onsdag 3 januari 2024

R.I.P. MR Ansell

One of the most successful and influential miniature game designers has parted our world. Sadly we mourn the passing of Bryan Ansell. He was vital to our hobby and will be mourned by the community. Warhammer as we know it was born in 1983, when a group of enthusiasts consisting of Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley came together to create the ultimate war board game. Together they invented Warhammer Fantasy Battle, the first edition of the game to be distributed by Games Workshop.



Thanks to Ansell's work, the franchise gained much relevance and Games Workshop became a benchmark in the medium. 

His relatives assured that he died peacefully and surrounded by his loved ones.

Thank you for all the memories created by your game, R.I.P.

söndag 8 oktober 2023

Siege campaign

The breathless and tattered messenger staggered towards the entrance of the Dwarf hold, falling at the feet of the long bearded sentry. "The Skaven, they´re coming, he gasped, the Skaven are coming..."





During vacation, I went to meet a close friend of mine, we had decided on a weekend of wargaming, to give it a bit of a twist, we decided on playing a short campaign which would end with a siege game. We wanted a classic match-up so decided on Dwarfs vs Skaven.

First Scenario - Forlorn hope

A dwarf patrol is the first to encounter the vanguard of the Skaven, they immediately dispatch a messenger, while the rest of the patrol try to delay the Skaven so the messenger can warn the garrison.

The objective was simple, 500 points of Dwarfs most hold a pass vs 750 points of Skaven, if they manage, the Dwarfs will get a free bombardment on the Skaven troops in the Final Siege, if not, the Skaven will get to buy siege equipment at a discount.



Here you can see where the Skaven has to break through, a big unit of Dwarf Warriors with spears will try & hold while Behram Gundarson, the Slayer hero leads a few crossbowmen towards a glorious death vs the Rat Ogres.

Things look grim for the Dwarfs


It was a quick battle, the Skaven pushed towards the Dwarfs, the Spearmen held until the final dwarf was killed, however it had taken too long, the Crossbowmen were still alive & well, while Behram Gundarson was futile in his attempts at getting killed by the Rat Ogres (he was killing them).

A solid victory for the Dwarfs.

The Dwarf hold erupted into a frenzy as battle horns sounded the call to arms, stout dwarfs left their work to arm themselves, as the final soldiers found their places and the dust began to settle, Einar Dantesson, the commander of the hold, strode into the courtyard.

"Dawi" he said, our time for glory has come. Even now the foul Skaven horde approaches, we are all that stands between them and our loved ones.

He stared at each of his followers in turn, their grim faces showing neither fear or sadness - only resolution, a grim determination.

"The skaven are foul, honourless creatures, not strong like us, we will not waver, we will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail!"

Scenario 2 - Infiltrate

Eshin Gutter Runners has managed to infiltrate the hold, their objective is to sabotage the food and ammunition stores, the dwarf sentries must try to stop them before they reach the storage.

If the Dwarfs win they get a few pieces of free Siege Equipment, however if the Skaven win, all siege equipment will cost twice as much for the Dwarfs.

Gutter Runners are closing in


Jonas was this close to manage to get a 2:nd torch into contact with the storage, which would've won him the game

It was a close battle, the skaven were just 1 inch away from winning the scenario, but the dwarfs managed to surround the Gutter Runners & kill them off.


He could feel the rumbling in his feet, it was a low quiet one, not many would´ve noticed, but Nori Craggenson wasn´t just a dwarf smith, he was also an experienced miner, he had been mining these tunnels for years and nothing out of the ordinary went unnoticed to him. 

Skreech whipped his tail nervously, he didn´t like the idea of undermining the Dwarf walls, not only could the troublesome dawi show up, but if they did manage to accomplish their mission, there was a very huge risk of the tunnel collapsing right over them. "Quick-quick" he urged his slaves, "dig-dig, faster".

The dwarf miners moved down the long tunnel swiftly, Nori led them himself, he had been sure something was wrong, and as sure as any dwarf saying, he was right, in the distance he could see them, there they were, Skaven, in their mines! "Charge!" He yelled.

