Oldhammer Day - Realms of Chaos picture report

Better late than never! Real Life managed to get in the way of doing this earlier, but finally, I'd like to share some of the photos I took of the Realm of Chaos battle that raged during most of saturday. I'm not going to comment on all of them, just the ones where I can remember what was happening!

The warband of Herzog Spinecleaver prepares for battle!

The battlefield as the warbands line up.

Herzog's warband advances.

Jason's warband meanders across some nice fields!

Gorox the minotaur bravely charged the troll, but sadly it was tougher than expected.

Herzog's beastmen hold out surprisingly well against a pair of ogres.

The troll joins the fight against Herzog and his men.

Charged in the rear by some cowardly Slaaneshi git riding a scary horse, the beastmen leg it! This was effectively the end of my warband, as everyone else was dead and the beastmen were herded off the table by the enemy beastmen. :(

Khorne and Slaanesh troops fight on the left flank.

Khorne forces advance.

I think these Orcs were on the Slannesh side, but not sure.

Warlord Paul of The Black Hole blog moves his troops.

The RoC battle in full swing!

What looks like a huge brawl is in fact Slaaneshi troops who have been entranced and drawn in by the magic axe of the Chaos Dwarf in the middle!

The battle draws to a close, with the Slaaneshi deviants in control of the field. (Boo!)

And that was that! The Khorne side was entirely wiped out by the end (we wuz outnumbered!), but hopefully we might get some revenge next year! Also, note to self; bring fire to kill that f****ng troll!!

Completed Realms of Chaos Warband!

With only two more days to go before the greatest event of old skool gaming, 'Oldhammer: Bring Out Your Lead!', I've finally completed my Realms of Chaos warband for the open participation event.

The final warband roster:

It'll be interesting to see what property his chaos weapon ends up being!

The Beastmen:

Herzog Spinecleaver and his armoured Human fighters:

Gorox, the minotaur:

The entire warband:

Finally, a closeup of the two shields with the face designs that are present in the two units of my warband:

Couldn't be more pleased with them!

Herzog and I are very much looking forward to Oldhammer day!

Realm of Chaos Oldhammer Day Warband

I've been busy putting together a warband for the Realm of Chaos game at this year's very first Oldhammer 'Bring out your Lead!' event at Wargames Foundry in Nottingham.

My warband is a Khorne one, simply because I can't bring myself to fight for Slaanesh!

I've followed Orlygg's "Warband Creation Kit" as closely as I can, but I haven't rolled for anything. Now this might seem like I'm going against everything that Realm of Chaos is about, but my selection of models is limited. Because of this, I'm taking the 'visual' approach to assembling my warband. 'What models do I have?' and 'which of them would make a good looking warband?'

To that end, I've selected this model as my champion:

I got him painted up months ago, in anticipation of this event, before I even knew if I could actually go or not! He is yet to be named, although I think I might use the random name generator in Slaves to Darkness to come up with some inspiration. :)
Being a champion of Khorne, he has the chaos armour reward and is armed with a halberd. He has no steed, so his halberd will also be a chaos weapon. Because he will be a level 10 human hero, he gets three "rolls" on the retinue table. Since I don't have models of everything on that table (especially painted ones!) this is what he'll be getting!

His first group of followers, a mob of eight Beastmen of Khorne:

Had a lot of beastmen cluttering up the place so I saw those as ideal minions for my champion. As per the retinue table in Slaves to Darkness, they have light armour, shields (when I get them finished!) and hand weapons.

Next is his second group of minions, six humans:

My champion is stood there in the middle of them (and two are at the back), because I intend for him to lead this unit. They are probably be his underlings from his past life, whatever that might have been, so it seems right that he should lead them into battle.
Even though they're actually chaos warrior models (which might alarm some players on the day! As actual chaos warriors in Oldhammer are double hard bastards! Each one in effect a champion themselves.) these are basic humans, but the retinue table allows them to be equipped with heavy armour, shields and hand weapons, so that's what they are. I had a lot of chaos warrior models, but very few thugs!

Finally, we have his monstrous beast, a single minotaur, which follows the warband around:

Armed with a double-handed weapon (none of this 'great weapon' nonsense in Oldhammer!), I'm hoping he'll do some damage against those soft-bodied Slaaneshi deviants! And with any luck, not get shot or blasted by some cowardly archers or wizards!

I was thinking of calling him Gorox. Obviously the paintwork isn't quite finished yet, but I couldn't wait to get started on painting him, so he's part done for now.

I've also started on some shields, following Orlygg's superb 'retro shield painting guide'! I've never attempted anything like these before, but they seem to be turning out ok.

Just got teeth and eyes to add. I don't think I'll have time to paint all 14 shields I need like this in time for the event! So most of the models might just have somewhat more basic shield designs!

I'll post again once I've developed a bit of backstory to my warband, and hopefully got a bit further with the painting.

Hammerhead 2013

Today myself, my girlfriend, my mate Steve and his daughter Alice all braved the conditions and ventured up to Newark to attend HAMMERHEAD 2013! The weather was overcast grey and raining a lot (perfect wargames convention weather) but we got there in good time and were among the first inside the venue.

Kelham Hall, Newark

We arrived and went straight to the snack bar for a bacon butty and a cup of tea! There was a lot of participation games on, some recognisable, others obscure, and some plain strange. Of course, the traders and the bring-and-buy were the main attractions for us, and although I'd hoped for some certain items (P3 paints and old White Dwarfs mainly) I still managed to acquire the following:

Lets break this down shall we:
First we have four blisters of furniture from Ainsty Castings. I have plans for this little lot!

Next we have some scenic items from Zinge Industries. Ladders and those little wheel lock things you get on hatch doors and steam pipes are really hard to scratch build, so I happily paid some moneys to get some. I've already used one ladder on the latest piece of Necromunda terrain I've been building.

Then there's these little blast and fire markers from Litko. I've been meaning to buy some of these for years. I don't quite know what I'm going to use them for yet, but I'm sure they'll come in handy at some point.

Moving on, there's a varying selection of old, battered and frankly random second hand models that I found on various stalls and the bring-and-buy (which actually had some stuff I wanted to buy this year!).
There's a blister of Escher gangers to add to the gang box I bought last week, there's some Rogue Trader plastic Space Orks with a shit-ton of spare arms and weapons, and another bag of Ork weapons. There was also a few old lead models which are already in the Dettol jar!

Finally, there's this gem. I found it at the bring-and-buy, just as I'd passed over about five other modern Rhinos. It's got a lot of junk on it, but once it's Dettol'd and refurbished, it'll be a great transport for my retro Crimson Fists marines!

All in all, a good day!