Spoiler: The Dwarfs Win (Battle Report)

Welcome back to another, long overdue, report on an Old World battle played between The Bob and I. 

I chose to play with Chaos Daemons (Renegade) vs. Dwarfen Mountain Holds. And, Spoiler: The Dwarfs win! Ah, but the twist is in how they got there...read on!

We set the board up with the idea tht the dwarfs were defending and old ruin that has something buried in that Tzeentch wants. But that's as far as any plot for this fight goes as it's essentially a Pitched Battle scenario.. 

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Dwarfen Mountain Holds [1244 pts]

Warhammer: The Old World, Dwarfen Mountain Holds, Open War

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++ Characters [370 pts] ++

King [192 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Full plate armour

- Shield

- General

- On foot

- 2x Rune of Shielding

- Rune of Might

- Rune of Cleaving

Runesmith [68 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Full plate armour

Thane [110 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Full plate armour

- Battle Standard Bearer [Rune of Battle]

- On foot

++ Core Units [398 pts] ++

15 Dwarf Warriors [135 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Heavy armour

- Veteran (champion)

- Standard bearer

- Musician

10 Thunderers [115 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Handguns

- Heavy armour

- Veteran (champion) [Handgun]

- Standard bearer

- Musician

10 Longbeards [148 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Heavy armour

- Shields

- Elder (champion)

- Standard bearer

- Musician

++ Special Units [308 pts] ++

12 Hammerers [213 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Great hammers

- Heavy armour

- Royal Champion

- Standard bearer

- Musician

Cannon [95 pts] 

- Cannon

- Hand weapons

- Light armour

++ Rare Units [168 pts] ++

10 Irondrakes [168 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Drakeguns

- Full plate armour

- Ironwarden (champion) [Drakegun]

- Standard bearer

- Musician

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Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

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Tzeentch Firebomb [1251 pts]

Warhammer: The Old World, Daemons of Chaos, Renegade, Open War

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++ Characters [575 pts] ++

Daemon Prince [400 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Ensorcelled weapon

- Light armour

- Fly (9)

- Daemon of Tzeentch [Level 3 Wizard]

- General

- Winged Horror

- Iridescent Corona

- Daemonology

Daemonic Herald of Tzeentch [175 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Flames of Tzeentch

- Wizard [Level 2 Wizard]

- Disc of Tzeentch

- Daemonic Robes

- Dark Magic

++ Core Units [424 pts] ++

12 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch [162 pts] 

- Hand weapon

- Flames of Tzeentch

- Iridescent Horror (champion)

- Standard bearer

- Musician

20 Blue Horrors of Tzeentch [186 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Flames of Tzeentch

- Ectoplasmic Horror (champion)

2 Brimstone Horrors of Tzeentch [76 pts] 

- Hand weapons

++ Special Units [252 pts] ++

3 Flamers of Tzeentch [120 pts] 

- Hand weapons

- Warpflame

3 Screamers of Tzeentch [132 pts] 

- Lamprey's bite

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Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

Before the battle began I randomly determined my spells. The Daemon Prince (Scalthazar the White) ended up with Daemonic Vessel, Daemonic Vigor and The Summoning. Moonhead, the Daemonic Herald on the disk, got Doombolt and Infernal Gateway. The unit of Pink Horrors ended up with Gift of Mutation. 

TURN 1

We tied on the roll off, but the Dwarfs had a +1 due to finishing their deployment before the daemons so they got to go first. Going first essentially meant standing still and firing at anything within range. In this case the dwarf cannon pasted a single Blue Horror with a well aimed shot. 

The Tzeentch Daemons did the opposite on their first turn, and most of them surged to get closer to the hair runts in their way. The Daemon Prince (Scalthazar the White) cast The Summoning upon the Iron Drakes and actually killed one of them. Moonhead attempt to cast Doombolt on one of the opposing dwarfen units but the spell failed to wound. "It's good to see the magic," said Bob ironically. 

So far it's looking like fairly even fight, we both have only lost a single miniature.

TURN 2

 Seeing those Screamers quickly zipping at them, the cannon crew shoots at them and kills one. The rest of the dwarfs all take a stance a baseball batter, waiting to grand slam the hell out the approaching daemons. 

And on their Turn 2, the Daemons grant them their wish. The Flamers charge the Iron Drakes who blast them with their stand and shoot option, but by some miracle I managed to make all three Ward Saves! Galvanized by this feeling of superiority the Flamers kill two of the Iron Drakes while taking no casualties of their own, however the Combat Resolution resulted in a drawn combat. 

The Daemon Prince (Scalthazar the White) charges the Warriors unit. They seemed like an easy kill for him, and he did kill off four of them, and they fell back in good order. The Daemon Prince pursued and reengaged them, hoping to finish them off next round. 

