10 Feb 2015
Got a request to put all this in one place, so here goes.
Hi, I'm Dave. I live in Upstate NY and I play Ogres.
Two months ago I didn't play Warhammer Fantasy. I played a lot of WH40k a decade ago, and have a Mordheim Campaign running at my house right now on alternate Tuesdays, but I don't play WHFB. Never have. I do play a LOT of Magic: the Gathering though, and was looking over the Grand Prix schedule this year, and realized that, between various scheduling conflicts and my dislike of playing Limited formats, I wasn't going to be able to make it to ANY Grand Prix this year except Pittsburgh in November.
Well, crap. Magic GPs are usually my get-outta-the-house time. A bunch of us go to them in a group every other month or so, tie one (or many) on, spend way too much money chasing down those last few foils for our EDH decks, and just generally have a blast.
I'm going to miss almost all of that this year. Crap.
Enter my buddy Chris.
Chris is somewhat (in)famous in the WHFB world. Some of you might recognize him as NarenZade, the asshole who brought a Bretonnian army composed entirely of My Little Pony figures to a Grand Tournament and went 5-0, winning best general. If you're not familiar - and I don't blame you, it's revolting - you can read a battle report from one of his opponents, complete with pictures, here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/585243.page
Lest you feel angered by this (I know I was, and hadn't even ever played WHFB), rest assured that he was justly punished with a ZERO for painting, which probably cost him a shot as Masters last year.
Anyway, my buddy Chris is a big-time Fantasy player, and is part of a local club called The Hammer Bros out of Syracuse, NY. These guys are a new thing for me: a competitively-minded wargame club. In the past, I'd played 40k with people very concerned with "non-cheesyness"; no special characters, not bringing super-powerful army lists, and generally attempting to stay true to the flavor and spirit of the game. The Hammer Bros don't labor under any such preconceptions. If the list says they can do it, well then, dammit, they're going to do it. Special characters, deathstars, using the most powerful and synergistic entries on the army list, super-technical play... nothing was off the table, and this was a new thing to me - much more akin to how I approach Magic than how I had previously played WH40k.
So when Chris started talking about Grand Tournaments during our Mordheim campaign, I was interested. When I found out I was going to have to miss all but one of the M:tG Grand Prix in the north-east this year, I went ahead and pre-registered myself for Crossroads GT on the last weekend of March.
This was December 8th, and I didn't own a single mini. I had decided I wanted to play Ogres if I was going to play WHFB at all, and now it was time.
I found a guy on /r/miniswap on Reddit willing to work a trade for a bunch of old Sisters of Sigmar minis I had. In exchange for 18 Sisters, and 8 guys for a Necromunda Goliaths gang, I got the following:
2x Ogre Kingdoms Battalion Box
6x Mournfang Cavalry
1x Stonehorn/Thundertusk
1x Ironblaster
Everything was on sprues, for the most part, and nothing save four Ironguts was painted. Except for those four, he'd assembled only the Ironblaster and the Thundertusk, but he'd assembled everything with cyanocryalate super-glue, not plastic cement, so it all just snapped back apart. He also didn't prime anything, so no detail was obscured.
Jackpot.
My wife got me a Firebelly for Christmas, and I worked out a deal with a local store for a Tyrant, Slaughtermaster, and two boxes of Sabretusks in exchange for some Magic cards. I had an army now. I also acquired an IoB softcover rulebook, and a well-scanned PDF of the OK Army Book (which I misappropriated work resources to color print and spiral-bind into a paper book). I immediately sat down and started working out army lists.
With some help from Chris, I had a fieldable 2400 point ETC list (what I'd need for the March GT) and started playing practice games. I was actually playing practice games before I even had all the models. I was using bare bases without minis for my Mournfangs and old Dire Wolf models for Sabretusks. I also was fielding bare torsos with heads for all my ogres. It was awful, but I had to start playtesting a list so I could figure out what to prioritize painting, and if I needed any other minis.
To get back in the swing of things, I painted my Firebelly:
He wasn't great, but he was done. I had to move on.
Next I painted four Sabretusks, mostly because they looked easy. They were:
I used some small stamps I made from some scrap rubber to do the spots.
I figured it was time to start banging out my core. I had decided that I didn't ever want to field Bulls. All Ironguts, all the time baby. I built four and painted them up:
Four down, nine to go.
Throughout this, I was playing practice games. So far, my record is 4-1, beating WoC, VC (twice), and Bretonnia, while losing a game to Skaven. All of my opponents have been incredibly gracious, allowing me to field piles of half-assembled unpainted crap, and being very helpful talking through the phases - Winds of Magic being particularly new to me. My next game is against another brand-new player from my Mordheim Campaign, Tony, who plays Orks and Goblins. He'll also be fielding a pile of unpainted half-assembled garbage, so this will be dildoes on both sides of the board.
