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Your old west buildings are awesome! I'm guessing you have those to work with Blackwater Gulch too, right?

 RiTides wrote:
Your old west buildings are awesome! I'm guessing you have those to work with Blackwater Gulch too, right?

Yep - I bought them for Blackwater Gulch initially. I only picked up LoTOW fairly recently as I spied a copy of it for a cheap price whereas all the ones I had seen before were for obscene amounts. Glad I did get it as it is a fantastic little game. Both BWG and LoTOW are 28mm (in fact, I think you can probably use whatever scale you want really but 28mm is the most common). The Black Scorpion figures are 28mm 'heroic', meaning they are a smidge bigger than normal so bear that in mind if buying/using them with buildings. Fortunately, the Battleflag buildings are designed with 28mm heroic in mind so are slightly bigger too, I believe.

In other news, forces have been planned for the upcoming Epic battle. Decided to go with Chaos in opposition to the Tyranids. As before, I have been a little bit flexible with regards to the rules in order to a) fit my collection and b) enable me to field and showcase some cool models. My Chaos collection is a bit hodge-podge and cobbled together from leftover Space Marine stands - the lesser daemons, Minotuars, Beastmen, Cultists etc etc are quite difficult to get hold of these days for reasonable sums so I don't really have any of them so I am somewhat limited as to what I can pick. I think they only made the lesser daemons in metal (at least, I haven't seen any plastic ones) - which make them very expensive when they crop up. Add to that the 'Epic Tax' which means anything Epic on Ebay automatically gets a stupid premium added to it by most sellers because it's OOP and the costs are soon ridiculous. It seems a bit self defeating to me; I'm not sure any reasonable person would pay the prices that stuff is listed at so it makes you wonder how these sellers actually sell the stuff. Some of the Tyranid stuff is astronomical.

Chaos force:



Tyranids are organised a bit differently, in order to represent the swarm and synapse creatures. They are arranged in a hexagonal fashion around a Dominatrix. What it does mean is that if a synapse link is killed it can have a knock on effect to the creatures/broods that are connected so it adds a nice bit of tactical nuance to the game. As I have two Dominatrixes, I arranged my force into 2 separate swarms (although they don't have to stick as distinct swarms on the table).

Set-up is complete - waiting for the kids to go to bed and then I can (hopefully) complete this battle. Objectives aren't placed yet but will do so shortly. These photos pretty much encapsulate my relationship with the wargaming hobby in a nutshell. You can see I have good intentions; I mean to base all the buildings properly and paint the bases etc. etc. Unfortunately, like many things, I start on it but never quite get around to finishing. I wish I could be called a hobby butterfly but I can only aspire to that at the moment! At least a hobby butterfly eventually finishes something after flitting from project to project! I just start projects and then flit to another! Anyway, I mean to get at least one Epic army complete by the end of the year - that shouldn't be too hard, the beauty of 6mm was always the ease of painting.









Anyway, the battle prologue:

Praxis IV has suffered greatly, firstly emerging from the cauldron of the Heresy having fallen into Chaos hands and now coming into contact with the outliers of a Tyranid Hive Fleet. The capital city lies half ruined and shell-pocked whilst the few surviving civilian population have long since fled. The Tyranid collective has deemed this world suitable for consumption and are going all out to secure it's mineral resources. However, the occupying Chaos forces have discovered a rich source of Promethium and are unwilling to give up so easily. Mortarion, Angron and Magnus have all deemed it strategically important enough for them to personally face down the xenos menace and have each brought their accompanying Chaos Space Marine warbands to get the job done.

This looks like its going to be fun.

Filbert, that was an awesome little batrep for Legends of the Old West.

How do you like the Black Scorpion Miniatures? I've been looking for decent, yet cheap Western minis. Blackwater Gulch isn't too bad, and Reaper has some decent figs from Chronoscope, but nothing in the oh so cheap bones line. Black Scorpion has like 5 models for like 15 bucks which is 3 dollars a mini! Can't beat that price. And they look stellar. Thoughts on them? and slightly off topic, have you checked out their modern milita figs?

 Alfndrate wrote:
Filbert, that was an awesome little batrep for Legends of the Old West.