The Screamers charged the Long Beards, but failed to wound any of them. In turn, the Long Beards pulled the screamers out of the air, stomped, hacked and otherwise pulverized them back into the void that spawned them. The battle has definitely swung in the Dwarfs favor at this stage, but the daemons still have some fight in them...

TURN 3

The Brimstone Horrors, who has failed this charge last turn, was now with in grapeshot range of the dwarf cannon. Combined with shooting from the Thunderers and one of those Stands was reduced to a single Wound. (I neglected to snap any pics that really show off what was happening on this side of the table so sorry about that.)

The Warriors win combat against the Daemon Prince bringing him down to 2 Wounds. 

The Flamers in melee with the Iron Drakes manage to kill one of the Iron Drakes, however the Iron Drakes win on CR and Daemonic Instability wipes out three Flamers in turn! At this pint it was beginning to feel like the Daemonic Instability was a bigger threat to my army than the dwarfs!

The Herald of Tzeentch, zipping around on his disk, attempts to cast Doombolt at the Longbeards. He miscasts, rolls an 8, which means the spell goes off anyway, it wounds one the Long Beards who makes his save regardless. It was a lot of work to figure out it didn't matter! 

The Iron Drakes kill off the last Flamer. 

TURN 4

The dwarfs seize their opportunity and go in for the kill. The Iron Drakes shoot and two Blue Horrors are blasted from the material plane. 

The Thunderers charge the Brimstone Horrors and kill off a stand. 

The Longbeards and the Warriors gang up on the Daemon Prince (Scalthazar the White) and their combined might sends the evil fiend back to the hell that spawned it. Hilariously, no Wounds were caused, it was Daemonic Instability which brought him down entirely.

The entire Pink Horrors unit is lost due to Daemonic Instability.

And the last Brimstone Horrors stand is also removed because of Daemonic Instability. 

So all I had left was the herald and the Blue Horrors, The Blue Horrors I moved into Skirmish Formation so as to maximize their shots. I was determined to kill off at least one unit and the Iron Drakes felt like the tastiest one to me at this stage. It was a fruitless effort. 

All in all, it was a fruitless effort, We ended the game here, as it was obvious that the Daemons had lost. We didn't even tally up the VPs, we knew the difference would be extreme. 

So what went wrong for the daemons? My dice rolling on those Daemonic Instability checks was a huge factor. Again, I lost more to those checks than anything the dwarf army could throw at me. But where I can truly blame myself was overestimating the effectiveness of Tzeentch Daemons in melee. They suck at it. I have all this shooting capability and should have just kept it that way. Their shooting wasn't nearly as effective as I liked, but it was far better than their melee results. 

One particular mistake on my part was ignoring the Screamers Slashing Attack ability and instead charged with them. This would have been a far more effective use of them instead of the suicidal charge I put them in. Play and learn, yes? 

So I am not giving up on them yet, I just need to really think about what they do and how to get them to do it instead of playing them like orcs...

Also, I bet this little army would do far better in games with objectives then a straight pitched battle such as this. I hope to prove that sooner than later. 

The dwarfs on the other hand performed admirably. I dare say Bob's skill with them makes them into patient apex killers, and they did what I imagine my Dwarfs should do. I chose his Long Beards as MVP. I threw a lot of shooting and spells at that unit and nothing seemed to really effect them. And they dished out death to anything that got to close to them. And they look awesome. Well done all around Bob! 

 

Ultramarines Balistus Dreadnought (Part 2)

 Continuing on from Part 1, it was time to get started on throwing some paint on this metal behemoth. First off, I primed it using Chaos Black.

Primed in Chaos Black. 

Then I basecoated all the armor plates using  Space Marine Blue, a classic color from the first painted I ever got way back around Xmas of '89. It is still the best. 

The front canopy is removable, which I just dig.

Khorne Red was used to basecoat the weapons. 

Red guns make 'em bleed!

And the base was basecoated using Applebarrel Territorial  Beige and Mechanicus Standard Grey for the rocks. 

Waiting for the next layers.

Pretty straightforward week. Next week I should get some more layers done before tackling the details. 

Ultramarines Balistus Dreadnought (Part 1)

 

Dreadtober has arrived again! And this year I am pledging to finish a Balistus Dreadnought. This one is from Leviathan, the Warhammer 40,000 10th edition starter box.  It should be a lot easier to build than his brother that I built and painted in 2024, so hopefully that part of this project will go a lot faster. 

Still on sprue.

Assembly was way easier than his counterpart, the Redemptor Dreadnought, whom I painted for the 2024 Dreadtober challenge. And I'm quite thankful for that. After adding some more rubble and grit, the assembly was done. 

