Shadow War: Armageddon

Shadow War: Armageddon is the revival of the Necromunda rules by Games Workshop and it has my group gearing up to play a campaign. The rules are nearly identical to the game from the 90's with the main difference being that rather than desperate gangs of underhive scum, your force can be drawn from elements of any 40k army (though I think you could happily build any of the old gangs with the Astra Militarium list and use the old skill trees for advancement).

This is Fingob's Ladz, my Ork Kill Team. Fingob is the brute with the Power Klaw (overkill for a starting gang, but it's what my model has - if I run Orks for the campaign, I'll paint up a new Fingob with a Kombi-flamer). His right hand ork, Fester, is a kunning Spanner Boy and carries a Big Shoota. The rest of the mob consists of four Boyz (Hef, Cloutgob, Mangeye, and Naffbitz) and three Yoofs (Pulg, Wort, and Snik). I have zero idea of how effective this gang will be, but I just love playing Orks!

I can make five or six Kill Teams just by pulling minis form my cabinets, but I plan on custom designing another Ork mob (Bloodaxe Kommandos) and a Inquisition Pacification Force.

I'm still working on some proper underhive terrain, but my urban sprawl should do nicely for now...

We've going to get in some games tonight. I'll have some notes on what happened in a few days, but these are just for fun and to get to grips with the rules so there won't be any real record keeping yet.

Wandering Around Ireland, Part III

The next day of our trip took us to lots of different sites!

Before leaving Enniskillen, we stopped at Enniskillen Castle and just had a walk around the outside. On March 11th 1689, Gustavus Hamilton formally declared Enniskillen for William of Orange. A day later, James II landed at Kinsale seeking to win, with victory in Ireland, the springboard for an assault on England. Throughout that month, the Enniskilleners harassed the Jacobites, sending out lightning raids from this island stronghold.

After our trip to Ireland, I have plans to add a couple of small castles to my terrain collection for the period. This was only the first castle of the day! Driving south we passed a sign for Balfour Castle in Lisnaskea. Being in no particular hurry, we turned around and followed the sign...

The stands on the grounds of a church, behind a graveyard. It was built around 1618 under grant from King James I. I have found little information about the place in the period covered by Beneath the Lily Banners, though some notes on the place say the castle was 'damaged in 1689'. There was a small action at Lisnaskea before the battle at Newtownbutler so the damage in question may have occurred around that time.

A bit farther south is a castle we know was involved in at least two actions during the fighting around Enniskillen - Castle Crom. There is a massive Victorian castle of the same name on the site, but the one we were interested in is a small ruin that lies to the south. Barry told Bob and I that Lord Galmoy tried to take the castle by bluff with a fake cannon made of tin. The Enniskilleners wouldn't surrender without a fight and apparently the Jacobites blew up their toy gun by trying to actually fire it!

Several months later, a second attempt to take the castle was made by Lord Montcashel with several light guns possibly as many as 1000 men. The defenders made use of temporary outer earthworks to bolster the castle's strength and again the Enniskilleners managed see the Jacobites off.

One fascinating detail we found on a nearby plaque was that some of the current walls are 'fake', built as ruins to enhance the view of the place from the Victorian Castle.

Again I was truck by the fact that we were able to simply walk up to this monument. I took three times as many photos as I've posted, with an eye toward capturing detail for building a model for the game table.

Winding our way south, we stopped on the side of the road at one of three sites believed to be the location of the Battle of Newtownbutler (Barry wrote a series of articles on this conflict). Basically the Jacobites formed up on a hill behind a bog and taunted the Enniskilleners to 'come over and fight'. Turns out the bog wasn't much of an impediment - either the ground was not as poor as believed or they knew a path through. Bottom line - the Jacobites were routed. In any case, this spot fits the description of the field very well. This photo possibly shows the hill where the Jacobites deployed...

Here is the bog that would lie between the armies...

... and this open ground would be where the Eniskilleners started.

On to Athlone! Ok, somehow I didn't manage to get any pictures of the castle at Athlone. The modern day city is built pretty close to it all the way around. We probably should have popped across the bridge and got pics from the other side, but I didn't think about it at the time, The castle museum was interesting but again I didn't take many photos... well, we did get one...

It's easy to see why grenadiers were so feared!

Next time we are off to Aughrim...

Grimteef da Widowmaker

With all of the info coming out about the next edition of Warhammer 40k, I've grown pretty optimistic about the direction of the game. It sounds like they've taken some of the most successful bits of AoS, combined them 40k, and even pulled out some elements of Rogue Trader (vehicles have Armour Saves and Wounds like everything else). The core rule set will be free and consists of 14 pages. Most of Universal Special Rules will be replaced by unit specific rules that will be included on the unit Data Slate. I don't know exactly how it will turn out in the full reveal, but I am encouraged with the info so far.

In any case, I was inspired to paint up the first 40k model I've worked on in several years (my last blog post with new minis was 2014, but I'm not sure if it's actually been that long).

Grimteef da Widowmaker has been the leader of my beloved Ork horde since 3rd edition. I decided it was time to update this monster and furthermore I decided I wanted something more unique than the models GW currently has available. I love the new Orruk models AoS and yesterday I dropped by my local GW shop to pick up the Ironjawz Megaboss. I scrounged through the pile of other Ork kits I had on hand to come up with more Dakka and here is the terrifying result!

This lad is HUGE. There was a bit of cutting and filing needed as the newer kits tend to have strange joins (rather than simple flat shoulder joints to add arms, etc), but I didn't need to resort of greenstuff. The right hand proved the most troubling and I had to trim away quit a bit of the original gauntlet to make the fit, but I was able to cover an unsightly job with a spiky bit of armour. All of the Orky glyphs are decals, but the checkerboard racing stripes were painted freehand. As a bonus, the entire project, from purchase to photography was accomplished in under 24 hours!

Somehow, I don't seem to have any photos of my Ork army that aren't more than ten years old and I'll have to remedy that in the future, but I'll include Grimteef wading through his minions. I'm anxious to see the new point values, but my army currently sits at something around over 7000 points! I probably have another 2000 points tucked away in cupboards still in their original shrink wrap (Yesterday, I found three boxes of Meganobz and a Morkanaught I didn't even know I had).

Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying the new game and leading the Waaaagh across the galaxy!