make tea.

There had to be other factors involved.

As dawn breaks over the peaceful village, the townsfolk are awoken by the sound of heavy marching boots. And, from the other direction, an awful chittering...

For instance – what if someone else had their eye on that innocent little village too? *Unseen Lerker Ltd reserves the right to invent any and all words it pleases.

• A Quaint Little Town. The table was laid out with the small settlement directly in the middle of the table, with a pleasing array of forests, hills and obstacles surrounding. The rest of the game was played as a Meeting Engagement, with all the units automatically starting on the board with no need to roll. The two armies deployed as per normal, but neither was allowed to set up within 12” of the settlement of any Prospective Slaves.

• Prospective Slaves. The townspeople are represented by 8 units of 5 Empire Militia. They have the Skirmish and Immune to Psychology rules. At the beginning of each player turn they automatically move 2d6” in a random direction – if a double is rolled they instead move directly away from the closest enemy. They may never charge an enemy unit, and if they touch the board edge they escape and are removed. These units can be captured like unit standards, and are worth 100VPs if broken in combat. However, if they are all killed rather than broken (or killed at range) then they are worth 0VPs. Four of the Prospective Slave units begin the game sheltering in the various buildings of the settlement; they may only exit on the roll of a double, else they remain cowering in fear.

• How do you win, like? At the end of the game’s six turns, add up victory points as normal.

A difference of 300VPs is required for a clear win, while a difference of more than 1000VPs is a total massacre.

Unseen Lerker

The Setup Bryan: Oh dear – Bobo had brought a Doomwheel AND a Plague Furnace. They were going to be problematic.

However, setting up first meant that I was going first, unless my antipodean opponent could roll a 6 and steal the initiative; a risk I was willing to take. To that end I deployed a unit of Warriors with the Daemonsmith on the left flank, and the Obsidian Guard on the right. Each had a Death Rocket in close attendance ready to bombard anything that came down the flanks and soften it up before my great weapons closed in at the last minute and finished them off. I dedicated my remaining unit of Warriors with attendant Eruption Gun to attack the central village with its rich array of slaves. The Chaos Dwarf war machines are more akin to monsters and handlers than anything else, and against light units like the slaves could easily win the fights, making them very useful close combat supports in this scenario. I was biting my nails during Bobo’s deployment, and sure enough he forgot about my Sneaky Gits, allowing them to get in deep behind his lines and hopefully give him lots of hard choices right from the get go.

Bobo: With Bryan’s Dwarf blocks being so much tougher than my weedy rats, I needed to make sure my units were in the right places and didn’t get picked on. I decided to adopt the classic old ‘Horns of the Bull’ strategy with two strong wings and a weaker centre. One weakness this formation does tend to have is that the centre can actually

get rushed and buckle under pressure – fortunately for me there was a big bloody village in the way so that couldn’t happen! My basic plan was to shove the Plague Furnace at Bryan’s toughest unit (hopefully softening him up with magic and Ratling fire to make sure it was a “fair” fight – Skaven fair, at least), while the Warlord and his retinue, backed up by the Doomwheel, would wreak havoc on the other flank. The Ratling Guns were tasked with covering my flanks while the Giant Rats would be sent in a wave of fur straight at our quarry and try to round us up some fresh slaves. Simple!

Both units of scouts (the Gutter Runners and Sneaky Gits) seemed to have the same idea, deploying 12” behind the enemy lines in opposite corners and looking to run around disrupting the backfield.The crucial roll for the first turn was next, and despite Bryan having deployed first Bobo cheekily rolled a ‘6’ on his custom Unseen Lerker dice – and stole the initiative!

MAGIC Plague Priest Pestilent Breath, Plague Daemonsmith Fulminating Flame Cage

Deployment Warlord Itchibut

Plague Monks

Plague Priest Stinkibref

Gutter Runners

Plague Furnace

Doomwheel

Clanrats

Ratling Gun

Giant Rat Pack

Doomflayer

Slavemaster

Death Rocket

Daemonsmith

Sneaky Gits

Hobgoblin Overseer Warriors Obsidian Guard Eruption Gun

Prospective Slaves

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Issue 8

A P R I L / M AY

‘I have to play in a what now?’

Bobo: This game was going to be a bit of a mystery, if I’m honest. We invented the scenario on the spot, after rather too many chocolate liqueurs and brandy (it’s a hard life at the Unseen Lerker office) and our pre-game preparation and planning quickly boiled down to smack-talking and David Tennant impressions (that’s the Doctor Who with the crazy eyes). Furthermore, I had never even read the Dwarfs of Chaos book; if Bryan told me that they had squadrons of flying pigs as Special units I would more than likely believe him. Still, if there was one thing I had to fall back on it was that I always beat Bryan when we play.*

Believe it or not, I actually had a plan for the game. I was intending to use my two main hammer units – the Furnace and the Warlord’s Flayer-Clanrats – to go chasing after the enemy’s scariest units, while letting the other units of Clanrats and Giant Rats round up the packs of milling slaves. The Doomwheel and two Ratling Guns would run interference. The Gutter Runners would try and get in behind the enemy, stop them backing off from the Furnace, and annoy a war machine or two. I really had no idea what sort of tricks Bryan could throw at me, but I was confident that if I could master the Tennant Crazy Eyes look then I would prevail. There – got it! Now, into battle!

*Okay, ‘always’ might be a misleading term. One win and two draws. Sue me.

When it came to picking my army, I knew straight away that I had to have a good sized unit of Plague Monks boasting a Plague Furnace. Not only is it a fantastic model, but I think it’s pretty much essential to the Skaven army’s success these days – without it, especially against Dwarfs (of Chaos) they just can’t fight well enough to force the issue.

Forcing the issue quickly became the theme of my list, as I selected a pretty fighty Warlord to lead my hunting party, with the cheeky and themey Dwarfbane sword that would let him re-roll his failed rolls to wound, plus granting +1S and armour piercing. Not bad for 25 points! To back him up I had my ‘fighty’ unit of Clanrats carting around their faithful Doomflayer, which has done horrible things to me in the past when I’ve faced Skaven.

