On the viability of combat characters

Now that the OK army book has been out for a while and the dust is starting to settle, we can see that Ogre Kingdoms really is a well-designed army. The defining trait of any well-designed army is, to me, that you have a good number of units to choose from when look at each and every slot in the army. And by slots I mean Lords, Heroes, Core, Special, and Rare choices. Ogre Kingdoms has this almost everywhere.

You can go with all Bulls or Ironguts in Core, mix it up, and add Gnoblars to taste. Taking just Gnoblars as Core is something I haven't seen an effective list with, but having one weaker choice out of three isn't that bad.

Most Rare choices are also viable at least, and deciding which to pick (and which to leave at home) can be a nightmare. Sure, some choices are better than others, but on a whole there's three, arguably four, very solid choices in the Rare section of the book.

Special choices are the same. Three very solid choices vying for points, with the other three also useful-to-very useful in various builds. Very nicely designed and probably the best section in the book.

Btw, don't think of this as my version of an OK review. I'll do a more in depth one later, this is just superficially what's good.

If we move to characters, Heroes specifically, we see the same thing. Both wizard and fighter characters are useful, although the Hunter and the Firebelly are probably more situational than the Bruiser and the Butcher. Still, you can get pretty tight on Heroes points if you don't watch out!

Where am I going with this, you ask? And how on earth does this all tie in with the post's title?

Exciting News!

After a busy weekend and some time to 'recover' I'm back to post more stuff! Have a few things planned for this week, including updates on my painting, campaign news, and some reviews for an Ogre unit or two (much like my Leadbelchers one). Plenty of stuff for those interested!

But I wanted to start with something really cool. Those who know me can tell you that I always get excited when new armies are released for either Fantasy or 40k. No matter which one it is, my initial reaction will always be: "Cool! I want it! Let's see what kinds of lists I can build with the new book!"
This always leads to me buying the new book and very often also to me buying one (or more) of the new kits.

So it won't come as a surprise that the following news got me really excited!

Apparently, GW is planning on releasing small army lists for (mostly) previously unreleased factions in the Warhammer World, including several kits and characters for each of them!

So far rumour has it they're planning to release no less than 5(!) factions over an as-of-yet undetermined period of time, but supposedly the first one will be released sooner than expexted (6 monts?).

The factions as they are known by the interwebz now are: Kislev, Araby, some kind of Insectoids, and something with pikes (Tilea?).

Kislev will unsurprisingly be the first one released. I say unsurprising because they have been released as a side faction before, and supposedly many of the older models will be re-released, although there's mention of new horses and a new ice sorceress!

Overall, I am very thrilled to hear this. Normally I wouldn't just repeat rumours on here, but I think that this, if true, is an absolutely wonderful idea by GW to explore the factions on the fringe of the Warhammer World and simultaneously release cool new stuff!

Can't wait for these releases!

Oh yes, almost forgot to mention the most important thing: these releases will not affect the release/updates of any of the established armies. So no need to worry!

Btw, all info comes from warseer. There's more info than what I posted here, but just check the link and you can see for yourself! The first post should be updated with new info as it becomes available, so keep an eye on that. I know I will!

Fantasy Campaign - Turn 4 movement

Today we played the fourth turn in our 8 turn Fantasy Campaign. For those people who don't know, it's a map based campaign with a secret mission to capture certain territories for each player. It's all about attrition as we play battles every turn and lose units that die/flee, but we can only "buy back" units up to 500 pts or
so each turn. With each player's total army worth 6500 pts 500 isn't that many!

I can explain in more detail what happened where but after moving our Army Banners on the map we ended up with three battles. 3500 pts OnG vs 3000 HE was the big one. Would this be the battle where the greenskins got their revenge for the beating they received in T2?

The second battle was part II of the battle HE and Skaven fought last turn, 2000 vs 2000. Last turn ended in a draw which meant we would have to refight, but only with the troops left/bought back. Could the Skavrn finally dislodge the Elves from their hold on the Skaven flank?

And the final battle is between two 500 pts scout forces, HE vs Skaven. Nothing too important now, but the way our campaign is set up, Scout forces can play an important role later since they can provide an easy 500 pts boost to another army. Trying to do what damage you can to enemy Scout forces can only help later, since no player is likely to spend his precious 500 replenishment points on a lowly Scout Force!

So plenty of action going on and with plenty more to come. For instance, there is a 1000 pts HE banner making it's way to the Skaven Capitol...

And also, being at the Campaign's midway point, the time to start moving to claim those Objectives is very near!

More later!

Another victim!

Yes, I dragged someone else into my web! Or rather, I found a mate who'll commit to painting each month as well. It's my good friend, the OnG player from our campaign, an he's pledged to paint 100 pts a month. Since he never visits Warseer he won't join the Tale officially, but that's ok since I'll just show his progress on here!

These are the Night Goblins he's done for the last month, 20 Archers + Full Command and 3 Fanatics. Not exactly sure how many points it is, but I do believe the Fanatics alone are 75 pts so he's well over his target points.

I think he's done a cracking job of painting the Goblins and I really like the red as a spot colour. If you look at the pic and wonder why that model on the left is more grey than the rest, well, that's GW's grey varnish special again! I don't know what it is with that stuff but it just does that sometimes. Another mate of mine has had that happen to an army as well (ironically, also Night Goblins). Annoying!

Actually, I've been outdone this month, since in spite of what I've painted, I didn't do a matching moving tray, and he has!

I'm not sure yet what his next 100 pts will be, but I know I'm looking forward to seeing the finished result!

Anyone else wanna join too?

Painting Madness - Month 1

Madness I tell you!

And the first month is in the books... Well, for me it was more a long weekend than a month, but that's my own fault for not joining sooner. It's not as though as I hadn't been painting Clanrats already...

I'll keep it nice and short for this one. I'll just show you what I've done and talk about what is coming next!

First up, Skaven!

Leadbelchers and how they fit...

by Lew_b81, not me!

I have been painting my @ss off...

I'll show more pictures when I make them, but suffice to say I'm having more fun painting now than I have had in a loooong while...

So much for the small painting update, let's get to the post for today:

As some of you might have noticed, I play Ogres. Part of the fun for me is looking around the interwebz and seeing what other people are writing about the big bullies. Mostly I look at tactics and reviews, often I look at rules queries, sometimes I look at cool models, and very occasionally I get mixed up in silly power level debates...

Now, Nike is doing a review on his blog, which you can find here, and I think so far he's doing a good job. I  don't always agree with him, but hey, there isn't a person in the world I agree with all the time. It's nice and refreshing to read other people's views, especially if they differ from mine.

One of the points we differ on is on how we view leadbelchers. In short, I feel they are a valid choice. And I thought I should write a more in depth post on why I feel they are.

Painting Madness - Progress Report

This is what I've been working on yesterday and today.

Since I decided to sign up for Tale of the Painters (yesterday!) I pretty much had just one day left for my first batch of models.

Now, I can paint pretty fast (one of the few advantages of regularly painting armies for tournaments in the 48 hrs before the start) but I wanted to finish these models to a slightly higher standard, plus I didn't have that much time to paint anyway.

So, to recap, the goal each month is to paint a set number of points. The total number of points is either 1000 or 2000, so that would make 100 or 200 pts a month for 10 months.
For the remaining 2 months you can use a Joker, which basically allows you to skip a month when it is impossible to paint due to real life stuff. Personally my goal is to ignore Jokers exist. Once I start skipping months I know it'll be that much harder for me to get back to painting.

We'll see!

Here's what I've been up to.