How do you like the Black Scorpion Miniatures? I've been looking for decent, yet cheap Western minis. Blackwater Gulch isn't too bad, and Reaper has some decent figs from Chronoscope, but nothing in the oh so cheap bones line. Black Scorpion has like 5 models for like 15 bucks which is 3 dollars a mini! Can't beat that price. And they look stellar. Thoughts on them? and slightly off topic, have you checked out their modern milita figs?

I really like the Black Scorpion models. They are UK based so shipping costs are kept down and the prices are very reasonable. The Outlaws gang and Billy The Kid that I got are in resin and required a small amount of clean-up with minor flash but nothing bad. The quality, sculpting and detail are very good. The Lawmen and Pat Garret are in metal and were more or less good to go without and prep. Likewise, very good sculpts. I believe the Black Scorpion models are 28mm heroic so are slightly larger than other 28mm ranges. This may prove an issue if mixing and matching but I plan to stick with Black Scorpion for my Wild West needs - they do a line of Native Americans and mounted figures and that is all I require for the foreseeable future.

As for their modern lines, I am very tempted especially as I play Force on Force with 28mm figures. At the moment, I use minis from Empress so I would be keen to see how they compare - if the scale difference isn't too wildly apparent, I may go for some in the future.

Sweet, I believe one of the stores in my area carries Black Scorpion Miniatures, so if they do I'll grab them there if not, their prices aren't too bad, and honestly if I get to 50 pounds, it's free shipping and would cover my western needs for all futures

Nice LOTOW batrep. I believe tehy released a few supplements for the game as well. Plains War maybe?

 Easy E wrote:
Nice LOTOW batrep. I believe tehy released a few supplements for the game as well. Plains War maybe?

The Alamo: Victory or Death
Frontier: Blood on the Plains
Showdown

I've got them all, haven't had a look through them yet.

Well I couldn't resist and picked up a few Man O War ships for the start of a Skaven fleet

 GiraffeX wrote:
Well I couldn't resist and picked up a few Man O War ships for the start of a Skaven fleet

Nice! Did you get a good price? I want to do a Skaven fleet but ebay prices put me off + I still need to find the Sea of blood rulebook (I have all the cards and templates just not the book)

I managed to get a good price on a few, I still need two more units plus allies or a Sea Monster to fill out 1000 points worth.

Not keep going back to LotOW, but how did you do the rosters for your posses?

 Alfndrate wrote:
Not keep going back to LotOW, but how did you do the rosters for your posses?

I just used the section in the main rulebook that describes it then chose some generic cowboys and deputies from the samples listed.

Finally finished the Tyranid/Chaos Epic fight this afternoon - apologies for the delay! I had an absolute blast playing it although I did think it would be over very quickly; the Nids got a real pasting in the first turn as you will soon see but as it went on and things evened out, it turned into a very enjoyable fight. I have never fought with Nids in Epic before and fell into the trap of initially thinking they were close combat orientated at the expense of everything but that really isn't true - they can pump out some real firepower too. Anyway on with the fight (50 Victory Points need to win by the way).

Turn 1:

Nothing special in the movement phase, both armies trundled towards one another. The bulk of the Tyranid army moved on charge orders attempting to close the gap. The combat phase proved to be a bit of an eye opener. The main casualty was the Heirophant bio titan which took a pasting from the Banelord titan suffering 6 wounds. One of those wounds caused a critical hit on the head and the subsequent roll on the damage table caused a further 4 wounds, causing the Bio-Titan to fall over. To add to the disappointment, in the End phase an exceedingly craptacular regeneration roll meant the bio titan expired without having fired a shot - some 700 points and 7 VPs gone in a flash. On the right flank, the Cannon of Khorne attempted to fire at the advancing Tyranid warrior brood - one cannon misfired and exploded, one scattered off target but the third found it's mark and killed a stand. On the left flank, the Hormagaunt brood at the front of the advance took casualties from the Land Raider detachment and having broke, went onto instinctive orders.





