Blood on the Snow… or the mud

A few weeks ago we had the chance to play the 2^nd ed. WFB scenario called “Blood on the Snow” by Matt Connell, published in White Dwarf 91 (1987). It is a four player story which, at least on the surface, pitches dwarfs and humans against a band of respectively orcs and goblins. It is a rather fun scenario with lots of potential as each player has objectives, which very likely will run contrary to otherwise obvious alliances.

The backstory is basically that a keep, built to guard a cave connected with the cult of Sigmar, has fallen into the hands of vile greenskins. The keep was manned by dwarfs, when it was overrun, and now two small armies of men and dwarfs trying to reclaim the place from the invaders.

My battered copy of White Dwarf 91 (1987)

The scenario takes place during the early winter and it thus suggests the use of snow terrain, which is cool, but I did not have any and we therefore renamed the scenario “Blood in the Mud” and placed the story during the early spring instead, when the valley was filled with mud, not snow.

Beyond this change I also added a few components to the individual armies in order to create a bit more diversity and invest the game with further dynamics. A few simple things, such as giving the orcs an owlbear for instance. Otherwise we ran the thing more or less as written. With some banter, beer drinking and smoke breaks it took us roughly seven hours to play, which was longer than expected, but perfectly doable for a Saturday where we began around noon.

The table lay-out as depicted in White Dwarf

It was a close shave, but in the end the dwarfs and humans conquered the keep and kicked the orcs and goblins out of the valley. This was by no means a given and the game thus had a lot of great tension. The overall winner was the human fraction, who succeed in gaining most of their objectives, and the bigtime loser was the orcs who undoubtedly have the toughest task in the scenario, as they pretty much are left to defend the keep while the goblins are allowed to roam the battlefield as they please.

If interested, you can find the individual rosters here:

Blood in the mud_dwarf roster

Blood in the mud_human roster

Blood in the mud_orc roster

Blood in the mud_goblin roster

And here you can see the checklists for the individual objectives:

Blood in the Mud_Victory Points

For the whole backstory you will have to dig out the old issue of WD.

This is what the game looked like. I am sorry for the slightly dark pictures. We played in a somewhat murky room, which did not allow for good photos.

The battlefield as it looked in our interpretation

The armies are advanciong

 

Singing pilgrims on their way to free the captured Cave of Sigmar

Dwarfs marching into the valley

 

The goblins rushing out from their Winter camp in Sigmar’s sacred cave which probably would need a reconsecration after having housed the little gobbos for an entire winter

Wolf riders were the first to leave the cave. Note the stone thrower in the background. This machine really proved lethal during the game

Wolf riders again

Humans moving into the valley

Orc archers leaving the keep to take up a position outside the walls

Humans advancing through the small farm established by the dwarfs in the valley

Orcs with spear ready to defend the bridge

Wolf riders fleeing in panic through the farm after having been hit with a stone from their own stone thrower…

Goblins fleeing towards the advancing dwarfs after having seen their wolf ridring friends on the run

The owlbear slowly moves across the bridge

The dwarfs have to make up their mind – should they face the owlbear or go straight for the bridge?

The troll, a part of the goblin army, was more or less stupid the whole game, but it still managed to hassle the human troops quite a lot.

The dwarfs ready to cross the bridge

Humans and goblins clashing

Human Archers and men-at-arms fighting the stupid troll who kept regenerating wounds

Enemies facing each other while arrow flew both ways

Goblins approaching the dwarfs

The dwarf crossbows succeeded in killing enough orcs to make them flee back into the keep, which inflicted more panic and thus dissolving the orc force, leaving the keep wide open.

The final combat ends. The pious monks ran the last goblin unit off the table and thereby the cave and the keep was recaptured from greenskins

 

The Curious Case of the Goblobber

Ok, this may be old hat to you, but I recently noticed something odd concerning the Goblobber while flicking through the 3rd edition rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Now, we all know what the brilliant Goblobber and crew from ’87 looks like. A masterpiece by Michael Perry from the golden age of Citadel captured splendidly on the box art for the war machine. 

