Wargames Factory Update.-a.k.a Vapor Celts

So I was just reading Zero Twenty Three earlier and was and laughed at his comment about the Wargames Factory "Vapor Celts" because I coincidentally just sent Tony over at Wargames Factory an email about said Vapor Celts this morning. (its been almost year since I sent money for my 2 boxes pre order.) I sent him an 'annoyed customer email" asking what the heck was going on. Here's his response:

Hi John --

Sorry for the lack of updates, we've just been deep into it here! We are taking delivery of the boxes tomorrow from our Rhode Island printer. We are in final tooling with the plastic - we were trying to cram too much onto the sprues and had to add an extra one (which will end up making for a lot of extra 'bits' in the box). We did test shots yesterday and have to tweak two of the tools and then we are running production. My hope is to start packing and shipping by the end of next week (but it might be the first week of February)

I'm just waiting on some good pics of the sprues to post up -- hopefully by the end of this week!

Thanks so much for your patience. It's been an incredibly convoluted and much more difficult road to get to this point than we ever expected (or hoped!!!!) We had to reinvent the process a few times along the way. The good news is that on the up-and-coming products, we are moving pretty swiftly. The L&U zombie sprue went into mold design (the CAD engineering to lay out all the parts and design the plastic flow) on the 14th -- and it is on the CNC machine now. We expect everything else going forward to have the same kind of turnaround times.

Thanks again,
Tony

We are almost a year delayed at this point, and while Tony sounds optimistic its doesn't sound to me like they will be flying off the shelves showing up on doorsteps in the next couple weeks. I just hope he can get the damn things out by May when the new Warhammer Ancients book comes out...then I can finish my Celt Army and shoot for Adepticon 2010..LoL!. He sweetened the deal enough for pre order customer hold outs like me so that its worth it to wait it out. Until then-Vapor Celts it is.........

(edit) I've been told (thanks Rich!)that Wargames Factory has agreed to donate a sprue to the Adepticon 2009 swag bag..that's pretty cool, no confirmation what it will be but my guess is the recently released British Colonials or the upcoming Zombies

Mighty Empires V- Round 1

1/20 @ Games Workshop, Oak Park



This time we are split into two teams, everyone is working on a team level as well
as a personal level to win games and build their Empire.

Good Team

Bill- Wood Elves
Bob- Ogres
Chris- Bretonnians
Leo- High Elves
Nate- Lizardmen

Evil Team

John- Daemons of Chaos
Joe- Warriors of Chaos
Kenny- Daemons of Chaos
Billy- Skaven
Andre- Tomb Kings


Strategic Events

John- Land Grab
Ken- Building Boom
Bob- All or Nothing
Bill- Praise be to the Oracle
Billy- No Guts, No Glory
Nate- Scouts
Leo- War Tax
Andre- Survey the Battlefield
Joe- Sabotage
Chris- Headhunter

Campaign Events

John- All is well
Bill- Treasure Trove
Billy- Fame
Andre- Corruption
Leo- All is well
Bob- All is well
Chris- All is well
Joe- All is well
Ken- All is well
Nate- All is well

Games

Daemons of Chaos vs High Elves
Scenario- Eschelon Attack
Result: Daemons- Massacre points earned- 5
High Elves earn -1 point

Wood Elves vs Skaven
Scenario- Escort
Result: Wood Elves- Massacre points earned- 5
Skaven earn- 1 point

Ogres vs Tomb Kings
Scenario- Battlefield Supremacy
Result: Ogre Victory 1-0, + "all or nothing", points earned- 3
Tomb Kings earn 1 point (due to VP bonus)

Daemons of Chaos Vs Lizardmen
Scenario: Loot/ Raid
Result. Daemons 4, Lizards 3
Points earned Daemons 4, Lizards 3

Warriors of Chaos Vs Bretonnians
Scenario: Pitched Battle
Result: Bretonnian Massacre 5 points
Warriors of Chaos earn 1 point
Bonus Points
(used in bold)

John- 1 Resource, 2 Knowledge, 1 luck
Bill- 1 Resource- 3 Knowledge, 2 Luck
Billy- 2 Resource
Andre- 1 Resource
Chris- 1 Resource 1 Knowledge, 2 Luck
Nate- 2 Luck
Joe- 2 Luck
Bob- 1 Resource, 4 Luck