Now I am waiting for the window of opportunity to open for me so I can prime the model and dive into painting. Check back next week to see how far I get.

Lookout Gnoblar

 A Lookout Gnoblar. 

"Look out sir, dey gotta cannon!"

This is a test piece for a unit of Gnoblars that I will be painting some point in the next few months. It was a bit challenging working out how to paint them as I only had the Original WFB 7th edition era Ogre Kingdoms book and Destruction Battletome Ogor Mawtribes an outdated AOS hardcover (A used book which I only bought for the paint guides) to provide a glue on how to paint these guys. The 7th edition book cited a scheme using outdated paints while the AoS  book seemed a bit odd. So I had a plan...

Prined

Contrast Paints were once again my salvation. I used Black Templar on the Gnoblar's skin. Of course I used Skeleton Horde m on the skull he's standing on. I am imagining that this is a skull from one of the Sky Titans that the Ogres wiped out some time ago. 

Black Templar skin.

I decided to go with a scheme that belies the scrappy nature of the Gnoblars. Colors that don't even begin to make sense, that look like random scraps that were found and converted into garments. The colors used were Snakebite leather for the headpiece, Miliitarum Green for the shirt and Sigvald Burgundy for the... tunic thingy.

Contrst Colour clothes.

The next step was to add Castellon Green onto the flesh. Although I like how the Black Templar looked by itself, it only looked that good under harsh lighting. Otherwise it appeared too dark for the look I was going for. 

Castellon Green skin.

I painted Dawnstone onto the Castellon Green. This was basically me conceding to follow the recipe in the AoS book, and I think it works. 

Dawnstone skin.

Next I wanted to add a bit more character to this fellow, so I reddened his nose.  I did this using a conservative application of Bloodletter. 

Bloodletter on the nose.

To dirty up the clothes, I gave e them a wash if Agrax Earthshade. I really think this does the trick in making things look more grimey. Note that I haven't finished the base yet. 

Agrax Earthshade wash (front)

By the way, I listened to this inspirational podcast on Gnoblars that I highly recommend that you listen too if the subject interests you at all. 

Agrax Earthshade wash (back). 

So, why, you maybe asking, and I suddenly painting a Gnoblar? Well I'm not just painting one, I am about to paint 30 of them! The leader of this massive unit is called a Groinbiter  (find me a unit champion with a better title than that!) who I am calling Mastablasta! 

Mastablasta the Groinbiter.

This unit is part of a 1000 point poi t force of Ogre Kingdoms that I am doing for the Call of the Crown challenge starting on October 1st 2026.  I have to finish one unit at the end of each month. I will probably add another character for a 6th unit unless I have to take a mulligan. To find out what I mean by that, check out thr Call of the Crown rules at the link above. 

The tribe gathers.

I spent some time in September assembling this force which , I must confess, I had a lot of fun doing.  The Yhetee were the only things I had prepared previously, I just never got back to them after that previous post. 

A better view.

Anyway, here's the army list that I am basing this challenge on: 

Ogres CCC 2 [1000 pts]

Warhammer: The Old World, Ogre Kingdoms, Renegade (v1.5.2.2), Open War

• Tyrant, Great weapon, Heavy armour, Brace of Ogre pistols, General, On foot, Potion of Speed - 215

• 30 Gnoblar Fighters, Throwing weapons (Sharp stuff), Groinbiter (champion) - 65

• 6 Ironguts, Great weapons, Heavy armour, Veteran, Gutlord (champion) [Jade Lion], Standard bearer - 285

• 5 Leadbelchers, Leadbelcher guns, Light armour, Veteran, Thunderfist (champion) - 213

• 5 Yhetees, Grimfrost weapons, Greyback - 222

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Created with "Old World Builder"

[https://old-world-builder.com]

I will discuss these units more as I work on each one. This is the 6th one of these that have been done, but this is my first year doing it. It should be fun, and I am excited to get it going. 

Necromunda 26 intro game

Peeking around the corners of the Underhive.

We (Rob, Bob and myself) were itching to try out the new Necromunda. The new edition that the internet is calling Necromunda 2026 (or N26) due to the murkiness regarding what counted as a new edition after the launch of 3rd. The stars aligned in such a way that we were able to make it happen. 

My Orlock Gang

We chose to play at Hobbytown in Johnson City mainly to make a show of playing Necromunda. It seemed that quite a few people checked us out as we were playing through this game, so that seemed to work out OK. Anyway, Rob acted as our 'gamemaster', sorting through the rules, making rule calls, clarifications, and other aspects of arbitration. This was was particularly helpful as I hadn't read the rulebook yet at all. Rob also brought the mat and the MDF Zone Mortalis terrain. 