VPs

Nids - 15
Chaos - 29

Turn 2:

Turn 2 continued in much the same vein as the first with the bulk of the Tyranids advancing as fast as possible. With the loss of the Heirophant, it fell to the smaller brother the Heirodule to engage the threat from the Banelord and Lord of Battle. Meanwhile, the Firelord zoomed over the advancing termagants and dropped bombs on them, killing half the brood.



Moving into the meat of the turn, things were looking up for the Nids on the right hand side where a combination of fire from Exocrines and assault from Lictors managed to break the detachment of Land Raiders who promptly managed to fail their 2+ morale test. The Heirodule sheltering in the ruins drew fire from the Titans and took some wounds as well as damage to it's Bio cannon which I failed to regenerate in the end phase so it would be out of action the next turn. A nearby Dominatrix managed to inflict some damage on the Lord of Battle by blowing its cannon arm off.



VPs

Nids - 21
Chaos - 33

Turn 3:

The Tyranids started to step up their game. The Harriden was flying around in the rear of the Chaos army, causing casualties and picking off objectives. Whilst the Tyranids gain no victory points from holding objectives, they can take VPs away from the opposing army and this proved to be the case here. Throughout the battle, the Harriden helped to steal 10-15 VPs away from the Chaos army. On the left flank, a combination approach of Tyranid Warriors, Hive Tyrants and a Dominatrix opened up on the Thousand Sons and Magnus - who was only prevented from dying by sacrificing Chaos cards.



On the right, the Dominatrix fired at the Lord of Battle again and this time damaged the left wheel, meaning it would be unable to turn left. The Heirodule continued to hold firm - it had regenerated it's wounds (aside from the damaged weapon) but fired it's spine clusters at the Banelord and took down 4 void shields.



VPs

Nids - 27
Chaos - 34

Turn 4:

Battle is joined as the Dominatrix and friends crash into Magnus. Magnus turns out to be equally adept at close combat as the Dominatrix and inflicts several wounds on it with none in return.



In the centre, Angron fancies some action and ploughs into the Heirodule. He easily defeats it in combat and inflicts a critical hit on the Bio Titan's head plus yet more wounds. The Lord of Battle and Dominatrix have a barney but neither is able to get the upper hand. On the right hand side, Mortarion uses his plague wind ability to wipe out a brood of termagants. The accompanying Death Guard battle in close assault with the Lictors and come off a bit worse for wear - even more surprising given the Lictors were outnumbered but some good close combat rolls ensured only one Lictor stand was killed in reply to 6 Death Guard stands - this was enough casualties to break the Death Guard regiment.



VPs

Nids - 32
Chaos - 37

Turn 5:

Into the endgame now - most units are tied up in close assault. On the left flank, whilst Magnus is holding his own with the Dominatrix, his Thousand Sons legion take heavy casualties from flanking Tyranid warriors and is broken.



Over on the other side, the Heirodule continues to take a pounding but remains standing, largely due to some fortuitous regen rolls in the end phase. The Lord of Battle crushes the Dominatrix in close assault and the beat can only regen 1 wound which wasn't enough to save it. Mortartion and friends finish off the Lictors and hold the flank, aside from a solitary Hive Tyrant in front of them. The Harriden continues to buzz around in the rear, despite being targeted by the cannon of Khorne who can only take 1 wound from it.



At this point, I had to go and cook dinner - totting up the VPs meant that the Chaos army were 2 shy of victory so I decided to award them a narrow victory. There was probably more than enough Chaos left on the table to mop up the remaining Tyranid forces and I think they had just about shaded it but it was a close run thing.

VPs

Nids - 42
Chaos - 48

I really enjoyed using my Tyranids for the first time and it made a nice change having some different army mechanics to get used to. It really is a bit of a shame that the Hive War supplement came out when it did, late in the 2nd Ed cycle as I think there was some real possibilities there. As it stands now, the models are incredibly expensive, at least on Ebay anyway, purely by dint of fact the so few people played and bought them so the supply is low. Even my army is cobbled together from original 2nd Ed Nids and later models that used the long 'strip' style bases. The Bio Titans (or I should say, Bio Titan since the Heirophant bit the big one in turn 1) was a real beast - really hard to put down. In the Hive War book, it does mention on several occasions that players choose to pump more shots into them, even when they have exceeded the total wounds, purely to cope with the regeneration. The Heirodule did very well; I managed to regenerate nearly 6 wounds every turn which kept it plugging away.

