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Author Topic: The Grumpy Gnome‘s Fantasy Projects Blog (latest update on page 61)  (Read 102895 times)

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Thanks Andrew. Kitbashing for the win!

We had our 7th scenario, Seize Ground, going on into the late night.

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/05/31/seize-ground-7th-battle-report/

Please feel free to leave comments about the blog or our project in general here if you have difficulty leaving comments on the blog. Hopefully folks find the narrative aspect of the blog battle reports more entertains than just listing die roll results.
Home of the Grumpy Gnome

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/

Offline Ozreth

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 70
May have been asked elsewhere in the thread but what is your table made of? Or is it a mat?

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
It is one of the old Games Workshop static grass cloth mats. We picked this one up after being disappointed with a static grass paper mat and then  the mats roundup video by Mel the Terrain Tutor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOgHiYdAjSY

It is a good mat. The paper mat was constantly losing grass, not so this cloth mat. The only real weakness in my opinion is the uniform bright green color, which makes it look like a golf course or sports field.

We have considered switching to a mousepad mat but have not found one we like enough to spend the money they cost.

Offline Sunjester

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1510
Another excellent report.  :D

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Thanks mate.

Finished another one today. More rambling than previous ones at the end of the blog post as I voice some thoughts on Battle Companies rules.

This is our 8th scenario in our Journey to the Blue Mountains campaign.

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/06/01/show-of-strength-8th-battle-report-in-journey-to-the-blue-mountains/

As always, my wife and I would love to hear what folks think about all this and in particular suggestions on what we can do to improve things.

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Some work done between games.... terrain and Galadhrim.

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/06/03/more-work-between-games/

Our “Journey to the Blue Mountains” continues this weekend if all goes according to plan. Once we complete this campaign we have the two Evil campaigns from White Dwarf and the Good scenario “Quest to Fornost” from the first edition of Battle Companies.

Of course each narrative campaign is designed for a new battle company so we will need to do some adjustments to make them challenging enough for experienced companies.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2020, 11:43:17 AM by Rick W. »

Offline Launets

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 20
Ah! Finally the Taken are getting the victories they deserve!
Glad this has finally happened.
Also the revenge on the Wight was pretty sweet. I look forward to scenario 9

Offline mirjeki

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 98
Great reports and painting as usual!

The folly of knights is to assume they are front-line combatants. I suffer from this constantly in my games of Warhammer Fantasy, where I get my armoured cavalry to charge enemy blocks and see them far less effective than they should be. Even heavy cavalry are best used as shock troops in my opinion. Still, I applaud Azgarzir's zeal!

Great write-ups, Rick. I'm really enjoying the campaign.

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Thanks guys, I am so glad to hear people enjoy hearing about our project.

With the cavalry, you make an excellent point. Tactically I should know better given my understanding of military history but I got swept away with focusing on rule mechanics.... and in doing so made one of  the usual tactical blunders of cavalry commanders throughout the ages.

We have been discussing house rules to adjust our gaming. Battle Companies has a night scenario with night limiting missile range to 6" but SBG has a scenario limiting it to 12". So we need to decide which to use as a more standard night time range as we expect to have random time of day for most scenarios.

Any input?

We are also looking as Terror. In the old rules Terror was checked for charging once at 1" away and if failed the model would flee the rest of its movement. The new rules have you check before you move and if you fail you do not move. But if we understand it right you can still shoot. The second one is much more forgiving for most infantry archers. We have tried both rules and right now we are thinking to use both, ie declare the charge attempt the roll courage. If failed, 1-3 the old flee rule, 4-6 the new frozen in place rule.

We are also looking at cavalry move speed. I prefer 12" to 10". But I do not want cavalry to move the same speed as flying, so considering bumping that up to 18" for the few models that can fly. Possible have armored cavalry with rider -1" and riderless unarmored cavalry (wargs mostly) +1“. But this is running the risk of getting entirely too crunchy and perhaps imbalanced.

Something I came across that confuses me is the differences between Army of the Dead, Shades, Barrow Wights And Dead Marsh Spectres. Only Army of the Dead gets "Spectral Walk" which treats water terrain as open ground (no movement penalty) but does not adjust movement over difficult terrain or affect jump/climb tests. This seems odd to me. My wife agrees in regards to ethereal entities but she thinks Dead Marsh Spectres May be more zombie than ghost, despite Spectre being in the name. All of these have the "spirit" keyword. Of course so does Sauron, the Nazgűl, Gulavhar the Terror of Arnor, the Dwellers in the Dark and the Balrog. And not all of these are ethereal. Oddly the Balrog has wings but no flying special ability. Another house rule to consider one day I suppose.