Two more units of Clanrats seemed appropriate, and also allowed me to bring along my little Ratling Guns. I had a plan for these – if the units of prospective slaves looked to be drifting too close to the enemy and I couldn’t charge them myself, I’d simply gun them down. Sure, I wouldn’t get any points for them, but neither would Bryan.Very Skaven-like, if I do say so myself. We had agreed before the game not to bring any units of SkavenSlaves or Hobgoblins to the game – using slaves to capture more slaves hardly seemed realistic! I also thought it unlikely that the Skaven would have brought a battle standard or any war machines with them on a raid like this, so despite my love for the Lightning Cannon it got left on the shelf. Thus I filled out the rest of my army with five sneaky ninjas (Gutter Runners) and two large units of Giant Rats who, with Swiftstride plus a shedload of attacks, are actually rather good! Last but not least was...the Doomwheel. Now, Doomwheels and I have an “interesting” relationship. In two turns, a single enemy Doomwheel once cost me 1600 victory points on table 1 of the UK GT Final, effectively costing me the tournament. I’ve managed to stop twitching whenever I see one, but I’ll be damned if I trust the loathsome contraption. Still, I’m well aware of the flexibility it adds to the army and if I play it patiently I’m confident it will be a valuable asset in rolling up Bryan’s line.

Bobo’s Skaven: 1600pts Warlord Itchibut – 130 Heavy armour, Shield of Distraction, Dwarfbane Plague Priest Stinkibref with Plague Furnace – 300 Flail, level 2, Scrying Stone 20 Clanrats – 110 Standard, musician Ratling Gun team (55) 20 Clanrats – 110 Standard, musician Ratling Gun team (55) 25 Clanrats – 132.5 Standard, musician, Doomflayer team (55)

Giant Rat Pack – 124 21 Giant Rats, 3 Packmasters, 1 Master Moulder with great weapon Giant Rat Pack – 124 21 Giant Rats, 3 Packmasters, 1 Master Moulder with great weapon 21 Plague Monks – 212 Standard, musician, Storm Banner 5 Gutter Runners – 60 Doomwheel (of Doom) – 150

Unseen Lerker

‘No silly hats, please.’

Bryan: Bobo and I don’t play very often. It’s because I don’t really like him. He smells, complains a lot, and constantly disputes the fact that I am his boss. However, since no one else wanted to play him in the battle report I had to step up to the plate. Normally when we play it is with tournament honed lists so I knew that I wanted to use something different. When he told me that we would be playing a scenario that revolved around capturing slaves I knew that there was only one army that I would be bringing – my much beloved but rarely used Chaos Dwarfs. My collection is comprised of the original Marauder and Citadel Chaos Dwarfs, which all predate the hideous design decision that saw them adorned with lipstickesque head pieces, and with the release of the excellent Dwarfs of Chaos list by Kevin Coleman and Matt Birdoff (for use on the US Indy GT circuit) my choice of army for the slave raiding scenario was made very simple.

This was my first time using the list so my army selection was based more on the models I wanted to use rather than using a highly optimised list I started by selecting my characters - I took a Slavemaster (think Dwarf Thane) to lead the raid, equipped with a Hailfire Gun which could dish out three strength 5 shots a turn. Hitting on 4s, I thought this would be ideal for whittling down Skaven units and eliminating any weapon teams that got too close. The character comes with chaos armour and against Skaven I didn’t feel he needed any other equipment, leaving him at a tasty 92 points. The next character was a Daemonsmith (a cross between a Warrior Priest and an Engineer, I guess) to give the list some magical support. He was equipped with the Daemonbane, which contains a bound version of Shem’s Burning Gaze at power level 4. On top of his innate bound Fire spell and the Obsidian Guard’s magic banner, this should give me some good options in the magic phase. The last character was a Hobgoblin Overseer, as I already knew that I wanted to use a unit of Sneaky Gits and for only 49 points he gave them an additional four poisoned attacks and another point of Leadership.

The main bulk of my army was two units of 24 Warriors.

These Dwarfs can be upgraded to wear chaos armour (which, of course, I did) and also to carry great weapons, giving them a 4+ save in combat with a WS4 Strength 5 attack each – highly ideal for chopping through the foul Skaven. Each unit was also accompanied by an Eruption Gun. This is (as all Chaos Dwarf war machines) a monster and handler unit that acts similar to a Hellcannon. However it has a range of 24” and does an artillery dice worth of S4 Armour Piercing shots. My thinking was that these two formidable blocks, along with their attached Eruption Guns, could deal with any infantry threats that the Skaven could throw at them and if needed deal with multiple units at once.

Having selected the core of the army, I wanted a suitably impressive unit for my Slavemaster to command. The Indy

GT list includes a perfectly suitable unit in the shape of the Obsidian Guard. These are the elite warriors of the Chaos Dwarfs and are similar to Hammers, except they wear chaos armour, have killing blow, cause fear, and have a magic banner containing a movement spell, instead of being Stubborn. Not a bad trade in my books! The Slavemaster would join this unit with the intent of lining up on the nastiest Skaven threat and cutting it to pieces.

To back up these infantry blocks I took two Death Rockets. These are essentially Mortars except they fire like a cannon, again the intent was that large strength 3 templates would cause chaos within the Skaven battle line, and with depleted ranks and no BSB that panic tests would eventually cause the craven rats to exit stage left.

These elements would form the shield wall that would herd the slaves, and that the Skaven would break themselves upon, pushing them towards my master stroke – a unit of 20 Sneaky Gits! These guys are essentially Hobgoblins with two hand weapons and poisoned attacks, but they also get an extra attack each when fighting to the flank of an enemy unit, and an impressive two extra attacks each when fighting to the rear! The real icing on the cake is that they also have the Scout rule, meaning that they can be often deployed behind your opponent where they can cause untold chaos. Thus the battle plan was to crush the Skaven between my Dwarven wall of (chaos-enhanced) steel and my horde of sneaky scouts, whilst raining death on them with my war machines and magic.

