Spooktober Battle Report - Skeleton Armies clash for the Cemetary

 With all those skeletons finally painted, the ranks have swollen enough to actually have a full on Skeleton v Skeleton battle, and who better to lead the cemetary takeover than Barbs the vampire.

On the other side, the vampire Fabio commands the other skeleton army.

We decided to have the game on Halloween and choose only skeletons and ghosts.
Mr B approves.

The set up consisted of exactly even points and very few differences in army make up.
Barbs' army consisted of herself armed with the Blood-drinker blade and her familliar, Felix, a unit of skeleton warrios with sword and shield, one unit with spear and shield, grave guard with armour, swords and shields, skeleton archers, two units of skeleton horsemen, two chariots, the screaming skull catapult and a wight lord on a skeletal steed.
The ethereals consisted of a banshee and 4 ghosts (spirit host stats) that we allowed to split up so they could move and attack individually.

Fabio's army consisted of himself, a Von Carstien vampire armed with the blade of kings and heavy armour, a unit of skeleton warrios with sword and shield, one unit with spear and shield, grave guard with two handed scythes, skeleton archers, two units of skeleton horsemen, two chariots, the screaming skull catapult and a wight king on a skeletal steed.

The ethereals consisted of a cairn wraith and 5 ghosts.

The game objective was to control the crypts after each turn with uncontested units to earn skulls with a 6 turn limit. at the end of the game, the skulls hidden under the crypts woul also count towards victory.

TURN 1

Barbs won the roll and starts first by moving all the troops forward, racing the cavarly around the sides and leading with the chariots. Barbs summons 5 zombies from the graves to take control of the crentre crypt. The screaming skull catapult misses a shot at Fabio and destroys one of the gargoyle statues instead. The other gargoyle, being carved in New Zealand and vaguley aware of what has happened asks... 's tat you, bro?

Fabio, flinging back his well kept and perfumed hair, commands the host forward, sending the cairn wraith to challenge the zombies for control of the centre.

His own catapult, aimed at a chariot misses and instead wipes out a few of the spear skeletons, coming unconfortably close to Barbs.

After Turn 1 Barbs controls the centre crypt and recieves a skull.

TURN 2

After holding back the cavalry, Fabio realises he has misjudged the charge distance that can be covered by the horsemen and both flanks are charged by Barbs cavalry.
On the left flank Fabios cavalry are wiped out with assistance from the captain, but on the right flank Fabio's champion does the damage after receiving the charge all too well.

The Wight Lord charges the Wight King and destroys him, taking the crown for himself.

On the right, Barbs' chariot races past and slams into the skeleton spears and Fabio, wounding him and destroying a few skeletons.

On the left, Barbs; other chariot slams head on into Fabio's chariot, killing all but the Charioteer spearman. 

They follow up into the skeleton warrios but take losses and destroy only one.

The banshee positions herslf at the centre crypt.

Two ghosts attack eachother on the left crypt, but end up playing slappy hands as they realise their attacks are passing right through the other.

The banshee lets out a terrifying scream at Fabio and ruptures his eardrums, sending blood flowing out his ears, and severly ruining his balance and composure.

Barbs summons three and a half zombies as a road block for the chariot, which runs over the guy still clawing his way out of the ground, but is effectively tar-pitted for the rest of the game.

The catapult aims for Fabio once more, but the aim scatters (we messed this up a bit) and lands directly on the opposing catapult, destroying it.

On the left flank, Fabio's horsemen and the champion wipe out the remaining opposing cavalry, with the chapions skeletal steed kicking off the skull of the last opponent into the distance, helmet now stamped with a horseshoe imprint.

The Cairn Wraith, seeing his dead wife, the Banshee, has once again had enough of her wailing. He smacks her face in with the butt of his scythe, muttering... shut up, bitch.
"whack"

On the right, Fabio dispatches the chariot with the assistance of the spearmen.
The skeletal archers shoot down three of th ecavary and the ghosts attack the remaining horseman.

On the right, the scythe grave guard engage the new wight king, with the assistace of the Charioteer.
Barb's chariot gets destroyed by the swordsmen and the two ghosts look dumbfounded at eachother, one of them asking... don't I know you?
"Must have been in another life" comes the reply.

