Oh Yeah Baby, it's BOYL2017!

Bring Out Your Lead 2017, a festival of lead, beer, fun, friends & Jungle Meat (the traditional kebab of BOYL, partaken of true veterans of the event).

Nothing I can say can do justice to the sheer pleasure of being at the event but I will say many thanks go out to:

• the Foundry & the Ansells for hosting
• Gaj for his organisation & quality thoroughly enthusiastic co-generalship (I have never known anyone to be as vigorously positive when rolling dice)
• Geoff, Harry and Chris for the amazing Heldenhofen table that I had much fun on
• All my opponents over the weekend (there were many and I didn't catch all of the names so I am so very sorry if I miss your name off the mumblings amongst the photo's below, please point out my rudeness in the comments at the end and I'll edit you in!)

Enough of my drivel, here's the good stuff with the odd snippet of wordage amongst them where appropriate.

Here's Heldenhofen, stunning huh?

And here's the Rogue Trader sandbox - Helsreach, zany as heck and stunning to boot.

My first game of the weekend was against Richard Legg, a thoroughly decent chap. This was his Orcs and Goblins painted as part of my "I'm a Dad with no time or I'm a slow painter" challenge.

Two Large units of Orcs formed the bulk of the Orc Hoard.

The Orc General mounted on a boar

Gobbo Stikkas

Gobbo Spears alongside a Goblin Shamen

Arnulf's Rangers (painted the week before BOYL) form up to pepper the foe with crossbow bolts.

Helga prepares to blow the Orcs away as a legend has a sit in the background

Bron's Boar Spears and the Gate Smashers form up whilst the Legend looks on

Members of the Raven Watch take skirmishing position on the flank

Most of the Dwarfs move forward into defensive positions whilst others open fire, removing several Arrer Boyz. Note the Orc General making a flanking manoeuvre.

The Greenskins move forward

The Goblin Shamen uses "Flight" to move behind the Dwarf lines where he would wind blast Helga the Howler for the remainder of the game.

Battle is met as the Orc Arrer Boyz charge Bron's Boar Spears. The Rangers re-arrange themselves to accept the Goblin charge. Note the lack of Orc General on the flank. The Raven Watch got lucky with crossbow bolts and felled the beast.

Bron's Boar Spears skewer many Orc Arrer Boyz for no loss.

The Raven Watch flee the Orc Boyz charge.

The Goblin Spears chased Arnulf's Rangers from the field and then headed for Helga. The Boar Spears have repeatedly pushedback the Orc Arrer Boyz who refused to break. The Gobbo Stikkas and Orc Boyz close in on the Gate Smashers

The Orc Boyz and the Gate Smashers square off

The Orc Boyz taunt the Dwarfs, holding off the charge for the Gobbo Stikkas support.

Not waiting around the Gate Smashers move forward forcing the Orc's hand.

With the Boar Spears on the way back the Orcs charge. The Gate Smashers receive the charge and win the round but the Orcs refuse to break.

The Orcs are hit by Bron's Boar Spears in the flank and stand no chance in the ensuing slaughter (Hammerers are awesome). With the loss of the Orc Boyz Richard conceded the day. A victory to my fledgling Dwarf Army but more importantly a great game, a fantastic opponent and challenge for next year (more of that in a later post).

My Skaven run rampant in Heldenhofen. My first taste of Mordheim and I liked it!

OK, at this point I should apologise for a lack of photo's of my next game but I forgot until we had started playing and by that point I wasn't feeling like taking photographic evidence of what was happening. Saturday afternoon I played a joint game with Gaj against my Brother (Erny) and Justin Coutange (yet another totally nice guy and a friend made over the weekend). Each of us used 1000pts - my Dwarf's and Gaj's Empire Vs Chris and Justin's Wood Elves. The pansy pointy ears had a mostly skirmishing army that was impossible to get anywhere near. They stayed out of range of my crossbows and moved back if I moved forward allowing them to still fire but not me. I accept these are tactics for Wood Elves, but it wasn't fun. I'm used to losing but this left me feeling unable to put up a competitive fight. Ducks in a gallery. An exercise in futility. Moan over.

Sunday was another team up, it's here that I must apologise again as I did not make a note of the name of my team mate nor that of Erny's joint Warlord. Guys, if you let em know and I'll correct it on here.

Here's the pics, Dwarves Vs Orcs & Goblins that we didn't finish so not sure what the outcome would of been.

And then it was over and we all started to drift off back to all the deep dark places we crawled out from.