Bryan’s Dwarfs of Chaos: 1600pts Slavemaster – 92 Chaos armour, shield, Hailfire Gun Daemonsmith – 152 Shield , Daemonbane Hobgoblin Overseer – 49 Poisoned extra hand weapon 24 Chaos Dwarf Warriors – 382 Chaos armour, great weapons, full command, attached Eruption Gun

24 Chaos Dwarf Warriors – 382 Chaos armour, great weapons, full command, attached Eruption Gun 22 Chaos Dwarf Obsidian Guard – 385 Great weapons, full command, Banner of Daemonic Tides Death Rocket – 90 Death Rocket – 90 20 Sneaky Gits – 145 Full command

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Issue 8

A P R I L / M AY

Turn 1 Bobo: Well, seizing the initiative sure was a nice bonus!

On top of this, a unit of Prospective Slaves (henceforth referred to as ‘Chums’) has wandered right in front of my Clanrat unit as well, so things were looking pretty good already. Not wishing to waste any time dithering about, my Clanrats charged into them, while both units of Giant Rats assault the buildings closest to them – making it with ease thanks to Move 6 and Swiftstride. The rest of my units bustled forward in a slightly less aggressive fashion.

One thing I find it difficult to do a lot of the time is play patiently, especially when your units have giant flaming wrecking balls inside them – you just want to go and smash stuff! Still good things come to those who wait, as was demonstrated by my first magic phase when I rolled the full 12 power dice. Pestilent Breath was out of range, which meant it was my six dice against Bryan’s six – what I like to call the Yahtzee Phase. I scored a total of 22 to cast Plague, and Bryan only rolled...21! The spell absolutely devastated the ranks of Obsidian Guard, killing ten outright and completing my goal of softening them up before the fight.

NOW we could drive the Furnace straight at them! There was a moment of fright when I thought the Plague was going to jump onto my Gutter Runners who had snuck up behind the Dwarf elites, but thankfully the spell ended.

I had little shooting, save the Doomwheel, who had rumbled through the woods and opened up on the Eruption Gun which happened to be the closest thing. The first two shots went haywire and didn’t wound, but one got through and hit the machine with its multi-wounding properties. “It’s only two wounds?” I inquired. I was told yes. “So, anything but a...” I really should have learned not to say that out loud by now.

The Skaven swarm forward, charging three units of slaves in the first turn!

In combat things were just as interesting. The Clanrats expectedly trounced the first unit of Chums, capturing them for my first VPs of the game, but in the building assaults things did not quite go as planned! Both units of Giant Rats charged in, killed two Chums, but then lost three of their own in return and were repulsed and pushed 1” back! How embarrassing...

Bryan: Well that was not the planned start – a unit of slaves captured by the Skaven already, and to make matters worse the Eruption Gun nearest to the Doomwheel failed its Rampage test and charged straight into it! Not to be outdone the central Eruption Gun also failed its Rampage test and charged headlong into the nearest building. The Chaos Dwarfs with the Daemonsmith charged the slaves that had wandered directly in front of them.

Elsewhere, the Slavemaster left the Plague-ridden remnants of the Obsidian Guard and lined up a shot on the Gutter Runners, while the Obsidian Guard turned around and started heading away from the Plague Furnace. The Sneaky Gits ran forward, realising that the cunning plan was going badly wrong and that they had a lot of distance to cover before they were going to have any effect on the battle.

In the magic phase the Obsidian Guard failed to get any use out of their magical banner, with Bobo sensibly not wanting his scouts charged, but this did allow the Daemonsmith to cast Flame Cage on a unit of Giant Rats; inflicting no wounds but seriously limiting their options for next turn.

In the shooting phase the Slavemaster only managed to kill a single Gutter Runner, however the two Death Rockets combined to obliterate 19 Clanrats from the Warlord’s unit, who just managed to pass their Panic test.

Unseen Lerker

TURN 1 SKAVEN 3

1 Some unwitting slaves wander too close, and are pounced and captured by the Clanrats.

2 Both Giant Rat units assault the village – but both lose combat are get repulsed!

3 The Doomwheel zooms out to the flank, shooting the Eruption Gun but only doing one wound.

4

4 The Obsidian Guard’s ranks

2

are decimated by Plague, losing 10 models in total.

CHARGE! CHARGE!

1 CAUGHT

CHARGE!

CHARGE!

TURN 1 CHAOS DWARFS 1 The Slavemaster leaves the

CHARGE!

3

CAUGHT

4

2 The Warlord’s Clanrats are

REFORM

1

Obsidian Guard to fire at the Gutter Runners, popping a cap in one of their asses.

The Guard themselves reform.

2

decimated by twin-linked (shh) Death Rockets, losing 19 models in total.

3 The Eruption Gun attempts to add to the death toll, but misfires and rampages into the closest building instead!

4 More slaves are captured, this time by the Warriors, evening the score of spoils.

In the combat phase the Doomwheel’s grind attacks destroyed the Eruption Gun before it had a chance to do anything. The Dwarf Warriors managed to capture the slaves: thanks to being in their flank and only having six attacks they only managed to kill four of the slaves, rolling an all important ‘1’ to wound after hitting them five times.

The last bloke broke and was captured for the 100VP – suddenly however the enormity of having great weapon Dwarfs that hit slaves on 3s and killed them on 2s was dawning on me. This was going to be an uphill struggle and was not going to get any better, especially seeing as the Warriors were now in a position where the hamster ball of doom could easily flank charge them.

The Eruption Gun in the middle killed two slaves from the building for no wounds, but the slaves passed their Steadfast test and repulsed it.

So at the end of the first turn Bobo clearly had the upper hand and already I found myself praying for a bit of luck to bring the game back into balance...not good.

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Turn 2 Bobo: Vroom vroom! The Doomwheel spun around, slamming into the flank of the Chaos Dwarf block nearby.

