Kill the Man-things! Yes-yes!

Warp Cannon and Jezzails

Games Workshop bases. I hate them so much.

They're thick and weird shapes and don't fit other game systems without work arounds. But without puddle bases you're forced to use them. I'm not going to try and support a big Rat Ogre on one foot, are you?

At least they're thick enough to hold onto while painting. Although with the Warp Cannon, I could not get all three of the pegs to line up anyway.

So I've been putting the Skaven on them until I figured something out. For characters that's fine. But units? Hmmm....

My other Midgard bases for the Romans and Middle Earth collection are already pretty thick for strength. Sitting GW figures on top would mean they'd be half an inch above the table! That's too thick. A friend on Discord designed one with a big enough hole to sit a Rat Ogre in on his 50mm base, plus another stl for a standard 8 figures in a 4x2 configuration. I'll have those ready in time for their throwdown with Pasha Dan's Chaos Dwarfs.

Work in progress shot. Using the thick bases as holders. 

Once I got things painted though I sliced off the pegs and glued the Warp Cannon and Jezzails to 120mm wide bases for Midgard. The cannon needed 120mm depth as well which left a lot of area empty. Some toy clay bricks were used to make some dramatic piles of rubble. Model railway ballast was also added.

Ready to flock

The jezzails will get Hell's Breath and perhaps Blast.

The Warp Cannon is a heavy artillery piece, obviously. I'm thinking of a Warp Technology rule. When it shoots roll a d6. "6" equals every hit counts double. "1" it explodes and does a shooting attack on every unit within 1 spear throw.

If I get enough extra rat swarms or loose giant rats from Don, I'll add some scuttling around the rubble.

Of course, the miniatures are packed with details. Note the helpful rat at the gunner's feet.

"Push harder Nibbles! Yes-yes!"
"Oh shut up! The Great Horned One should bite your tail, yes-yes!"

Wishing he'd eaten more warp stone and had been able to pursue a career as a Grey Seer instead of the artillery corps.

I also completed my second Grey Seer, and the Engineer. The Grey Seer is named Magic Beans, and the Engineer is Hamnpork, both characters from Discworld. This Grey Seer went together much better than the first one. This model, being much nicer, will be a level 3 Sorcerer, whereas the first model will only be a level 2. I did the magic effect on his knife with green wash over silver.

The Engineer's jezzail will be a Legendary Weapon and he has the Marksman trait as well. Hopefully, he can snipe some enemy heroes, when not using his Mighty Deed rerolls to keep the artillery from exploding.

This just leaves me with three units of infantry to finish up. One of Stormvermin and two of Clanrats.

Momos? Good Oh!

I took Snorkers! (Good Oh!) down to Chatham for KEGSCon this year, naval games being very light on the logistical burden and I wanted to promote it a little. I stayed Friday night at the Comfort Inn and while doing a route recce noticed that The Gurkha Restaurant was very close by. I didn't want to dine alone and Keith and his wife Tam volunteered to join me. It's tucked away in a rental hall on a small industrial road and needs better signage, but it's worth the adventure to find it. Service was very friendly and we shared a platter of steamed momos as an appetizer and then I had a positively gianormous bowl of shrimp biryani, which I took half of it back to my hotel for next day's lunch. The hostess was very nice and packed me some plum sauce to go with it, I guess that is a traditional way to eat it cold.

Saturday arrived bright and early and I set out a scenario from the Rising Sun Over Java far east early war supplement. I modified it for my Mediterranean fleets and used the standard card deck so new comers would have a better sense of the rules, but pointed out that modifying the card mix was a useful scenario building tool.

In the morning I ran it with 4 players. The Italians were trying to intercept a Malta convoy.

Italians moving from left. RN is pushing forward with destroyer flotillas.

Italian and British destroyers clash

First kill. HMS Kipling is lost to torpedoes.

HMS Kashmir from the same flotilla is limping off table with flooding damage, lower right corner. I had the player do some damage control checks and she eventually sank.

After getting heavily embroiled in the center and drawing off the RN Covering Force, but losing the Zara (she ate three torpedoes!), and a Condotierri CL, the Italian DE flotillas dash forward on either flank.

Convoy successfully attacked. All four targets sunk. 

