Scenario Ideas for Warhammer Tournaments

So Reece recently posted this: http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2013/12/18/40k-tournament-format-and-the-future/ and for those who care about 40K even less than I do, he basically said:

• Comp sucks because it restricts what a player can bring (and is horribly inconsistent)
• Special rules (i.e random movement, magic fluxx, fog of war) suck because they take away models that a player paid points for,
• So maybe the way to even out discrepencies between lists is to fiddle with victory conditions.

I'm not sure that comp completely sucks as for example banning allies in 40K would be an excellent idea, but when looking at fantasy the idea of altering victory conditions does seem to have merit.

I started thinking up ideas about how this can be done in warhammer, and I am going to write them down here and now for your amusement. These are ideas for scenario victory conditions, not actual scenarios!

Haunted house, improve the supposedly unplayable scenario where the winner is the one that holds the building with

1. Holding building is an extra 500 points
2. Assualting the building makes it 50 points less valuable

This makes it so both players have to think more carefully about which unit holds the building, as putting your best unit in the building could allow your opponent to destroy the rest of your army. the 50 points less valuable thing allows an interesting use for larger units of weaker troops who have no hope of taking the building but could chew away at how valuable the building is.

Wheat from the chaffe (any or all of below), 

1. none core units count half for victory points
2. core units only count half for vp
3. player who killed largest unit (by wound count), gets 100VP bonus
4. player who killed most expensive unit gets 100VP bonus
5. killed most flyers (by wound count) +100VP
6. killed most missile (or warmachine) units (by wound count) +100VP

First blood/Vandetta

1. First/last unit (broad sense of the term) killed counts for double vp
2. Player declares a unit  (broad sense of the term) at the beginning of the game

Blitzkrieg

1. Table quarters +100
2. Enemy deployment zone +100
3. Unit still in own deployment zone -25
4. 4 objectives placed by players worth 100 each at end of game (uncontested)
5. Cleanse style mission for Fantasy

Favor of the dark gods:

1. Every miscast + 50 points
2. Winning a challenge of any kind +50pts
3. Winning a challenge against superior class champion < hero < lord +50 points per class
4. Accepting challenge +25 points

Awards (nothing like best General...best painted)

Wins and losses DO NOT MATTER, as this makes all games meaningful, and solves the problem of having a "true winner" over 3 games, it does create the problem of possibly having someone go 3-0 and still not win

Chosen of Khorne: player who killed the most points of enemy models (i.e. Regardless of how much he had killed of his own)

General of the Empire: Player who had most objective points at the end of tournament

Architect of Fate: Player who gave up the least points (mission and killed) at the end of the game

25 Facts About the Imperial Fists

A Few years ago, at the height of the Chuck Norris Facts  craze, me and a friend of mine decided to record some facts about the Imperium's foremost space marine legion/chapter, the Imperial Fists. Posting it here to keep it from getting buried on the forums I posted it on.

1. It is true that Guilliman wrote the codex astartes, exactly as dictated by Dorn
2. Imperial Fist Librarians don't take Perils of the Warp tests, the Warp takes Perils of the Imperial Fists tests.
3. When an Imperial Fist crosses the road, no dares ask him why he did it.
4. The pen is mightier than the power sword, when properly wielded by an Imperial Fist
5. Imperial fists tactical squads don't take special weapons, as every weapon is special in the hands of the imperial fists
6. The universe is always expanding, but it knows full well that it can't escape the wrath of the Imperial Fists
7. The Codex Astartes defines Impregnable as: "Can only be taken by Imperial Fists"
8. The Imperial Fists have designed several fortress worlds, and let them fall to Chaos, just in case they get bored
9. They Catachan devil was known as the Segmentum Solar devil, before the Imperial Fists started hunting it
10. The mechanicum's 3rd law of motion is wrong, there is no reaction equal and oppisite to an assault by the Imperial Fists!
11. The mechanicm's 1st law of thermodynamics is wrong as well, an Imperial Fist can destroy anything, even energy
12. Rogal Dorn invented black, in fact, he invented the whole spectrum of colors...except pink which is clearly the work of the Ultra Marines
13. An imperial fist can play russian roulette with a fully loaded storm bolter, and win!
14. Had the Lord of the Rings featured an Imperial Fist instead of a hobit as its main character, it would only be 5 pages long
15. Rogal Dorn once engaged in a staring contest with the eye of terror, and won!
16. If at first you don't succeed, you are not an Imperial Fist!
17. The Codex Astartes was originally titled: "How to be more like the Imperial Fists"
18. The Imperial Fists did not lose Bechters Gland (spit poison) they donated it to needier chapters
19. The Imperial Fists got rid of the Sus-An Membrane (1/2 sleep) because they realized that
20. if they didn't take an occasional break there would be nothing left to kill in the Galaxy
21. To this day no one knows if Imperial Fist Vehicles have a reverse gear, as they have never retreated
22. An imperial Fist never has to oil his bolter or armour as they are always slick with blood.
23. If an Imperial Fist wants your opinion, he'll beat it into you.
24. After taking a steroids test, the Apothacaries informed Rogal Dorn that he had tested positive. He laughed upon receiving this information,
25. and said unto them "of course my blood tested positive, what do you think they make steroids from?"

