Announcing: Tales of Battle

Tired of a magazine where their army lists are crap, tactics are total BS, and the army reports are contrived. Well, so am I.

Which is why I'm announcing the launch of a brand new Magazine, Tales of Battle.

This is Not another e-zine that will put out 2-3 issues and die out.

This is a real bi-monthly magazine that will be published and delivered into your hands for perusing.

Tales of Battle will be covering Independent Grand Tournaments and bring you pictures of great looking armies, tales of great battles and tactics you can take to the tabletop the next day.

The main feature, called Table One, will be a recreation of the round 5 battle on the top table of the GT. Would you want to miss a Jordan Braun vs Todd Thacker matchup, or The Bowman vs Touradj (the Dark General)? Not just a brief description, but a blow by blow description, with pictures, army lists, diagrams, comments from the players and more.

ToB will also include a full breakdown of my favorite army at the tournament along with an interview with the owner. Why he took what he did, how does it play, what are its strengths and weaknesses along with his painting and modeling tips.

There will be a whole lot more, so go check out http://www.talesofbattle.com/ for more details and how you can order your copy.

I expect for the first issue to hit the streets on March 31st and will be covering the Lone Wolf GT. With a price of only $5 (and that covers s&h and taxes) its less than a cost of one miniature.

I hope you guys can get behind this and help get this project off the ground.

Ben The Rat

Whats going on?

Thanks for all the kind words over the length of the blog, but it is going to slide by the wayside.

I have a new project in mind that is very exciting and will take up most of my free time. I am getting everything ready for it, to be ready by Jan-Feb next year.

I'll make an announcement here as well as on most of the lists. So keep an eye out for that. Don't want to say too much for now, but lets just hint that it could make a huge splash in the Warhammer world. I sure hope so anyway.

As for some of the questions:
@David, yes, I was planning on it if the timing was right. When is the Bayou?

For the guy who wanted to post my battle report on your website, go ahead as long as you credit it to me and put a link back to my blog.

Thanks again guys, its been fun.

Until next time...

Centaurs of Cath-Tong BR part 2

When we left off my generals unit had just been dual charged but held their ground and we were in this situation for the start of turn 4.



Turn 4a: The centaurs needed to do some quick damage. Both Knight units on the far right charge the minotaurs at the bottom of the hill.
And the marauder fast cav charge the chariot in the flank. (the one fighting my general's unit.

The 2 fleeing marauder centaurs rallied and ran over by one of the Level 2 shamans.
In magic, I cast my Nurgle spell at one of the Beastigors in combat, as that is the only guy I can see. (In retrospect, I don't think that is legal as the spell does not mention that you can cast this into combat.) Don't remember if he took a guy out or dispelled it.
I then cast flickering fire at the chariot with my wizard. He attempted to dispel and failed. I rolled and got 5 hits, but then when I went to roll strength, I got a '2'. So 5 str 3 hits. Managed 2-3 wounds, but he saved them all.

The 2 centaurs threw their axes at the beast shaman, but both missed.

In combat, the centaur knights again failed to wound the spawn and expanded getting out of the LOS of the waiting minotaurs.

I then did the double knights on the minotaurs, and with the 32 attacks I generated, the entire minotaur unit was destroyed. I then overran with both. The hero's unit with banner of fury plowed into the minotaurs at the edge of the table, but the other knight came up about 2 inches short of hitting the back side of the beastigor unit.

In the big combat, the knights with general and wizard, killed off 6 beastigors, but failed to wound the chariot. His beastigors cannot swing back, and the chariot manages to kill a single marauder centaur.
I win combat by a bunch, and the beastigors flee and are cut down by the knights behind them.
But the chariot, needing insane courage, gets it. Ugghhh!!!
So my genera's unit turn to face the chariot.

And we end up with this setup at the end of my turn 4.



