Could you please send me a left leg?

Hi there,
I've only just gotten around to opening the items I ordered. The WoldGuardian and the MegaLith are perfect, unfortunately the Wold Watcher is missing it's left leg, but has an extra right arm.
Here's a photo of the contents:http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigmcinnes/5479774562/
Could you please send me a left leg?
Thanks,-Craig

Those Golems I ordered. Sigh.

let's try this again: Throwing Axes

Yesterday I posted about Throwing Axes, and got a whole lotta stuff wrong. Thanks again to the fine Mr. Trollhoer of Troll Tales for setting me straight and true. In my defence I've never actually taken Throwing Axes, still my beard has taken on a decidedly orange tint after that last post.

Now then, let's hope I get this right.

used without permission

Throwing Axes (p91):
Range 6", Strength +1 (i.e. 4 for Warriors, 5 for Longbeards), Quick to Fire.

Quick to Fire (p73)
[paraphrasing]...does not suffer the -1 penalty for moving and shooting...can always be used to stand and shoot - even if that charging enemy is too close for stand and shoot to normally be used.

Well holy crap, this allows Dwarves to move and shoot. (That's move and shoot now, not march and shoot).
I never realised. I don't honestly know if it'll be any good with such a short range, but the strength 4 (possible 5 with Longbeards) might be tempting - and you can use double ranks in 8th ed.

The cost? Well only Dwarf Ranger units can have them.
Find the Dwarf Ranger rules on p53 of the Dwarf rulebook. 
You can only have 1 Ranger unit per army list. Warriors, Longbeards or Quarrellers can be upgraded to Rangers for +1 point per model.

Only Warriors or Longbeards that have been upgraded to Rangers can be equipped with Throwing Axes for +1 points per model.

I used to have some Rangers, to bad they're
away from the hold 'ranging'.

To hit on BS3 is 4+, -1 to hit (long range at 6") is 5+, so only 3 or 4 hits out of 10.

Stand and shoot (p17)
[paraphrasing]...can be declared when a unit starts it's charge outside the firing units maximum weapon range...it's resolved as if the enemy is just within maximum range.
You can ignore the first part about 'outside the maximum weapon range' thanks to Quick to Fire - which may always be used to stand and shoot.

If you're being charged and you 'stand and shoot' it's another -1 to hit and it counts as long range, which means you need a 6 to hit.
(See p40 of the rulebook for the shooting modifiers.)
I think the only way this could count as short range (and therefore roll to hit on a 5) is if the enemy unit is inside 3" when declaring the charge - normally you wouldn't be allowed to stand and shoot, but with Quick to Fire you can.

If you're rolling those 6's to hit, then out of 10 dice you'll generally only get 1 or 2.

Is that right? It seems very low to me. How would Throwing Axes ever have been worth it in 7th ed where you could only fire with the front rank? (I'm clearly paranoid after getting so many rules wrong in my last post). With 5 shots you'd have to be lucky to get more than 1 hit. I'm not even sure they're worth it in 8th ed where you can fire 10 shots.

Unfortunately it's quite likely that you'll only get a round or two off with the axes; I can't imagine ever using this for harassment: a 3" move simply isn't enough to keep up with other units. It also isn't enough to move into the 6" range and shoot that turn - pretty much anything would have charged you the turn before when you were 9" away.

Assuming I'm right about the 6's to hit against chargers, I'd much rather spend the 20 or 30 points on more models or runes.

So in the end, throwing axes come as a nasty surprise charge reaction.
You might give your opponent a fright, but it won't last long as (s)he laughs at your pitiful to hit rolls.

Throwing Axes

[Update: 01:46 25/02/11:
I've rewritten and corrected this post here, with hopefully correct rules.]

[Update: 11:30 24/02/11:
So I got a metric tonne of the rules wrong in this post. My thanks to Trollhoer of Troll Tales who set me straight in the comments. That's what I get for not fact checking. I'll go rule check the corrections and fix this whole post up this evening GMT.
In the mean time...don't believe a word I've written!]