At the end of the turn, Barbs controls the right side crypt with 2 ghosts and skeleton archers and gains another skull.

TURN 3

Barbs usues her Flying Horror abolity to trasform into a horrific winged beast and fly across the battlefield to challenge Fabio in single combat.

Fabio obliges. With only one point remaining, she only nned to get past his armour to end him, but, armed with the sword of kings, he only needs to get a good wound

 roll for a killing blow. The wound is not a killing blow. Barbs scores the hit.

She rolls to wound.

Warhammer is a dice game.

The two ghosts finally recognised eachother as enemies and strangle themselves into oblivion.
Even I'm not sure what was going on there.

At the end of Turn 3 Barbs still controls the right crypt and gets another skull.

TURN 4

The moment we had been waiting for arrives as two massive units of skeleton warriors clash for control of the cemetary. With champions smshing rivals apart and bones flying everywhere, the regeneration kicks in and it becomes an epic struggle of destroy and return.

Barbs' catapult crew end such nonsense in a direct hit.

The duel continues, and Barbs' fails to penertate Fabio's armour. He retaliates with a thrust to the head, skewering Barbs through the forehead. It will certainly take her months to recover and she will have a splitting headache the whole time. Robbed of their mistress, her army crumbles. 

Fabio takes control of the cemetary and earns 3 skulls, making the game a draw.

Happy Halloween!

 

The Dead just Keep Coming

 I know, it's out of control.

The Undead Army is complete. It's been complete for years now.

And then I pick up a huge box of minis for a dude selling off his stuff and guess what? Yep, a whole heap more deadies in there. I tried to pass 'em pon, I really did. Sold a couple of old carrion with the riders after I peeled the paint off. A legion of plastic skellies, some fancy old 1992 wights, a few individual metal skellies, and still wound up painting up a load more cavalry and then three added chariots.

Yes. I had a blast.

Empire Army of Wissenburg and the Knights of Morr

 I have no real idea how this came about.

Perhaps I was being thrashed by the unded army so much I wanted to make an army specifically to counter them. Perhaps it was a whole heap more knights and archers in that big box of minis I managed to purchase. Perhaps it was because I was trying to finish the Elector Counts. Maybe I had a cannon, flagellants and a griffon. I guess they gathered of their own accord and here they are, finished!

Most of the knights were the first models I had, and I finally had a plan for them. Two units of the Knights of Morr. Battlemaster models make up the majority with the GW models for the commanders.

I split them into the Knights of the Black Rose and the Raven Knights.
The shileds for the Black Rose were some old skull transfers I had for years and finally used them and painted the gold wreath over them, whilst the Raven Kights shields I attached the wreath directly.

I eneded up selling the halberdiers, crossbow and archers from the Battlemasters set and bought the Empire spearmen and converted them into halberdiers. They are better that the monopose Battlemasters halberdiers but not the lastest GW sculpts. I had already decided on the black, red and white theme, so Wissenland seemed the best infantry option.

I had some old metal flagellants that I originally had painted up as diseased flagellants for the Nugle 3rd edition army. While I was in Goeblins, Germany, I picked up the plastic kit and it took me years to finally finish them off, with the Empire army being the motivation. Throwing in a Bones gravedigger as a witchhunter and adding a printed witchhunter sculpt will buff the infantry.

This gave me the idea that the local populace had become and angry mob, and in a force directed against the undead, even the villiagers would join the army and be motivated by the flagellants. Off to the internets to get some prints and test out some OSL painting technique. This ended up a good spot for the two Bones minis of the barkeep and the blacksmith and why not put the Raven priests in as well?

The hand gunners were purchased with the spearmen and provided another great exercise in speed painting.

The mages I selected were a printed Raven mage and a GW Elementalist.

For a captain I already had Boris from the Elector Counts box.

Artillery was only supposed to be a mortar, but I lacked the crew.
Somehow I ended up with the crew, the great cannon and a hellblaster volley gun with none other than Leonardo Di Cabanossi.

For the last of the infantry, I speed painted the archers in 2 days and gave a few of them some feathers.

To finish off, I painted up the Empire General, a Morr Knight on a Bones Silicone Griffon to serve as the centrepiece for the Army of the Empire!