Painting in April and First Experience With Paint Pens

 I didn't get as much painting done as I had hoped in April, but I spent a lot of time painting and flocking unit bases for Midgard.

So here we go.

First off a couple of resin trolls from Ramshackle Games. I placed an order with Curtis for a few items, including a pair of trolls Trolls - Skargil and Bagera. As usual, he threw in a few freebies included two extras of this pose, so I thought I play around with different skin colours.

 

Next another Ramshackle games model, a Tentacle Brain. I'll probably use it as a Martian in my War of the Worlds survivors games.

A snake/demon thingy from my Blacklist Games kickstarter.

An Ent/Treeman, a 3d print I picked up cheap online.

A pair of Frost demons/trolls/yetis for my Jotunheim armies. Again cheap 3d prints.

Also Ramshackle Games, a model from the Society of Intrepid Explorers set.

A couple more Wild West zombies.

Finally, my first experience of acrylic paint pens. There seems to have been quite a bit of hoo-ha online about these recently and I have seem some interesting photos of models painted entirely using these pens. So I got a set (at the bargain price of 100 colours for £35 quid!) and had a go at a 3d printed troll I had lying around.

First off- just block painting the model using the pens. This was very quick to do, it only took me about 10 minutes to do this. No need for shaking paint bottles, putting paint onto the pallet and cleaning brushes.

No a couple of pictures after an umbar wash and decorating the base. I was quite pleased with the end results.

My thoughts so far (bearing in mind this was my first use of paint pens).

Very quick to use and no mess. The colours went on well, only needing one coat. The dark purple painted over the green with no problem, but I wonder how well a light colour would go on over a darker one?

One problem was that the width of the pen barrel meant that I could not get in to some areas that I could have reached using a brush. Foe example, with this model I could not colour the underside of the loincloth. How much that matters, given you cannot really see it, I'm not sure.

In conclusion, I am quite impressed. I can see these being really useful for finer detail and things like belts etc. I have yet to see how the metals work, but I'll be trying those soon.

I don't think I will be replacing all my paints pots with these, but at first glance, I think I will find them useful.

War of the Dwarves and Orcs - Middle Earth with Midgard Heroic Battles

 I finally managed to get Mark over to try out Midgard with some of my Middle earth forces. mark and I have substantial Middle Earth armies and have played with various rulesets over the years. We were both disappointed with Oathmark and I have been nagging him to try Midgard for some time.

We fought an encounter between an orc horde and a dwarf host, fought sometime during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, following the murder of King Thrór by Azog the Orc-chieftain of Moria. Mark took the orcs and I took the dwarves for our game and the orcs were the attackers.

As this was Mark's first time using the rules I stuck to just small 300 point armies for both sides.

The orc horde prepare to deploy.

The dwarf battle line seems puny by comparison.

TURN ONE

The main orc force advances. The orcish heroes/champions used up most of their Mighty Deeds in this first turn to keep the line together.

Except for the snaga dross on the flank, where one unit refused to move at all!

On the far side of the table the warg riders start an outflanking manoeuvre.
The dwarves mainly stood their ground, except for the skirmishers on the flanks, who both advances and took pot shots. The left flank missed, but the right flanker scored a hit on the leading snaga unit.

TURN TWO

The orcs kept moving forward (mostly) and both skirmishers were charged, but evaded.

However, that left the left flank skirmisher vulnerable to the warg riders, who took the opportunity and caught the dwarf archers on the hill, wiping them out. First kill to the orcs!

I took advantage of the dwarf king's With Me trait, and threw the dwarven centre forward to crash into the orc mass. They pushed the orcs back with heavy loses, but only one of the orc units broke. Mainly due to Mark not having used the Orc commander so far, so that he was able to use his Mighty Deeds to re-roll failed command tests. The surviving dwarf skirmishers kept up a dance around the hapless snaga unit, inflicted a second hit, but failing to cause them to break.

TURN THREE

Not a lot the orcs could do in the centre, except continue with a slugging match, which they kept on losing, one unit breaking under the pressure. The snaga tried to charge the skirmishers, but failed. 

On the other flank the warg riders charged a dwarf infantry unit and successfully forced them back off the hill.

The collapsing orc line had revealed the trolls behind them, so I charged two dwarf units into the big beasties, hoping to overwhelm them by sheer weight of numbers. It wasn't a success, the trolls threw both units back and pursued the nearest one.

On the far side the warg riders and over-reached themselves. After two rounds of melee (all be it successful ones), they were now fight at half effect. Up against dwarf axemen, this wasn't pretty and the unit was cut down to a man (er orc/warg).

At the end of turn three, things were looking really bad for the orcs, as their reputation was down to  1!.