Whether Dead Marsh Spectres are ethereal or not I pacts not just game mechanics but model proxies as well. We have some GW AOS Chainrasps that I was thinking of making Army of the Dead since I already use the normal Army of the Dead models as Black Numenoreans. But since we will be using Dead Marsh Spectres often and Army of the Dead very rarely I was rethinking that.

On top of that I made a technical error in giving my Battle Company Dead Marsh Spectres shields, confusing the rule that allows heroes to do that but not warrior models who have to abide by their own profile list rather than any profile list in the company as heroes can. My wife and I discussed this and considered that Army of the Dead gets access to shields and spears, so for balance it would seem fair for Dead Marsh Spectres to get these too.

And yet there is also the issue... what is the difference from Dead Marsh Spectres and any other Spectres, ie Angmar. For further confusion a Watchers of Karna Battle Company can get a "Spectral Warrior“ which uses the Army of the Dead profile. Ugh.

Anyone with thoughts on any of this, please feel free to share your views.

The fact the Black Numenoreans have the man keyword instead of spirit is also causing me to rethink the implication GW made of Black Numenoreans being unnaturally immortal. I suppose the Terror they cause could be just from the rumor of it. Argh! Peter Jackson why did you have to make the Mouth of Sauron look undead?!

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Re: The Grumpy Gnome‘s fantasy figures for Middle Earth (Report 9 pg 18)
« Reply #264 on: June 07, 2020, 07:18:27 PM »
And we managed to complete the scenario to rescue the “lost in battle” Elven hero Cailon. It did not end at all as you might expect.... but then I see the leader of my Minas Morgul company rather like Scorpius from Farscape, able to see the bigger picture!

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/06/07/lost-in-battle/
« Last Edit: June 08, 2020, 01:52:42 AM by Rick W. »

Offline scatterbrains

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 434
This one is a win for the bakery (have to read the report to know why)!

one loaf to rule them all  lol

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
I am not after power, I want revenge! And I can not get revenge if I am dead, now can I? - Arnakhor

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
Re: The Grumpy Gnome‘s fantasy figures for Middle Earth (Report 9 pg 18)
« Reply #267 on: June 13, 2020, 04:11:07 AM »

On page 125 of MESBG it says there are no Courage tests for being Broken in Narrative Scenarios. But there is nothing I can find written one way or the other for Narrative Scenarios in Battle Companies. Am I missing something?

My wife and I went with the SBG rule but I see folks on YouTube having enemies break, which really changes the difficulty of Narrative Scenarios. Of course that also means our own Companies could therefore break but that is less of a risk with high Courage troops.

So what do you think? Should troops check Courage once Broken in Battle Companies in Narrative Scenarios, unlike SBG?

Offline Grumpy Gnome

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 5333
    • The Grumpy Gnome
So, taking a break from gaming to get some painting done...

https://thegrumpygnome.home.blog/2020/06/13/pause-for-the-cause/

More info on the blog as usual. Expect some changes in the near future!
« Last Edit: June 13, 2020, 02:31:45 PM by Rick W. »

Offline mirjeki

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 98
Good looking models there. Even your thickly repainted models are better than a lot of stuff I've seen being used by the regular players in Games Workshop (back when they actually ran games of MESBG).

Not sure about the tiny horses though. It makes more sense now that you've said they're foal, but when I first saw them I just thought that they looked like wildly out of scale horses.

With regards for night shooting I think that 12" makes sense. 6" is more realistic perhaps, but realism doesn't always work with game mechanics. 6" would make the archers functionally useless at night due to charge distances, which wouldn't be very fun for an archer-heavy warband. I think spending most of the game unable to use their primary attack, and then getting charged immediately after they finally do that attack would feel too punishing.

If you have goofy old warhammer lying around that you're not interested in then I'd be happy to buy some off you! I'm all about the brighter, sillier warhammer. Those old wood elf models are my favourite ever wood elf models (although the new Hobbit inspired Mirkwood Rangers from GW are also very nice).

 

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