Normally I would be a bit worried, since they could just hold on Steadfast then combat reform and take it to pieces with their great weapons. However, I had a unit of Clanrats nearby who I also committed to the combat, denying the Dwarfs their Steadfast. And, as the cherry on top, a unit of Chums had wandered over in an attempt to get chummy, blocking most of the frontage of the Chaos Dwarfs and meaning that I would be forced to clip the unit and be in contact with only a few Chaos Dwarfs. Awful shame, that. The Warlord, having realised the Death Rockets were fecking laser-guided, decided that his decimated Clanrat mates were not the safest haven any more and dashed out on his own, charging the aforementioned wandering Chums.

This had the added bonus of giving him an overrun into the combat with the Doomwheel and the rest of the gang.

After last turn’s embarrassment, I was really hoping that the Giant Rats would be able to clear the buildings this time – or at least win the combat – and I charged them in again. Completely forgetting about Flame Cage. Oops.

This saw the ranks of the northernmost Giant Rats totally culled and them panicking as a result, heading south away from the silly little Daemonsmith. On the other side of the battlefield it was Operation: Shove the Furnace Forward, while nearby my other Clanrats reformed into a long line to try and ensure they could catch themselves another unit of Chums next turn. I was awfully proud of that clever little trick. Long lines of troops are great, and never fail.* * This is an “in joke”. Long lines of troops are rubbish, and have lost me tournaments. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Magic proved uneventful, while in shooting I chickened out and didn’t roll many dice for the Ratling Gun, only killing three Sneaky Gits.

Now that’s what I call a mass combat! Things look dire for the Dwarfs of Chaos...

The Giant Rats continued to frustrate me, this time rolling too well and killing all the remaining Chums in the building! Aaargh! Still, no points, but at least Bryan couldn’t get them. The other combat proved far better, with the Warlord expectedly routing the Chums (cha-ching!) and pursuing into the main combat. Here he fought a challenge with the Daemonsmith, killing him outright thanks to the armour piercing properties of the Dwarfbane sword. Things were looking grim enough when the Chaos Dwarfs failed their Fear test, but then the Doomwheel impacted into the side and killed six Dwarfs under its giant roller. The rest of my Skaven’s attacks were enough to cancel out the enemy’s return blows, and I broke them and ran them down with the Doomwheel. Now that’s how it’s done!

Bryan: Well things where not going anything like to plan.

The legendary Dwarf leadership was so far rather absent and instead consisted of a failed bunch of Rampage and Leadership tests. With a Doomwheel running rampant on my left flank and an untouched Plague Furnace unit on my right, things were looking bad.

I needed to start rapidly scoring some points and capturing slaves seemed like the easiest way, so the turn started with the Eruption Gun in the centre and the remaining Dwarf Warrior unit both charging buildings with slaves in them.

The Sneaky Gits saw a clever charge opportunity thanks to The Bobotron’s misplaced faith in Clanrats in a single line, they charged the Giant Rats that had fled from the Flame Cage – who ran through the overextended Clanrat unit, causing them to panic and flee to the edge of the board.

Nearby, the Death Rocket followed the fad of the turn and charged the lone Skaven Warlord, who in true Skaven style elected to flee. The Death Rocket, still hungry, redirected into the nearby Clanrats – who also fled! Damn these rats and their unwillingness to fight me!

Unseen Lerker

43

TURN 2 SKAVEN 1

CHARGE!

OVERRUN CAUGHT

4

CHARGE! CHARGE!

1 A huge combined charge sees the Warlord, Clanrats and Doomwheel annihilate the Chaos Dwarf Warriors including Daemonsmith.

The Warlord even manages to catch some slaves on the way.

2 The Giant Rats attempt to charge through their Flame Cage, are decimated and panicking away.

3 Bobo tries something clever and reforms his Clanrats into a long line to corral the slaves into his waiting arms.

PANIC!

2

4 The Gutter Runners

3

play it cool and position themselves to delay the Obsidian Guard for long enough that the Plague Monks can arrive.

TURN 2 CHAOS DWARFS 2

1 The Obsidian Guard blow CHARGE!

CHARGE! FLEE!

1

CHARGE!

3

CHARGE!

FLEE!

straight through the Gutter Runners, though one little rat escapes, ninja-style.

2 The Death Rocket goes berserk and charges the Warlord and then the Clanrats; in both cases Bobo flees like a girl.

3 The Eruption Gun and Warriors assault the village with, er, “overzealous” results...

PANIC!

CHARGE!

PANIC!

The Obsidian Guard charged the Gutter Runners who, in unusually brave style, decided to stand and shoot rather than flee - they failed to do any damage to the ruthless Dwarfs who guffawed with glee at the prospect of chopping them to pieces (and getting some much needed points).

I’d like to tell you that my magic did something this turn. I would be lying – my Daemonsmith was very much dead.

In shooting, however, the Slavemaster drew a bead on the Ratling Gun through the mass of fleeing Clanrats and shot it dead with his Hailfire Gun. Blam-o! The remaining Death Rocket took aim at the Plague Monks and managed to kill eight of them – if only I had got first turn I think the Death Rockets could have wrecked the Skaven before they got anywhere near me .

In the combat phase the Obsidian Guard slaughtered the Gutter Runners, but a lone rat passed its 6+ ‘Dodge’ ward save. The little scamp fled from the combat and the Dwarfs failed to catch him. The Gutter Runner’s flee move took him over a scree slope though, and he failed his dangerous terrain test – however in true ninja style he passed his Dodge 6+ ward save again. Blast!

The pursuit move of the Obsidian Guard, whilst not enough to catch the ninja rat, did however take them a long way from the looming Plague Monk unit that was bearing down upon them.

Elsewhere the Dwarfs went into a bloody rage, completely forgetting that the aim was to capture slaves, not kill them. Both the Warrior unit and the Eruption Gun managed to kill the slave units they had charged to a man, thus netting no bonus victory points and much heckling from my opponent.