TURN FOUR

Now the dwarves started to suffer the effects of prolonged melees. Weaken by the previous fights, now they were facing trolls and fresh units of orcs.

In the centre an epic clash between elite black uruks and dwarves, each side fought each other to a standstill. Just out of shot the trolls destroyed the unit facing them.

The battered dwarf hearthguard were charged by an orc unit. Despite inflicting heavy losses on their attackers, the dwarves were finally destroyed, although the dwarf king survived.
The skirmishers hit the snaga again, pushing them back. As the snaga are classed Brittle, this forced a command test, which they failed and promptly ran away!

The end of turn four was the end of the game, as the orcs were now reduced to zero reputation. But it had been a very close result in the end.

A great game and a lot of fun. This is what I like about Midgard, things can dramatically change around in no time at all!

I was really pleased with by dwarf skirmishers, well one of them anyway. Dancing around the larger, more ponderous unit, keeping just out of reach until their morale broke, classic skirmishing tactics, which the rules reflected well.

Midgard Dwarves against Elves - The Rematch!

 Colin brought his Elvish Host over again for a return punch-up against my Dwarves. He had tweaked his army, losing the bolt shooter, making some elf archers into skirmishers to allow the points him to raise his spears to Armour 4, and giving his dragon the Flying trait (he'd obviously been drinking Red Bull). I just kept the same army as before (I had meant to tweak my list as well, but just forgot!).

We played the Take The High Ground scenario and Colin rolled low, so was the defender. He needed to keep 25% of his army off table, arriving in turn 4, so put the dragon and accompanying Beast Master Hero aside, along with a unit of skirmishers. We then deployed for battle.

The Elf host deployed on the ridge. It doesn't really show in this picture, but they do actually have a low slope in front of them. The three standing stones are the objectives which will bestow extra Reputation to whoever holds then from turn 3.

The Dwarves prepare to attack! Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! 

Turn One

The first turn was fairly inconclusive. the Dwarves trudged forward  across there entire frontage and the Dwarf sorcerer cast a couple of mist spells which meant that the elvish archery had little effect this turn, except to force the axemen on the far right of the line to retire slightly..

Turn Two

The Dwarves kept advancing and their skirmishers skirmished, not inflicting any casualties but forcing an elf archer unit to step back out of the battle line.

With the Dwarves almost at the foot of the slope the elf spears all charged across the line, crashing into the dwarves. With their heroes, including the army commander in the front, they gain a haealth boost of Reputation points!

On the right flank the dwarves and elves just glared at each other!

On the left (from the dwarves perspective) the attempted flank march floundered, slowed by the rough ground and the need to avoid the elf archery.

The elven charges saw mixed results, in places they pushed the dwarves back and in others were pushed back in turn, or else the vicious melee was fought to a draw with neither side gaining the upper hand. But foolishly accepting a challenge from the Elf Commander cost one dwarf hero dearly.

 

Whilst the champion leading the ogres was felled by a luck blow! Two heroes down already, things were looking bad for the dwarves. Their Reputation had fallen to 8, whilst the Elves were on a mighty 16!

Turn Three

Things took a turn around at this point. 

Although the elves continued to press home their advantage on the right flank, forcing the dwarves back, across the rest of the battlefield the dwarves were victorious and unit after unit of elf spears collapsed beneath the blow of dwarven axes!

The Ogres destroyed the unit in front of them as the belated flank attack swept up the slope unopposed!

An elf hero, left standing alone amongst the bloodied bodies of his warriors scorned to flee, but fell bravely beneath the axes of the dwarves.

Things were looking a little better for the dwarves, but down a shadow swept across the battlefield as the mighty dragon landed!

Turn Four

The Dwarves pressed on, destroying another two units of elves and took possession of the objectives. But could they hold them from the onslaught of the dragon?

The dragon crashed into the dwarven ranks, whilst the supporting skirmishers advanced on the ogres. They tried to drive the big beasts back with their arrows, but were ineffective. The Dwarf sorcerer cast battle rage on the beleaguered dwarves, who some how managed to fight the dragon to a standstill, although at a heavy cost.

At the end of the turn a small advantage to the dwarves.

Turn Five

The Dwarf King left his bodyguard and threw himself into the fight, leading a fresh unit of dwarf axemen against the dragon. His legendary weapon bit deeply through the winged lizard's scales, inflicting a deep wound on the monster.

On the far right flank, the elf commander pressed home the attack in an attempt to destroy the isolated dwarf unit, but they bravely held on.

At the end of turn five the dwarf Reputation still stood at 3, whilst the elven morale had drained away, leaving on -1 Reputation. Another victory to the dwarves, but it was a narrow one and a hard-fought game! 

It was a fun game and we played to a conclusion with 400 points in just over two hours!

We are really enjoying Midgard and talking of playing a much larger all day game at some point in the near future!