Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

So my Middenheimers were consistent in the final game of the TAGS Mordheim campaign, going out first in the seven way skirmish with a series of pretty bad rolls (5 attacks! No wounds :( ) leaving me with half my guys out of action by turn 3. There was a rout test, it was failed (naturally) and for my poor, beaten up mercs, the war was over.

Overall I really enjoyed playing Mordheim (even if I didn't quite finish painting my warband up by the time the campaign concluded) but it was a little disappointing to confirm what most people say about the game e.g. take as many cheap models with two hand weapons as you can get. It's not that I didn't enjoy the challenge of trying to make my warband work.. but at no point did I feel like my strategy of protecting my guys was finally starting to pay off. Oh well, should we play it again, I have more than enough bits left over to make 14 unarmoured henchmen all dual-wielding clubs.

The upside of going out early was that I finally, finally got to play a game of Infinity with my own Ariadna models (instead of a demo game at a con). I lost, naturally, but I can't really blame the dice too much because for every B:3 ranged attack that should have hit but didn't I would pull off a couple of very unlikely armour saves.. so most of my casualties were just down to user error on my part. We have a few weeks before the Infinity escalation league kicks off so I will hopefully have the time to get my Bauhaus painted up for the tournament and make a start on my Ariadna before the league starts.

My Lumps Have Lumps

So my Middenheimers have now played six, lost six. Against the sisters of Sigmar, things were going okay on my left flank where I managed to take a few models out of action but on the right flank where all the action was.. bleh. My leader, champions, swordsman and an extremely unimpressive freelancer all piled in against a slightly larger group of sisters and nothing happened. The following turn, more sisters piled in and very quickly all my decent guys were out of action, leaving only the two young bloods, two marksmen and a champion. They were preparing to face the tide of red and white coming in from the right but inevitably I couldn't keep making those bottle checks and the game was up.

Match six was against dwarves and it turned into a real meat grinder. I managed to get my opponent to start making bottle checks (a first) but when you are a dwarf warband with leadership 10, bottle checks don't worry you very much. My Middenheimers did their best to wipe them out but as my high leadership guys started to drop out, it was inevitable that I would fail a bottle check before I could finish the job and that's exactly what happened. To add insult to injury my leader ended up with six rolls on the serious injury chart. Ouch! All things considered, it could have been a lot worse but missing the next game - along with the -1 M - is going to relegate him to hiding at the back from now on.

Warband Woes

So four games played and four games lost. I really thought I was going to turn it around this time as a lucky crossbow shot early in the game wounded a ghoul and it riccoched into the nearby vampire, causing him a wound as well. My swordsman henchman charged into combat and finished the vampire off and in an alternate dimension the game was a fantastic success. In reality, my attempt to contain the undead horde on two fronts stalled them for a few rounds but while my warband repeatedly failed to hit or wound for the rest of the game, my opponent fared better and soon over 50% of my Middenheimers were out of action. Naturally I failed the bottle test (again) and it was game over for me. To add insult to injury, one of my young bloods actually died so now I need to replace him. Bother.

On the plus side I also played my first game of X-wing tonight and finally the rules clicked. I look forward to fielding my Scum and Villany ships next week after the next - inevitable - Mordheim defeat.

Bulfar's Expedition - We Fail, Professionally!

Here they are, all six of my mighty* Middenheim Mercs, assembled and green stuffed and ready for their second and third outings tonight.

Sadly, the mad scramble for loot in the ruins of Mordheim was once again filled with Epic Fail and Ulric himself was no doubt facepalming by the end of it. Versus the Dwarves, Bulfar's Expedition lost a henchman to an intercept from another henchman and then my captain's duelling pistol promptly blew up and took him out of the game. My next turn came around and my crew promptly bottled it.

Versus the Vampire warband, Bulfar and his men fared little better. With the enemy closing in on three fronts the Middenheimers cowered in a building  until there was nothing more to do that kick open the door and run screaming into the approaching horde of undead. For a brief moment it looked as though they might plow through the strongest part of the enemies lines but once again, the captain and henchman went down and a bottle test was failed.

Ho hum. Maybe if I paint them this week, they will reward me with better performance.

Not in the face!

So, yesterday I made my first trip into Truro to meet up with the Trelawny's Armies Gaming Society and there I played - and lost - my first game of Mordheim. My poor Middenheimers got it in the face (all six of them) and there were plenty of injuries to go around. It wasn't until the end game that I discovered that models who are on the ground when you fail your morale test are considered "Out of Action" so my tactic of going hero-strong didn't really help me very much since only one of them was on his feet at the end..

..but next time I'll know better. Hide everyone behind a wall and send the henchmen out first!

Giant Robots FTW!

Progress continues - slow as ever - on the Undead Legionnaires from project 2 although still nothing worth taking a picture of. Some Perry Miniatures European Mercenaries arrived today along with some Viking Hirdmen from Gripping Beast.. both were going to form the basis of a kitbashed Mordheim warband since I will be taking part in a campaign starting next week. I anticipate some hasty clipping and gluing over the next five days!

In other news, I've been spending the last few evenings helping Youngest Son assemble one of his birthday presents - a 1/100 MG Jesta from Bandai. He has been surprisingly adept at clipping and assembling (maybe he can make my Mordheim warband for me!) and we have made quite a lot of progress considering how many parts there are.

Finally, The Troll Trader have put up a bunch of their TTCombat terrain up for auction on eBay. This stuff is great value for money at the regular price, so the chance to get it even cheaper should not be passed up.