Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity it was #ArmiesOnParade last month and I was busy celebratingLiam's 50th birthday so couldn't get to Warhammer Liverpool. However, Warhamer Wigan was hosting Parade Day the following week, so it would be rude not to attend? I had my 4 #BloodBowl teams, a scratchbuilt Megabowl 7's pitch and I'd even had time to add a little crowd backdrop, thanks to some fussy AI prompts.
Here's a video of the board, although you've seen it already you can see the backdrop a bit more.
So here are some of the other entries. This great Tyranid board, which understandably I love.
If I recall correctly I think this won the 40k category.
It's so annoying to see this miniature close-up as I want one, just can't justify getting one or the silly price-tag on it.
Screamer Killers do look cool
And I love the effect on the wings of this Tyranid Prime.
I think this Word Bearer's army won the overall prize.
It was really well don with lots of little details.
The lave weaponry was most effective.
Another Tyranid army, almost Behemoth but brighter.
And not just figures from Leviathan, we have a Tyrannofex too!
This was the only entry in the Young Bloods category, but well deserved.
A small diorama, but we love it regardless.
And another Chaos Space Marine army, which next to the Word Bearers made some interesting comparisons between the same figures used in each Parade.
And my Parade. I was the only Best of the Rest so inevitably got that certificate but it was just great to be instore on the day.
Interestingly the Wigan manager had been in charge of the Southport store before it closed.
I didn't recall her, but she did remember my Tyranid Parades.
We had some really good discussion about AoP and she was very much supportive of the event, even if it was a bit quiet on the day.
As an early Christmas present if anyone wants the backdrop you can have it. It's set up for an A4 sheet. You'll need to print 2 of these on sticky labels. Add all 4 bits and it should make a 2 foot strip. Repeat and you have a corner backdrop. I stuck them on 1cm up from the bottom of the board, so the pitch-side adverts pitch-side, not buried in the ground.
Lastly, some pics from the store displays. Worth noting this means in my decade of parades, I've paraded at Warhammer/GW stores in Southport, Manchester, Liverpool and now Wigan.
Bless me #WarHamFam for I have sinned, it's been nearly 3 months since my last confession! Not to mention it's been two months since my last blog post. However, after #DreadTober I felt like I needed to take a bit of a break.
I've not done a huge amount of hobby in that time. But I did end up going to Armies On Parade in an actual store and I have a couple of NOT battle reports to share from my weekend at Otty's. Also, my job has a bit of a blogging element to it now; so whereas doing the blog used to be something different from my day job, now it overlaps. This means that the blog isn't always the escape from what I do on a day-to-day basis that it used to be. Therefore it's much harder to be motivated and without the content what are you gonna do?
I just wanted to check back in, say I am still around and with that time off I finally became motivated to put some Skeleton Bone on my Terminators. Yes, my Deathwing are finally progressing again, just in time to be semi-redundant with new Deathwing on the way. Although, I am no fan of the tiny new Mace's of Absolution. But I've overcome the initial lake of motivation to paint them. Statistically I may only be 25% through them but the two sets of bone highlights are the hardest and most tedious aspects of the model. Everything after that is mainly detail work with limited blending, except for the green tabards. I just want them done and out of the way.
After that I've plenty of Tyranids to add washes to, I've done a fair bit of base-coating I need to share. As much as I organise my efforts with my TO DO LIST I've been quite happy to set a hobby season 'satisfied' point and I'm very much thinking the Deathwing will meet that quota. So, if any of these Tyranids get done I'll be over the moon.
For now I'm going to leave it there, I'll have a better idea of things after Christmas.
Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing games again but sadly, although I've taken many pictures of the games I haven't found the time to write them up and so most of them are somewhat redundant. It also meant that when I had a game of MESBG recently I didn't take as many pics and then I was compelled to actually write it up so we'll make do. Otty is still buzzing from his Double's tournament at Warhammer World where he even got to play against Adam Troke. I played against his Moria army, with a Dweller and a Balrog the other week and it was hard going, this time I got to be the goblins and he had a large force of Rohirrim, with Théoden leading them. We were playing the Relic mission, where there are 6 objectives and if you end your turn next to them on six on a D6 it is the relic and you have to hold onto it until the game ends. However, it's a cursed item of power and you can become transfixed by it. On top of that it was maelstrom deployment - each of your army's warbands arrives randomly, or not at all, from board edges via dice roll. Otty won priority, he brought one warband on from the east, one from the west, the one from the south [the top middle] and his last warband didn't turn up. His cavalry picked up the banner objective on the left to inspect it, rolled a 6 and found the relic instantly! Which made my deployment somewhat easier. I got to deploy the Balrog force to the South, in an attempt to cut off the inevitable desperate escape the horse lords would attempt now they had my cursed banner. I also brought my Dweller on from the left, to shadow his force. I'm much less mobile so my Warg Marauder was the great grey hope... Unfortunately my last warband, led by Durbûrz, rolled a 1 to arrive, so didn't. I could have used Might points to increase the roll, but 1 or 2 points would have meant Otty getting to choose, which would be totally isolated. Using all Durbûrz's 3 Might points would have got me on north or south but that's all his resources so I left them off.
Next turn and I lose priority, we both try Heroic moves and I think I won so I managed to trap some of his force but forgot Grôblog has to move first and he was effectively surrounded by goblins so I couldn't move far enough to snag the banner, which promptly scampered off. The rest of Otty's Elfhelm warband went on to surround Grôblog. His final Warband arrived and came on in the top left corner to try and take my Balrog's force, but too far away.
My Balrog moved forward but it's only got a 6" move and the goblins 5" so it was wishful thinking. The Balrog has an 8" flaming whip attack, which killed a Royal guard but that was it. Durbûrz rolled a 2 for deployment, which meant Otty could deploy him, but I spent 2 Might to make it a 4 and bring him on from the south [top of the board]. I was hoping to scuttle between his middle warband and the one in the top right [out of shot]. Unfortunately the gap between them was 12-13" so they would be charged from either side next turn. So I moved them more towards the middle so if they did get charged it would be by only one warband, and it would pull them away from the Balrog. It worked, the next turn Theoden charged me, but also got the Warg Marauder too, which gave the banner chance to move further out of reach. Eventually my Marauder from the left caught two of the body guards but couldn't kill them.
However, the dweller caught one and Balrog caught the other which allowed the Marauder to slip between them and chase down the fleeing rider with the banner, who had not succumbed to its accursed powers so far.
Meanwhile Elflhelm decimated Grôblog and his warband was down to slim pickings at this stage.
Similarly my southern force was now caught between two of his warbands and Durbûrz was surrounded. I think I had one last chance for my Marauder to killer the rider with the relic, failed and with Otty getting the next turn's priority he would tie him up with infantry and the rider would make for the borders. A loss, but such a good game.
I'm not sure I've had a bad game of MESBG and despite some frustrations, cursed dice rolls and a loss as the dust settles it felt like such a cinematic game. Discovering the banner from the very beginning and racing it across the field as flaming demons stomped from the sides and behind was epic. Now Otty did say it wasn't a banner they found but Grôblog's Mithril crown, as he failed every chance to make his fight better for the warband around him but either way that race to escpae the board was awesome. I had some last ditch chances, some Marauder archers trying to pick him off long range and catching up with him right at the end but Moria just didn't have the pace.
Anyway, I love this game and I felt compelled to share it because the fact I can't get behind 10th edition 40k shouldn't overshadow then genuine hobby joy I'm getting from other game systems. It's disappointing I'm not getting the best out of the myriad of painted 40k figures I have, but it's a small price to pay for the pleasure and fun we're having at Otty's shed.
Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity it's #ArmiesOnParade and after enjoying the 2022 Parade in store at my nearest Warhammer in Liverpool, I was desperate to get in there again this year. This time I was going to parade my 4 'new' #BloodBowl teams on a scratchbuilt Megabowl 7's pitch and I've been working on it, adding to my teams all year. I managed to secure a bronze pin for completing the first quarters' challenge but the silver and gold eluded me because the tasks are set up for 40k and AoS, rather than the Best of the Rest category. And, some of these figures had been painted in previous years, just never had a chance to parade so they weren't completed within this time frame.