Great start to a new campaign tonight, 4 games going with almost everyone with lots of painted models on the table. I had a great game vs Leo's High Elves tonight...Leo ran an Arch Mage, a Lv 2 Wizard, Phoenix Guard, Swordmasters, White Lions, 4 BT's and a Chariot, a 2 squads of Archers VS my Daemon Prince of Khorne, Herald of Slannesh, 2 x Bloodletters, 2 x Daemonette2, 2 x Fleshhounds, 2 Bloodcrushers. His shooting and magic plummed me, but once we got into combat the elite troops and both wizards were dead by turn 4...I continued to eat missle fire. Until just some archers and a pair of BT's remain...bonus points pushed this to massacre, I didn't have much left other than my characters and partial front ranks of three units. but picking up both objectives, 2 banners, and killing the HE general gave some big extra points. We will see if I get as lucky next week!

Mighty Empires V- Objective Markers

We are about to get started on our 5th Mighty Empires Campaign since we started our Club Night back in the summer of 2007. At this point the Campaign is so house ruled it bears little resemblance to the basic Mighty Empires rules. Outside of using the ME map and some of the core strategic events everything else is different, We've struggled to get around some of the concepts that really bog the thing down over extended periods of time we play ( this time is 7 weeks). Some of the pitfalls are due our own un-abstraction of the very abstract style in the original works. This time around we removed the auto-run concepts I had put in and we are using a game master to run the campaign. this allows us to add a fog of war and bunch of other concepts we hadn't tried yet. This biggest switch up is we added a blind opponent draw each week based on drawing scenario cards and the people who draw the same scenario are the ones who play each other. We also have "good" and "evil" teams, so there is a team score as well as personal Empire score. We've also added fixed locations that once captured have different effects on everyone. these will be the prime locations players will be squabbling over. Instead of just grabbing as much territory as you can, you now need to capture some of these fixed locations (and hold them) to really beef your Empire up. Lots of good stuff here so I am really looking forward to it. We are using a ton of custom terrain so hopefully that will really spice things up...this campaign should be short and sweet. I hope it leaves people wanting more as I probably won't run another Fantasy campaign until the fall as this summer we are planning a huge Lord of the Rings Event to coincide with the new War of the Ring rules. Anyway- one Campaign at a time. Everyone needs an Objective Marker this time around and I also made some more objective markers for my Empire Army while I was at it. These will be used for the Loot/Raid scenario in the new campaign. (which came straight out of a recent White Dwarf.)



Some Bloodletters move toward their new objective marker, a sneak peak at one of the finished tiles from my Realm of Battle table...(which I hope to have done by the end of the month) I will of course post lots of pics of the whole thing.



Close up shot...the photo doesn't really show it, but used some water effects to "try" to make it look as if the banner dripped blood into the hollowed out skull which overflows a but with blood...a Daemonic unholy grail if you will. this was fun to do and used lots of different bits...The Skull and the Crow are from some Empire kits...the base is cork..the bit the skull is one is from the hirst arts graveyard mold. The banner is obviously an extra Bloodletters bit..the hanging severed heads are from the Warlord Games Celt Barbarian sprue andthe posts are wooden BBQ skewers.




Mostly Empire bits here straight from the various plastic boxes. I don't know where
the big keg came from its was in a box with misc Pirate stuff I had, anyway three "supply"
or objective markers.

Rule-ism's

I'm sure you WFB players that drop by here have seen the recently released second FAQ from Games Workshop. Let me speculate and say that given GW's glacial pace at addressing rules issues, the fact they even bothered to put out a second FAQ while the Dark Elves book hasn't even gotten its own FAQ yet (more on that later), makes it a safe bet that 7th edition is here to stay at least through 2010 while all remaining army books are updated.

We know Lizards, Skaven and Beasts of Chaos are rumored this year, leaving Tomb Kings and Ogres and Bretonnians for 2010. My guess is the still viable late 6th ed books Wood Elf and Dwarf books will be the first of an 8th edition, followed by new Orc and Empire books that can address the power creep that started after their release with the High Elf and Vampire Counts books and continues full steam ahead with each successive book.( I got a look at the new Lizardmen book tuesday night, Yowza! look out they are going to be full on VC, Daemon, DE counter..let those Bloodthristers and pricey Vamp lords say hello to the Blade of Realities, among many other things)

This second FAQ that was released has some needed confirmations and clarifications in it, I want to take a moment and talk about some of my favorites and not so favorites.

