This is not the Old Guard...

...because they are not. These are not the Victrix models but the ones from Perry Miniatures.

I haven't assembled the Victrix ones yet.

These are French Line Infantry models from Perry Miniatures. They are as tall as the GW ones but not as fat. There are a LOT of extra heads in the sprue. Apparently, I can cut off the heads off the models and then cement in the extra heads. And some of those heads are damn nice.

At this moment, I won't. But I might use those heads for the next few boxes (intent already there) to bring out some different characters.

On another note, I played another Fantasy game yesterday impromptu. I used the Skaven rulebook and YC's models. The highnote of the game came right off the start when the Greyseer tried to grow whiskers on Teclis (oh what fun if that spell actually IF-ed on 9 dices rolled.).

The game brought back a lot of fond memories. Fond memories of me and YC pairing up. Us two are the well-known fluffers in dice-rolling, which created many hapzardous and eventually hilarious results for our armies. The misfiring Warp Cannon which did a Death Ray stunt on the entire battleline (ours) and many others.

Skaven is a fun army to play, as long as your aim is not winning. It's too random for some but you will always end up with a good laugh while playing. I should borrow YC's Skavens more.

The Eagle Has Landed...

Word has come in that my Imperial Legion has arrived. That's right, the Old Guard is here.

Tml I'll rush off to meet the guys and collect them, then I'll have the time of my life putting them together. Muahahaha.

Withdrawal Symptoms...

On the same day that I finally grabbed the chance to play against Nids, I also grabbed a game against YC in 8th Ed Fantasy. 1k Points. I was using a hastily drawn up DE list and YC was using a hastily drawn up HE list by Defu. The game was to let me get some knowledge on the changes in 8th Ed.

What an eye-opener the game was.

The changes are in a few rules of the game, but these rules have made the game so different.

One of the most core part of Fantasy was Charging, and now Charging is randomised. No longer does our experienced eye gives us the ability to decide if a charge is possible. With the 2D6 implementation, the success of a charge now lies in the luck of my roll.

How it really really affects our meta-game still bears testing out. But can Fantasy gamers recover from a failed charge that resulted from a bad roll? Things become more fast and furious.
HE is really boosted in 8th Ed. ASF now gives them hatred as well as they get to re-roll failed hit rolls if their Initiative is equal or higher. This makes Swordmasters ridiculously nice. Hatred + high WS + ASF + Str 5 + 2 attacks each = Yes Sir, may I have more?

YC used to complain that he prefers Hatred to ASF. Now HE gets both. This makes it more important for DE to get the ASF banner for our unit-killer. ASF will cancel each other out and we still get our Hatred. I guess my CoK won't get retired any time soon. Or maybe it is time for my Black Guards to step up to the batter's mound.

For HE, Dragon Princes with their I6 also appears attractive. MSUing Dragon Princes/Swordmasters may reap benefits while I only have one ASF banner.

Magic is also fiercer now, and bringing a decent-levelled Wizard seems to be a must now, if only to get the bonus to dispel to cancel the opponent's bonus to cast.

I went to PI (which was nearby) after the games and was seduced by something innocuously mild.

MUNCHKINS!!

Since CM has the card game, I went ahead and bought an expansion set to go along with his. I'm looking forward to getting some games with him and Eileen. Backstabbing is back with a vengeance. =D

Together with the introduction of RPG-ness into my life, I began to suffer from withdrawal symptoms. It's been literally months since I had immersed myself in RPGs. The current game of the month is Starcraft 2, but I've already completed the campaign and is now in multiplayer mode. And this is after a month of playing Civ 4 Colonization and a few months of Civ 4 HoTK mod. And the game before this was Anno 1404.

I need a Dungeon Crawler and I would love for anyone to recommend me a good Dungeon Crawler that I can sink into. One that has replayability and random rewards. Already, Diablo 2 has started its beckoning to me. Perhaps I may re-install this excellent game...


Now.

First game against Nids.

Finally back in action this month, and first game against Raymond's Tyranids. It's a new enemy and I totally relished the chance to get claws sinked into my men.

Raymond asked for a 1k game as he was preparing for a tournament (that involved plenty of MIG - Mech IG) and so I obliged.

