And later.....

So, a while has passed since Dave and I announced our Army choices for this challenge we've set ourselves! (I'd have posted a response sooner only I have been moving house and had no internet for over a week).

Here I sit (well lay actually, as I've pulled my back out shifting all the heavy boxes!) thinking its high time I give anyone viewing this a further update.

Dave in his under-handed Skaven manner really did try to trick me with his planned army choice, I was 90% sure it would be either High Elves or Vampire Counts.

I can remember several years ago when he worked at one of our local GW stores, talking about a Lizardman army containing LOADS of Stegadons, it sounded frightening but I never thought for one minute I'd ever see it on the table top, now I'm not so sure! At-least he doesn't have one of these!!!

However I must admit settling on Ogres (an army I have never considered until recently) and thinking about the vast amount of poisoned shooting attacks Dave is going to be able to send my way, along with the Magical superiority he will have, this is going to be very tough, and I know Dave will really be able to play to his armies strengths.

It leaves me a few tough choices to make, on how this army can be collected, the gun-line idea looks better and better the more I think about those skirmishing Skinks and Stegadons (nothing will drop a big fat Dino, better than a mighty Cannon of the Sky-titans! Assuming those pesky Gnoblars haven't let their maintenance slip.)

My other options are to go very Monster heavy myself (given that all the soldiers barring Gnoblars are monsters anyway shouldn't be too hard!) and include at-least one each of Stonehorns, Thundertusks and a Giant, I think I could squeeze a 2nd Stonehorn in there too? And a couple of Mournfang units.

My last option was to attempt collecting an Ogre army that settled in Lustria themselves! It wouldn't be themed specifically to perform a certain way on the table top but it would be heavily converted (as much as I like this idea I think it may be beyond my painting/modelling skills at the moment)

Either way I go, Stage 1 begins on June 1st, and ends on the 31st of July by which time I need to have bought, built and painted 500 points worth of Ogres. My first purchases have been made, a box of Leadbelchers and a box of Ironguts.Good solid core choices that I can build the rest of the army around, I plan on throwing in a Bruiser to be my Battle Standard which should put me at around 500points. So.... game on!

Decision Time Mrk II

Im a bit late on this post as I was meant to post it yesterday but I've been slightly side tracked by Assassins Creed 3 and 9 hours of Warhammer fantasy at my local gaming club (Wargame Store, links on the side).

But with no further ado, I've made my choice, it was tough, but my mind was made up a couple of days back. Trying to keep my mouth shut to Andy, so he didn't plan on the ulimate army to destroy me was the hardest part, so in typical Skaven style I threw a few ideas his way to throw him off the scent (muhahahaha) like "hey you seen the new high elves omfg they look awesome! so tempted" all the while knowning I'd never touch them... NOT EVER!!! The horned rat would never allow it ! Vampire Counts was a possible choice for a while, their new models are fantastic and the idea of raising hordes of zombies from the dead gave me a great giggle but ultimately it just wasnt for me at this moment in time. Wood Elves was a close contender but given I already own quite a big force but am yet to play a game with them I decided it was breaking the rules given the whole idea was to start a new army.

This left only one army for me to play, and given their heated history with Skaven it made choice seem all the more fitting, LIZARDMEN! theres many plus points to collecting Lizardmen whether it be effective short range fire power or the fact their spell casters are unrivaled by most of the Warhammer world, but if you're a fan of big monsters what's better than a army of Dinosaurs!?!?!?!

NOTHING!

I have an idea to not use any Saurus in my army (that could change) so my core will be Skinks and lots of the little buggers backed up by Kroxigor to give them more hitting power, lets face it Kroxigor hit hard!

Terradons are a must, flying fast cavalry with the ability to drop rocks on your opponent as you fly over? YES PLEASE! perfect war machine hunters, Stegadons play a big part too, why wouldnt they!?!?!? Salamanders and Razordons look great too! Slann mage priest take control of the magic phase again most armys so im very tempted to include one or two ! Taking away Saurus is going to prove tricky as I'll have no "real" combat units, but being a Skaven player I don't think I need to worry about that.

So there you have it, Andy has Ogres and I have Lizardmen, two fairly different armies, which should lead to some interesting games. We also made the decision that the end goal for this will be to take part in National Tournaments.

Stage 1 starts 1st June, when we will both be posting army progress, so check back when ever and feel free to leave comments with your opinions and ideas etc. We'd love to see what people think :)

- Dave

Decision time!!!

