Age Of Sigmar – An Archive For The Steinberg Shed Space Blog

WarCry – Finally A Real Necromancer Appears, Kind Of…

When Warcry appeared on my radar I was slow to become interested, except in regard to the war band from the Corvus Cabal. A crow themed warband doesn’t come along very often, so should not be passed up when you find one. However, instead of getting on with the crows I have been distracted by wanting to play the game as soon as possible. To get figures on a table it was not the Corvus boys and girls I went to first, but my old undead figures. In the rush to get figures ready for a game I have bypassed (again) what I should be focusing on.

That distraction should be over now as I have painted up my final figure for this warband. The leader for the undead faction is a Necromancer. Up until now, I have been using a suitable stand-in, in the form of a Wyrd Miniatures Pandora figure. She provides a suitably evil looking mage but is not deathly enough for my tastes.

Thankfully, for a warband made up of very old skeletons, a suitably old Chaos Sorcerer was found to play the part of their leader. This chap is from about 1985 and back then I may have had a few figures from this section of the range. Sadly all those miniatures have been lost to the sands of time, so its nice to have one back in the collection.

A short run at Google shows me he was called Sli’th Iron Lung. I really should get these boys together for a warband group shot soon.

WarCry – Still Not Doing What I Should Be

Oh dear…

I am still not getting these finished as I have again been further distracted away from finishing these boys.

And this is the culprit. WarCry the new skirmish game by Games Workshop. A rulebook came my way, then a Corvus Cabal warband.

Then some Savage Orc profile cards. So I really did need to buy myself some Savage Orc figures I guess.

Luckily I had some Undead figures (who doesn’t have a bucket of old undead in their home?) so I guess it was fortunate that GW were selling some Legions of Nagash profile cards (skeletons to you and me) too.

As the Undead were almost all painted, and as I am never one to pass up an easy win, these would need to be finished first.

But because I have them now it would be wise to build a few Savage Orcs. Just to see how they go together.

Oh dear… Am I sidetracking my sidetrack…

AOS: Fighting Fire With Fire Or Getting My Own Horses (And Some Other Bits).

After so many outings with Bretonnians on the opposite side of the table, and the success of the detachment rules for the Empire State Troopers, I thought it might be time to try the Knights of the Empire rules.

My meagre 10 horsemen would not be enough to use these rules at this point, so new riders would be needed.

I went for a mix of riders in the end. Some were Essex knights. These were picked up to add to my 6 existing figures (the originals were repurposed from 2 stands of a DBA medieval force). 6 new riders makes a 12 man unit.

A box of Perry Mounted Men at Arms supplied me with another unit and some old GW Pistoliers were found to add some true empire flavour to the mix.

A couple of old GW knights are left in the mix too and I am on the lookout for more of these but originals are retailing on ebay at about £12 each (castings from the original moulds are now available from Foundry at £12 for 3 horsemen) but the price of these will likely restrict my choices for the moment.

Watch this space for updates on my mounted forces…

Veganman has again been distracting me from finishing my empire forces off though. He popped in over the summer and dropped off a big box of pretty things with the words “see what you can do with this lot if you want to play with something other than your empire.”

Very nice models and most already painted.

Not quite enough to play a big game but a good start for a new force… I hate being so easy to influence sometimes. Within hours I was looking at lizards on eBay…

More AOS And Yet More Horses Or I Think I Need A Bigger Runup.

As we have been playing Age Of Sigmar for a while now, we thought it would be a good idea to try some variation in the game. So, we moved to adding in some of the interactive scenery options, and tried a different deployment option too.

Veganman brought over the Bretonnian force seen last time, but had tweaked it to be even more forceful and with plenty of heroes added to the mix.

I had tweaked things too (and read some of the warscrolls too) making my force up as detachments to get the benefit of the Empire state troopers special rules. Also extra heroes and missile troops were added to the mix to increase my killing abilities.

It was crowded on my side of the table again as we had to deploy along a short table edge. That said I was able to deploy in depth so was better suited to redeploy reserves and spread my missile troops between the infantry units.

The addition of scenery that could help or harm troops was interesting as it changed not only deployment but slowed the advance of the knights as they were funnelled into columns as they came into missile range.

As the knights stalled under heavy missile fire the Bretonnian king on his griffon charged forwards to stop the hail of bolts.

On the other flank my spearmen were able to hold the smaller mounted force while my knights waited to finish the job if needed.

As the Bretonnian King continued to plough through empire state troopers my reserves moved up to mop up any weakened enemy units

Even weakened units of Bretonnian knights are able to deliver a solid blow and continued to pound on my troopers. This game would, in the end, have to be called to a close before a decisive conclusion could be seen. The addition of scenery, heroes and short edge deployment added almost 1.5 hours to the length of a usual game. As such, we decided to call it a draw in the end. It showed me how effective a read of the rules could be and how much the empire needs to deploy in detachments and with missile support.

Next time I would be more organised and a little more difficult to beat.

AOS: A Horse, A Horse, My Kingdom For One Less Horse.

As seen in the last post, I have been playing quite a lot of Age Of Sigmar over the summer. Veganman has been showing me what smaller perfectly formed forces can do to large disorganised mobs of men, and this game was no different.

Empire Vs Bretonnians. Foot Vs Mounted. Common man Vs The Nobility. However you say it, it seems a little one sided.

He came along with nearly 40 heavy horsemen and a few archers for good measure.

I dug out my usual force. 10 heavy horsemen and what feels like HUNDREDS of slowly walking blokes with sharp pointy things (oh and 20 crossbowmen…)

Veganman decided to place all his troops to one side of the table and concentrate as much force on my largest unit as he could. This left my army stretching off to the other flank as I had no room to deploy that many men all at one end of the table.