Turn 4b: The beastmen, knew they had to do something quick.
The beastherd charges the flank of the marauders in combat with the chariot.
The 2 shamans charge the 2 marauders.
The spawn charges the rear of the knights fighting the first spawn.
His last chariot spins around for next turn.
And his Minotaurs spin around to face the flank of my knights.
In magic, he frenzies his herd.

In combat we do the spawn combat first. My only hope is to do enough wounds to kill both spawn. So I split up my attacks and actually do no wounds!! He does none as well.
We then do the Minotaur combat. With my 32 attacks of strength 4 to 7, I again wipe out the entire minotaur unit and run off the board.

He then has his 2 shamans beat up on my 2 marauders with their braystaffs, killing both and overrunning, but did not go off the board.

Finally, in the big combat, again we got into a challenge, but his Foe-render could not get past my general's armor, and I struck him down even doing an overkill wound.
But his Gors were able to kill off all 4 marauder centaurs!! I was only able to put a couple wounds on the chariot, and he wins combat by 2.
So needing a 6, or the insane courage special rule of the banner, and I roll and '11', and the knights, general and nurgle shaman turn and flee. Both units pursue and the chariot catches them.

Leaving us with this situation:



Note that the knights at the far top right are actually off the board.

Turn 5a: This is easy, knights charge into the frenzied herd.
Other knights move back on the table and hope to get in charge range of the last chariot.

Turned my wizard around and tried to cast flickering fire into the minotaurs and he used his last dispel scroll.

In combat, I killed off the spawn in front of me. Leaving the one behind, with 2 wounds on it.
The knights slaughtered the frenzied herd fairly well, but enough ungors had spear attacks and drug a knight down. I still won by a lot and broke them, running them down and capturing their standard.
But then in the overrun I only go 8" and came up 1" short of hitting the chariot.
Sorry, picture here was corrupted and lost.

Turn 5b: Minotaurs into the flank of the knights.
Chariot into the front of the knights.
2nd chariot spins around for a turn 6 charge.
2 shamans drop in behind my other knights and blast them with double strength 6 magic missiles and kill 2.

In combat, the minotaurs quickly hacked down 3 knights with their attacks, and I failed all 3 armor saves.
This gave me only 1 knight to attack the spawn, and I do 2 wounds to it and kill it.
So I lose combat by 2, and need a 6 to hold, and I make it!!

The chariot hits my 4 Centaur knights and does 2 wounds, but I do 3 wounds back to the chariot and win combat. I don't outnumber him, but he still needs a good number to hold, and he makes it.



Turn 6a: I attempt to charge the last chariot with my Fury knights, but am a couple inches short.
My shaman spins and moves towards his shamans and attempts to cast his spell, but it is dispelled.

In combat, My knight on his minotaurs swings first. With his 2 attacks and steed attack, I get 3 hits and 3 wounds and kill a minotaur!!! Then with his 6 str 6 attacks back, he fails to get a single hit.
So I win 4 (3 W + banner) to 2 (flank, US). He needs a 6 to hold, fails and I run him down!!!

My other knights easily kill off the chariot they were fighting. But are stuck there.

Turn 6b: There is only 1 charge as the chariot smacks into the flank of my 2 knights.
His hounds race up to control the ancient stone.
And his shamans move to get in range of my Fury knights.

In magic he gets off both magic missiles again, but in a bout of insane armor rolling, he only kills 2 and fails to wound my hero.

In combat, 3 impact hits plus the 4 attacks from the chariot equal zero wounds on my knights!!! My knight then does 2 wounds back, breaks the chariot and runs it down!!

Leaving us with this final setup:



In total 11 models left on the board. 2 shamans and 3 hounds for him. 4 knights from 3 units, 1 wounded sorcerer, and 1 uninjured exalted hero.
The hounds claimed the historic monument, and no one else was large enough to claim or contest a table quarter.
Both general's were gone, mine scattered in the overrun, his sucked up into the warp.
I still had 2 banners (the cheese markers) from running down 2 herds. I lost one that the 2 marauders were carrying. And was unable to capture the beastigor one.
My general's unit lost their banner to the herd, but then they were broken by the other knights.

