WFB 8 scenery: a Geeks guide

What follows is an exploration in the "Average" scenery that would be required on a Warhammer fantasy table. I found the results surprising so I have written about them....

I hope that this is of interest and of use to you...

My wargame club hosts a wargame tournament once a year in Exeter. At the tournament we normally host 24 players for each of the WFB and WH 40k games systems and this year we will include a 32 man Warmachine / Hordes tournament.

With the advent of the 8th edition of warhammer we have revisited our scenery and set about making new as required. So we had a chat last meeting about the progress that we have made and what we need to do next. So a Saturday morning comes and it is time to test my knowledge of statistics and work out just what we should be making.

I know that we need 12 tables decorated up for WFB, so I set about thinking what would be generated if we just left it to the rules in the book. The book requires D6+4 items of terrain. This means that we would need an average of 71/2 items of terrain per table. The terrain is generated by rolling 2D6 and looking up a table.

Therefore it is possible to calculate what number of each type of scenery would be generated on an average day...

The results of my maths are shown in the following table; The table lists the percentage chances of at least one item of this scenery appearing on each table and therefore the number I would expect to appear on 12 tables..

 which gives the following distribution of scenery; what do you think? Is this what you expected?

 

This is a lot of scenery to make, and is a lot different to our normal set up of two hills, one wood and a building...

Mantic games: Kings of war playtest tonight

Mantic have released a beta version of a very simple ruleset to compliment their set of figures. The intention is that these are playtested to death. To this end I will be playing the system tonight.

I am using my current figures and we have set a 1000 point limit on the game, so the army I have put together for tonight is;

1 Horde of Skeletons with dogs

1 Revenant Regiment with banner and musician

3 Ghoul Regiments

Vampire lord on pegasus

Revenant King.

First thoughts and photos to follow...

SOTR: Time to up the arms race

The Secrets of the third Reich rules allow you to add armour to your force. I have looked in the appendix of the rule book (which contains the stats for armour) and it appears that you gat a lot of bang for your bucks. 

On the basis that it appeared rude not to take advantage of the ability to field armour, I set about researching what tanks I would like. The stats appear to indicate that the best soviet tank that I could choose (for the points that is) is the T34/85. To match the scale of the figures I needed a 1/48 scale model. A quick search on the web showed I could buy them for around £10.00 GBP each, and before I knew it I had ordered two.... Guess that is what happens when work allows you access to the internet in your lunch hour.

I brought Hobby Boss models, and when they arrived I was very pleasantly suprised. The kits have an enormous amount of components and allow you to model to a level of detail that typical wargame manufacturers would never give you.

The models have assembled relatively easily, once I decided not to bother with any of the inside fittings of the tanks, however the tracks are far too complicated given the type of use and the cost of the kit.

It took me just under two days to assemble and greenstuff. Now to have a go at painting a green tank....

Secrets of the Third Reich: Soviet HMG

Soviet Heavy machine gun completed and based...

I opted to construct and mount the entire set before painting. In hindsight (which as we know, is the only sensible way to look at anything) it might have been a better idea to paint each chap individually and then assemble. Getting to all parts was tricky at times.

I have tried to repeat the ameba pattern on the rear of the cloaks. I'm not entirely happy with the final look on these. Now I've seen the photo above, I'm even less happy. Time to get the brushes back out and have another go.

I'm quite happy with how the gun guard came out. I also added a 40 gun case (with emblem removed) and that fits quite well. I used Silfa grass on the base (I have a large stock of it) and that appears to fit with the general look.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Soviet HMG - WIP

Time to expand on the soviet SOTR force with the addition of a Heavy Machine Gun.

To get the model to work properly I had to raise the front gun shield with some plastic card and green stuff. It is a shame, because the rest of the model fits together very well. This change makes this element a little more fragile and I worry about the rough handling all my models get.

I was a little unsure if all these models should fit onto the single base or if the leader should be modelled seperately. After a little web research and a few trial fits I have gone this squeezing them all together.

Time to undercoat and paint.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Finished Siberian flamethrower

After nagging from my work colleague to update my blog, here are completed photographs of the siberian flamethrower dude. He will act as an enforcer within my soviet HQ squad. I have decided to go with a fairly basic skin colour scheme and have retained the green colour scheme of the remainder of the force.

I am aware that I cannot have a flamethrower upgrade as an enforcer option, but I had brought the figure before I read the rule-book.

The chaps head looks a little small for my liking, but regardless I am quite happy with how he turned out. In the WIP posting, I had a small spade on the base, but I got so fed up with it keep falling off that I have removed this.

Secrets of the Third Reich: Siberian flamethrower

Back from holiday and its time to get my paint brushes out again. The original intention was to use this chap as an enforcer in the HQ section protecting the command. unfortunetly I did not realise that I could not equip him with a flamethrower. Shame, it would have been a great idea.

I've got him now, so I may as well paint him up. I have taken the spade of a Chimera, but its fell off three times again, so if it falls off again, that will be the end of that.

The parts fit pretty well together, but I have supplimented the fix with pinning and green stuff..