A tricky start.

Victory! Is something that has eluded me this month :( I managed to get in two games with my 500pt army, against Tom's lizardmen and Glen's dwarves but lost on both occasions. Tom's army consisted mostly of skinks and a shaman, backed up by a stegadon. I tried to use the shadow warriors to distract the stegadon while my sword masters and archers dealt with the skinks but the skins poisoned weapons caught me out and with a mass of 6's killed all the shadow warriors. My archers managed to avoid being charged by the stegadon but lost the chance to shoot effectively in the process. I was counting on my sword masters to kill the skinks when I got close, but the slipery little buggers kept running out of my charge arch and shooting me with there pesky poison. All very frustrating and I lost.

Game two against glen was closer. My shadow warriors just failed to charge his organ gun from the start and were promptly cut down. The organ gun also managed to finish off the sword masters as they advance because the dwarves dispelled my shield of saphrie. My archers did eventually get revenge on the organ gun and my mage had a good go at trying to kill his thane with fury of khaine but in the end he won on points as the warriors who formed the bulk of his army were unharmed.

So not a great start for me but credit to the other guys they are both more experienced and played very well. Next time I'm planning to add a big block of seaguard as they go with the fluff I'm planning to do for the army (more on that later in my next blog) and some extra swordmasters to make the unit more survivable. Not sure how useful the shadow warriors are going to turn out to be but I'll just have to test them out more.

Tale of gamers, amandum, dum, dum....

I know, I know, I keep chopping and changing what I'm doing here but this should be the last slight change.

I went to start the tale of gamers and was planning to do high elves AND salamanders. I quickly realised, however, that time wouldn't allow me to do two armies well. So I faced a choice, two armies poorly or one army well. GW models are too good to do a rushed paint job on and I've always been one for doing stuff properly so I went for just doing one. As I already had over 2000pts fully painted for the salamanders I realised I really should do the high elves.

This is no bad thing, the elves are fun to paint with plenty of detail and 8^th ed. has made them really potent. So, here we go. Out of the grin darkness of the far future and into the chaotic and magical old world we go.

So to start with I need a legal 500pt army, meaning three units and a character and not exceeding the % points allocation. This posed quite a problem as 500pts is really small for fantasy and particularly high elves. Spent my minimum core on archers then split my other points between the a cheap level one mage, (cos elves need magic) some shadow warriors (cos a unit is cheap) and some sword masters, (cos they rock). That balances the books and should be a capable force with magic, combat and shooting potential.

Here's the list

Mage (High magic)
Silver wand

Talisman of protection

120

12 Archers

132

5 Shadow Warrior

Champion

92

8 Swordmasters

Full Command

Gleaming Pennant

155

As this is only 500pts knocked together to the tight specs in the rule book using only the modles I could get painted in time the only plan is give it a go and have fun. Hopefully more of a plan will develop over time as I get more models painted and get used to fantasy.

Hope to have run-downs on my first battles up soon and will eventually write some fluff for the army, but for now I'll just leave you with pics of my first 500pts