A hundred followers!

Hi, as some may have seen I've recently passed the hundred followers mark! When I started this blog I had never thought that my wargame related articles would attract so much interest from all over the world. I really want to thank all the visitors and especially the loyal followers for the support and comments!

As it's quite an special moment for my blog, I decided to share some blogfacts with you!

• My blog has an average of 3,000 visitors a month!
• That's an astonishing 36,990 visitors a year!
• My most linked topic is my Shanty town article (and it isn't finished yet!)
• Most of the visitors find their way through The Lead Adventure Forum!
• Most of my visitors come from the US and UK followed by Poland and Australia!

With the Summer holiday, I have more time for my hobby so expect a lot more posts including pictures of my Colonial British, Mbuij Mayians, Lord of The Rings Mordor army and many more! I'm also waiting on some warbases for a review and base comparison, there will also be a review of SMOG 1888, an Victorian Science Fiction Skirmish game by a fellow LAF'er! So stay tuned for more wargame madness!

So again many thanks to everybody and especially the two latest followers Czaki and José Antonio Rocha!

Greets,

Clash at Etholyn

Finally I managed to fight another Lord of The Rings skimish game against my mate. The two fighting factions were a coalilition of Uruk-Hai and Orcs against a Elf coalition of High Elves and Woodelves. Both factions would consist out of roughly 500 points which is a rather standard number of points for a small scale battle. The battle was fought on a 1,50 x 0,75 meter with in one side of the board a Rohan village called Etholyn and on the opposite side the slopes of a mountain range.

Evil forces (only 35 models):

• 5 Warg riders armed with shield and throwingspears
• 1 Sharku mounted on Warg
• 17 Orcs armed with either shield, spear, two-handed weapon or bow
• 9 Uruk-Hai armed with shield (some pikes were used as I don't have enough of them)
• 1 Orc banner
• 1 Gorbag with shield
• 1 Uruk Captain with shield

Good forces (31 models!)

• 8 High elves armed with elf swords
• 7 High elves armed with elf bows
• 1 High elf banner
• 1 Gil Galad with shield (a real killer at 145 points!)
• 1 Haldir armed with bow (may shoot twice)
• 8 Woodelves with elf swords and armor
• 4 Woodelves with spear and armor
• 1 Woodelf unarmed without armor (point filler)

The game:

Turn 1: the set up, We decided that the orcs were starting in the pillaged village of Etholyn and that the Elves would start on the other side as they would attempt to revenge the massacre of Rohan civilians.

I decided to set up a strong center, made up of a falanx of Uruk-Hai and the Uruk-hai Captain supported by several Orcs and a standard bearer. On my Right flank I deployed a less powerful falanx made up by the remaining Uruk-Hai and Orcs supported by Gorbag an Orc Hero. My left flank was made up out of Warg cavalry under command of the dreaded Sharku and three Orc Bowmen.

My mate decide to put his elves in to a massive falanx with in the center the standard bearer protected by all sides by the High Elf swordsmen and Woodelves. On his right flank he deployed his High Elf Archers together with Haldir, the master bowmen in an attempt to claim the advantage of the higher ground!

With both sides set up, both start to march towards each other.

Turn 2: Again the two factions advance toward each other, the Orcs are still not in range of the deadly Elf bowmen! The advance of the Wargriders is slightly delayed by a serie of Rohan fences.

Turn 3: The Elves stop their advance and form a defensive formation at the start of the cornfields under cover of the bowmen which took the higher ground increasing their range. Aware of the increased range, I decided to move my Warg riders a bad choice as Sharku immediately lost his mount crippling my cavalry.

Turn 4: Trying to evade the deadly hail of Elf arrows, Sharku takes one of his companions Warg and decide to continue his advance. But again Sharku lost his mount and now also suffered two wounds only saved by using his only fate point!

Turn 5: The main evil force is slowed down by the cornfield but is advancing toward the Elf meatgrinder! Again the Elf archers decide to shoot at the Warg riders now only killing one Warg rider.

Turn 6: Again the elves hoot at my precious warg cavalry causing the death of two Orcs and one Warg! The role of the Warg cavalry is now nothing more than causing distraction.

Turn 7: The first elements of the orc army clash with the Woodelves at the most left side of the Elf battleline only causing the death of one poorly armored Woodelf. In the shooting phase, the Elf archers under the command of Haldir kill Gorbag! (losing a full 3 might points!), a Uruk-Hai and two Orc warriors!

Turn 8: The fight continues as more Orcs and Uruk-Hai join fray, causing one dead High elf at a cost of three evil victims! (Poor dice throwing from my side)

Turn 9: Finally the Uruk-Hai's brute force causes the death of 4 High Elves! Again the evil faction loses 4 soldiers both Uruk-hai as Orc.

Turn 10: The battle continues and the Uruk-Hai slay another three High Elves by using the might of the freshly arrived Orc banner. In an attempt to break the Elves left flank Sharku charges accompagnied by a sole Warg rider, in the battle that follows Sharku is slain by Aiglos, Gil Galad's trusty battle spear! During the shooting phase the Orcs almost routinely lose another four warriors.