Anyway, painting.
Next thing I started working on was some Maneaters. Started off with four, but after a few games I've dropped Leadbelchers entirely and gone up to six Maneaters, all with brace of pistols, scout and poisoned attacks. They also carry the Flaming Banner. I decided these would be Chaos Maneaters, for two reasons:
1. I really like Chaos
2. I have a metric asston of Ogre Bulls I can convert to other things
The big hold-up ended up being the pistol bits, but between friends and eBay I've finally managed to come up with enough of those. What I'm lacking, now, is a godsdamned Khorne icon. One of the ones from the 40k vehicle sprues would be perfect, but I haven't found one yet. Here's the start of them, totally a work in progress:
I definitely need more Chaos bits...
While I was waiting for more Chaos bits to appear, I decided to start another for-sure choice, the Ironblaster. This damned thing took way too long, due to size and complexity. I tried to build it with as few fiddly bits as possible, but even so it's got a ton of detail. I also had to scratch-build a base for it as I didn't have another one (perils of second-hand miniatures). Disirregardlessly, it's done:
Recently, the damned ETC draft rules comp for Ogres changed AGAIN, causing me to have to re-think my army composition. As of now, it looks like I'm going to have to field double Butchers instead of a Slaughtermaster, if I want to keep Hellheart - and I DO want to keep Hellheart, it's exactly the kind of cheesedick item that can win me a game out of nowhere as a new player. Plus, I'm hoping that with it being comped so heavily it will be more unexpected. But since the stupid comp keeps changing, it's probably best if I keep painting core units. So, here's the four Ironguts I'm starting tonight:
Two of these guys are an experiment with using all the stupid banner pole left arms I have. Seriously, I must have a dozen. Might as well use them for something. With a weapon head on them, there shouldn't be any confusion about them being Great Weapons. I have to do something with their right arms, though. A sword and a mantrap are the best I can do. If I do any more of these, I'll cut the hand weapons off the right hands and put some flavor bits there instead - cleavers, drumsticks, whatever. But, again, gotta be efficient with my time right now.
Anyway, that's where it all stands right now. I'll update this anytime I finish something, or anytime I play a game with them. I've registered for two additional GTs this spring so far.
Hi, I'm Dave. I live in Upstate NY and I play Ogres.
Two months ago I didn't play Warhammer Fantasy. I played a lot of WH40k a decade ago, and have a Mordheim Campaign running at my house right now on alternate Tuesdays, but I don't play WHFB. Never have. I do play a LOT of Magic: the Gathering though, and was looking over the Grand Prix schedule this year, and realized that, between various scheduling conflicts and my dislike of playing Limited formats, I wasn't going to be able to make it to ANY Grand Prix this year except Pittsburgh in November.
Well, crap. Magic GPs are usually my get-outta-the-house time. A bunch of us go to them in a group every other month or so, tie one (or many) on, spend way too much money chasing down those last few foils for our EDH decks, and just generally have a blast.
I'm going to miss almost all of that this year. Crap.
Enter my buddy Chris.
Chris is somewhat (in)famous in the WHFB world. Some of you might recognize him as NarenZade, the asshole who brought a Bretonnian army composed entirely of My Little Pony figures to a Grand Tournament and went 5-0, winning best general. If you're not familiar - and I don't blame you, it's revolting - you can read a battle report from one of his opponents, complete with pictures, here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/585243.page
Lest you feel angered by this (I know I was, and hadn't even ever played WHFB), rest assured that he was justly punished with a ZERO for painting, which probably cost him a shot as Masters last year.
Anyway, my buddy Chris is a big-time Fantasy player, and is part of a local club called The Hammer Bros out of Syracuse, NY. These guys are a new thing for me: a competitively-minded wargame club. In the past, I'd played 40k with people very concerned with "non-cheesyness"; no special characters, not bringing super-powerful army lists, and generally attempting to stay true to the flavor and spirit of the game. The Hammer Bros don't labor under any such preconceptions. If the list says they can do it, well then, dammit, they're going to do it. Special characters, deathstars, using the most powerful and synergistic entries on the army list, super-technical play... nothing was off the table, and this was a new thing to me - much more akin to how I approach Magic than how I had previously played WH40k.
So when Chris started talking about Grand Tournaments during our Mordheim campaign, I was interested. When I found out I was going to have to miss all but one of the M:tG Grand Prix in the north-east this year, I went ahead and pre-registered myself for Crossroads GT on the last weekend of March.
