Progress Report - 8/20/08.

Not a whole lot to add in this short progress report update. I was hoping to get some modeling action on this past weekend but I ended up being busy with settling in to my new home. I did get the majority of my Yhetees and my single Gorger put together, I just need to finish basing them.

I also put in an order for Dwarf Slayers at my local tabletop shop. I should have my Long Drong Slayer Pirates and about 1100 more points for my side project ... a Slayer Army! Look for some pictures of my assembled models in my next update. Nothing too exciting, but better than a bunch of boring words!

Speaking of boring words, here is a review of a beer I am greatly enjoying at the moment.

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Stone Brewing Company - Stone Pale Ale

Beer Type: American Pale Ale

Appearance: 12 oz. brown Stone style bottle with a TON of ink printed on it. No wonder this beer costs me $9.99 for a six-pack! I can't really complain too much though, the overall design aesthetic is great and I love the Stone logos. The beer poured a reddish amber color, with a thin head. I probably could have gotten more head out of an aggressive pour.

Smell: Sweet, sweet, candy! Something a little fruity with a backing scent like caramel. It smells really good.

First Drink: Malt with just a hint of hops kick. Some sweetness, but it is not overpowering at all.

Mouthfeel: Smooth with a bit of carbonation, but just the right amount. A little slick in the mouth after a drink, but not in an unpleasant way.

Last Drink: More of a bitter herbal/floral finish now. The hops doing a little devilish jig on the back of my tongue. Nowhere near the hops level of Arrogant Bastard though.

Drinkability: Stupidly drinkable. I could polish of six of these by myself in no time, and enjoy every minute of it. As it stands I made my half of a six-pack (as I share all my beers with the Frankster) last 3 days by only drinking one a day. Hard to do with a beer this good!

Notes: This is the third beer type by Stone I have seen in Austin. Maybe one day I will be able to get all of their delicious beers in Texas! I hope to visit their brewery at some point, or at least get a t-shirt or pint glass with their logo on it.

Verdict: 4.5 out of 5.

Links: Beer Advocate and Stone Brewing Company.

Battle Report: Beer Gut Tribe vs. Vampire Counts 8/12/08.

Another day, another post about fictional characters and the tiny models I have put together to represent their accomplishments. Huzzah!

Today I faced down a mighty force of the UNDEAD, in a 500 point Border Patrol match against the Vampire Counts (hereby known as VC).

My list looked like this:

Butcher (General) @ 155
- Bangstick

Bulls x 4 @ 165
- AHW

Ironguts x 2 @ 96

Maneater @ 90
- HvA, BoH

Total Points: 497 (out of 500)

I learned yesterday that my opponent (the wily CHAD) was intending to bring Cairne Wraiths, and in fact did bring them to the battle. This presented an interesting problem. They are ethereal troops; skirmishers with 360 line of sight, they case Terror, have 2 wounds and 2 attacks, and can only be damaged by magic or magic weapons. Those of you in "the know" may notice I only had one model capable of killing or damaging them, my Butcher. I was quite concerned and convinced that I would likely lose the battle.

I didn't take notes on the match so I will attempt to run down some of the match "highlights" by my feeble memory powers alone.

Terrain Placement

I won the roll off with a 6 (CHAD rolled a 3) and began placing Terrain. It was a 4x4 board so I didn' t want a ton of movement/LoS blockers, so I began by placing one forest on the far right of the board. CHAD placed a rock formation on the left. I placed yet another forest on the far right on the opposite side of the board (in an attempt to force his Cairne Wraiths near that edge to take advantage of their movement). CHAD declined to place any more Terrain, and I chose not to place any additional Terrain as well.

I didn't have my camera with me, so here is a cruddy Terrain image from MS Paint.

Unit Deployment

Another roll off, with me rolling another 6 (CHAD with 3). I began placement with my 4 Bulls, all the way to the far left edge of the map. CHAD deployed his Wraiths and ... A BANSHEE (ARGGH) near the forest just as I had hoped. Next up was my unit of Ironguts to the right of the Bulls, with CHAD placing his Zombie unit in the middle. I placed my Maneater and Butcher near the forests to deal with the Wraiths, and CHAD placed his Skeleton unit with his Vampire inside in the middle behind the Zombies. So far, so good! Everything seemed to be coming up OGRES!

With it all done it looked something like this.

CHAD won the roll off for turn order and decides to go first. He moves everything up, raises a bunch of Skeletons, and gets ready to attack my Butcher and Maneater with his Wraiths. On my turn I lure out his dispel die with buffs, cast Bonecruncher on the Wraiths (hitting 11 times, wounding 4 times), and Bangstick the Wraiths off the table. So much for that problem!

DISCLAIMER: During this first turn of the game I made a mistake. For some reason I attempted to cast the Bonecruncher spell twice on the same turn with one Butcher. This is not legal. I was thinking about recent forum posts on the Ogre Stronghold relating to what "successfully cast" constituted. My first attempt to cast the spell was dispelled. I should not have been able to cast it again, but I did and it went off. As it was occurring I thought, "Wait a minute ... that can't be right at all!". I said as much to the CHAD, but he was not concerned with the outcome and didn't want to stop the game to look at the rules. Several spectators did look up the rules, and proved I was in the wrong. I offered to take back the wounds caused by the spell, meaning his Wraiths would have been on the table. Again, the CHAD declined, saying he had agreed to the outcome and that was his mistake. In short, I feel like an ass for inadvertently cheating, and CHAD is a good guy for not calling me on it (although he totally should have).