Throwing Axes (p91):
Range 6", Strength +1 (i.e. 5 for Dwarves), Quick to Fire.

Quick to Fire (p73)
[paraphrasing]...does not suffer the -1 penalty for moving and shooting...can always be used to stand and shoot - even if that charging enemy is too close for stand and shoot to normally be used.

Well holy crap, this allows Dwarves to move and shoot. (That's move and shoot now, not march and shoot).
I never realised. I don't honestly know if it'll be any good with such a short range, but the strength 5 is tempting - and you can use double ranks in 8th ed.

The cost? Well only Dwarf Ranger units can have them. You can only have 1 Ranger unit per army list. Warriors, Long Beards or Quarrellers can be upgraded to Rangers for +1 point per model.

Rangers can be equipped with Throwing Axes for +1 points per model.

I used to have some Rangers, to bad they're
away from the hold 'ranging'.

If you're being charged it's assumed short range, but it's -1 to hit chargers so it amounts to the same as shooting at long range.

With Warrior Rangers BS of 3:
To hit on BS3 is 4+, -1 to hit (long range/charging) is 5+ so only 3 or 4 hits out of 10.

With Quarreller Rangers BS of 4:

To hit on BS4 is 3+, -1(long range/charging) is 4+ so only ~5 hits out of 10.

This bit of the rules cracks me up:  "...the model is assumed to have enough axes to last the battle." I can just see some crazy slayer type, completely covered in axes with just some beard hair and beady eyes visible through the mass of blades.

Unfortunately it's quite likely that you'll only get a round or two off with the axes; I can't imagine ever using this for harassment - 3" move simply isn't enough to keep up with other units. It also isn't enough to move into the 6" range and shoot that turn - pretty much anything would have charged you the turn before when you were 9" away.

So in the end, throwing axes come as a nasty surprise charge reaction. They're the equivalent of an single shot Orgun gun with the tasty tasty S5 hits.

YATIMI8ED: Casualties are taken from the back

When looking into order of striking recently I realised I hadn't covered the whole 'casualties are taken from the back' thing in 8th ed just yet.

Removing Casualties (p5)
...casualties are taken from the back of the unit

Sounds simple.

Nurgle core troops are
hard bastards.

For example, a unit is charged, it has Great Weapon's so it strikes last. Then chargers kill the ENTIRE front
two ranks - normally by 7th ed rules the GW unit DOES NOT get any hits back - not any more.

IF that GW unit has enough figures left, and they are in contact with the chargers then they get to roll to hit.

If have 5 ranks, and the entire 2 front ranks die in the first round of combat, you still have 3 ranks and they all get to attack.

This means the weaker horde units (Skaven Slaves) will be able to hit back in any given round of combat - assuming they have some actual models left.

It also means a horde of weaker troops can withstand and possibly beat (with steadfast) elite troops, when numbers are on their side. Gone are the days when elite troops could wipe out the majority of the weaker units front rank thereby denying them returning attacks.

Also gone are the days of the heavy cavalry charge - it may indeed wipe out the front rank of your unit, but the front two ranks? Unlikely. Even if it does, you should have more ranks waiting to wade in and do some damage.

All the more reason to carry a horde or two to any given battle.

More Golems

A thunderous slow knocking on the door.
"DELIVERY."
The massive animated Golem, alight with the glow of an inner furnace thousands of years old, makes the noise of grating stone as it leans down while I stare out the open door at it, mouth agape.
It delicately hands me a small box, slowly turns and crunches it's way out the drive.
Inside...

Remember the Golems I had my eye on? 

Hooray! They arrived.

I'm a tad worried the Guardian won't fit in a unit in a 40mm x40mm space, but the other two look great.

The wold watcher is the smallest of the bunch, but hopefully it'll look good in a unit.

My Dwarf bases are boring

It's not a great photo, 

but you get the point.

That is to say, when I've finished painting a model I try and make the base look well. Usually this is a light layer of sand (mixed grain size). It doesn't completely cover the base. Add some rocks . Cover with Graveyard Earth, paint any stones the relevant grey shades, then army painter the lot.
Add grass (Army Painter's Highland Tuft is my current favourite).
Then snow parts of it up.