Skreech turned around at the sound of the booming voice, not quick enough, the dawi had intercepted them, well at least it was just a small mining party, perhaps they could kill them before the alarm went off, "Kill-kill the Dawi!"

Scenario 3 - Undermine

The third and final battle before the proper siege would see the skaven attempt to undermine the walls, if they managed they would inflict heavy damage on one of the walls, the dwarfs would have to stop them in time.



Surrounded on all sides, Nori fights on!


The battlefield is split in the middle, Nori led a unit of miners at the right side, while a champion led a unit of dwarf warriors armed with spears on the left side, they had 4 turns to try & break through the skaven lines.

As valiant & brave as any dwarf, all the units fought until the bitter end, but the frenzied plaguemonks led by Skreech was too much, they slaughtered the small unit of slayers as well as every last miner, only Nori was alive & fighting at the end of turn 4.

The left flank fared a little better, breaking the stormvermin, however they were unable to break the Plague censer bearers and therefore failed their mission. The skaven undermined the tunnels & left one of the walls heavily damaged before the final assault.

The skaven pushed back the dwarfs with sheer weight of numbers, while the dwarfs fought on stubbornly, they were slowly forced back by the relentless skaven. Pick-axe chopped at diseased skaven fur, rusted skaven blades crunched into dwarf mail, spatters of blood flew everywhere. The glow of the torches illuminated a scene of relentless savagery. No quarter would be asked, no quarter would be given... A great explosion was heard, the tunnels were filled by a green, toxic smoke, it was too late, Nori gave up a snarl and pushed further into the skavenlines, meanwhile Skreech had achieved what he came for and decided it was better to continue this fight another time, leaving his subjects to face the crazed dwarf, to report to his superiors of the missions success of course.


Scenario 4 - Assault the walls

The entrance to the Dwarf hold

The skaven assault the walls



In the final battle, a 2500 points skaven army assault the castle, which is defended by a small 1250 points Dwarf army (with a few mercenary ogres allied in). I forgot to take pics during most of the battle as it was just too much happening. 

The dwarfs were fighting on the defensive, their orders were to protect the keep at all costs so their kin could get enough time to use the escape tunnels & reach Karak Eight Peaks. For every ratman that fell, another two fought each other to take its place. Einar Dantesson fought in the front lines, among the rubble of the fallen wall, his magical hammer killing a skaven with every sweep until they avoided him like the plague, the skaven stopped the assault, snarling and squeaking. The ratmen parted ranks to let a huge, black fured skaven through. His dirty robes were covered in mold, a jet black amulet was in place of one of his eyes and in his hands were a flail that ended with a pair of snarling skulls. "Die-die dwarf thing."

Einar was exhausted, but like any honourable dawi, he took up the challenge, charging the new threat, he quickly realized that every blow he struck against the rat spawn, hurt himself, wounds opened up on his body and soon he could barely move, the Skaven shouted out with evil glee and swinged his deadly flail above his head, hitting his mark. Einar was down...

Panting, blood from their many wounds dripping down their armour, the dwarfs didn´t break like most races would, instead they silently committed their souls to Grungni & renewed their efforts, they fought like in a trance, pushing back the skaven, which in turn panicked their entire line, one by one the skaven either fell down dead, or ran of the battlefield in a mass panic, victory for the Dawi, but at what cost?

The skaven made a full out attack, assaulting both the weakened wall, as well as the gate and the front part of the fortress. Meanwhile a skaven engineer with the Cloak of Mists and Shadows was running rampant in the castle, casting spells, however the valiant dwarfs stood their ground, despite the loss of all 3 characters (Dwarf Lord, Slayer champion & the Rune Priest, ironically I hadn´t lost a character in any of the 3 previous battles, but lost all of them in the final game). Toughness 4 & LD 9 on troops help a lot when defending. It was a great ending to the campaign, although if I am to be honest, I think the small battles leading up to the final siege were more fun than the siege itself!