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Turn 3 Bobo: I had five units to rally this turn, but I assure you it was all part of the plan. The lone ninja sadly failed to rally and fled off the table, while the Warlord and nearby Clanrats turned around. The other Clanrats, in a long line, failed and scurried off the table – the Giant Rats who had caused them to flee, however, rallied quite happily! Grr. Still, now it was time for some payback! The Furnace charged the Death Rocket in front of it, which fled. I redirected into the rear of the Obsidian Guard, who also fled. Bah, come back ye cowards! To punish their cowardice, three Dwarfs, including the unit champion, slipped and died on the scree slope of the hill. That’ll teach em! I also charged the remnants of the Warlord’s Clanrats into the three Chums in the building nearest them. In combat I managed to kill 2/3 and broke the remaining Chum, netting myself another nice 100VP. The eastern Ratling Gun shot down a further two Sneaky Gits, while the Doomwheel misfired but rolled straight on through the Death Rocket it had charged anyway.

Not a bad turn, really.

Bryan: With the Doomwheel once again running rampant and the Plague Monks moving ever closer, there was not a lot of movement on my right flank, with the Obsidian Guard and remaining Death Rocket rallying and positioning themselves to prevent one being charged and destroyed and the other being overrun into.

The Sneaky Gits, meanwhile, espied the recently rallied Skaven Warlord and decided that they fancied a piece of that action, charging him. He ran away again, which I was kind of expecting by this point. They redirected into the Ratling Gun, which reacted by...well, surely you can guess?

The Warriors currently occupying one of the central buildings charged across at the adjacent dwelling with its few remaining Clanrats (we had decided that due to the close proximity of the central building clusters that you could assault from building to building). Lastly the Eruption Gun in the centre exited the building it had captured in the previous turn and drew a bead on the Skaven Warlord who happened to be fleeing past.

In the shooting phase the Slavemaster sighted down his weapon barrel once more, killing a single Giant Rat and wounding the Master Moulder from the diminished Giant Rat unit with his long range Hailfire Gun shots. Attention then turned to the centre of the table where the remaining Eruption Gun opened up on the Skaven Warlord. The artillery dice came up as a ‘6’ and the Warlord was quickly transformed into crispy shredded rat (number 169 on most Chinese takeaway menus, I believe). Although the resulting panic tests were duly passed, the dismay and shock on Bobo’s face more than made up for it. I would savour his sorrow, for it was sweet, like honeyed mead.

The ninja rat makes a break for it, with the Obsidian Guard in hot pursuit. In the background, the Plague Furnace draws ever closer...

Unseen Lerker

TURN 3 SKAVEN

FLEE!

1 Doomwheel meets Doom

CHARGE!

1

Rocket. Splat!

2 The Warlord and Clanrats

FLEE!

both rally, while nearby the other Clanrats do a little breaking and entering, managing to catch some more slaves.

2

CAUGHT

3 The Plague Furnace rumbles forward, forcing both its prospective targets to flee.

CHARGE!

3

TURN 3 CHAOS DWARFS 1 All flee before the Gits of

4

Rage! The Ratling Gun and Warlord turn tail once more.

2 Things do not end well for the Warlord as he gets a face full of lead courtesy of the remaining Eruption Gun.

2

CHARGE!

FLEE!

FLEE!

3 CHARGE! CHARGE!

1

In the inter-building assault the Clanrats failed to inflict any casualties, however the Dwarf Warriors only managed to kill five of them – leaving a pair of survivors to pass a Steadfast break test, which of course they did.

This was the best turn so far – and I hoped that deprived of the Warlord’s leadership the Skaven army would start to drift apart in the face of my remaining units.

The Warlord gets his comeuppance, as the Eruption Gun...erupts...at him.

3 The Chaos Dwarf Warriors smash through the windows and assault the other building.

4 The Obsidian Guard and Death Rocket rally behind the hill, hoping that the Skaven will forget they’re there.

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Turn 4 Bobo: That was a bit rude. What did my Warlord ever do to you, Bryan? Cruel man. Still, there was no time to mourn the general’s death (we didn’t really like him anyway) – there were still plenty of slaves to capture!

Out of Control and heading 4” back in the wrong direction!

D’oh! In combat though things went well, with the Doomflayer chopping the Eruption Gun into chunks like a lawnmower from hell.

The turn began with the remaining unit of Chums not in the settlement heading 6” south, scarpering through the forest and making a break for the table edge. On the upside this did take them further away from the Sneaky Gits. My central Giant Rats decided that this would be a good time to go slave hunting again (it also seemed a convenient time to briskly leave their building now that the Chaos Dwarfs had come calling). The Ratling Gun continued fleeing, while my two remaining Clanrats decided that the interior decor of the village was actually a bit rubbish and jumped out the windows before they got axed in the face. I see a common theme emerging here – get away from the Chaos Dwarfs...

Nearby, the Doomflayer charged the Eruption Gun which had turned my general into chutney, while the Doomwheel put pedal to the metal and zoomed east across the battlefield in case the Plague Monks had any difficulty catching up with the Obsidian Guard.

Bryan: I was really starting to sweat about that damn hamster ball. Even with the slight setback of an unexpected reverse manoeuvre it still had two turns to reach my boys and would no doubt roll through them like it had my other units.

My magic seemed to have fizzled and died after the first turn’s success, but I wasn’t overly upset considering the amount of points I’d invested in it. The Doomwheel failed to restrain its shooting and promptly misfired again, going

“Err, lads...is it just me or does it seem like they’ve got us surrounded?”

On somewhat of an amusing note, the turn started with the remaining slave unit wandering into the Wild Wood and promptly having one of their number eaten by a hungry tree. On the downside this made it even harder for my great weapon equipped dwarfs to capture them! Even nature was working against me!

The Sneaky Gits made a desperate attempt to charge the slaves but rolled a total of ‘6’ instead of the ‘10’ that was required and blundered forward aimlessly.

The Dwarf Warriors in the centre emerged from the village between the Giant Rats and the Clanrats, ready to inflict some great weapon death on anything that remained in their charge arc.

In the shooting phase the Death Rocket failed to hit the looming Plague Monks, while the Slavemaster only managed to kill a single rat from the depleted Giant Rat unit – even one more casualty and he would have forced a leadership 5 panic test, but it just wasn’t happening for me.