Unleash the Flames of War

After running a long 40K campaign, I am ready for a warhammer (40K and Fantasy) vacation. So I've set up a trade for some of my chaos warriors for Flames of War Germans and Russians. So Obviously the goal now is to save on hobby supplies. I had to order german late war armor spray from flamesofwar.com at full retail, as I couldn't find it anywhere else, but I am determined to use craft paints for most of my models because a) I already have a ton and b) anything I need is half the price of Vallejo or GW. So with a bit of digging I found this chart, which has the Folkart conversion for every fow color.
http://wargames.nordalia.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=34

Finished First Section Of My Wall of Martyrs

I decided I'm going to use this blog to keep track of the formulas I use for painting stuff. 

First up is this section of my wall of martyrs defense line that I just finished, this was done by stipling  10 or so colors (from both the folkart and the GW range) onto the main body, and another 3 colors for the fiery parts. Recipe can be found in the recipes page: 

Why I Like Shogun Miniatures Trays

I had an article earlier about magnetizing your miniatures, but I talked mainly about your bases, this one talks about the trays. For Warhammer fantasy...to me, there is really no debate to be had, Shogun Miniatures is by far the best choice, here's why:

1. They are very reasonably priced, compared to GF9 or Litko Aero
2. They seem to provide just the right level of adhesion compared when paired with my favorite base magnetizing solution (magnetic rubber base bottoms from Litko Aero
3. They come in ANY reasonable size you want, which means the tray can fit whatever formation and base size combo you have so you never have to glue movement together
4. The lip of the tray is very thin, meaning it blends in with your base and it avoids arguments about with to measure distance from lip or tray.
5. They are metal which means there is no rubber sheet that might fall detach from the tray.
6. They are very durable (which is less of a problem now that finecast is prevalent , but if you have entire large units old metal miniatures like I do, your tray wont break like some of the plastic ones you glue together.

Pictures of my Vampire Counts Army

Long time no post, but I finally finished my army and want to share it with the world

Converted GraveGuard

Converted Hex Wraiths

Whole Army

My Ghouls Painted With Folkart and Americana Paints (mostly)

I keep running into nay-sayers with regards to "craft store paints" on the various boards, so I thought I'd show my ghouls, which were painted with mostly Folk Art and Americana paints to help show that craft store paints work just fine . The only non "craft store paints" are the darkest coat of teal (hawk turquoise) and the more yellowish bone base coat (GWs Bubonic Brown).

The recipe for the skins, which I am particularly proud of:

Brown Prime (army painter)

Americana's:Cranberry Wine base coat then going up in half steps through (i.e. cranberry+heritage brick then heritage brick then heritage brick + Georgia clay...):

Americana's Heritage Brick

Americana's Georgia Clay

Folk Art's Terra Cotta

For those who care... that's an 8 dollar savings just for the skin. All in all I used 4 more Americana and Folk Art paints...saving me enough to buy an extra 10 ghoul bodies and legs from Hoard O Bits, and using my leftover arms and legs to make 10 more ghouls for free.

The whole tribe:

A Few Closeups:

Next up...unit fillers