Errata.. the correct wording added in several necessary places is needed confirmation of the common sense approach people have taken on those issues, it is rare discrepancies come up with some of these but personally I've played people using character more than one item with a bound spell. glad that is settled

There is alot of common sense stuff that gets brought up with movement, but when we get to
Close Combat a couple things pop out for me.

Q. Can you allocate attacks to specific enemy Rank and File models in order to force which enemy Rank and File models count as casualties (and are thus unable to fight back)?

A. Yes, however we have to warn you that zooming in to a fight to this level of detail is likely to make resolving your fights a very slow process indeed!

A somewhat silly caveat after the important answer YES. this means my Rank and File models can target other Rank and File models directly so I can now always target that pesky musician or Champion instead worrying about where my characters are placed. I've always played or (just assumed) that only Characters could target specific models, you read further down, you will see the same thing applies to unit that can fight in ranks. I'm definitely trying this in my next game, especially after taking a charge if you attacks back killing your opponents musician is key to getting that tiebreaker. (edit- nix that musician Idea, I had forgetten he works just like the standard bearer, i.e cant be individually targeted..so not as useful but still worth bringing up I guess.)

Magic Phase

Two things really pop out at me here that I have dealt with in the past.
-"Rule of burning Iron" can be cast into close combat!
-"Hunter's Spear" only causes 1 wound! not D3 like a regular bolt thrower.

Command Groups

This is an important one I am sure gets overlooked

Q. Does a unit champion count towards the 5 rank-and-file models needed to provide a Look Out Sir! roll to a character in the same unit? A. No, because when the unit is targeted by ranged attacks, they count as Characters and not as rank and file models
Here is couple that I don't like and do not make sense to me.

Q. If a character declares a lone charge out of a unit against an enemy armed with missile weapons, and the enemy elects to Stand and Shoot, whom do they target with their Stand and Shoot reaction – the character or his unit? A. They will target the character’s unit, and if the unit panics and flees, it will take the character with them.

This to me is counter intuitive as I want to shoot at the character
not the unit, your chance of killing the character is potentially better
than making the unit run. This throws and extra advantage to characters they don't need
I say if characters are going to charge solo they should take their lumps!

and

Q. Can a Wizard cast the Lore of Heavens spell, Celestial Shield upon a unit he is attached to? The spell's description states that it can be cast upon a friendly unit that is ‘visible’ to the caster. A. This may seem counter-intuitive, but the letter of the law says that the answer is ‘no’, as the Wizard does not have Line of Sight to his own unit.

Nuff Said on that one, silly.


Now back to the Dark Elves. Apparently we need that Dark Elves FAQ pronto, over at Bell of Lost Souls they posted a Dark Elves Tactica which lists various "dirty tricks". The most offensive being you can voluntarily move the crew from the Cauldron of Blood all over the battle field in order to keep them from getting killed ( you can only stop it by killing the crew) The author is claiming you can still use the Cauldrons powers even thou the crew has abandoned it, because even thou it's clearly classified as a warmachine, it somehow isn't. There are numerous examples I can find in the rulebook that prevent this. However the author (who is apparently a local tourney judge) is splitting hairs over the wording of the Cauldron and Core rules. It should be blatantly obvious to anyone with a sense of fair play what the actual intent is.

Now I have played the Dark Elves and the Cauldron a bunch at this point and no one I've played has even thought to try this. Killing the damn crew is hard enough on its own (as the Cauldron is often deployed in a forest or somewhere hard to get to) let alone with this crap.

This kind of rules parsing is what turned the the 40K tourney scene into a cesspool, and gets honest 40K players all worked up (deservedly so) about the lack of official FAQ's and is what made the Adepticon FAQ into a 92 page nightmare, I'm sorry but needing a 92 page FAQ for a tournament is just bad for business.

Anyway, I like Bell of Lost Souls alot, and I was psyched about the potential of Fantasy coverage, but if that's the kind of stuff they are going to be promoting, my enthusiasm is greatly discouraged.