Unseen Lerker

TURN 4 SKAVEN 1 The Doomwheel starts and 1

stutters all over the place, misfiring and going Out Of Control.

FLEE!

2

2 The Doomflayer (aka Lawnmower of Death) goes to town on the Eruption Gun, killing it outright.

CHARGE!

3 It’s “abandon the building” time as both Giant Rats and Clanrats bail out to go hunt the last slaves instead.

3

TURN 4 CHAOS DWARFS

5

1 The slaves dither in the Wild Wood, which eats one of them.

2 Sneaky Gits try to charge the slaves, but roll well short.

3 The Chaos Dwarfs come out of the building, looking very threatening.

4

4 The Slavemaster, with

nothing better to do, kills a Giant Rat from the depleted unit with his Hellfire Gun.

5 The Death Rocket’s shot

CHARGE!

3

2

1

sails wide; an explosion of disappointment.

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Turn 5 Bobo: No, Chums, get away from the board edge! It’s not freedom you want! Phew, fortunately they fell short of escaping by 1.5” or so. It was now or never, and I declared a flank charge on them with my depleted Giant Rat unit – with only four Chums left I didn’t want to commit my bigger unit to taking them down in case I killed them; also, the bigger unit might prove useful in dismantling and destroying the Sneaky Gits, who were really beginning to irk me with their continued breath!

With Swiftstride I once again easily made it against the Chums (I do like the speed and versatility of those Giant Rats – just a shame you can’t combine them with Shadow magic), but the larger unit fell short trying to charge the Gits, as did the Clanrat flank charge I’d sent to support them. Sigh.

The Plague Monks also finally made it into combat against the Obsidian Guard, who had run out of table space to retreat to. In the magic phase I pulled off a rather cunning ploy of quite pointedly investigating whether or not I could cast Plague into combat, and “saving” five dice for it while chucking a couple of power dice at a speculative Pestilent Breath. Bryan let me have it, losing two Obsidian Guard, and was then rudely surprised when I refused to cast Plague and risk the miscast on my Plague Priest! With his Furnace’s massive base size I would not have relished the prospect of hitting all his friends in base contact...

The Doomwheel just kept rollin’ rollin’ rollin’, cruising up beside the last Death Rocket and prepared to obliterate it....

only to misfire again, go Out of Control, and drive straight into the side of the Plague Monks, killing five! Aaargh!

Regardless, the Plague Monks managed to completely wipe out the Obsidian Guard before they could strike, even without the need to swing the wrecker ball. They overran off the table. Elsewhere things went, shall we say, less well. The charging Giant Rats managed to kill two Chums, leaving only to attack back. Two hits and two wounds later, and I was only winning the combat by 2. The Chums made the required ‘5’ on their test, and my Giant Rats were about to get rear charged – uh oh!

Bryan: Right, time for some payback...

The Dwarf Warriors charged the Giant Rat pack that had failed to capture the slaves, seeking to wipe them out and hoping that they didn’t slaughter the slaves before I could get my hands on them.

The Sneaky Gits declared another long charge on the elusive Giant Rats to try and rack up a few more points, but Bobo kept “playing in the Skaven spirit” (as he referred to it) and fled, risking a last-turn rally test on them. This left the Gits open to flank charge from the remaining Clanrats and their attendant Doomflayers – oops...

The remaining Death Rocket declared a charge against the flank of the Doomwheel, hoping that the +2 combat resolution for flank and charging would carry the day (the easiest way to kill a Doomwheel being to make it take a break test).

Vroom – fzaap – screech – crunch – meow? The Plague Monks pounce on the Obsidian Guard, getting into combat at last, but get a rude shock when the Doomwheel rams into the side of them.

Unseen Lerker

TURN 5 SKAVEN 1 The Doomwheel goes

2

Out of Control once more, slamming into the side of the Plague Monks!

1 CHARGE!

2 Despite this, the Plague

CHARGE!

Monks wipe the floor with the Obsidian Guard and overrun.

3 The Clanrats try an optimistic long-range charge against the Sneaky Gits, but fall short.

3

4 The Giant Rat survivors see an easy target in the flank of the last slaves, but have an Epic Fail and get stuck fast!

CHARGE! CHARGE!

4

TURN 5 CHAOS DWARFS 1 The Warriors rear charge

CHARGE!

the Giant Rats, using the resulting kills to break and capture the last slaves!

3

2 The Sneaky Gits charge the larger Giant Rats, but they flee, setting the Gits up to be flanked next turn.

3 The Death Rocket flank

4

FLEE! CHARGE!

1

CHARGE!

CAUGHT

2

charges the Doomwheel, figuring that with the bonus combat res it should easily break it. But the Doomwheel again rolls well on its grind attacks, killing the war machine before it can strike.

4 The Slavemaster, analysing the situation, runs for it, putting as much distance between himself and the Doomwheel as possible!

The Slavemaster, after taking a brief assessment of the overall battlefield situation, decided that there wasn’t actually much more he could contribute and began making a “tactical withdrawal” in a direction vaguely away from the enemy.

In combat the Doomwheel went first with its grind attacks – Bobo once again rolled a ‘6’ giving him three strength 6 hits which destroyed the Death Rocket outright. The Horned Rat clearly was blessing every important dice roll for the Skaven.

The one highlight of the turn was the Dwarf Warriors’ combat: the Giant Rats directed all of their attacks against the slaves but left one alive. The Dwarfs then cut the Giant Rats to pieces , broke the slaves and netted an important 100 victory points.

Twenty angry Dwarfs in the rear – that might not be a good thing.

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Turn 6 Bobo: Well, it was last-ditch-effort time. Fleeing my Giant Rats turned out to be a rubbish idea, as they failed to rally and were declared destroyed (as were all fleeing units at the end of this game – the way it should be, we think!).

However, it had allowed my Doomflayer and Clanrats to finally charge the Sneaky Gits in the flank, so that was a nice bonus.

The Doomwheel spied the Slavemaster in the distance, and rumbled as quickly towards him as it could. However, no matter how I manouvered or what sneaky formations I adopted, I couldn’t line it up so that the Slavemaster was a closer target than my own Plague Monks, making him invulnerable! Instead, the Doomwheel failed to restrain its shooting and misfired for the fourth turn consecutively.