Anyway, it is all moot. After preparing everything, Parade Day in Liverpool coincides with Liam's 50th birthday! Now I love AoP, but I love my hobby crew even more and the promise of a weekend gaming with these guys is a much better proposition. And, thanks to COVID there are still entries online and although I have no chance of winning I'm still taking part virtually.
And that means this will be my 10th year of taking part - a decade of parade and although I would love to be there in person I've entered in absentia and online previously. I have my bronze pin for the year, so I'll take that as my participation badge. And, I can share on social media, so I'll still feel part of it at the very least.
Anyway, the Parade. As mentioned it's my 4 teams and these have all been shown before but never altogether and I went to great effort to get decent lighting - 3 daylight bulbs, a ring light and 2 other room lights, so at least the colours are decent on the Porkbelly Stuffers
Sadly the Rotspawn is just a little out of focus here, but the rest of Anaplastic PXA look pretty cool.
And my old skool 2nd edition team colours of the Middenheim Marauders.
The Orcs were loosely based [just with a lot more rust] on Robin Cruddace's 'Da Badland All Blacks' and as I still have zero ideas for my own novelty name I may as well acknowledge the inspiration and henceforth they will be Da Badland All Blacks.
I mean that's an unholy mess right there for a match start. Of course I've put a full team in each quarter, when in fact there should only be 7 players a-side for 7's but it was the rule of cool on showing off the entire team.
I'd still love to parade instore with this, but the Manchester Parade day is the day after Liverpool's and Liam's 50th is a weekend of gaming at Otty's. I may have another chance with Warhammer Wigan, if they have a parade it might be on the 25th [the day of the online winners stream]. We'll see...
Whether this gets held over to next year I don't know, unlikely as I think it might be my Tyranids [again] but this time featuring as much of the Leviathan additions as I can. Although I suspect the Leviathan category may be lost for 2024 it still feels like the best plan.
Thanks to the 3 Kurnoth Hunter Treemen and 2 star players the substitutes corner is pretty cramped. But they added to the team, which otherwise would have been just the basic squad, with no heavy hitters. Now, it's got the best line-up, though I still suspect they'd get squished.
I do fancy a Rumbelow Sheepskin to complete the team but I'm not that precious to drop £23, despite that being £2 cheaper than a plastic Techpriest Manipulus, which I also fancy for some reason.
I rotated the board round to see it from every angle.
The Nurgle team. I added the additional infected rotter, from a Poxwalker for the Parade.
I do think at some point I may buy a Lord of Plagues to convert to go with the team. It's an iconic figure, so much so I think everyone should paint one and for £12, maybe as a star player - a Bilerot Vomitflesh proxy perhaps [not a huge fan of the sculpt], it's decent value [again, see the Manipulus].
But more players for teams I don't play with seems a nonsense at this point.
I've had visions of a Karla Von Kill conversion from a Necromunda Escher gang member for years.
Haven't done it, so perhaps I can resist the temptation to adding to these teams.
But the fun is in the painting, as variety from nids and Dark Angels. Of course they're all done now so it's either dig out some of my old skool 2nd edition teams, or there's that Warhammer Underworlds Vampire warband to take forward.
Da Badland All Blacks [getting used to the name].
These were the main thing I painted for AoP2024, the whole team and two star players.
I had looked at doing a backdrop, but I no longer have access to a large printer.
Additionally, I felt it obscured other folks boards last time, little knowing that wouldn't be an issue.
I could have painted one from scratch, straight onto a piece of board, but I did not have something 2' wide.
I suppose I could have bought some more MDF, but I just didn't think it was warranted.
If I ever think to parade it in person I may go to the effort to do a single sided backdrop, but for now I'm happy with it.
Worth noting the 2 balls in the centre of the board.
And the Dwarven referee - short-sighted and deaf - the best ref!
That's mostly it, just 4 three-quarter diagonal shots to get a feel for the board, enjoy!
And, because I can, I'm gong to give myself a Bloody Great Big Bloody Stamp of Bloody Approval!