BAM. Done. Put a pin in it.

And, I'm quite happy with them generally. They look good (such modesty!).

But...

YATIMI8ED: Order of striking and Initiative in combat

In 8th ed the charging unit no longer strikes first (as it did in 7th ed, well, as long as they weren't carrying great weapons).

In 8th ed, the order of striking happens like so:

1. Always Strikes First (p66 of rulebook) [ASF] Don't forget that Always Strike First gives a unit the ability to re-roll failed misses (to hit rolls) if that unit has a higher initiative (traitorous High Elves). The re-rolls can be used every turn of the combat!
2. Initiative
3. Always Strikes Last (p66 of rulebook) (i.e. Great Weapons[GWs]) [ASL]

There are a few more situations where this changes:

1. If both units Initiative is the same, then striking is simultaneous
   i.e. both sides roll to hit and take wounds at the same time
2. If both units have ASF then striking is simultaneous and neither side benefits from the re-rolls ASF normally provides.
3. If both sides have ASL (i.e. GWs) then striking is simultaneous
4. If a unit has both ASF, and ASL, then the abilities cancel each other out and that units hits based solely based on it's Initiative.

What did I miss? Well I didn't know about the re-roll stuff for ASF. That's a biggie, I'd assume High Elves are pretty kick ass now. To be honest it sounds a tad overpowered to me, working every round the way it does. I think it might not be as powerful as it sounds. With wounds being taken from the back (that'll be another YATIMI8ED sooner or later) striking first doesn't help that much against a large block. There'll still be plenty of models to hit you back. So to make up for that the ASF units get the re-rolls every turn (if they have the higher initiative). That kinda makes sense to me.

I thought for a while about taking a Master Rune of Swiftness on a character to get these re-rolls, but Dwarven characters all have pretty low Initiative. A Thane has an Initiative of 3, and a Lord has 4 so I'd say it's unlikely you're going to meet many units or characters which have lower Initiative. No re-rolling to hit for us Dwarves. Maybe rarely.

I had also missed the GW on GW action. When playing against the Dawi Zharr this happened, and we played it based on Initiative rather than the straight up simultaneous hits.

Funky basing bits from 'The Army Painter'

Was wandering about the Army Painter site and noticed these lovelies:

Hero Basing Kit

Body Parts Kit

Get them at the Army Painter shop.

So tempted...

Dwarves vs Dwarfs

This is a short one.
Basically, I couldn't care less if it has Dwarfs on the front of the army book.
It offends me every time I see it written. I actually find Dawi pretty annoying too.
It's Dwarves ok? Bleedin' Dwarves. It's a goddamn plural.

That's what I thought until I started googling the subject.

Dwarfs is philologically correct as the plural of Dwarf.
Have a read of this if you're interested, it's Dwarfs vs Dwarves.

I suppose as I'm incorrect about the spelling, I'd have to say I'm with Bill Poser.
It doesn't matter how it's spelled I'll still pronounce it 'dworvz'.

Norse Dwarfs

Found them while google imaging around for warhammer dwarfs.
Anyone got any idea where I could get my mitts on these?
Sure they wouldn't be tournament legal, but they look great. I especially love the dude at the back left, with the huge grey beard, little short sword/dagger held aloft and the sleeve hanging from his arm.

After some googling around it looks like they might be some of these guys from wargamesfoundry, but I'm not 100% sure - I can't see the few of the miniatures above in any of the wargamesfoundry stuff.

Impact Craters

Some time ago (July '08 according to Flickr) I put this together.
I was feeling creative, and sick of painting & basing models.

The this set of photos will take you through the construction.

I didn't do much that isn't obvious from the photos tbh, but here's a text description.

Half price sale on GW stuff

I couldn't stop taking things off the shelf. I phoned a friend for help, but he just encouraged me to buy more! Damn your eyes.

