King of the Hill, game ONE

More practice games for the Lord of the Rings tournament!

The first of today's test games was Hold Ground.  We had not tried this one out yet, and it seemed to be the best one on our 4 x 4 terrain board that we made for the Dragon Shoppe!!



Here's a few shots before deployment..



This is the force that I used for today's games.


Rich brought out his Harad, since he wanted to see what would happen if he brought a Mamuk. It would not take all that long to find out!  This is our deployment.  As you can see, everything is piled up pretty close to the central hill, as that is about all that matters.  You could pretty much play this on a 2 x 2 board.  It is probably the lest thought out of the new scenarios.



The Mamuk is trying to get in position for an inevitable stomp of the squishy elves.



Here you can see the stormcaller has been at work.  Lots of Harad on the ground!



I try to position the elves to make the best use of the Nature's wrath spell, moving the elves through the forests to hammer the hapless Harad..


We almost never tied for the priority roll all dy, so there were not many turns with no shooting due to the "high winds".  However, the Stormcallers continued to roll 6's for their spell, and Harad were constantly on the ground.  The Mumak was the one real hope for the Southlanders...


This is a portent of the killing spree to ensue on the downed Harad...


The high fight skill of the elvse was quite lethal in these combats.  Since so many of them were engaged, there was not much for the archers in the howdah to shoot at...


More Nature's Wrath, more Elf charges, more Dead Harad.  And this is just the end of turn two!  It is looking bleak for the Southlanders...


This would be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.  One of my archers was lucky enough to wound the Mumak itself, creating a courage roll.  Rich's newly purchased dice came up double '1's, giving me control of the big beastie!



So, with control of the great beast, I sent it far from the central hill, also preventing any of the archers in the howdah from shooting.  With the Elves beating up on the Harad near the hill, that was about all she wrote.


Of course, when the stormcallers keep rolling 6's, life is pretty easy.  The next match (same scenario, different Harad list) would show what happens when things don't go as well for the Elven mages!

The wound on the Mumak made me question even more the Army of the Dead as a viable choice in the 'new' game.  They had been doing worse with each test game, never attaining the intended purpose as road blocks and combat partners for the sword elves.  Even with that high defense and shielding, they still would die to mere 6's.  The next match would also show how terror is mostly useless against evil as well.

Stay tuned!!

The Gridiorn Girls...

Here are the rest of the images of the Shadowforge female orc Blood Bowl team.  Again, this was a very rare joint project between Cathy and myself.  She did the flesh tones, and I did the clothes and uniforms.

This time around, we have the coaching staff:
This looks like a typical Bear's offensive coordinator...



I think Jay Cutler could use one of these...



Just tape it up and get back out there!


Massage, anyone?


Work IT!


Now for the blitzers...








And an innocent little fan...



There is a camera crew and news reporter for this team as well.  That is really where the great humor in these Shadowforge teams emerges... in the "extras".  Very fun!

Team Wappel and the Orchids

Here is a project that Cathy and I did years ago.  She painted the flesh tones, while I did the uniforms. This is a Blood Bowl team comprised of Shadowforge female orcs.



What is distinctive about the Shadowforge figures is how humorous they are!  There are also lots of variations in the poses.  It will take a few posts just to show them all!











Now for some cheerleaders!





Here we have a few black orcs...





The next post will feature the Blitzers as well as the extensive coaching staff!

Ultraforge Demon reshoot

I was able to find some bigger images of the Ultraforge Chaos demon today!    I have always liked the Ultraforge miniatures, since they are very convenient for game play.  The magnetized wings are fantastic, making it so much easier to transport.





Also, the way the poses are situated really helps during a game, when you get masses of troops into contact with one of them.  Be it Warhammer or 40k, you can have a big scrum with one of these, as they tend to sit over the heads of the opposing "little guys".





This is especially critical in Warhammer, where this could be bumped up against rows and rows of spearmen, etc.

Planting our hills and rocks for the terrain board.

The last terrain building post!  Now we get to our hills and rocky outcroppings.

Here's a review for those who have not seen the previous post about flocking the main board.  We got our flock together, and made a few mixes of various colors, making sure to mix the fine and course turf together.



Just as we did with the main board, we had a dish of wood glue and lots of newspapers!



While Cathy was flocking the hills, I worked on the rocks.  I used a mix that had more green and coarse turf around the bottom of the rocks, with a finer, more brownish mix on the upper surfaces.







Once the flock is covering the 'rougher' areas where maybe the knife went 'astray', they really have a nice look to them!



Here's Cathy working on the hills.  We also had the flock go down the sides of the hills in some places...





A close up on the hills:


And the whole batch done!  Time to clean off the table!



The finished pieces:


Finally, we add some of our own buildings and trees, and you have a nifty board ready for a battle!!