Chuck ToFG: Ogre Characters

Top Banner view,
the wood is from the building kits

Front Face View



After shifting my Battlemaster BSB into my Maneaters, partially because he matches the other 2 I painted, I had to do a new BSB.  IJ ended up taking the Ogre from the Ironblaster kit and making him into my new BSB.  He is leaning back on a hard plaster moulded base with a little styrofoam mound on top of that.  The Pole is not yet finsihed so its kinda of a work in progress image.  But its lots of plasticard and alot of ogre bits spewed out!  He is large and in charge!

Rear end!

Reaper Ogre Ma

This is my new caster.  Not an official GW model but I threw some bits on her like a new arm and new supplies on her pelt.  The staff is painted similar to an ember so that she could be treated as a fire mage.

Chuck ToFG: Update

10 gnoblars painted up for the 2200 list at Acon!

Well I have been pretty busy working on the Ogres.  First I assembled and started to paint up 45 gnoblars.  I only finished 10 though, because it got tiresome and I don't think I'll be using 4 units of 10 in my army for a high deployment ratio.  I do like the little guys and they give some character to the battlefield.  They don't cause panic in my ogres if they die and I also plan on adding some to other Ogres for the classic effect.

Happy New Year! and a Battle Report!

First to all those around the globe who follow the blog, Happy New Year!  I hope that your 2011 was as wonderful as my own and wish you great prosperity and fun gaming in 2012!

If you want my look back at 2011 you can see a previous blog entry here: 2011 Rear End Review.  However as many do I thought I might throw a few resolutions for 2012 in just for good measure!

1. Finish the Skaven Army (Honestly I should be able to complete this easily before summer 2012.
2. Finish the Empire army I've been tinkering with for 3 years.  Maybe near end of 2012.
3. Get a placement at a GT.  I've never gotten an award from a GT, I'd like one.  Doesn't matter what, but something would be good.  Hopefully the Skaven will provide.
4. Get at minimum 52 games during the year.  I've managed this and more 3 years now, I don't see this being any problem.
5. Play every board game I own at least once.  Anything unplayed by the end of 2012 is to be culled from the collection of 100+ board games.

There you go.  Gaming resolutions.  5 of them I thought should be plenty, and I think they are all reasonable goals as well.  What are your resolutions?


Now for the Battle Report!
Ryan G. and his Ogres VS. my Skaven at 1,500 points.  Meeting Engagement!

Honestly, we forgot to start taking pictures before turn 2 so this is actually the bottom of turn two.  Meeting Engagement is bad for me as it is basically guaranteeing Ryan his turn 2 charges.  I tried to hide behind some woods and throw Slaves and Giant Rats into him to slow him up but to nearly no avail.  The Slaves which you can see as mostly an empty tray towards the middle disappeared quickly due more to my own insanity.  I fired a Warpfire Thrower through them in hopes of hitting more of Ryan than myself but failing that by only rolling a 2 on the Artillery Dice and roasted about 12 of my own guys.  Oops...

Around turn 3 the Slaves had imploded as the Clanrats come around the forest to go to where the Slaves have recently vacated some space.  The Stormvermin in the bottom of the picture now certainly bound for combat roll up to the forests edge in what hopefully wont be a completely lost combat.  The Plague Monks in the middle are holding; mostly due to Ryan's terrible dice rolling than any luck of mine.

Ah, and then it all falls apart.  The Stormvermin engage while the Plague Monks broke.  The Bruisers unit combat reforms at the end of my previous turn so that on Ryans he can charge that Clanrat unit above in the flank.  I flee keeping him off of me for another round.  It should be noted I've not had a General for 3 turns now, his Brass Orb didn't hit anything and he ended up fleeing before the Plague Monks as I'd taken him out early on to try and throw the Orb.

Blurry photo's right?  Yeah, you don't wanna see this anyway.  LOL!  The Plague Monks made it off the board as did the General.  The Stormvermin lost and ran off the Board leaving the poor WLC to die shortly thereafter.  His Bruisers unit makes it to the Clanrats wiping out somewhere around 10 of them in the 1st round.  They hold but to what avail?  The game is over...  Ogres are proving to be a very difficult army for me and the Skaven.  I know that this should improve once I get to the 2 and 2,500 point levels as I'll be adding some actual hitting power into the lists like the Abomination and the Plague Furnace which can with decent dice deal out significant damage.  A work in progress...  Its hard for me to get over my old Dwarf tactics of just go get 'em because that is something the Skaven do NOT seem capable of doing.


I really want to keep some Weapons Teams in the list, but I have yet to have one perform enough to come anywhere near justifying its nearly 100 point cost.  I feel they may be left out in the end, destined for fun games and not those at a tournament.  I also believe my 2nd WLC will soon be entering the fray.  Redundancy is the key.  The 1 never seems to do much before exploding, perhaps 2 will.  2,000 will see the addition of the Greyseer for certain and probably the Abomination to give my opponents something serious on the table to worry about.  I have got to get my head wrapped around this army before Adepticon and I do okay against infantry lists, but Ogres just seem too danged hard to wound while there mass number of attacks back seem to relegate my larger numbers to nearly pointless.  Frustration...