I picked up some Orc and Goblin units, which hopefully when put together with my old Skull Pass box will give me the bare bones of an Orc and Goblin army. I'll still have to pick up characters, some rock lobbers, and some core infantry blocks. I have a few night goblins units, but I reckon I'll definitely need some chunky Orcs.

Always had a fancy for playing the O&G's, something to do with being the mortal enemies of the Dwarves maybe.

I've already got a Wood Elf army, which I haven't played with 8th Ed rules yet. I had always played them as super manoeuvrable and with no blocks! Not owning any core block units makes me think they'd fare very badly in 8th.

As if I didn't already have enough Dwarf units to build and paint...

Update [13:12 11/02/11]: I should have said, the sale is at a local toy store, Banba. They're selling off all of their GW stock.  Including paints, brushes, books etc - not a massive selection, but enough for me to buy all of the above. Apparently they're not going to sell GW stuff any more, hence the sell off.

YATIMI8ED: Steadfast & Disruption

I was hesitant about naming this a 'Yet Another Thing I Missed In 8th Edition' because I didn't miss Steadfast. Honest.
I may have skimmed over Disruption though...

Steadfast
p54 Steadfast:
[paraphrasing] ...If a unit has more ranks than it's enemy, it takes its Break test on it's unmodified Leadership.

You can use your nearby General's leadership for this roll too. I really feel this rule has changed Warhammer quite a bit from 7th Edition, 8th is now leaning heavily in the direction of the large infantry blocks.

Oh gawd, all that unpainted silver hurts mine eyes

...so does the 7 ranks of Skeletons right in the middle there.

One example is large blocks of Skaven Slave units...

Dwarf Unit fillers - Golems

I've been thinking about some unit fillers for a while, and couldn't come up with anything I liked. The usual beer/keg related stuff sounded good, but I'm no good with green stuff - and couldn't find any suitable models.

Then I happened upon the idea of Golems. Big honking stone bad asses.
I like it a lot, but I'm not sure it's in line with warhammer 'fluff'.
In fact I'm pretty sure I'm stepping way over the line. Dwarves and Golems...where did I get that idea from. Terry Pratchet? Elder Scrolls Morrowind? There are tonnes of fantasy settings which have this pair up.

Running with the fluff for a minute, Golem's are magic powered right? How about Rune powered...yeah ok Rune powered. I can buy into that.

I asked MrSaturday for a mumble, he seemed to not think it was outside the realm of plausibility in WFB, and pointed me towards these Rune covered lovelies from Hordes:

• Wold Watcher
• Wold Guardian
• Wold Warden
• Mega Lith

I was only slightly discouraged by the 'thrown together' look these guys have. The bound together wooden limbs - or the Guardian's roots which grow into his stone forearms don't sit quite right.
On the other hand, they look pretty awesome with the Dwarves...

I picked up a WoldWarden today as a tester to see how it fit size wise.

Perfect. It'll fit on a 40mm base just fine, and it'll physically fit in with the dwarves.

Golem in with the Hammerers

Golem, Hammerers & Dwarf Lord
 & Shield Bearers

What do we think? Are Rune powered Stone Golem's too far outside the Warhammer world?
Do Golem's even exist in the Warhammer world?

Could they have been (re)discovered by a Dwarven hold?

Volley : Firing in ranks > 2

In any shooting unit, the front two ranks can fire, so straight away that means gunlines are more compact.
It also means those nicely based up units of mine, which are one rank deep by 5 models wide have annoyingly become non-ideal. Time for some new unit bases.

So, Volley.

At this rate I'm going to start tagging these with : YATIMI8ED
(Yet Another Thing I Missed In 8th Ed.)

p78: Volley

Charging in 8th Edition

When reading warhammer the 8th edition rules for charging, I pretty much said:

"Yeah yeah this is the same as 7th ed, except for the dice rolls determining my charge distance".

Did you too make this mistake?

(uh oh, if I glossed over this when reading the rules, how many other parts did I gloss over?)

Of course, it may well have been just me and the usual suspects I play with which missed the following. I have a feeling a lot of said usual suspects were waiting for someone else within the group to read the rules and explain them...

There are two main things I missed. The charge order and the free wheel.