It gave him time to whittle down a lot of my troops before I could get my extra numbers to truly take effect.

In the end it came down to a bold (or foolish) move on my part. I moved my general out in front of his protection in a bid to form an attack on one of his exposed flanks. The end came when Veganman made an incredibly long charge roll, with perfect timing, to wipe out my last hopes and win the day.

Nobility reigned supreme this day and the common foot slogger went home with a lesson well learned.

My Pause Button Seems To Have Been Broken/ More Age Of Sigmar.

I took a short break from posting updates to the blog just before the summer started (not unusual as my blog posts are often irregularly timed). The trouble is that my planned, brief pause, has continued for the last 3 months…

I have not been alone in this phenomena. I have continued to enjoy reading posts that other gamers have written over the summer. A few, I notice, have been in the same boat as me and have just begun to resurface now that the summer is over.

Like most people I have not been idle… Not very idle at all…

The shed has seen a good few games and I have been out and about at a couple of shows in the last months. One small item of note is this chap that I picked up as a thank you for Coronasan. Who, in true addiction facilitator style, managed to source even more Dust models for me on his last trip to the USA.

It should do quite well as a proxy for Markus in his yet to be painted Dust Tactics Axis army. With everything else he is trying to finish at this point I suspect they will get done sometime next year!

The game of the summer continued to be Age Of Sigmar and my Empire forces continued to be trampled under foot by all comers. Never let it be said that I am easily beaten but it is likely I will continue to be with this game. The last 5 years of skirmish games has not helped to develop my large unit tactics.

Veganman’s Ogre horde was a regular opponent as we settled into the rules for this game and learned its basics. It would seem that he has a serious leaning to small, elite and heavy armies. From fantasy Ogres to Terminators to German Tigers, no matter what he buys into they are always tough, sturdy opponents.

When it comes down to it my massed ranks of feeble humans are in need of some serious support and possibly some better tactics.

… And just as I was complaining that it was my army choice that was holding back my ability to win, he comes over with his Bretonnian army and shows me what feeble humans can do when mounted on big, scary horses…

Again, he turned up with a force that was half the size of my army but more than twice as hard…

Watch this space for the outcome of the next summertime encounter.

Age Of Sigmar. The Game That Is Ruling The Shed At This Time…

Age of Sigmar has taken the shed by storm. Not the Sigmarine storm that Games Workshop would like us to generate but a more sedate ‘Old Hammer’ style storm. Much more of a storm suitable for a gentlemans shed.

Out came the hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of plastic skeletons that Coronasan had tucked away in a far corner of his Loft Full Of Lead… Mine was a collection of very old Empire forces with some more modern pieces thrown in for good measure. 1980-1990 seems to be the era of most of the figures on show. So many old molds appeared that we spent most of the evening (or at least I did) going “ooh I remember having/ seeing/ loving/ wanting that one…”

Once I had finished reminissing and geeking out, we started to pile the table high with models to start our game. Age of Sigmar has no points system so you just add and add until the table collapses or you run out of figures. The only drawback with this is it can lead to over loading the game and making it last slightly longer than we planned… I have recently found that capping a game at about 130 wounds appears right for an evenings play but leaves it still possible, and likely, to be an interestingly unbalanced game.

Our first games were a reminder that moving 20-30 men at a time can get very frustrating so out came the old movement trays where we had them, and where we didn’t, we improvised with home brew quick card sheets. Not ideal and the card shows up as terribly obvious in the photos. New trays are in the process of being made and acquired as I write.

Some things never change and undead armies are reliable that whenever they appear on a table, more are certain to pop up. So mid game Coronasan found himself raising more…

…and more skeletons (and ghoules and beasties) as the game went on.

I havent played with so many toys in years. Over 300 figures were dredged out (mostyly on the undead side as would be expected) and lots of block style manouvering ensued.

Most memorable moment of our fist game? 120 dice rolled by about 30 sleletons in their efforts to kill off 5 hunting dogs. After bucket loads of dice, and rolls to hit and wound, it came down to about 12 saving throws. I managed to fail exactly the number of armour saves I needed to to see them die to a man (or dog).

Who said tension could not be found in a simple game of toy soldiers?

Overall we are loving this game by Games Workshop. Amidst all the hype and hatred for this game, it does give us some easy fun, and an opportunity to use some much loved past armies. Armie that we have neglected for far too many years.

Age Of Sigmar… Ripples In The Water

By the time this post is published the new game by Games Workshop will be out. This was once thought to be the 9th Edition of their long term title: Warhammer Fantasy Battle. What it looks like it is going to be, is something very different indeed…

Age Of Sigmar is a simple ruleset – 4 pages instead of 400…

No more Army Books as every figure will come with a Warscroll…

No points system and it actually wants you to play with what ever number or combination of figures you want to.

Its also FREE to download from the web…

I had to look twice and then check it wasn’t April…

Even before its release these rules have caused much discussion and upset gamers who have invested a huge amount in to GW’s product. I stopped buying GW toys a while back as none of its current live portfolio appeal to me. Thousands think otherwise I know.

I still recognise GW’s influence in gaming and have loved past titles like Epic and Bloodbowl. Some of its miniatures have made their way into my armies but almost never in the way GW intended.

I don’t know where this release will end up. Success or failure it is a bold move for them.

And the strangest thing??? It actually looks like something I may want to play!

So much so I have gathered together the remains of my old Warhammer Empire Army. Ready for a test game in the next week or so.

So, I guess its time to rebase these guys yet again.

No, wait…

GW doesn’t even want us to worry about base sizes now…