Turn 11: Half of the orc force is killed causing the necessity of a Moral test, luckily for me the Uruk-Hai captain succeeded causing everybody within a 14 cm radius to succeed! But the again the fight is in favor of the High Elves causing 4 casualties at the loss of only one Elf!

Turn 12: Gil Galad uses a Heroic Movement to attack my Uruk-Hai captain! In a fierce battle the Uruk-Hai Captain lost his life by serving Isengard!

Turn 13: And three and a half hours later, the last of the Uruk-Hai are surrounded and instanly killed by a deadly combination of might, superior fighting value, two-handed weapons and spears!

Aftermath: My army needs more men, more archers! But after all a fun game!

Greets,

Reorganising the wargame attic!

Hi, I've recently reorganised and tidied up my wargame room as it was necessary! As my mate comes tomorrow with his combined Lord of The Rings Woodelves and High Elves army in an attempt to beat my recently painted Mordor army (pictures will follow). I decided to switch my 1,50 x 1,50 meter table into a table of 1,10 x 1,30 meter and a table of 1,50 x 0,75 cm. The smallest table will be used for skirmish games such as Lord of The Rings, the larger one as probably for my ongoing VSF project as I set it up as a Mbuij Mayi jungle board. The room would probably be able to accomodate an extra 1,50 x 0,75 cm table by replacing the movable paintingdesk!

The set up of my reorganised wargame table, I've also added a painting station/ rules and dice table as my desk is too cluthered with terrainpieces. On the desk you can see 12 orcs of my Mordor Army.

The 1,50 x 0,75 meter table, ready for a Lord of The Rings skirmish game!

More pictures and hopefully a battlereport will follow soon, so keep tuned!

Greets,

Wargame news! "Terraclips"

I've recently found out that Wyrd Miniatures, the creators of the 32mm skirmish game Malifaux and Worldworks Games have combined their strenghts in an attempt to create awesome modular cartonboard terrain for Malifaux (or other skirmish games, think Mordheim and the like at a more than reasonable price! The modular terrain system is called Terraclips and involves magnets or plastic connectors to connect the dozens of modular terrain pieces. The terrain pieces themselves are made out of hard cartonboard and are plastified on both sides to make them as durable as possible! Just look at the following picture which is a mixture of several sets!

The companies are about to release three sets which will enable you to built most of an medieval city as it includes the sewers, buildings and streets! The cartonboard terrain doesn't look cheap but is cheap! The retailprice is only $36.75 per set and which every set bought you receive a free packet of connectors!

The first set is called "Sewers of Malifaux" and would perfectly fit an dungeon based game!

The second set is called "Buildings of Malifaux" and contains an medieval house/ tavern with seperate floors.

The last set is the "Streets of Malifaux" set and this is the set that I especially like. I'm tempted to buy this set for my skirmish "The Three Musketeer" project as it looks extremely good and especially because it is very well-priced! The sets will be released during 2011 but I haven't found much more information than that.

Greets,

Black Hat Musketeers on the paintingdesk!

Hi, here are some thing that I've partially painted during the last months, I hope you like them!

First of all we have the Foundry Victorian lady which is almost finished (only need some basing).

The back of the victorian lady, I love the red and purple! This lady will probably be used as an generic civilian in lots of VSF settings!

The following miniatures are all part of my small ongoing Musketeer project, these miniatures represent the Cardinals Guard and are the nemesis of the Musketeers (king's). These miniatures were fast painted as I want to play some games in the summer holiday instead of painting. I only need to finish the weapons, boots, hats and feathers and do some basing. the next miniatures are the generic civilians ideal for pub brawl and civilian uprising types of games.

The other 3 miniatures, I really love the character of these 25mm Black Hat Miniatures.

Finally I've managed to paint another 28mm napoleonic this time a grenadier I guess ( I totally don't research uniforms). On the other picture you can see the back of the miniature with his cowskin bagpack! I've also started to paint 3 other grenadiers and 2 skirmishers (voltiguers?) so I can finish another 4 men base and a skirmisher 2 men base!

I hope you liked this small update as the examens are limiting my hobby time!

Greets,

British landship "HMS Behemoth"

Hi, here's some progress I've made on my British landship the "HMS Behemoth" during the last month. This time, I've added the first deck of the tank which I completly made out of a wood and cartonboard superstructure covered with plastic card. After I had finished the deck, I decided to add the Airfix coastal gun which really fits the massive machine and while searching for the guns I also found a piece of an old plastic airport that I will use as a the upper balcony. The landship will really terrorise the natives as it is huge and will probably be able to kill hundreds of natives (if the steam engines don't blow up!)

I hope to finish this massive machine during the upcomming summer holiday!

I hope you enjoyed this small update, greets.

Strange phenomenon?

Hi, today I witnessed a massive increase of my blog visitors and I really can't find the source from this phenomenon? The current number of visitors is: 385 and counting! That's almost the double of when I'm posting and I ain't posting?

Looking at my statistics the visitors are coming from these sites (top 5)

- (52) The Angry Lurker Blog

- (45) Paulsbods

- (26) Figoblogotheque

- (20) 20th Century Wargaming

- (19) Wargamer Blue

- ...

Can somebody explain this mystery?

Greets,