So, the time has come when we must commit to our decisions!  For the  next 12 months we will have to collect the race we have picked today - failing or not we won't be able to give up and sell the lot on Ebay (as Dave mentioned in the opening post!).

After much deliberation and mind changing, I am going for something completely the opposite of my Dark Elves - Ogre Kingdoms.........or are they the opposite?!

After really looking into them, they fit the play-style I have in many of the same ways that Dark Elves do!  They can produce potentially A LOT of ranged firepower; with the inclusion of the Firebelly they can dish out some reasonable magic damage too.  However, what they loose in magical damage to Dark Elves they make up for in spades when it comes to melee!

Fluff wise they, like the Dark Elves, are piratical and hungry for war.  Although their motivation is very different to the Dark Elves, both races also have a wide variety of monsters for use as war beasts!

So the plan, roughly, is to create something of an Ogre gunline!  I think the idea that Ogres like big messy noisy things is about right, so, Leadbelchers will feature heavily.  I also like the idea of giants carrying cannons and just blowing everything in front of them into smithereens before smacking the survivors around the head, with said cannons, very appealing!

The primordial beasties are also very cool!  Combining the two with each other in the form of the Sky-Titan Ironblaster cannon is also brilliant.

Lastly, I think Gnoblars are mint!  I definitely want some just for the prospect of making some mini dioramas amongst the units and to be fair they can hold a table quarter for you and a unit of 40-80 pts could secure you the 100 VP for the quarter at the end of the game whilst looking cool and funny whether they ever see combat or not.... sold to the Ogre on the left missing an eye!!!

-Andy

Crouching Rat thing Hidden Elf!

Yes, as Dave has written we're going to just spill our thoughts around collecting new armies under certain conditions into this and hope that people enjoy reading it.

The idea of doing something like this came about in a text conversation about collecting new armies which we've been talking about a lot recently having been playing a lot of games with our Respective armies (Dave's Skaven) and my Dark Elves. One problem i think we both suffer with is the drive to get everything painted, as both of our large collections are also largely unpainted. This blog should add the pressure to do it as we'll have deadlines, and with any luck people watching the process.

The first article I remember reading about collecting an army was one from a very old White Dwarf issue in which a member of the team collected an all Goblin army for the staff tournament, I probably read that article 10 times over, and I've always remembered it. I'm really looking forward to writing our own version, and with both of us adding to the Blog regularly, it should hopefully make for an interesting read.

To begin with I'll list a selection of the ideas I've been having with regards to what to collect and why!

1) Beastmen;always liked the models, and the ambush rule is cool, they also have one of the largest selections of monsters available.

2) Ogres; but something a little different to the usual ogre armies I've seen, I like the idea of an Ogre Gunline, lots of Leadbelchers, those giant skycannon things and Scrap launchers.

3) Skaven; a crazy Skyre army with lots of weapons teams heavily converted (also because Dave already has a large Skaven army contesting his would prove entertaining)! but actually gaming with them might frustrate me as I've seen how quickly bad luck can hinder them... although the Hellpit abomination is super dangerous!

4) Lizardmen; The first army I ever really collected when they where first released along with the Bretonnians, and some great miniatures!

5) Empire; they're the classic good guys - humanity fighting for survival and so, so many ways to collect an army with almost an unlimited number of themes.

Well thats my shortlist, but it could change any day, in fact as I'm sure is the same with most people when deciding on a new army minds change a LOT!!! All of them atleast will be very different to my Dark Elves!

One small step for man.... One giant leap for halfling kind!

A friend (Andy) and I have decicded to start a warhammer fantasy army diary/blog based around the idea of the tale of so many gamers, that has been featured in various editions of Games Workshops White Dwarf magazine. We both wanted to start new armys but without taking the dive in the deep end and risk losing interest and selling what we had started on ebay as a failed project, like im sure many of us have done! It seemed a much better idea to do it using White Dwarfs example, I have always loved reading the article; reading about how the players chose their armys and what interested them to make certain decisions was a fascinating read and fed my young wargaming mind with many ideas and dreams, so here I am eager to re-create the legendary aventure of old: THE TALE OF TWO GAMERS!!

After weeks of texting between us we chose best that small 500point 2 monthly deadlines would be managable and hopefully not take too much time away from our busy personal lives because after all real life comes before wargaming... (so I've heard anyway). Thus giving us a 3000point new shiny and fully painted army at the end of a year (fingers crossed) we'll be posting updates when ever we can following our painting, building and general army ideas.

- Dave