Fields of Green

Played four-ish games of Warhammer with Jack today.

Since I'm still waiting for the units required to finish my Empire army, and my Chaos Dwarfs are in any event far from complete, and furthermore wishing to avoid the more complex rules (this is his first exposure to the game), I produced two cut-down 800-ish point lists. I took a Chaos Dwarf force of two units of Dwarfs (15 with hand weapon and shield, led by a hero with the Black Hammer of Hashut, and 10 with great weapons), 20 strong hobgoblins, 10 hobgoblins on wolves, a hobgoblin bolt thrower, and a level 2 sorceror (lore of fire). I kitted him out with a Captain leading 19 spearmen, 20 halberdiers, 8 inner circle knights, 10 hangunners, a level 2 Amethyst wizard and a cannon.

The games were a lot of fun, though he was hampered by the learning curve inherent in the rules (although he picked it up quickly) and me by never having played Chaos Dwarfs before and not being totally sure how to do it. Some quite entertaining moments ensued, such as the game where both of our war machine crews were wiped out before either fired a shot, or when my sorceror single-handedly wiped out 19 spearmen with fire spells only to have his life drained out of him by Jack's chicita (as he called her).

We played on my green-flocked modular board.

This board was put together a number of years ago and is made out of 1" thick extruded foam insulation boards, cut into 2' x 2' tiles. They were cardboard-bottomed as I wanted to have a kind of river going through some of the tiles. This didn't work out so well and the small size of the tiles proved to be a problem, as I invariably end up using them on my kitchen table, which is smaller than 6' x 4', the normal size I play with. Today I put down three 4' x 2' lengths of foam board and arranged my six flocked board pieces atop them, and that was much more stable; they still overhang the table by a good 6" all around but three pieces handle this better than six.

I have therefore resolved to follow my lovely wife's suggestion and glue them down onto 4' x 2' board sections, creating a three-piece double layer board. Ripping the cardboard off the bottoms means that I'll need to completely redo the river portions, but I want to redo them anyway, since I discovered the existence of Water Effects.

I have begun the construction work following our games, resulting in a ton of flock coming off the boards and the realization that I need both more white glue and more spackle. Fortunately I'm still good for flock.

I'm also working on a mountain board for my Chaos Dwarfs. It will be a mixture of gray stone, snow, and brown ground cover, done in three boards of 2' x 4' (see, he can be taught). That's got the hills glued on and spackled. Next up, sanding.