January Project Updates

Sunday night here at Plastic Legions usually mean updates and I didn't want to disappoint.If you haven't heard from me in awhile rest assured I am working. Either at my regular Job or at my second job, heh. I mean hobby. For the remainder of this month I am working on 3 things. Thankfully their use of overlaps a bit so progress is being made quickly. First is getting my 2000pt Daemons of Chaos WFB army ready for my gaming groups upcoming campaign. The 3rd round results of our painting challenge was kind of soft so while I am at a modest 3 color standard I am trying to finish my models to a personal standard that I can enjoy before we begin. This is the 5th time we've run our "house rules" version of Mighty Empires and by this point there is very little remaining of the core rules other than using the map and strategic events , everything else is different. I am building alot of specific terrain for the campaign and thankfully my Osgiliath pieces can double for several locations on the map. So as I continue to work on my Osgiliath table, I am also filling out terrain for the campaign. I also continue to slowly work on my Realm of Battle table..while I am refraining from posting shots until its done You can see pieces in the shots posted here. I spent a good 3 hours today working on making an an actual table for (it was sitting on a sheet of plywood and some sawhorses), I completely finished detail painting and started to add some flock. So there you have it.
1. Daemons of Chaos
2. Terrain for our new Mighty Empires, map tiles, objective markers, etc.
3. Osgiliath and Realm of Battle Tables.

Come February everything else gets put on hold as I get my Empire army up to snuff for Adepticon, That project list includes a new mounted battle standard bearer, painting my Flagellants, working on tuning up my display base and then going thru every unit and touching up the paint, there are couple units that are pretty lacking compared to the rest of the army.
That ought to take me right up to Adepticon, as our Campaign is going on from January 20 thru
mid March, I am sure I will have various things to do for that.

Here are some pictures from today, tomorrow I will update the galleries with the painting challenge photos and numerous pics from today.


My Bloodcrusher musician, I only used the legs from the original rider, the rest of the parts are the standard box, I'm liking the way this guy came out..standing up blowing the horn. In play these guys are rock solid and have the durability of Hero Characters with 2 wounds, 3+ armor save and a 5+ ward save. I my latest game against the Skaven, two of tore up the left side of table...( I really could used them on the other side thou...damn plague monks!)


Osgiliath finished pieces..These plastic kits from Pegasus Hobbies are the perfect alternative for Fantasy players to GW's City Fight sets. While the side pieces are the stock City Ruins kit. The tower is built from the administration building box and it doesn't go together like this stock..I had to do alot of cutting with a razor saw and x-acto knife to get it to work. Pegasus has a cool new kit out as well I picked up which is where those column toppers are from. the skirt on the roof is left over piece of GW movement tray. As I plan on playing Lord of the Rings with these building I put the skirt up top so models could choose to give up cover and shoot straight down at attackers if they wanted. This stuff can double for a couple of locations in our Warhammer campaign..cool terrain always makes the game more fun, IMO.




I want my Osgiliath table to have lots of statues, so I threw this together from some of Hirst casting experiments. The model is an old Grenadier Titan from probably the late 1970's..I went thru my old boxes of Grenadier stuff from when I was a kid and found all kinds of great models, including stuff I painted when I was 10 or so.when testors gloss paints where all the rage! LoL..one these days I will post them up for laughs. While this piece is going to double as the "Monument of Glory" for Warhammer, I found another cool old model I am using for the "Ancient Idol".



I didn't paint this, I just wanted to show it in case anyone was interested. This is a stock piece I bought from Pegasus Hobbies..it was around $20 and is cast from heavy plaster..its not plastic..I didn't realize it was pre painted when I bought it...which is ok, one less thing to paint. For our Warhammer Campaign, you guessed it the Chaos Shrine.

Painting Challenge- Round 3

1/6 @ Games Workshop, Oak Park

We wrapped up our painting challenge last night with the 1500 point round. Our next campaign starts 1/20 and thanks to this everyone will pretty much have painted armies to at least a tabletop standard. No one (of course) got as much done over the holidays as planned but we still had a repsectable showing. Andre and Chris had to miss round 3, but Joe was back in with new Warriors of Chaos. Scenario was Battlefield Supremacy, right out of the Warhammer rulebook, the only extra thing added was keeping track of VP do decided the extra point (all the games are worth 5 points max) We got in 1 game tonight, mine was particullary tight against Billys Skaven. Even thou my Daemons ate up every single rat on the table..he almost eliminated every scoring unit I had..if I had take 1 more causalty I wouldn't have been able to score at all!..great game. Below are final scores, I will update the gallery with new pics ASAP.