This was December 8th, and I didn't own a single mini. I had decided I wanted to play Ogres if I was going to play WHFB at all, and now it was time.
I found a guy on /r/miniswap on Reddit willing to work a trade for a bunch of old Sisters of Sigmar minis I had. In exchange for 18 Sisters, and 8 guys for a Necromunda Goliaths gang, I got the following:
2x Ogre Kingdoms Battalion Box
6x Mournfang Cavalry
1x Stonehorn/Thundertusk
1x Ironblaster
Everything was on sprues, for the most part, and nothing save four Ironguts was painted. Except for those four, he'd assembled only the Ironblaster and the Thundertusk, but he'd assembled everything with cyanocryalate super-glue, not plastic cement, so it all just snapped back apart. He also didn't prime anything, so no detail was obscured.
Jackpot.
My wife got me a Firebelly for Christmas, and I worked out a deal with a local store for a Tyrant, Slaughtermaster, and two boxes of Sabretusks in exchange for some Magic cards. I had an army now. I also acquired an IoB softcover rulebook, and a well-scanned PDF of the OK Army Book (which I misappropriated work resources to color print and spiral-bind into a paper book). I immediately sat down and started working out army lists.
With some help from Chris, I had a fieldable 2400 point ETC list (what I'd need for the March GT) and started playing practice games. I was actually playing practice games before I even had all the models. I was using bare bases without minis for my Mournfangs and old Dire Wolf models for Sabretusks. I also was fielding bare torsos with heads for all my ogres. It was awful, but I had to start playtesting a list so I could figure out what to prioritize painting, and if I needed any other minis.
To get back in the swing of things, I painted my Firebelly:
He wasn't great, but he was done. I had to move on.
Next I painted four Sabretusks, mostly because they looked easy. They were:
I used some small stamps I made from some scrap rubber to do the spots.
I figured it was time to start banging out my core. I had decided that I didn't ever want to field Bulls. All Ironguts, all the time baby. I built four and painted them up:
Four down, nine to go.
Throughout this, I was playing practice games. So far, my record is 4-1, beating WoC, VC (twice), and Bretonnia, while losing a game to Skaven. All of my opponents have been incredibly gracious, allowing me to field piles of half-assembled unpainted crap, and being very helpful talking through the phases - Winds of Magic being particularly new to me. My next game is against another brand-new player from my Mordheim Campaign, Tony, who plays Orks and Goblins. He'll also be fielding a pile of unpainted half-assembled garbage, so this will be dildoes on both sides of the board.
Anyway, painting.
Next thing I started working on was some Maneaters. Started off with four, but after a few games I've dropped Leadbelchers entirely and gone up to six Maneaters, all with brace of pistols, scout and poisoned attacks. They also carry the Flaming Banner. I decided these would be Chaos Maneaters, for two reasons:
1. I really like Chaos
2. I have a metric asston of Ogre Bulls I can convert to other things
The big hold-up ended up being the pistol bits, but between friends and eBay I've finally managed to come up with enough of those. What I'm lacking, now, is a godsdamned Khorne icon. One of the ones from the 40k vehicle sprues would be perfect, but I haven't found one yet. Here's the start of them, totally a work in progress:
I definitely need more Chaos bits...
While I was waiting for more Chaos bits to appear, I decided to start another for-sure choice, the Ironblaster. This damned thing took way too long, due to size and complexity. I tried to build it with as few fiddly bits as possible, but even so it's got a ton of detail. I also had to scratch-build a base for it as I didn't have another one (perils of second-hand miniatures). Disirregardlessly, it's done:
Recently, the damned ETC draft rules comp for Ogres changed AGAIN, causing me to have to re-think my army composition. As of now, it looks like I'm going to have to field double Butchers instead of a Slaughtermaster, if I want to keep Hellheart - and I DO want to keep Hellheart, it's exactly the kind of cheesedick item that can win me a game out of nowhere as a new player. Plus, I'm hoping that with it being comped so heavily it will be more unexpected. But since the stupid comp keeps changing, it's probably best if I keep painting core units. So, here's the four Ironguts I'm starting tonight:
Two of these guys are an experiment with using all the stupid banner pole left arms I have. Seriously, I must have a dozen. Might as well use them for something. With a weapon head on them, there shouldn't be any confusion about them being Great Weapons. I have to do something with their right arms, though. A sword and a mantrap are the best I can do. If I do any more of these, I'll cut the hand weapons off the right hands and put some flavor bits there instead - cleavers, drumsticks, whatever. But, again, gotta be efficient with my time right now.
Anyway, that's where it all stands right now. I'll update this anytime I finish something, or anytime I play a game with them. I've registered for two additional GTs this spring so far.