Thanks once again to all who attended and I chatted to (Nigel Stillman, who's a thoroughly nice chap, autographed my copy of Warhammer Armies) you all made it one heck of a weekend and I look forward to number 6 next year.

It's a Small World Afterall

OK, so here's my latest update on the “I’m a Dad with No Time, or, I’m a Slow Painter” Challenge.


With time ticking down to BOYL2017 I really did need to get a wiggle on and over the last couple of weeks I’ve put the time in and managed to pretty much finish up my Imperial Dwarf Army.


Before we take a look here’s a recap of the guidelines to the challenge:

• This is not a competition. There is no prize. It's not a painting competition nor is it a tournament. It's a friendly little nudge to get the lead pile reduced.
• The army should be a compact little 1000pt force. My army will be selected from WFB 3rd edition and will adhere to army lists in Warhammer Armies. My original idea was for others to do the same. It still is really but people should feel free to use extra 3rd rules printed in White Dwarf such as Gyrocopters and Iron Claw Goblin Catapults and also Realms of Chaos. If you really want to collect a 1000pt force from a different edition then please do feel free but bear in mind that if you want to play games with a different edition at BOYL2017 then you'll need opponents playing the same edition.
• Compulsory troops and unit minimums are reduced to a third of the specified numbers (rounding up) so, as an example, a 3000 point Wood Elf Army should have 30 Archers but as we're playing 1000pts you only need to include 10 Archers to fulfill your quota of compulsory troops. Minimum unit sizes do not drop below 5.
• The Army MUST be painted (shields and banners included).
• The Army must be painted between now and BOYL2017. The minis can be stripped and repainted minis you have painted before this challenge but the repaints must be done in the "now to BOYL2017" time frame. If you have miniatures already painted you want to include then these are additional to you 1000pt painting target and you can pick your final 1000pts from all available painted models.
• Miniatures can be of any manufacturer and time period.
• I reserve the right to impose extra rules to this list should I see fit.

Now, without further ado, here’s the (nearly complete) Imperial Dwarf Throng of Thodrin Grumsson, Uncle to the King of Karak Durak.

(NB: yes I know I still have Standards to paint)



After a lot of teeth gnashing and beard pulling I've settled upon one of the old Dwarf Lord models as my General for the time being.



I decided this guy fitted in best with the rest of my Imperial Dwarfs as he had the clothing to support the halved colour scheme theme I unashamedly stole from Wayne England.


Armed with a double-handed sword he can dish out a fair bit of damage and has a high enough Weapon Skill and Toughness to survive a lot of damage thrown back at him.



Eventually this chap will lead my Longbeards once they're painted up and my real Dwarf King is added to the Throng.





For now though Thodrin leads the Kings Guard, unit of Hammers known as the "Gate Smashers"



The standard bearer and musician are taken from the Dwarfs I bought from Bood Wargames Miniatures (http://bood-wargames.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_20.html) and as soon as I saw them I knew where I wanted to use them, they fit in nicely alongside the Perry Dwarf I have used repeatedly to make my Hammerer unit - "C06 Falan Lukic Ketri Trollhammer".



The standard top depicts a Rams head (battering rams are used for smashing gates after all) and was taken off of a Black Tree Design/Harlequin Dwarf standard. and I think it looks rather nifty!



I was going to paint up "Prince Ulther's Dragon Company" as Ironbreakers, and to be honest I have them almost finished but after playing a few test games I realised that whilst my Army has amazing staying power it lacked the strength to deliver a knock out blow and Hammerers should give me that.



I'm also a stickler for uniformity as I find it easier to paint (please don't think ill of me), especially when mass producing units "quickly".









Here's a few new shots of stuff I've shown you before.


Bron's Boar Spears look resplendent on their new movement try allowing me to display all 21 (note Skolsson at the back necking back a beer, one of Bood's drunk Dwarfs sneaks in).









Flekki's Sharpshooters (I need a better name for theses guys) have been added to, they now number 15 as experience has taught me 10 crossbows wasn't enough. That said I'm not sure I can afford more than 10 in 1000pts when everything else has been added in.









Helga the Howler has done some terrible damage so far.







I have two more units almost finished. I have Prince Ulthers Dragon Company (I certainly can't afford a second unit of elites in 1000pts) and a second unit of Warriors, "the Raven Watch" that are armed with hand weapons. I definitely want to finish off the Warriors before BOYL to give me options. Only problem with options of course is the same thing as the benefit - working out what to leave out.....................................


Thanks for stopping by and reading my inane ramblings.


Please do leave a comment if you would be so kind.