Merry Christmas

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch
over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and
the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the
angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David
a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly
there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and
saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards
men.

-Luke 2:8-14

"God bless us, each and every one."

2011 Rear end review...

So as 2011 rapidly draws to a close I am aware that I have played my last game of the year.  I managed to make it a practice Blood Bowl game against my friend Ryan to which my Dwarfs managed a draw against his Humans.  A good game all in all.  Still with the year end looming I thought I'd take a look back at some information for myself as well as maybe some of the things that I think highlighted the year.

First, I keep track of my games every year.  You can call it vanity (although once you see my loss record I think you'll forget that idea) but I like to call it justification.  I view it as proof to myself that my hobby earns it's well spent money.  I've aggregated my information from a spreadsheet and will put it below for the discerning reader to look through for fun.

In the year 2011 I played a total of 56 games between Warhammer Fantasy and Blood Bowl.  Of these 56 games I won a total of 25 (44.64%), lost 26 (46.43%) and drew only 5 (8.93%).  Having lost more than I won makes me want to cry.  Last year I managed to pull off the 50% W/L ratio, but apparently not so this year.  Part of this I attribute to many games at the end of the year being with my Skaven army that I quite admittedly have no idea how to play properly.

Still, I go further...  Of those 56 games 49 we're Fantasy in which I won 22 (44.90%), lost 25 (51.02%) and drew 2 (4.08%).  I cry more!  Still here's where I get to bring up that most of this was due to Skaven as I break it down by army.

Dwarfs - Total games played 28
Wins 15 (53.57%)
Losses 12 (42.86%)
Draws 2 (3.57%)

Skaven - Total games played 17
Wins 6 (35.29%)
Losses 10 (58.82%)
Draws 1 (0.00%)

Wood Elves - Total games played 4
Wins 1 (25.00%)
Losses 3 (75.00%)
Draws 0 (0.00%)

Here we can see that I am still doing the best with my Dwarf army.  Even in its constructed for 7th edition form with blocks no larger than 20 (25 with Slayers).  The Skaven, you see have had a rough time; and I've only been playing them really for about 4 months.  The Wood Elves I only played at Adepticon this year in the 1,000pt. tournament which I did not expect to do well in anyway.

Breaking down simply tournament data speaks a bit of blissful thought though.  Out of my 49 games of Fantasy 31 we're played at Tournaments.  Given that I (kept less accurate information here) played mostly Dwarfs in my tournaments I scored a 15 in both the win and loss while only managing 1 draw in a tournament setting.  I know I played Skaven in at least 6 of these games; I also know that out of those 6 I lost 4 of them thus leaving me to continue stating the trend that I'm still better with my Dwarfs.

My Blood Bowl gaming has garnered a whopping total of 7 games this year.  6 of those being played at Adepticon's Stupor Bowl tournament and 1 having been played literally yesterday.  All the games we're with my Dwarf team.

Wins - 3 (42.86%)
Losses - 1 (14.29%)
Draws - 3 (42.86%)

So, statistics...  If I we're a more intelligent person maybe I'd graph this out and see the trending data of what time of year I perform best, or perhaps be able to figure out what opponents from what geographical area I do the worst against, but I'm satisfied that I have any data at all to look at.  In the end what matters to me is I played enough games over the course of the year to have had 1 game played for all 52 weeks in a year.  I also have a goal of having at least a 50% win ratio which was denied me this year by a single game.  If only I hadn't bothered playing one of those losses with the Skaven army.  Alas, twas not to be.

However I digress...  Looking away from my statistics I think back on the year as a whole.  For Fantasy it has been a pretty exciting year.  We've seen the coming of 3 new army books, a supplement and a campaign.  Out of all this I believe that Storm of Magic seems to be the largest failure for the game int hat nobody in our area plays it or is even the slightest bit interested.  Blood in the Badlands really got my the most excited.  While no army book came out this year for an army I own at least this book gave us new rules in the way of siege games which is something I'm much more interested in than in slinging gargantuan spells around that smash and blast whole units from the board.

We've seen the birth of what I refer to as the Giant Monster Model craze.  Although this isn't just in Fantasy, its trending that way with 40K and the vehicles int hat game as well.  I have to also however admit that the models from GW are looking better and building better than ever.  The kits are also costlier than ever but given the product quality you can't much complain.  Unless of course your talking about Finecast.  I have yet to purchase a single model from that line but expect I will eventually.  I have no excuse for not buying any other than I haven't wanted or needed one yet; however I must admit I've heard both good and bad in just about equal amounts.

My Skaven army that I'd gotten most of the models for last fall and didn't start painting until this fall have really been coming together.  Hopefully at some point I'll figure out how the hell to play them and start winning.  Until that point I guess they are just a fun army, much like the Goblin horde I played many years ago.  Wacky, silly, fun and occasionally winning.

I can't single out specific things from tournaments as memories to share because frankly when I attend a tournament I tend to get a bit drunk and forget most of it.  Ah, friends...  I do love the comradeship and people whom I have the privilege of being friends with and spending weekends knocking about with whilst away from home.