Ironically enough it then went Out of Control and rolled into position a scant 2” from the Slavemaster. The little bugger had escaped death – just.

The Sneaky Gits were not so lucky, losing five of their number before they could strike and breaking. They did manage to outrun both pursuers though, so they still had a chance to rally in Bryan’s last turn. I’d made a darn solid effort of dismantling Bryan’s army...but had it been enough?

The Sneaky Gits finally get into combat – just not quite in the way they’d hoped.

“Hmm. It’s a lot bigger up close.”

Bryan: Well, things were looking bad but if the Sneaky Gits rallied I knew that it would only be a small win to the smiling Skaven assassin. They of course failed to rally on the required roll of a ‘7’ and thus counted as destroyed. Bum cakes.

Unseen Lerker

TURN 6 SKAVEN 1 Flank charge ahoy! The

Sneaky Gits are charged and broken by the Clanrats and Doomflayer, but manage to escape.

2 The Giant Rats fail to rally, counting as destroyed

3 The Doomwheel strives to 2

CHARGE!

3

reach the lone Slavemaster, but fails and goes Out of Control again!

1

TURN 6 CHOAS DWARFS 1 The Sneaky Gits fail to rally, counting as destroyed.

2 The Slavemaster is about to shoot the Doomwheel, but then Bryan realises that this is in fact a stupid idea since it could go Out of Control again and run the guy over.

Game over, man!

2

1

With little else to do, the Slavemaster turned to face the Doomwheel with the intent of going for a highly unlikely volley of shots to destroy it. However, as he was raising the Hailfire Gun a little voice inside my head reminded me when wounded Doomwheels can go Out of Control and, with the way the dice had been going, had a decent chance of driving straight over him! I told him to lower the weapon and hold fire, thus ending the game.

Result Skaven: 1560 VP Dwarfs of Chaos: 950 VP

Win to the Skaven!

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‘All your slaves are belong to us.’

Bobo: Like bloody, clockwork, I tell you. Apart from my Warlord being blown to smithereens all of a sudden, I felt the plan worked pretty well. The Doomwheel, despite misfiring four turns consecutively, rolled up the whole Dwarf line and more or less won the game by itself.

Fecking amazing, that thing is – don’t know why people bother with silly Abominations!

this regard – my mediocre rats proved just competent enough to break the slaves without massacring them all (except for both units of Giant Rats bouncing off the settlement in turn 1...how embarrassing!). This could actually be something to revise in the scenario in the future, if anyone is keen to test it themselves – perhaps simply ‘killing’ the slaves is enough to capture them. Oh well, I won, so I’m not really that fussed!

So, Bryan.....who does number two work for?

I must admit I did feel the dice were on my side right from the start, totally devastating the Obsidian Guard with Plague like that. Despite my ‘full steam ahead’ bravado I was actually quite worried about what they might do to the Furnace in combat. At about turn 3 I did feel like the game was slipping away from me. I made a stupid mistake, trying to be clever and reforming my Clanrats into a long line, meaning I had no Leadership when the very obvious panic bomb was unleashed on them. There was also a bit of a brown trouser moment when Bryan killed 19 Clanrats in a single shooting phase, but thankfully they didn’t leg it and managed to survive by hiding in a kitchen cupboard for the rest of the game.

The great weapons on Bryan’s Dwarfs turned out to be far from great – they were a massive liability since he was rarely able to charge any slaves without killing them all! I certainly think the scenario played in my favour in

‘Move along, folks, nothing to see here...’

Bryan: Well, that did not go to plan! In fact everything that was planned failed miserably and not only did the filthy rats capture many slaves but they also inflicted serious losses onto the Dawi Zhar themselves.

Bobo stealing the initiative was a major setback as it meant that the Sneaky Gits where too far from the Skaven lines to have any significant impact for several turns. I should really have had a plan for this eventuality, but sadly I did not.

Losing half the Obsidian Guard to Plague before they got to move also meant that they could not hold the right flank against the Plague Monks and it was only a matter of time until they were destroyed. It’s a shame the dice went that way, actually, since I was actually quite intrigued to see what would have happened in a straight up fight between the Obsidian Guard and the Plague Monks. Ah well.

The daemonic war machines performed well, killing a unit of Clanrats and sniping the Warlord – however, failed Rampage tests in the first turn and being systematically destroyed by the thrice-cursed Doomwheel really hampered how much effect they had on the end result.

The Sneaky Gits never got to exploit their ninja skills, but worst of all was the error in taking great weapons on all of my Dwarf Warriors – it meant that they could not engage the slaves without almost certainly killing them in a single round of combat and thus netting no victory points.

In hindsight I certainly was still “in it to win it” right up until the close: if the Death Rocket had broken the Doomwheel and the sneaky Gits had rallied it would have been a draw, but the dice had other ideas and in the end the Skaven had the field.

Of course, I could just threaten to not pay Bobo this month unless he changes the result. Let’s see how he likes them apples.

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THE TEST DUMMIES

DWARF KING’S HOLD: DEAD RISING Producer: Mantic Games | No. of players: 2 Type of game: Miniatures’n’board game “Set in the deepest, darkest gloom, DKH: Dead Rising pits courage against sorcery as the stalwart dwarfs attempt to reclaim their ancestral home from the evil undead. Played on a highly customisable tiled board using Mantic Games’s detailed plastic miniatures, the game can be played using a variety of tantalising scenarios and is quick, easy and fun to pick up.”

Dummy #1: Dan Comeau Ah, the Dungeon Crawl, a classic fantasy gaming concept that is near and dear to a lot of gamers’ hearts, myself included. I have fond memories of playing Warhammer Quest with Sarah the Barbarian (don’t ask!), killing giant spiders and goblins with great abandon.

And now comes a chance to do it again, except with Dwarfs and Undead.