On the Chaos side of things, I love being able to field the Primarchs and their legions. The Chaos army has a number of Chaos cards dealt out at the start of the game; you can either play them and calculate whatever effects are described on the card or you can hold on to them and use them to negate any wounds suffered by a Primarch. Magnus would have died several times over but I used the Chaos cards to keep him alive. As expected, Angron was a beast in combat and Mortarion's Plague Wind wiped out several broods at a stroke. It's probably a bit cheesy taking all 3 of them in one go but hey, I'm not in competition or anything. It does raise an interesting question about balance; I'm not sure how well or balanced Epic is - I seem to remember my Orks would be consistently pounded by my Mates marines + Imperator and there was little I could do in return but that could just as much be because I am crap at the game rather than any balance issue. I think the two armies here stacked up well against one another and despite a shaky first turn or so for the Tyranids, it really could have gone either way at the end.

The only downside was the amount of flicking through books and cross-referencing I had to do. In part, this is because I am old and forget rules/stats easily so have to keep looking them up, partly because with a new army like the Tyranids there are a bunch of special rules that are unique and I have never seen before and partly because GW games of this era thrived on cards, tables, stats and so on. It seemed to be a product of the age or a trend in GW game design; I seem to remember 2nd Ed 40K came with a gamut of wargear cards and so forth; 2nd Ed Epic is no exception and the expansions just add more cards to it all. The other thing to note is you need a bit of space to keep track of all the casualties, Hive Minds, detachments etc. and space is at a premium in my room so it is all a squeeze.


Anyway, it was a hard fought battle that took me about 3 or 4 hours over several evenings but it was good fun - Epic like I remember from the old days. I remember Epic games that were the most fun I have ever had playing wargames and after playing it again recently, I can see why; it isn't just me wearing rose-tinted glasses, it really is an excellent game. In fact, I would go as far as to say it ranks right up there in the pantheon of great GW games, perhaps not number one but certainly top 5.


Next on the agenda, I fancy a change of pace and something quicker so I think I might have a game or two of Blood Bowl. Unlike practically every other game system I won, I have more or less every Blood Bowl team and they are almost all completely painted - I had a spurt of motivation about a year ago and completed a load of teams in couple of feverish months.

That was a great battle my main EPIC army used to be Chaos I must have been really bad I never won a game literally not one against my mate

I've not seen Tyranids before they came out after I stopped playing wargames, they look very interesting.

Yea for Blood Bowl love that game I even have the pc version as I loved it so much. Please don't make want to start collecting teams again....I keep looking at the minis by Willy Miniatures every now and then, they are amazing but expensive.

 GiraffeX wrote:
That was a great battle my main EPIC army used to be Chaos I must have been really bad I never won a game literally not one against my mate

I've not seen Tyranids before they came out after I stopped playing wargames, they look very interesting.

Yea for Blood Bowl love that game I even have the pc version as I loved it so much. Please don't make want to start collecting teams again....I keep looking at the minis by Willy Miniatures every now and then, they are amazing but expensive.

The Renegades supplement is a bit odd, at least with regard to Chaos, as it feels a bit unfinished inasmuch as the Chaos list effectively feels like you are playing naughty marines - ie. regular Space Marines but with a few added bells and whistles. So you get to use all the standard Imperial stuff with some extra Chaos units like daemons and Minotaurs/Beastmen. Which is fine but the book is missing the colour of the unique and weird and wonderful Chaos machines. The Renegades book has a couple of Khorne daemon engines but that is about it; it was left to a few issues of White Dwarf to expand on the Chaos force by adding in rules for Silver Towers of Tzeentch, Plague Towers and the Firelord/Doomlord that I used in my battle here. So really, you need the Renegades book and the additional White Dwarf material to get the most out of the Chaos forces.

I never saw the Tyranids either as they came out after I had left the Epic/GW fold but when I started collecting my Epic forces once more a few years ago, I saw them crop up and was interested. I managed to get both a copy of Hive War and a small Tyranid force for a good price and have slowly built it up over some time - part of my buying ethos is to remain patient and wait for a bargain so I have been unswayed by the high prices. It is much harder to find them cheaply but every once in a while, they crop up.