When all the vp were added up, I was ahead by around 370 victory points, giving me the minor, hard fought win.

I'll take it. Trevor is always an outstanding opponent and runs his army with expert skill. Only sheer luck of armor saves, whiffage of attacks and a lucky break test, won this game for me.

I'll definetely have to sharpen my skills with this army before I run it to a GT.

Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave comments.

Until next time...

Centaurs of Cath-Tong BR part 1

The Centaurs of Cath-Tong grew tired of the wilderness, the cold of the chaos wastes. They dreamed of grass fields to run in. Orm'ete grew weary of the endless battles the chaos gods forced them to fight in. It was time for a change. He laughed for a minute at that thought of that word. It was Tzeentch who had "blessed" him months earlier. Changed him and his clan from marauders and warriors to centaurs. He had blessed him with his mark that gave him extraordinary speed but at what costs. The females of his clan soon discovered, any male children were born as centaurs and the mother never survived. The women fled, and now Orm'ete's clan must capture slaves to maintain his clan. He was sure Tzeentch and Slaanesh found the whole situation amusing.

So Orm'ete gathered his clan of centaurs, and headed South. That was the only direction you could go from Cath-Tong. So far into the chaos wastes you could smell the warpstone in the very air you breathed. Their final destination was unknown. But stories of the green fields of the Empire, and plentiful amount of women sounded appealing. And so the herd of Centaurs with younglings and slave women in tow, they headed towards warmer climates and one day peace.

But the gods of chaos do not let one leave their direct control so easily. They had barely started to start their journey when Slaanesh ordered one of its beastial armies to drive them back to Cath-Tong.

****************************

Army setup and lists. Its easiest to see the first picture here:
As always click on a picture to enlarge it.



This picture shows the main part of the battle field after I moved for turn 1. I won the right to choose and due to his heavy magic I decided it was best to go first.

Battlefield: The circle of stones was an Ancient Idol that counted as difficult and whoever controlled it at the end of the battle got 100 vp.
On the bottom center is a small hill.
Center top is a graveyard. We simply counted the entire area as Difficult terrain.
On the right bottom is a wood, and right top is another hill.

Deployment: Mine was fairly simple. Left flank had 2 marauder units with Light armor, Flails and Throwing axes. I also put my Tzeentch Lvl 1 sorcerer with 2 dispel scrolls. Behind them was a unit of chaos knights.

In the Center I put 2 units of marauders with spears, shields and throwing spears and behind them 5 chaos knights, Rapture banner, my exalted hero/general with mark of Tzeentch, collar of khorne and blade of putrification. Next him also rode my Nurgle Sorcerer level 1 with the infernal puppet.

On the right I put 2 more marauder horsemen units with Light armor, flails and throwing axes. (you can only see one, and the corner of the other.
Behind them, not in pic are 2 units of chaos knights. One basic and one with the banner of fury and a Nurgle Exalted hero with flail, bronze armor, Blasphemous amulet and the favor of the gods.

The beastmen in front of me were from left to right:
Beastherd 6 gors, 12 ungors full command
Behind them two spawn of slaanesh.
5 chaos hounds
Behind them 3 Minotaurs of slaanesh, gr.weapons.
Another beastherd 6/12, FC.
Behind them 3 beast chariots undivided.
Another unit of chaos hounds.
Behind them were 12 Slaangors, great weapons, and in the unit were:
Level 4 shaman with staff of Darkoth, crown of thorns, Mark of Slaanesh, d.scroll and power stone.
Level 2 shaman with braystaff, d.scroll, power stone
Level 2 shaman the same.
He then put down another beast herd, 6/12, FC.
Behind them 2 more units of 3 Minotaurs of slaanesh, gr.weapons.
Finally on the far right was another unit of hounds not shown.

Turn 1a: I raced everything up, some further than others. In magic he dispelled both my spells and everything was out of range for shooting.