The glorious Goblobber as we know it

However, on p. 105 of the rulebook we see the Goblobber with the bow-part mounted reversed. What is this about? It is clearly the same model as the one from the box cover. Did something happen to the model between the two photos? Was the bow loose and mounted wrongly by the photographer when taking the picture for the rulebook?

The Goblobber as seen on p. 105 in the Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook p. 105.

This is certainly curious. I started googling images of the Goblobber and while most people have assembled their ‘lobbers with the bow in a traditional way, such as this one, brilliantly painted by Jaekel.

The Goblobber painted by Jaekel

But I also discovered this by Orclord on the Stuff of Legends page.

Orclord’s Goblobber

Here the bow or crossbeam is also mounted the ‘wrong’ way round and the caption for the image even comments on this without further explanation.

What is this about? Is there a connection here? how this did happen twice? I am puzzled and I clearly have too much time on my hands when having time to ponder such hobby oddities. Does anyone of you Oldhammer scholars have some info to share concerning this, which can shed some light on the matter

Again, sorry if this topic has already been discussed to death on Facebook or some other forum.

 

Elderly dwarf and baker

I have been painting Orc’s Drift miniatures off and on for a while now and here you see two further specimens from that list of distinguished models. Two lovely chaps. To the left we have a dwarf elder who in the campaign scenario is named Gymlet. It is a splendid little sculpt with a ton of character. He was a pleasure to paint; especially working on his face was fun. The other mini is another villager – the baker – with all the old school charm of the entire ‘villagers’ range. Both sculpts are quite simple, without many details, but I guess this is exactly what makes them work so well. Unadorned and simple, yet full of life.

With those two painted I have finished most of the minis connected to the campaign, missing only a few orcs and of course King F’ar on his wyvern. In fact, I have finished those as well, but they still await proper basing, but they will show up in a blog post very, so if interested, stay tuned. 

 

Cheers

Martin

 

Drifting with the orcs again

Here’s some rather hasty snapshots of a selection of the character models from the last two scenarios in the Orc’s Drift campaign pack. I’m sorry for the slightly blurry images – I somehow couldn’t get the camera working right despite the fact that the lighting was good.

First up is the inn keepers father. It’s one of the better minis from Trish Morrison’s line of townsfolk and villagers from ‘85. A line which has caught quite some flak over the years but I must admit that I find most of them charming.

The second model is Mayor Leofwine and while the miniature isn’t exactly screaming “mayor” it has a certain imposing air to it. It’s slightly rough around the edges, but the cloak was a delight to paint.

Speaking of rough sculpting we arrive at Bertolac – a fighter who seems closely related to the Young Fighter miniature from the Adventurers Starter Set from 1985. Especially the head and the face of Bertolac is crudely shaped and a bit difficult to paint, but the I guess he’ll look just fine on the tabletop. The shield motif I copied from Gary Chalk’s rendition of Bertolac in the campaign material.

I also copied Chalk when painting the fabled Osrim Chardz; one of those rare dwarves that can be rather costly, especially when looking at the “Buy Now” prices on Ebay. I could not help myself using Chalk’s rather bold, bright colours from the depiction of Osrim on the Orc’s Drift box cover but I think they work well on the mini and while it certainly was a bit intimidating starting to paint this one I’m fairly pleased with the end result. The model is perhaps a bit too busy on the details, but he’s a cool little piece. The miniature itself seems related to a whole little group of dwarfs with the King Gorrin from the Dwarf Lords of Legend  (1985) and Pulper Spikehead from the Chaos Dwarf Renegades (1986) boxes.

   

Osrim Chardz by Gary Chalk in an ad for the Orc’s Drift box

My personal favorite from the lot however is the old dwarf adventurer who in the campaign material goes by the name Beli. I really dig the seasoned, melancholy look of this guy. In many ways this mini sums up all I love about Citadels dwarfs from the 80’s and I never really get tired of these models.

  

That’s all for now.