Blood Bowl on the other hand, is much easier to collect given that the game you buy from GW's site now is essentially the same (3rd ed?) Blood Bowl box set that I bought some 20 years ago (with a few minor differences - back then, Deathzone was a separate supplement but now it has been subsumed into the main rules). The advantage to this is that there are tonnes of miniatures available so you can pick up a team relatively inexpensively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Squeezed in a quick game of Blood Bowl this afternoon - I am going to be playing a few games as each game is relatively quick to play so I am planning a sort of winner stays on format. First up was the Lustrian Croakers versus the Zhar-Naggrund Ziggurats. Here's the line-up:





The Chaos Dwarves are going for a tactic of packing the middle. They win the roll and opt to receive. The game continues with an early breakaway by a skink down the left side but he is caught and tackled by a covering hobgoblin.



The Chaos Dwarves retrieve the ball and immediately counter-drive. The Lizardmen are unable to stop the attack and the Hobgoblin crosses the line at the end of the 7th turn!



In the second half, the Lizardmen receive the kick off and get a good bounce. They start to press down the sidelines again.



At this point, it looks like a score is inevitable but before he manages to cross the line, a covering Hobgoblin manages to dodge out of a tackle zone and bring him down. The ball scatters but no-one picks it up.



The game ends with a scrap in the back field between several players. Eventually, the Lizardmen get the upper-hand and a skink nips over the line to level the score.



End of the 7th turn and the game goes to sudden death overtime - it ends somewhat anti-climatically when the receiving Hobgoblin fumbles the ball, gets crumped by a tackle and the Lizardmen score a game winning TD.

That looks like a great game of blood bowl, and a good looking pitch setup too.

I have orc, human and dark elf teams and this has really inspired me to get them out again.

Do you have necromunda? That is another top class specialist game which I was sorry to see dropped by GW.

Blood Bowl is good fun, and as teams advance can lead to a lot of interesting tactical decisions. It is one of my favorite GW games, and is very replayable.

Do you plan on revisiting Aeronautia Imperialis, or is that one too recent?

rohansoldier wrote:That looks like a great game of blood bowl, and a good looking pitch setup too.

I have orc, human and dark elf teams and this has really inspired me to get them out again.

Do you have necromunda? That is another top class specialist game which I was sorry to see dropped by GW.

I don't have Necromunda - it came and went in the interim period when I wasn't wargaming but I may visit it at some point in the future. I also have plans to start Mordheim since I have a small (3x3 or thereabouts) Fantasy village board that would be perfect for Mordheim.

Easy E wrote:Blood Bowl is good fun, and as teams advance can lead to a lot of interesting tactical decisions. It is one of my favorite GW games, and is very replayable.

Do you plan on revisiting Aeronautia Imperialis, or is that one too recent?

Never played Aeronautica Imperialis - the problem being that as it is FW, picking up the relevant bits is somewhat expensive.


Anyway, squeezed another brief game of Blood Bowl between my victorious Lustrian Croakers team and the Dwarven Giants. It all ended up as a bit of a skirmish in the middle really, neither side managed to break out too much until the last part of the second half when an untimely fumble allowed the Dwarves to score the only TD of the game. I may and try and play one more game today, time depending or I might move on to another game. Photo highlights below:

The teams line up beforehand.



The game turns into a slog in the centre of the pitch



Action building up to the match winning TD



Thoughts on Blood Bowl? Well, I think Blood Bowl as it is today is truly an example of what can be achieved when GW actually listen to the people that play their games. The BB box set that you buy from GW today is a product of 10 years or more of listening to fan feedback and incorporating changes the community have made in the Living Rulebook into the 'official' rules, the upshot being a game that is infinitely playable, enjoyable, easy to pick and easy to learn. I guess my only criticism of Blood Bowl is that games can still get bogged down in block battles in the middle of the park but that can just as much be players not focussing on the objective of scoring and more focussing on injuring their opponent! Blood Bowl is still as fresh and as fun to play today as it has always been and that can only be testament to a great rule-set. It's not the most complicated game in the world but then again, it doesn't pretend to be; this harkens back to the days when GW's criteria for releasing a game was whether it was fun or not, not whether it could drive sales or tie into a movie or what have you.