So. Dwarf King’s Hold. As always I like to start with the obvious question – what’s in the box? Firstly are the sprues of miniatures. These are the same Mantic miniatures, which have become a very popular and well known sight on wargaming tables; the intent is, I imagine, to paint them up or use models from your existing collection to play out the game. Next is the rulebook. The rules mechanics are very simple (explained later) and the book is very well laid out and easy to follow, with example diagrams explaining all the scenarios. Also included are all the tokens and floor tiles required to set up your dungeons. I really liked the artwork, very atmospheric and…dungeony…

I felt the quality of the game board card could have been better. It is quite thin and with no way of locking the tiles together, we found it was a bit of an issue with the tiles moving out of place on smooth surfaces, particularly with my clumsy flailing arms.

As mentioned the rules are very simple. Each player (either Dwarf or Undead) has a set number of tokens which tell you how many actions you can perform each turn. An action is move and then attack (or just move or attack) and that is the main basis of the game. There are various other rules that come in to play – for example the Undead player can use a limited power called Baleful Gaze to cause his minions to take extra actions or gain more action tokens.

Movement is simply moving your piece a number of squares equal to its movement value, so long as it is not obstructed. Attacking is also equally simple.You roll a number of dice equal your model’s value with some modifiers (being injured for example) and the target does

the same. For each point that you beat the target’s roll by, and so long as it beats the target’s armour value, you cause a point of damage, consulting a table to see how much damage you need to inflict to destroy a model. Undead sometimes become a pile of bones and can be resurrected so you need to make sure you destroy them outright!

I really like the action token system, as you are limited to the number of actions you can make a turn. This really enhances the tactical element of the game as you may have to leave some of your pieces alone for a turn. This can be especially important for the Dwarf player as you have fewer models, and can become outnumbered and isolated if you are not careful.

Saying that, I found the Undead to be a bit more of a challenge to use than the Dwarfs. The Dwarfs are faster(!) and have extra attacks which enables them to evade the Undead and easily kill them if they can avoid being outnumbered.

There are a number of scenarios provided in the rulebook which gives a map and victory conditions. These vary in size, but even the largest scenario will take no more than an hour to play, making this a perfect pick-up game if you have a bit of time to kill.

I’m impressed with the open-ended nature of this game: even though there are only six scenarios in the box, there is plenty of scope for new ones released online, expansion packs and even creating your own.

The only issue I had as mentioned before was the overall quality of the card pieces, particularly considering the price I would have expected thicker card tiles, or at least a method of locking them in place.

Other than that, I found this a thoroughly enjoyable game.

Great fun to play and with plenty of scope for expansion, I look forward to see where Mantic will take this. I highly recommend giving this a go, particularly to anyone who loves Space Hulk as there are some similar overtones and feel to both these games.

Unseen Lerker

As always we’ll be giving away a copy of the game we’re reviewing (all our subscribers are automatically entered into the draw, subscribe today for your chance to win!), but if you can’t wait and want to pick up a copy for the game for yourself head over to this issue’s Test Dummies sponsor: www.manticgames.com

Dummy #2: Greg Dann My initial instinct with Dwarf King’s Hold (DKH) was to compare it to games like Warhammer Quest, Advanced Heroquest and Descent, but quickly these thoughts were dismissed as we got into the game itself and I realised it felt more like playing Space Hulk – mainly because it is a 1 vs 1 game. In effect this means that as the Dwarfs you are playing a ‘squad control’ mechanic with groups of similar models, whereas the other games are all 1 vs 3/4/5 etc. with each ‘hero’ having a unique set of rules (there may be a lesson about assumption or presumption that I can learn here).

The rulebook lists six scenarios which depict Dwarfs under attack or trying to break free of the Necromancers’ shambling forces. Each scenario not only has its own map but also varies the number of order tokens each player has, the number of Baleful Gazes (a one-shot bonus) the Necromancer has and even offers tactics to one or both players in achieving their goal. There is also a paragraph of background with each scenario and a short paragraph at the front of the book. This is all of the ‘fluff ’ contained in the book, and I must say that I found it quite lacking, to the point where it was a little reminiscent of my Dungeons and Dragons early adventures: ‘So there’s this cave, right.

With some stuff in it that you want, right. Oh, and it’s also got some skeletons that you must kill. Enjoy.’

The rules are fairly clear and seem to cover all the eventualities. At least, we didn’t find anything confusing after we read the rules a second time (lesson #2 – read the rules properly). The game is pretty simple with moving and fighting being almost exclusively the only actions you can do, but bonuses offered in attack because of outnumbering or attacking from the rear mean that there are plenty of options to outfox your opponent. And all this in a game that is quick to play – I don’t think we went past 35 minutes on any of the scenarios and in fact had a few that lasted only 20 minutes. The time scale allows DKH to be played in those dead in-between times when you only

have a hour or so to spare. For me this is usually at the club after I’ve played a game of Warhammer and am waiting on everyone else to finish up. The game is quite compact to carry around, and doesn’t need a great deal of space to play (it easily fits on a regular dining table), which means it’s very ideal to take round and break out at a friend’s place.

Overall I think Mantic have definitely scored with this game. It’s quick and fun, where a lot of similar games tend to focus on the prolonged drawn-out challenge. It’s also pretty fun and provides a great platform for future expansions. Speaking of which, Mantic have told us that they are planning 3-4 expansions for Dwarf King’s Hold.

I will say that I thought the price for DKH was a little bit steep, and I hope that if Mantic intend to use this as a price point that their expansions offer more than just a few additional scenarios to justify the price tag. If the games continue being interesting and progressing, I have no doubt they’ll find a place on my games shelf.

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Unseen Lerker

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Don’t forget to check out Unseen Lerker issue 9, which will contain...

An Orc-off!

Greenskins vs Greenskins in a battle between two of the nicest armies in the UK.

™

ISSUE 09 JUN – JUL 2011

The Quartet, part 2 Mantic’s new Orcs – a review ‘In Da House’

IT'S LIKE PLAYBOY, FOR ORCS

Got feedback on the mag?

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Email your suggestions to editor@unseenlerker.com We promise not to send the flying monkeys after you. www.unseenlerker.com