Turn 1b: His only charge was his hounds in the center into my marauders in the middle with spears. I decided to stand and shoot, killing none and they made contact.
The rest of his army moved up or positioned.

In magic he casts frenzy on his hounds, which I dispel. He then casts freeze/no attack on my marauders. Not wanting them to stand there I decided to burn a scroll. Bad mistake that I'd regret later.

As it turned out the hounds whiffed their attacks, the marauders killed 3 and the hounds missed their break test and they got away.
here is a pic before the start of my turn 2:



Here you can more clearly see the units on the far right end of the battlefield.

Turn 2a: I charged the chaos knights at the chaos hounds on the far right and they fled off the board.
My 2 marauder units on the right double charged his herd over there, and everyone else moved up, trying to set up some next turn charges.
Here is a pic after movement:



Magic was shut down, shooting resulted in a total of 1 hound being killed on the far left flank.
Combat had me kill off several Gors and ungors while he killed 3 marauders.
He lost combat by 1 or 2, broke and the unit of 2 chased him down and captured the standard. But stopped right in front of his 2 chariots.

Turn 2b: He has several charges this turn, sending all 3 chariots into different marauder horse units. One on the left side of the graveyard, 2 on the right.
The far left beastherd did a surprise charge into the flank of my marauders in front of my knights on the left. They held, but all 3 fled from the chariot charges.
He inches up a bit more, but not much.

In magic He casts his 12" magic missile at my marauders on the right in front of the unit with the banner of fury, killing only 1. And taking that unit out of range for the rest of their MM's.
He then casts for my Str 7 character to attack his unit with his 5 attacks. He rolls rediculous, so I burn my last scroll.
He then casts titillating delusions on my general's unit in the middle of the field. I forgot completely about my MR(2) but still threw 4 dice at it and rolled snake eyes, so they were affected.

In combat, the herd easily kills off the marauders and they flee into the graveyard an into the waiting blades of the other beastherd. They ones in combat, restrain pursuit.

Here is the picture at the end of his turn 2:



The beads represent where my unit has to head towards. Ugghhh!!

Turn 3a: Time to get things moving.
Knight unit on left charges the beast herd. Marauders on right with 4 guys left charge one of the chariots to prevent them double killing me.
Everthing rallies and moves back to guard flanks, and irritate people.
Knights on the right wheel around and get up on the hill.
Tzeentch wizard leaves the confines of his unit to keep from getting tied up into hand to hand.
My general's unit can march and does a huge wheel to move towards the mark. Leaving my flank wide open for the chariot. I do get a flash of brilliance and move my general to the left flank. So the chariot alone can only do 2 wounds max and auto-losses combat.

Magic, Tzeentch wizard miscasts and rolls a 7, Strength 2 hit, and he rolls a '6' and I take a wound. Uggh.
Nurgle wizard does nothing.
Shooting kills one more hound on the left and they panic and run.

Here is the situation after movement:



In combat my knights easily slaughter the lowly beast herds, and run them down capturing their banner. But leaving their flank open for his spawn.
My Marauders did 2 str 3 wounds and a str 5 wound to his chariot. He fails all 3 saves, breaks but gets away. I use my master horsemen rule to re-roll my pursuit and run him down.
Leading us to this situation:



Things are looking good for the Centaurs now, but battles are like a river, always flowing and changing. This battle would prove to be no different.

Turn 3b: Revenge shall be mine.
Charge!!! Spawn closest to the knights move up and into my marauders. They stand and shoot and do a wound.
2nd spawn moves into my knights.
Chariot charges the horsemen next to the graveyard, and they only run a few inches and are run down. If not for the Will of the Gods, the Tzeentch wizard would have run off as well.
Chariot passes its fear test and slams into my general in the flank.
Herd in the graveyard charge the flank of the marauders. (I hold, if I flee I run off the board.)
Minotaurs right behind the hill charge the small group of 2 horsemen to get them out of the way, they flee.