So that was a rather pyrrhic RM victory. They lost the Zara (CA), the Luigi Cardorna (Condotierri class CL), and two DEs (Lupo and Sagittario). The RN lost two destroyers.

After my lunch of left over shrimp biryani I reset the table and had the RN attacking a convoy running from Sicily to North Africa.

RN advancing from the left. The RM still arriving from the upper right, although the Zara has pushed ahead to engage the British. She's going to keep all four RN cruisers busy until she goes down flaming.

RN destroyer flotillas breaking left and right to try and get to the convoy. RM units trying to cut them off.

Bottom of photo flotilla of J class DDs getting intercepted by the Condotierri CLs and some Navigatori DDs.

Js dieing bloody but putting a bit of hurt on the Italian CLs.

RN player remembers his objective and pushes forward on his left flank, eventually sinking all four transport ships.

A bitter victory for the RN. They successfully attacked the convoy but lost three DDs doing it. Although killing an Italian CA and seriously damaging a CL was perhaps a fair trade.

In both games the RN didn't lose a single CL.

I managed to do a quick survey of some other games. There was quite a variety.

Pillage

Midgard. I think the skulls are Keith's measuring sticks.1 spear throw x 2 spear throws. 

General d'Armee in 15mm

Xenos Rampant

The Full Nelson

something with pirates

Sharp Practice

I didn't get a pictures of some Check Your 6!, Chain of Command, and more Xenos Rampant. In total there were 15 games and 50 or so people.

After I packed up,  I headed home, giving Big Dave and Son a lift to London. Big Dave offered to buy me dinner and while talking food, and how much I enjoyed the momos the night before, he mentioned there was a place near his that he went to all the time. Fortunately, I was still full of shrimp biryani, so we eschewed highway rest stop burgers and pushed on to Hakka Momo House. I let Big Dave guide me and had a sumptuous meal of Malai Momos, Hakka Chow Mein Noodles washed down with Massala Lemonade. He insisted I take the large quantity of leftovers home to share with Mrs. Rabbitman for Sunday (and Monday's!) dinner.

Another picture of the really lovely 1:700 scale ships in The Full Nelson game.

A pretty good adventure all told. Hakka is my new favorite ethnic cuisine. 

Darktan Bloodclaw, Skaven Warlord, and More Rats

Pasha Dan issuing a challenge to take on my ratty hordes with his Chaos Dwarves has gotten some momentum going on painting all these Skaven. Of course, seeing what can be done with some fast block painting, dry brush, and then an ink wash helps make these figures a lot less intimidating too. 

On! On! Kill the Man-things! Yes! Yes!

Of course I'm going for decent table top standard, not Golden Daemon or suitable for print photographry as well. That helps a lot when you aren't trying to edge highlight every thing.

And people think Napoleonics are complicated? I guess it depends upon what you're used too.

So here's a unit of Stormvermin. One of the little wee buggers broke at the ankle because of the stupid pegs GW forces you to use. But some plastic cement and a judiciously placed piece of clump foliage and he's right as rain.

A unit of Clanrats.

I do like the little rats included at the feet or on the shoulders of some of them.

My math tells me I'll have a few figures left over, and I hate left over figures. So I made one with a particularly commanding pose into a minor hero and gave him a purple robe instead of the normal dingy grey. Because he's special. His name is either Klik, or Spam.

And the best for last, my Army Commander, Darktan Bloodclaw riding his Clawbeast, another horribly tortured beastie from the Skaven labs. He's so big, I naturally had to load him up: armour 4, legendary weapon, brutal, plus some missile fire ability (note the gatling pistol). Of course, if he dies, I lose 8 of my 16 Reputation. 

The name Darktan is from the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Several other of my Skaven characters are named from the same book.

The figure was very complicated to assemble. Fortunately there were clear instructions. But we're almost entering scale model building territory here. I get why some GW folks paint the parts on the sprue.

I hope his glaive looks suitable ancient, legendary, and magical. I used some washes over silver to try and get the effect.

I've got a freind at work printing some movement trays for me, designed by another friend on the Quar Discord Server. Dan and I might try a match up in a couple of weeks. Although I will have to conscript some enslaved goblins to make up the numbers. Downgrading Darktan to a level 3 just doesn't seem right.