Bill- Wood Elves
Completion Score 2
Game 1 vs Lizardmen 2 Table Quarters held, 1 point for most VP
Round 1 Score -13
Round 2 Score-12
Round 3 Score- 5

Total Points 30

John - Daemons of Chaos
Completion Score 2
Game 1 - VS Skaven 1 Table Quarter Held, 1 points for VP
Round 1 Score -10
Round 2 Score- 8
Round 3 Score- 4

Total Points 22

Billy- Skaven
Completion Score 2
Game 1 - Vs Daemons. No Table Quarters held
Round 1 Score- 13
Round 2 Score- 5
Round 3 Score- 2

Total Points 20

Chris- Bretonnians
Game 1 - Loss to Daemons of Chaos
Game 2- Solid Victory vs Skaven
Round 1 Score- 11
Round 2- 8

Total Points 19


Bob- Ogres
Completion Score 3
Game 1 - Vs Warriors of Chaos, 2 Table Quarters Held
Round 1 Score - 4
Round 2 Score-9
Round 3 Score- 5


Total Points 18

Andre- Beasts of Chaos
Game 1- Massacre vs Ogres
Game 2- Loss to Orcs (Ringer)
Round 1 Score 3
Round 2 Score 7

Total Points 10

Joe- Warriors of Chaos
Completion Score- 2
Game 1 VS Ogres, 2 Table Quarters held, 1 point for VP
Round 3

Total Points 5

Nate- Lizardmen
Completion Score 2
Game 1- VS Wood Elves
Round 2 Score 3
Round 2 Score 2

Total Points 5

Points can be spent on campaign bonuses for your empire at the start of round 1 of the campaign
Bonuses and costs are as follows

Resources ( 1 Empire Point) = 10 points
Knowledge ( GM will secretly reveal the contents of a bordering hex to your Empire)= 5 points
Luck ( Re-Roll on Campaign Events table.) = 2 points.

Back into Mordor

So with the holidays, work, my In-laws giving a us a Wii for Xmas ( my wife and I are addicted to wii golf)..I havent been able to get half of what I wanted to get done during the last month. One thing I did get done however after a of couple late nights was this guy. A Ringwraith on a Fell Beast for my Mordor, Lord of the Rings army and of course as part of my Osgiliath Table. He's not done by any stretch as I need to finish the base and claws to even get him "Done" by normal standards. I do plan on entering him this painting contest over at IWFB.org..so I really need to put a ton more work into to him. I want to liven up those dark tones..(currently there is some 3 color shading on the beast and some green tones in deeper recesses are arent coming thru in the pic.) I tried my hand at some blending using alot of washes on this model and I do see some progress on making a smooth finish. I obviously did a lot of drybrushing here, and I want to balance that out with more highlighting and get some more color in there Tough when you are working basically in monotone. Not sure what I'm going to do with the rider yet, I have some ideas to bring him out a little more. This is pretty much the stock model, I just added some plastic card to the base and made the bridle bits and reins. Anyways consider these photos WIP, I'll update my LotR gallery with the final model later this month. The contest deadline is 1/31, and I have Daemons to paint, my Realm of Battle Table to finish (seen here, waiting on a Woodland Scenics order before I can finish.) and a new Campaign to get off the ground all this month- so its going to be quite busy.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, I have been surfing the Last Alliance alot lately. If you like awesome terrain, check out their forums, specifically the constructions section The stuff there is amazing, truly inspiring..it really motivates you to want to play the game.






Pre-construction, I only had to pin the neck..I was going to magnetize the wings for easy transport however to get at tight fit with magnets I needed to do serious green stuff work to the wings to build them up in spots so there were no gaps and the wings where contour flush to the body. It was much easier and less time consuming to glue them in and just gap fill.


Custom bridle close up. The good old #11 paper clip..after bending it to shape, I hit it real good with a file to chew it up and make it look more natural. I really wanted to have actual reins on the model..something I had a bunch of practice with doing my Celt Chariots, so I used the same technique.


Just before priming...some pissed off Daemonettes waiting for paint look on in the background.

edit 1/22 - this guy is done, finished pics are HERE