In movement he pulls his 3 shamans out of his beastigors and moves them up.
Minotaurs on left move up, Minos on right move back.
Hounds that were fleeing on far left, rally and stay in the corner for the rest of the battle.

In magic, he casts frenzy on the beastigors, I let it go.
He then casts freeze spell on my general's unit. I'm thinking of letting it go, and we are talking about it when he realizes its a remains in play. So asks if I'd let him switch that to the wild call spell instead to charge the Beastigors into my general's unit.
I'm the nice guy and let him switch the spell, as what he rolled was enough to cast either. I try to dispel it with my 4 dice and again fail. And the beastigors run on in.

Finally, his Slaanesh Level 4 Lord casts Freeze on my General's unit. All I have are my 2 MR dice to deal with it. Not good. He rolls his casting dice and gets a miscast!! Oh, I so needed that.

He then rolls on the miscast table and rolls a 5. (result, I get to cast a spell.)
Hmmm, so I use my Infernal Puppet. I roll a 3 on a d3. This allows me to modify the roll on the miscast chart by up to that number. So I can move it upwards to 6, 7 or 8, or move it down to 4, 3 or 2. I change it to 2.

The heavens open and the very claw of Tzeentch reaches down from the sky above. A booming voice bellows out, "How dare you try to stop the combat we have been waiting to see." And with that, the slaanesh lord was ripped from the battlefield, nothing but a small crater, where the shaman once stood.

On combat, the spawn kills 2 marauder horsemen and the flee off the board.
The other spawn does nothing to my knights who also cannot wound the spawn, but we turn to face the spawn.
The beastherd kills 1 of the horsemen, and they fail their break test and run off the board.
Finally in the large combat, the slaanigor champion challenges and my Lord accepts.
With his multiple frenzied attacks with his great weapon he sneaks 2 wounds in. I fail both armor saves. Finally my 5+ ward save, and I make one. Whew, so my general is wounded. I slay the champion back, but the gods scoff at such an easy challenge.
"You must slay a character."
Orm'ete screams back that the cowardly wizards won't come fight me.

The chariot kills one knight with its impact hits and the Beastigors slay another.
My attacks are extremely weak and I only manage to kill 2 beastigors back.

So losing by 2, I need a 6 to hold. I also have the Rapture banner so any doubles or any '1' on either dice is auto pass.
I roll a '4' and I'm safe for one turn.



So with half the game gone by, the battle has been bloody and looking to get worse. I still have all 4 knight units, both heroes, both wizards and 2 units of horsemen left.
Meanwhile he is down to just his 2 level 2's, his minotaurs, 2 chariots, 2 spawn and a herd. Can it be enough?

Only time will tell.

This ends part 1 of this chaotic battle. Stay tuned for part II and the climatic exciting end.

Until next time...

Warriors of Chaos

I have gotten my greedy little hands on the Warriors of Chaos book early. And have written up my chaos centaur list. With a bunch of changes. NO longer the Twins of Khorne, I had to make some changes, add in a couple wizards for a bit of spell protection and ended up dropping 10 models out of the army.

GW so re-wrote the chaos fluff, and badly. Throwing any considerations for last editions fluff right out the window.

So example my Exalted Hero has the mark of Tzeentch, wears the collar of Khorne, uses the glaive of putrification (Nurgle weapon) and rides in the unit with the Rapturous banner of Slaanesh. And this is supposed to be considered fluffy?? ;)

Anyway, I had my first battle with them last night and had a great game, against a good friend. Took lots of pictures, and will be posting a battle report this week.

So come check it out.

Until next time...

Debate over

Well, I think I've done all the reading on Evolution vs ID that I want to, and I'm not sure anyone changed their minds at all.

I still believe in ID, and actually after some of the reading, believe its been proven.

Evolution is still there and IMO, part of the ID.

And while I do believe the odds that a monkey might sit down and randomly hit a bunch of keys and type out the next great novel, (because these are the kind of odds we are talking about.) is next to impossible. Given 500 million years, it might happen.