The table is set

I brought a fist full of Orlocks, and Bob brought his Van Sar gang. Unlike myself, Bob has been eagerly painting up his gang, where I have yet to do anything with them. Some of my '90s miniatures have been primed, but that's the extent of it. I aim to fix this soon. 

Orlock Deployment

The first round was mostly spent repositioning gangers and trying to get a bit closer to each other's objectives. The scenario we were playing has three objectives placed in each side's deployment area. 

By Turn 2 the blood bath had begun, as were spent much of the turn blasting each other. However it was quickly apparent that luck favored the Van Sar as the Orlocks had a lot more Seriously Injured gangers as this stage. 

Even though the fight seemed to not be going my way, the fact is that point of this match up wasn't to win but to get as many rule interactions in as possible. Tossing grenades? Check. Mastering long ranged shooting? Check. Learning the value of a medic? Seriously checked. 

We even got to see how bottling works now as my Orlocks slowly started dragging their spilled guts back to their layer. We even got to see how a Grav Grenade works and the Orlock leader was struck by one. 

The blue template represents a grav effect.

All-in-all, it was a fun game. A bit more brutal than. I recall, but as with every game of Necromunda I have ever played, the dice rolls can turn the best laid out strategy into utter folly. They can also turn a humble ganger into a hard-core sniper. Neither one of us ever made it to a. Objective, we were having far too much fun splashing around in the bloodbath. One of the most intriguing character i. The Van Sar gang was the Medic. That guy was so impressive that I feel every gang should have one present. I know I want one in the next gang I create. 

So the take away from this is positive, and we want to set up a sort campaign/league thing here locally. It's still early days yet,  but as we go forward I will chronicle it here. See you in the sump! 

20 Halberdiers (Part 1)

The next unit for my Empire project is a big block of 20 Halberdiers. These are the classic mono-pose miniatures from the GW/MB game Battlemasters. Battlemasters came out in 1992, and although those miniatures were revolutionary for their time, thirty years later... they appear to be quite crude by modern standards.. 

20 guys, primed for action. 

I decided to do up two models first to act as "controls". The first model was stopped at the finished basecoats step. Black Templar on the metal areas, Snakebite Leather on the leather and clothing, Wyldwood on the halberd shaft, and Baal Red on the shield and tassel thingy on the halberd. 

Basecoated.

The second one I worked up to what is often referred to as a 'battle-ready' standard.  My old paint recipe for Reiklander uniforms is worked up from the Snakebite Leathe Contrast Paint basecoat, then  a craft paint by Folkart called Linen. I then went over that with another craft paint by Delta Ceramcoat called Raw Linen. I finalized the scheme with a highlight of Skull White. I used Nuln Oil Gloss on the recesses of the armored areas before topping them off with a Stormhost Silver highlight. 

Battle Ready

I was reluctant at first to add yellow to their feathers, but this choice was supported by the Reikland pages of the Uniforms & Heraldry of the Empire book that GW published way back in the last days of WFB 7th edition (I was always bummed out that they never finished the series, but I treasure the three books that they did release). 


Well, doing 20 of these guys is definitely a time consuming war against tedium, and just the Black Templar stage took me awhile. 

Black Templar. 

In Part 2 my goal is to get all of them basecoated. Stay tuned! 

Mounted Celestial Wizard

 I am building an Empire of Man Knightly Order army and I decided I wanted a mounted wizard to support it. Digging through the Neverness Archive I found three unopened blisters of old mounted wizards. A Gold Wizard, Jade Wizard and Celestial Wizard. I decided to go with the Celestial Wizard as I felt he would fit the theme of the army better than the other two.

Mint in blister, a Celestial Wizard. 

After cracking open that beautiful mint condition packaging, I cleaned up the model of it's flash and mold lines. Then I primed it and got to work slapping on the base coats using Contrast Paints. 

Next came the barded horse. Only the muzzle and saddle have any contrast paint on them. The rest of the model is classic Citadel Paint. Macrage Blue on the barding's basecoat followed by Caledon Sky. A subtle highlight of Calgar Blue finished the barding color. 

Dots of White Scar was applied to create a star field look. And a pentacle was freehanded on each cheek of the horse's rump. 

This all came together nicely, and when the rider was done he was glued into position on the horse's back. 

Finally, the flocking stage. I added the usual variety of grass tufts and fallen leaves, and essentially this model is now complete. 

I dig how he turned out. I think he captures that '90s Wayne England color pallette vibe well. 

Oh, the white under the leaves is the PVA glue which hadn't hardened yet before I snapped these pics. I assure you that is no longer apparent on the model now. The last thing left to do is to seal the miniature to reduce the risk of chipping. 

The the next you see him, he should be in battle. Could be awhile though,  but in the meantime I need to figure out a name for him so he can join the Neverness Fantasy Rogues Gallery.