The MIG list that I took was :

CC Squad - 4 Meltas - Chimera

CC Squad - 4 Meltas - Chimera

Vet Squad - 3 Meltas - Chimera

Vet Squad - 3 Meltas - Chimera

3 x Banewolfs

Raymond's Nids had :

2x Tervigon

2 x 2 Hive Guard

1 Doom on Malan'tai

2 x 8 Genestealers

1x 10 T.Gaunt Brood

Mission : KP
Deployment : Dawn of War

I deployed 1 CCS and the 2 Melta-vets mid-table and Raymond reserved everything.

Turn 1 came and went with nothing happening. IG units came in to take the midfield. Nids came in the Tervigons which sprouted more Broods. 1 rolled double 5s and had its *** jammed. Hive Guard shot nothing due to Nightfight rules.

Turn 2, IG tried to thin down the ranks of the Gaunts providing cover for the Hive Guards. Nids came in DoM behind the Vets and 1 Genestealers swarming in from outflank ready to eat sardines. Spore immobed 1 CCS Chimera. Hive Guards managed to pop open 1 Chimera and its Melta-vets came out. Doom leeched 3 more wounds off the Vets but rolled 6 for its D3. Genestealers fed well.

Turn 3 saw the IG melting the Spore down into goo. 1 Hive Guard failed cover saves and was melted. 1 Banewolf flamed the Genestealers down to 3. Nids came in last Genestealer which managed to wep destroy 1 chem cannon off a Banewolf. Hive Guards moved up but were useless. Tervigons finally came out of hiding to open cans. The 3 remaining Genestealers from the first batch immobed the Banewolf that flamed it.

Turn 4 saw the newly-introduced Genestealers chem-flamed away. 1 Hive Guard unit was finally fully removed after failing cover saves. Last remaining Genestealers were all melted to death. Doom came to eat a CCS that came out of a immobed Chimera. 1 Tervigon sprouted eggs but again rolled double 5s. No more bugs hatching. The same Tervigon popped open the last Melta-vet chimera, exposing the juicy bits inside. 2nd Tervigon ripped a Banewolf apart.

Turn 5 saw the last moving Banewolf tank shock the Tervigon out of its way and flaming 2 wounds out of the last Hive Guard unit. The juicy Melta-vets took down the last Hive Guard before been eaten by the hungry Gaunts surrounding them. 2nd CCS melted Doom into goo. Sensing KPs, the Tervigons went on a Banewolf-hunting spree, taking down the last 2 Banewolfs and an immobed Chimera.

Turn 6 saw the IG CCS melting down Gaunts, earning 1 more KP. Nids failed to claim 1 last KP when the CCommander threw 5 and 6 for 2 5+ invul saves.

Game ended in a draw with 8 KPs apiece.

The Elves have risen...

And my order of Mantic elves from maelstrom has arrived and collected.
Thanks to YC for ordering them using his account.

I have already assembled one of the boxsets, that is 20 spearelves, 20 bowelves, 10 scouts and 1 RBT.

I like the SpearElves. They may look obscenely thin as compared to other models, (looking more like skeletons of elves than the actual elves..), but their model looks nice. One thing I especially liked was that for the arm of the elves holding the spear, they created a clip on option. There's a round bit jutting out from where the arm is on the main body and the arms have a whole on them.

This allows you to basically clip the arms on and try out different poses, as well as swivelling the arms around to achieve different angles on the spears and thus different poses too.

One part I didn't quite like was that they reused the same body mold for the spearelves as well as the bowelves. Basically, the only difference between both is that one has a arm holding a spear and the other has a arm holding a bow.

One Pro I can think of having the body this way is that in the event I want more spearelves (since I have left-over arms), I can easily switch the bow-arms for spear-arms. Thereby changing the configuration of 50 from the 20-20-10 mix. But then the left-over arms I have number only 2 per box, so it will take a few boxes before it makes a significant impact.

But the con is that sharing the same body mold, they look the same. There isn't any elf doing the in the midst of shooting pose. And my bowelves all have shields. It seems like they created spearelves first, and then created the bow-arms as an afterthought to add variety.

The RBT was simple to assemble. It doesn't really have the same wow factor that the GW Dark Elf RBT had, but it suffices (since the HE RBT also didn't have any wow factors..). The GW Dark Elf RBT stands by itself as one of the best models out there.

I cast a cursory glance over my models from GW, and I note that other than my 20 Spearelves, 16 (or so) Executioners and 12 Black Guards, the rest I have are Cavalry. The addition of 100 elves into the mix would significantly boost the infantry numbers although only 50 is assembled now.

But now... I can't wait for my Napoleonic Guards to arrive.