Anyway, next up will either be a Man O War or BFG battle, this time with expanded forces. Any preferences as to which?

 filbert wrote:


The Renegades supplement is a bit odd, at least with regard to Chaos, as it feels a bit unfinished inasmuch as the Chaos list effectively feels like you are playing naughty marines - ie. regular Space Marines but with a few added bells and whistles. So you get to use all the standard Imperial stuff with some extra Chaos units like daemons and Minotaurs/Beastmen. Which is fine but the book is missing the colour of the unique and weird and wonderful Chaos machines. The Renegades book has a couple of Khorne daemon engines but that is about it; it was left to a few issues of White Dwarf to expand on the Chaos force by adding in rules for Silver Towers of Tzeentch, Plague Towers and the Firelord/Doomlord that I used in my battle here. So really, you need the Renegades book and the additional White Dwarf material to get the most out of the Chaos forces.

I never saw the Tyranids either as they came out after I had left the Epic/GW fold but when I started collecting my Epic forces once more a few years ago, I saw them crop up and was interested. I managed to get both a copy of Hive War and a small Tyranid force for a good price and have slowly built it up over some time - part of my buying ethos is to remain patient and wait for a bargain so I have been unswayed by the high prices. It is much harder to find them cheaply but every once in a while, they crop up.

Nice battle report. 2 of the most lethal close combat armies in Epic whacking each other silly! Love it

On Chaos, it did take them a while to see Daemon Engines for all the four powers. These were the Slaanesh and Nurgle Daemon Engines (Slaanesh had two Scout Titans and three different Knight detachments - appeared in White Dwarf 190. Nurgle had the Greater Daemon Plague Tower and Contagion Plague Engine catapults - White Dwarf 188). It's worth getting those (and the Ordinatus if you can - White Dwarf 191)

Ah, the times when you got brand new rules in White Dwarf!

I would like to see Man O' War as your rarely see that game being played with larger lists anymore, and I do like a Naval combat game.

Too bad about Aeronautica Imperialis. You can find the quickstart rules easy enough, and the special bases can be two 10 sided die instead or marked on a seperate sheet. The models can be a bit tougher, even using old Epic fliers.

If you are interested in giving it a go, PM me.

I'm down for whichever, but I'd rather see a larger game of Man O War since I've not really gotten a chance to experience that game. I've seen BFG played a few times, but no one has really done Man O War.

Another vote for Man O'War

OK well Man O War it is. I think I will give my Dark Elf fleet a shot against their Elf cousins

Gives me a chance to use my Black Ark of Naggaroth which I have always rated as an excellent mini - for some reason, I really like it!

I'll tally up the fleets later on this evening and get things set up.

Ahh the Black Ark of Naggaroth my favourite ship, I just love the way it moves however it likes and pushes all the other ships out of the way

Setting up tonight but I probably won't get a chance to start playing until tomorrow at the earliest.

I actually have 6 Doomreavers but I have had to drop 3 for this fight - annoyingly, I only seem to have cards for 3....



Yet more unpainted miniatures to join the serried ranks of the grey/metal hordes. It's enough to make one depressed...



The forces should be roughly equivalent, although with the loss of three Doomreavers, the Dark Elf force is probably slightly weaker than the Elf one but we shall see.

Looking forward to this. Can you get some pictures of the ship cards part way through the fight? Not often you see that - Man O'War is the only game where the booking side takes up nearly as much space as the main battlefield!

I don't know how you keep all these games stored and organized enough to be able to pull out and play like this! Well done just on that count alone

Where did you get these smaller scale buildings from? Or are they card / printed?

It's all stored under the table mostly, with liberal use of shelving units. It is a bit of a squeeze, especially in my gaming room, which is tiny, but I just about manage.

The Epic buildings in that photo are all from different editions of the game. The grey card buildings with the plastic roofs are from the 2nd Ed Space Marine box set, the bluish card buildings in the middle are from the Titan Legions box set and the plastic gothic ruined buildings in the background are from the Epic Armageddon box set.