Einar with his valiant bodyguards


söndag 18 juni 2023

Forgotten projects, or rather "Projects of Shame"

I saw this concept mentioning by somebody and I immediately thought it would be a good mental hobby push for me.

It's a bit of a different look at it than just the "lead mountain". 

The Projects of Shame can be defined however you like for your own needs, but for me, they are generally projects that fall into basic description of “a project, large or small, that was a major motivation but has lingered for too long of a time, and I would be totally embarrassed and or dejected if I never finished it.


I have a couple, I guess most wargamers do. Mine are as follows:

5th edition Wood Elf army: this is a project I started in 2019 for the Oldhammer in the North project, it was a project that set out for people to each make a 1000 points army, then battle it out for a full weekend, sadly no one but me got to the end. So I never got to battle it out, the army is roughly 1200 points atm, I aim to have at least another 1000 points so I can play some normal sized battles with it, however the drive to finish it waned after the project was done, I haven't added a whole lot to the army despite the fact that I got the models.





Daemonic Legion: Over the years I´ve collected chaos, daemons have always been something I have bought, but to be brutally honest, I haven´t painted too many of them, I hope this will change as I have just started doing a small Daemonic legion, the list is a very mobile army of 1500 points in total:

Daemon Prince / Bloodthirster to lead the army

2x6 Units of Flesh Hounds

15 Bloodletters with command

1 Bloodcrusher

1 Chaos Spawn

5 Harpies

6 Dark Elf Scouts

The Dark elf scouts are done, so a total of 35 models to paint, shouldn't be too hard right?





Dogs of War: I've always liked the concept of the Dogs of War, since 5th edition, into 6th edition I wanted a Dogs of War army, despite the fact that it is on the weaker side, I like that I can build an army which I can use in my other armies as well, over the years I´ve gathered a lot of Dogs of War units, such as Vespero's Vendetta, Golgfag's Ogres, The Venators, Mengil's Manflayers, Bronzino's Galloper guns, etc etc, in fact I have most units released except the pikemen, so a couple of years ago I converted a unit of 30 pikemen from Empire spearmen, but never got around to paint it. While this is a project between projects, I would love to one day be able to field a full Dogs of War army.


Battle Masters: Battle Masters is a fantasy miniatures battle game by Milton Bradley, licensed from Games Workshop. It's easy, it's fun & it's huge, that's the only downside imo, while it looks impressive, it's hard to find a spot to set it up, a few years ago I saw a post on Boardgame geek about a smaller version, a member had scanned everything & made it much smaller, so it was a portable version, I really liked this idea, so I downloaded everything, cut it out, laminated it, but never painted the models.... As we´re talking about roughly 40 models for the entire game, this is a project I would like to finish in the near future.


Dungeon Saga: My favorite dungeon crawler, the idea of playing with a fully painted boardgame is something I aspire, yet I never get around to finish these models, I would like to have this done before the new version of the game (which I backed on kickstarter) is out, at least the models from the basegame.

What's your Projects of Shame?


tisdag 13 december 2022

Mengil Manhide's Manflayers

Mengil Manhide is the sadistic, cannibalistic leader of a vicious group of Dark Elf mercenaries known throughout the Old World as The Manflayers. They travel unseen across the lands under the cover of darkness, selling their skills to the highest bidder and adorning themselves with the flayed flesh of those they slaughter in battle.

Throughout the lands of the Old World, Mengil has plied his trade, and the band of Dark Elf warriors who follow him, known as the Manflayers, are rightly feared. They are employed as assassins and murderers, and are often used to eliminate rivals. He is often used by those who wish to make an example of the target, for Mengil takes savage pleasure in skinning his foes, often leaving the skinless bodies of his victims hanging from the trees or impaled on spikes in the ground. On occasion, Mengil's Manflayers will take to the battlefield, employed to infiltrate deep into enemy territory to spread terror and confusion.




For Hire: Any army except Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves & Dwarfs may hire Mengil and his Manflayers using the rules for hiring Dogs of War units.