But to then turn around and do a 2nd novel right after the first.

The odds, there are just to astronomical to be a "well it could happen." No, it can't. Not without something guiding and controlling it.

Anyway, moving onto to other topics. Lets get back to some warhammer and painting.

Until next time...

Evolution vs Intelligent Design

Alex has started a debate with me in another thread. I thought I'd pull it up front so anyone can feel free to chime in.

The question before us is Evolution vs Intelligent Design.
Did People evolve slowly and naturally from our Earths start 4.5 billion years ago, or was there something else giving it a lending hand?

ID (Intelligent Design) means whatever you want it to mean. Whether it be God, Allah, Aliens, Zeus or the Spaghetti Monster from the depths.

Since this is really a huge, huge debate, we may have to break it into several posts.

rules:
1. No name calling, or slighting (ie. Watching too much Fox, or too much public education, or watching too much sci-fi)
2. No calling anyone a liar.
3. If you want to dispute something, some proof must be given. If we get to a point where neither person cedes the point, we can agree to disagree.
4. Be polite, this is a debate, not politics.
5. If you wish to disagree with someone, please read their post in full, instead of assuming what you think they said.
6. Try to keep the posts, within reason.

Since its my blog, I'll start.
Instead of jumping right into Darwin's Theory of Evolution, he seemed to have skipped some 4 billion years worth of history. So lets start there.
**************
4.5 Billion years ago, after our Earth was formed from some Big Bang as is the popular theory now, it was a big mess.
But no one ever seems to explain what kicked off the Big Bang to begin with.
Lets skip that for now, but it is a huge hole, as big bangs, don't just happen.

So once here, this big mess of particles is swirling around in a pool and forming into our Earth as it cools down. Then somewhere out of this primordial mush, life appears. Suddenly, inexplicably and without warning. Only 500 million years into its cooling, all of the sudden there was life. And not 1, but 2 forms of life. Both single cell, both completely unique.

We have a pretty good idea of what was in the primordial mush. What elements, what the temperature was, pressure, etc.. And yet, after over 100 years of testing, and experimenting, we have yet to be able to reproduce the creation of life, that just spontaneously erupted.

we now jump forward 3.5 billion years. So only 530 million years ago. We have 3.5 billion years of single cell organisms living, and dieing out.
Then like magic, BAM! within a 5-10 million year span, as soon as oxygen was available we have what has become known as the Cambriam Explosion. In that time all major groups of complex animal life subgroupings within the animal kingdom appeared in large numbers. Not just 1 or 5 or 10, but 26 animal phyla appeared. Sponges, trilobites, molusks, etc..
This was huge and widespread.
There are no in between fossils at all to suggest life went from single cell to mutli-cell at all. Not One, in over 130 years of trying to find them.

Now lets jump another 400 million years to only 110 million years ago when flowering plants, simply appeared on the Earth. No major upheaval, nothing like them previous in any known fossil record. Totally different from every form of life previously on the planet, and yet they covered the Earth. No evidence of Evolution at all.
Even Darwin himself admitted they were "an abominable mystery."

The fact is, most life has shown up on this planet, fully formed and developed, lives approximately a million years and dies off.

Does evolution in micro stages happen? Yes. A beak changes, weight is put on, or lost. Size increases or gets smaller. But major changes on the Macro-Evolutionary scale, simply do not exist. Feel free to give any examples you feel dispute this.

It is easy enough to dismiss a few missing-links, between species. The pre-hominid to the human, or whatever. But every single species that has ever existed. There are no fossil records, that link any pre-ancestor, to some later species.

So Intelligent design suggests that life went along for a while, and then was given some sort of jump-start that crammed 100 million years into 1 or 2 million. Or life was dumped on the planet.

I look forward to hearing your response. Sorry this got a bit long winded.
And yes, I do study science Alex.

This is not philosophy, this is science.