On turn two my Ironguts fled a charge from the Zombie unit (now 20+ strong) which then failed. Oh well. CHAD raises another unit of Zombies in front of the failed charge. Bulls move up on the edge to get in range of a Flank charge, while the Butcher's unit moves up just slightly to shoot at the oncoming zombie hordes, and manages to wipe out the newly created unit behind the Ironguts which failed to rally (rolling a 9 on a Leadership check of 8).

Turn three is where things got "interesting". CHAD attempted to raise more Zombies, and failed his casting attempts. His units moved up, with the remaining Zombie unit moving towards the Butcher and Maneater. Ironguts rally, Bulls fail a charge and move toward the Skeletons and Vampire 6". I attempted to cast Bonecruncher with two dice on the oncoming Zombies speaking the famous last words of "... which will hopefully NOT miscast". This of course creates an immediate miscast, luckily only resulting in a 4 on the miscast table, rendering the Bonecruncher spell unusable for the remainder of the game.

Turn four begins with CHAD attempting to raise another unit of Zombies in front of the Bulls who failed their charge, only to miscast as well! His miscast was not so lucky and he took a Strenght 8 hit, and lost one casting level, going from level one to level zero and losing his ability to cast anything for the rest of the game. Ouch! His Vampire took one wound from the hit while the Zombie unit attempted to charge the Butcher and failed (getting 2 shots and 2 wounds from the Maneater's "Stand and Shoot" charge response). The Butcher and Maneater moved back 3 " and continued chewing away at the Zombies with both the Bangstick and Brace of Handguns. The Ironguts moved into position for a flank charge, while the Bulls ran headlong into the mass of Skeletons and their Vampire leader.

The Bulls killed 3 Skeletons on the Bull charge, with an additional 5 wounds caused from 16 incoming attacks. The Skeletons and Vampire then attacked back, dealing two wounds and losing the combat by 1 point.

Yes! That's right! The Beer Gut Tribe actually WON A COMBAT!!

Turn five started with the Skeletons and Vampire killing two Bulls, who struck back and killed the Vampire. They lost the combat and were chased down by the Skeletons, who began to crumble. This left the nearby Ironguts with no targets to charge, so they began to move towards the nearest table quarter, while the Butcher and Maneater continued to move backwards and killing Zombies.

Turn six involved the Skeletons turning around while crumbling to bits, and the Zombie unit being charged by Butcher and Maneater. The Butcher's unit dealt 4 wounds, but it was not enough to wipe out the unit and they remained locked in combat while the Ironguts grabbed the far right table edge.

Final result: SOLID VICTORY.

Today was a good day for the Beer Gut Tribe. I feel I played my army fairly well, aside from the half-cheat and the poor charge response with my Ironguts, everything worked out the way I had hoped it would. A good list, a good game, and a good time. Pretty much everything I am looking for out of a game of WHFB.

Return of the Beer Gut Tribe!

We have returned! The Beer Gut Tribe is back on the warpath and looking for new blood to spill. There is pillaging and drinking to be done, and we be the ones to do it!

I have changed up the overall look of the blog, hopefully for the better?

In my absence from this gnoblog I have been quite busy, but not for reasons that are particularly interesting or fun. I have not played a real match with the Beergut forces since last month (when I lost quite badly to Greenskins), but during that time I did bear witness to two separate Generals trying their hand with the fat bastards. Neither of these battles went well, and both parties swore off the Beer Guts claiming, "I will never play the Ogres again!".

This did not go a long way in easing my fears that the Ogre Kingdom army just isn't quite what I had hoped it would be. It did go a long way at easing my own self esteem issues related to the game, and now I know there isn't a whole lot I could be doing differently. Picking the right unit for the job, and getting good dice rolls is 90% of the game. With more practice I think I will eventually get the "BIG WIN" I have been wanting so very badly.

During my time away I also moved from a small 2 bedroom apartment into a much larger 3 bedroom house. This new house should prove quite useful for tabletop gaming as I have my own room dedicated to my many hobbies (PC gaming, music recording and creation, and Warhammer), and I intend to build a modular "gaming table" so I can have more frequent games .. hopefully in the comfort of my own home. Work will soon begin on finishing the construction phase of my Ogres, with Yhetees, Gorgers, Butchers, and a Scraplauncher all on the docket.

I am toying with the idea of running a unit of Long Drong's Slayer Pirates in the Beer Gut Tribe as a Dogs of War entry to the army. There is just something so cool about these guys, and I think they fit in quite nicely with the overall Beer Gut Tribe "fluff", being a bunch of drunken mercenaries and what not. My only fear is that getting this one unit of Slayers may lead me to create an entire Slayer army, something I wouldn't mine owning but don't necessarily feel like purchasing. Ah well ... such is life.

Not a terribly exciting entry, I apologize for that, but look forward to more progress pictures and new battle reports in the coming weeks. My small Warhammer group is growing and it looks like we might be kicking off a "paint and play" style escalation campaign in the very new future (hopefully with some new, as of yet unseen, armies to play against!). Stay tuned ...