The Spawning Pits have been busy!

The months before BOYL 2014 seemed to take an age to pass and as I only had a Goblinoid horde and the best part of an entire Epic Imperial Guard Regiment to paint I thought I had loads of time to get ready. I even spent a day drawing up a painting timetable, Arnold Rimmer style - which of course soon went out the window when real life made itself known!

So, of course once I had realised that I would have to up production somewhat in the couple of months I had left my painting desk came more to resemble the spawning pits of Isengard!

Or perhaps if I was being really old school - Utumno!

Well I'm glad to say that neglecting both sleep and familial duties (at least those that the wife allowed to be neglected!) for the first half of the summer holidays all the blood, sweat, blisters, fire, brimstone and everything else paid off!

Terrain Building...

1:1 Scale!

Trolltooth Wars: Fielding the Legions of Zharradan Marr

I thought I'd take a moment to have a look at the rules we will be using to fight the Trolltooth Wars and what could be more apt than the Mass Battle rules published in Issue 12 of Warlock (the Fighting Fantasy) Magazine, Fields of Battle, penned by Graeme Davis.

In Graeme's article we get rules on how to make stats up for your armies as well as refreshingly simple details on the turn phase - move or fire, combat and morale. There are some special rules on cover, fortifications and siege weapons and magic is mentioned in the scenario that is provided at the end, along with movement penalties and command parties. I'm sure we can add any details to these rules by dipping into the likes of Dungeoneer or Blacksand from the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series, although with the types of troops we'll be fielding there shouldn't be much need.

BOYL 2014 - The Siege of Avalone - the Aftermath

The dawn was heralded by a watery grey light that struggled to penetrate the louring clouds and already the Carrion Crows were breaking their fast. Bleary eyed troops staggered back to the field of battle and prepared themselves as best they could.

Well that was the scene that I saw in the marquee as we arrived back for the final day's gaming anyway!

So on to the last post for the Siege game - it's been a pretty epic task just editing the photographs and writing the game up I must say!

Sunday saw a few hardy souls drag their hung over corpses back to the table to continue Round 3 of the Siege. The ranks of Generals had thinned somewhat from the crowds round the table on Saturday due to commitments to other games or having to return home. I was involved in a big Epic Game with Chico and others (more of which in the next post) but managed to pop over now and again to take some pics.

I must confess however, that I don't have as good a handle on what went on as I did for the Saturday. So I propose a bit of creative writing based on the pics I took and the main events that I can remember...

Smoke still issued forth from the smouldering remains of the great Ent gathering that had sacrificed itself in blunting the advance of the Horde. The cries of the dead and dying intermingled with the more purposeful shouts of battle-sergeants and discipline-masters as the horde carried on its inexorable advance. Many a foul, and many a noble deed was performed that day.

A second Siege Tower was brought up to the walls by the Orcs whilst the sea of Chaotics continued to surge forward behind them.

There is nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats

With BOYL 2014 only just finished some keen Oldhammerers have turned their attention on next year's shenanigans.

I'm rather keen on Chico's Outcast Greenskin Project even if it does sound like the name of some pretentious Prog Rock band! It'll give me a good reason to paint up my Hobgoblin and Half Orc army which would put me dangerously close to getting most of my Goblinoid collection finished!

BOYL 2014 The Siege of Avalone - the Assault!

And they're off!

Gobbo's pour over the walls into the teeth of massed Elf archery.

BOYL 2014 - The Siege of Avalone - The Set Up...

So folks here we have the preliminary post to the my version of the narrative of the Siege of Avalone.

Preliminary because I'm struggling selecting a sensible number of pictures from the 109 I took!

My version of the narrative because I really couldn't say with any confidence what was going on on the other side of the table - it was that big!

The following pics were just from me walking round the table and trying to get everything in before it all kicked off...

Wave 1 of the Bad Guys - there were more late-comers who had to pile in behind!

We can't have been far off from representing most Evil and Chaotic Races on the table.

Thanks to Golgfag for his excellent scratch-built Siege towers - I cheated and bought a laser cut Siege tower and Covered ram from Sally 4th.

The stalwart defenders and their dual line of defence.

The Evil army's secret weapon - Giant Gonads!

I think the walls were pretty adequately manned...

... and the town well garrisoned.

Nearly got it all in!

A daunting prospect - the heavily defended double gate house.

The town planners had a lot to answer for - there was consideration given to conserving the character of the town when planning permission was given to those elves!

A defender's eye view.

We decided that the attackers had secured the area up to the road as a result of Friday's game - perhaps in hindsight we could have set up a little further into the table.

A panoramic view - hence the strange chaos mutation!

My favourite unit on the defender's side - the Narnian host!

As you can imagine this lot took a while to set up - but it was great fun and took me back to the days when i would spend hours setting up the hundreds of plastic soldiers I owned into a battle scene. Back then it was customary for Sally, our old Golden Retriever, to enter the scene with tail wagging to wreak the sort of destruction that a tactical nuclear device might!

Luckily we were free from the tender mercies of rampaging family pets and had bucket loads of D6 to determine our little soldiers' fates...