Finally the big note for me and Fantasy this year ended in the shut down of The Waaagh Cast as a permanent podcast.  My goodness there we're just so many at the time.  Oddly enough when I shut down it seems that 4 others disappeared with me which was a bit on the odd side.  Still we we're replaced with great shows who were either just starting up or had been going for a shorter time than ourselves like Garagehammer, Ohiohammer, Pointhammered and the old stand-by's such as Heelanhammer and Bad Dice which we're still there.  I love listening to them all and actually being friends with a number of the US podcasters leaves me extremely happy that I had ever set out on the endeavor in the first place.

I figure I'll finish this up with a thank you to all those who still follow the blog.  Hopefully 2012 brings nothing but joy to you all and great gaming opportunities.  I'll see a most of you that I know at tournaments throughout the year, I am attending Adepticon as always, and will likely be going to Blood in the Sun and whatever Alex Gonzalez decides to run this fall.  Hopefully the Skaven will be done by summer next year and I'll be able to put my work onto that blasted Empire army I've been tinkering with for 4 years.  I plan on making recordings from the GT's that I attend so watch the blog for those postings after the events for some audio love from me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all and I'll see you all next year, god bless.

Holy Paintbrush Batman!

So I've been painting.  A lot.  Unfortunatly not my Skaven.  Well, at least not much of my Skaven.  I've managed to finsih my Warpfire Thrower and Greyseer.  I've also finished a chunk of my Warhammer Quest set.  So, since I said earlier this week that there would be pictures coming, here they are.  Enjoy and as usual you click for a much larger picture.

Oh and before someone says something snarky about the color scheme of the Mino's remember I'm painting them in the mid 90's style.  Yes that means garishly bright colors, but I figured I'd go for the nostalgia.

Greyseer converted form the Island of Blood Master Moulder with Shock Prod

Warpfire Thrower from the Island of Blood, with added cinematic flame.

Minotaur from WHQ

Bats from WHQ

Spiders from WHQ

Snotlings from WHQ

Chuck ToFG: To Blast that Scrap!

After many debates and thoughts I actually picked up the IB/SL kit at the december tournament in Springfield, IL.  I have ravaged the forums for info, tips and tricks.  Waited until the FAQ came out and neutered my poor Ironblaster....sigh.  However, I want to take a different approach then my dear and very admired friend / fellow ToFG gamer Ryan.  So I have chosen to go the route of Ironblaster.  I have even used it in one game, proxied of course, to try and gauge how well it will work.

Found a couple bits to convert it with since I like conversions: 

ebayed so I can use different wheels

ebaying also to use wheels and pistons from the STANK.  I won't be using the small cannon lol

In my first game versus Bretonnians using the Ironblaster we only did 3 turns, however in those turns I did manage to kill 5 knights and a trebuchet.  I will say the reroll ability to ensure maximum distance is a big plus.  We will be testing it out before adding it to the January lists.  Additionally bits for the Blaster won't be in until christmas so while I have the Kit assembled in pieces I won't be posting anything until its together.

Merry Christmas, etc, etc...

Oh Christmas Tree!

So I became aware today that there has been a bit of inactivity on the blog lately.  Well, a lot of inactivity!  Tis the season for ho, ho, ho and all that and as expected everybody's ability to get in some much needed hobby has been reduced to nearly nothing.  Beyond shopping, wrapping, card sending, Christmas plays and more! we've been to busy to really do much of anything.  in fact I don't' believe a single one of us has even played a 1,500 point game yet.

That said I have managed to squeeze just a little bit of painting in here and there.  Hopefully by the end of this week you'll see a blog post from myself at least with my Warpfire Thrower and a lot of my Warhammer Quest models I've been working on.  While they aren't pertinent to the ToFG articles they are what I've been doing so expect to see them!

And to all you and yours, Happy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc... 

Chuck ToFG: Reaper Ogre Mage

I got my female Ogre miniature in today from Reaper; I'm going to cut off the choppa and add an ogre club.  I also got some livestock to add tot he belt.  The staff I am going to paint up like burning fire wood, hopefully useful for a fire-belly mage or regular caster, and she is a heavy one!

Chuck ToFG: December 1,500 pts.

1500pts Orgre Rock Guts Tribe

The list for December is as follows:

Ogre level 3 SlaughterMaster Iron Fist

Bruiser BSB, Heavy Armor, Iron Fist

6 Ogres +HW, Standard, Musician, Champion, Look Out Gnoblar

6 Ogres IF, LA, Standard, Musician

5 IronGuts Standard, Musician

1 Sabretusk

1 Sabretusk

3 Mournfang Cav., LA, Iron Fist,  Musician

I added the wizard and a smaller unit of Ironguts.  I feel that at 1500pts the threat of magic dealing more damage is more real.  I need everything magic wise to help balance out against other races that trump the magic phase like HE, Lizards, and DE.  I have tried and thought about the Maneaters and come to conclusion that having them in a group of 3 scouting would be the best threat to an enemies flank.  So at 2,000 pts. I see myself probably taking them and making the wizard a level 4.  I'm not sure what I'll do with the leftover points after that though.