Cheers

Martin

 

Meet the Fimbuls

As promised in the last post I here bring you Borinn and Snorinn Fimbul. The father and son who lead the small band of gold fever-crazed dwarves from the second scenario in Games Workshop’s Orc’s Drift campaign from ’85. Borinn and Snorinn along with 11 other members of their race have thus settled on the plateau of Ashak Rise where they are now completely absorbed in washing gold nuggets out of the silt from the River Canis as the Severed Hand tribe come marching into the scene on their way to meet up with the rest of the orc tribes at Orc’s Drift. Combat of course ensues but the dwarves have a delightfully non-heroic objective.

I really like this pair of miniatures. They have everything I hold dear when it comes to vintage Citadel dwarves. They are very distinct personalities and practically ooze adventure and fantasy. The pair was also very well chosen for the scenario – Borinn, the father, has a stately feel to him as he calmly smokes his pipe, while Snorinn, the son, is smaller, more slender and caught in a dynamic pose. Borinn is originally part of the Dwarf Adventurer range and his son Snorinn belongs to the range of Norse Dwarves.

Along with the Fimbuls you see the three pack mules also part of the scenario.

All good stuff.

Cheers

Martin

 

Suben Blackmountain stirred in his rest just before sunset

In roughly two weeks I’ll be hosting a small game of Oldhammer. In the scenario the devious robber baron Alban von Edelhahn is returning to his estates with Suben Blackmountain – a dwarf hostage he plans to sell for a nice, big ransom. However, on their way back Alban and his retinue is attacked by Nazgob – a minor, equally devious, goblin chief who is on the prowl with some of his goblin and snotling warriors.

I needed a mini to represent Suben Blackmountain and this gave me a chance to paint a resting dwarf I’ve had in my leadpile for a while. Actually I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with this dwarf. He may be a casualty but he rather looks like a resting dwarf stirred in his sleep. Hence the name for the small scenic shot here.

I’ll be back soon with snotlings galore!

 

Cheers

Dwarves rallying under their banner

I finished these five fellas this week. It’s a rather eclectic mix of dwarves – the one on the far left and right is old, pre-slotta Citadel (I think), the others are splendid models from the late 80’s. I really love the old line of dwarf adventurers. Together with the Norse dwarves these are some of my favorite stunties. In fact, although a have quite a few of them in my collection, I never cared much for the Marauder “landsknecht” dwarves that seem to be all the rage at the moment. Well, you can’t argue with taste.

Finishing these five dwarfs actually mark a milestone for me. I’m slowly working towards painting all four armies involved in the “Blood in the Snow” scenario from White Dwarf 91 and with these guys I have now finished the dwarf army. Yay!   The human troops are soon to be finished as well and that only leaves a heck of a lot of greenskins to paint… However, at the moment I’m focusing on chaos stuff, which you’ll see over the coming weeks on the blog.

 

 

Assorted dwarfs

I found time to work on some old Citadel dwarfs. My photos are crap and messes up the impression of the paint job. Nevertheless I’m quite pleased with my work on two of them; the Norse dwarf with the axe and the one holding two javelins.

The dwarfs are all sporting the same colours (yellow and green) in order to give them some sort of clan identity.

The Norse dwarf has a large scar running down the left side of the face, very close to his eye. This inspired me to paint him as being blind on the one eye. The result is perhaps a bit weird, but he definitely has a certain bad-ass air to him now.

I must confess that I find it difficult to come up with shield motifs for dwarfs. The boring tankard is trite, but to find other ‘dwarfish’ motifs is no easy task and I definitely need to think some more about dwarf shields before I start painting any further little beardy chaps.

 

The last of the dwarfs is really, really small, almost gnome-like in size. I wonder when this mini was produced. He gives the an expression of being a pre-slotta miniature appropriated to the new slotta format – however, that’s only me guessing. His face is wonderfully characterful, which you probably won’t be able to make out on the photo. Does anyone of you know when this dwarf was produced.

Next up I’ll be working on some foot knights.