On the Friday night I was joined by Whiskey Priest and my brother, Erny. We played a game of "Crooked Dice's 7th Voyage" rules to recreate an episode of the famous old TV show "Elizabethan Gothique" (what do you mean you've never heard of it????). We played it out on Colin's home made battle mat with a selection of his lovely painted minis. Colin posted up a write up of this game last week and his is an extensive one so, out of respect for the fact it was his also his game I'll direct you to his post here http://theleadpile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/cocksure-gambit.html
Needless to say the game was lots of fun. Erny took on the part of the baddies and I was the courageous goodies. Sadly I lost the game in the end but that certainly didn't detract from the over all fun of the evening and I would certainly have a game of this again, in fact, a second game is in the offing at some point as I need to rescue my fearless leader, Sir Thomas Cocksure from the clutches of the evil Lady Giselle and her gruff henchgoat Hurtz.
On the Saturday my old friend Al arrived. to date he has no online moniker as yet and I won't sully this blog with some of his names from the past..................
We played two games of 4th edition Warhammer with 1000pts a side. One game pitted my Skaven against Al commanding Erny's Empire army, with the addition of his own Flagellents, followed by a second game with Erny's Orcs against Al and the Empire. We wanted to try and fit in a third game but time ran out and as Erny and I had played the with game Col the night before we felt it not so bad to not get in a Skaven Vs Orcs bash.
I know there will be much wailing, gnashing of teeth, beard strokes, scornful looks and tutting at the use of the 4th edition rules but for me there is a quaint & nostalgic charm to 4th edition. It was when I really properly started playing Warhammer regularly. Back then I'd play Erny at least once a week. I remember an early phase of playing 4th edition that would see Erny's Empire Vs a joint (but mainly Erny's) Orcs on a Saturday and then my High Elves Vs a joint (but again, mainly Erny's) Undead on a Sunday evening. It's cheesey and I love it, it has a speed of play and simplicity of rules that allows a game to take two or so hours that just doesn't happen in 3rd edition. We started at about 12 and by 5 we'd gotten two games in. Not bad at all really.
Sadly I did not take many photos but here are a selection with a brief write up of my game against Al. I didn't take any of the second game but this too was a close fought affair with the use of the "Bridge of Shadows" playing a major part in an Empire victory.
Snickit's Folley
Warlord Snikit leaned on his halberd, his tail twitched and his whiskers stood on end. His Clan was in dire need of recruits, recent exploits had dwindled their numbers especially that business at the man-thing city of Avalone! He was down to only a few Clanrats yet the ever faithful Neek still carried the Banner of Clan Snickit that was enough to frighten any man-thing, dwarf-thing or elf-thing and he could afford to hire the services of Clan Pestilens, a black clad adept of Clan Eshin and a smattering of Jezzails from Clan Skryre along with Moldy, the Warlock Engineer carrying that mighty enchanted halberd of his. If only he would unleash the storm contained within he would take it from the paws of the annoying rat, blast him to ash and be powerful enough to rebuild Clan Snickit. Sadly Snikit was all to aware that at present he needed agent Moldy to provide a magical edge until he could rebuild Clan Snickit.
Snikits gaze turned to the man-things. The centre of their position was held by a pack of man-things armed with halberds and two smaller packs, one armed with their inferior and under developed mini jezzails and one of what appeared to be man-thing plague monks.
Next to them a Warlock was clearly visible above them all, flaunting his higher status on a horse.
One one flank a unit of man-things on more horses that looked like they were running away already!
Then, on the other flank man-thing Stormvermin on more horses were hiding in small a village.
"Let them hide" thought Snikit, they're no match for Clan Snikit!
The game began with the Skaven advancing as fast as they could towards the Empire troops. The Jezzail teams loosed off a shot at the Wizard mounted on his horse, a clear target what with his being higher than the troops around him, two wounded and down he fell. Sadly, this may of been a mistake on the part of Clan Snickit as now the winds of magic would blow very lowly indeed - opps!
Moldy attempted to fry the Pistoliers with Storm-Daemon but sadly failed to cause a wound and then discovered he'd exhausted it's power - things were going from bad to worse!
The next few turns saw the Skaven hurrying towards the Empire taking a few wounds from the Crossbows but not many, Moldy managed to cast a Vermintide towards the Halberdiers but they had enough time to evade it.
The Pistoliers outflanked the Skaven position but were in the Jezzails sights but sadly, as often happens when a Skaven player needs them to make a shot they failed miserably and were routed in the combat the following turn.
Eventually we were close enough that the Plague Monks had to charge the Flagellents. I was hoping that the high number of attacks coming out from them would wipe them out fairly quickly but sadly the fight too far too long.
On the other flank my second unit of Clanrats was charged by the Reiksguard containing the Empire General. They lost the combat, despite the high rank bonus and Standard but amazingly they didn't break.
Moldy attempted to cast Wither upon the Knights but was unsuccessful (Al rolled a 5+ dispel) which would of hampered them in the next round, possibly even seen them legging it but it was not to be.
Warlord Snikit's unit of Clanrats charge in and sent the Halberdiers packing (Skaven General attacks + Army Standard Bearer attacks + Assassin attacks + standard+ ranks + Army Standard bonus + fear effect of the Dread Banner = Halberdiers run away). They also charged them again in later turns and sent them running again.
The Knights beat the Clanrats they were fighting and rode them down and the Pistoliers charged the rear of the Plague Monks and between them and the Flagellents the Plague Monks were reduced to small numbers. I still had my main unit left but not much else. At this point I conceded the game.
I honestly had a lot of fun and it was very nostalgic of my teen years and I'm defo going to be playing more 4th edition and I think this game has got me thinking of tweeks to my 1000pt list. I think I may not need the Dread Banner and to be honest the Assassin didn't really do much other than kill a Champion. The Plague Monks have a lot of attacks and hit many times but struggled to wound the toughness 4 Flagellents and this will be a huge issue fighting Orcs, Dwarfs and Beastmen. I feel I definitely need a Plague Priest in there with a strength boosting weapon or a Potion of Strength or even Bands of Power. I may also reduce the number of Jezzails or even drop them entirely. I'm also considering some little 1000pt armies of other flavours like High Elves and Chaos which is really interesting at such a low points cost........................................
Anyhow, cheers for stopping by.