Points: Mengil and 5 Manflayers (including a standard bearer as well as a musician) cost a total of  250 points. This is the minimum sized regiment you can hire, the size of the unit can be increased by adding additional Manflayers at + 17 points per model to a maximum of 20 models in total.

Mengil Manhide    M5 WS5 BS6 S4 T3 W2 I7 A2 LD9

Manflayer              M5 WS4 BS5 S3 T3 W1 I6 A1 LD8

Equipment: Mengil and the Manflayers are armed with a handweapon, a repeating crossbow, light armour and carry a shield. 

Save: 5+

Options: The unit may exchange their shields for 2-handed Greatswords at a cost of +1 point per model.

Magic Items: 

The Banner of Kalad: The Banner of Kalad is enchanted, creating a nimbus of shadow around Mengil and his warriors, making them even more difficult to spot and allow them to approach their prey even more closely before they strike from the shadows. 

Any unit attempting to hit Mengil or his Manflayers with a shooting or close combat attack suffers a -1 to hit penalty, combined with the skirmish rule, this means the Manflayers are very hard to hit with missile weapons.

Special Rules:

Scouts: The Manflayers are Dark Elf scouts and therefore suffer no movement penalty in rocky terrain, they may skirmish and use special deployment rules.

Manflayers: Mengil and his Manflayers are cannibalistic killers that skin their foes and wear their flayed hide as cloaks. 

The regiment may never pursue, however each enemy unit that they break or wipe out in close combat gives them 1 additional victory point (even if a unit rallies later).

Hate High Elves: The Manflayers follow the normal Dark Elf rules and therefore hate any High Elves they fight in battle.





lördag 23 juli 2022

Playing Warhammer scenarios without preparation.

I thought of this idea after I had a talk with a friend of mine about warhammer scenarios. We both agreed that it was a lot more fun to play different scenarios rather than just Pitched Battle all the time, but also came to the conclusion that several scenarios rarely get played because they need more preparation. As an example, if someone wants to play a game with me, we usually agree on point-values & maybe some extra restrictions. But unless we have specified a specific scenario, then we will both show up with the same amount of points & scenarios such as Last Stand won't be viable to play.

So the idea I had was, what if you both (or all if more than 2 people) agree to make one army of 1000 points, one of 1500 points & finally a 2000 point army.

Before you begin, both players roll a D3 & use the army you roll:

1: 1000 points

2: 1500 points

3: 2000 points

A warband of Chaos ambush the Lizardmen

Then depending on which armies both players rolled, consult the chart below:

If both armies are of the same value, play Meeting Engagement (Battle Book, page 26)

If one army is twice as big as the other, play Last Stand (Battle Book, page 30)

If one army is 500 points bigger than the other, play Ambush (Battle Book, page 29)

When playing the Last Stand scenario, make sure the defending army gets at least 1 piece of terrain they can defend, otherwise it will be a very 1 sided battle.


The forces of Tzeentch make a last stand vs the followers of Slaanesh

Not only will you play different scenarios, but it will also be a tactical challenge as you can't prepare for many of the scenarios (your armybuilding will have to be more allround), nor do you even know beforehand how many points you will have!

We tried it out with 4 players, each one playing each other, for a total of 3 games each, it worked remarkably well, this is something I will be doing more & I encourage you to try it, this could work with just about any edition of warhammer, not just 5th!.



onsdag 13 juli 2022

Nastasya Roskolnikov

Straight from the pages of the Citadel Journal, here's a new special character for you to try in your games. 



She's not a particularly strong character, but that Globe of Malice could be a nasty surprise!

måndag 11 april 2022

Kholtrag the Vile, Bray shaman

Bray-Shamans, known also as the Speakers of the Dark Council, are powerful, if primitive, sorcerers who occupy a unique and privileged position within the brutal and bitter world of the beastmen. They have no need to defend themselves from other members of their tribe, for none would dare assault them, the priests of the beastmen. Not even the mightiest Beastlord would harm a Bray-Shaman, for they speak the will of the Dark Gods, and those that defy the gods pay the highest price of all.





I originally painted this model for the Crown of Command fanzine painting competition, but when I was asked to be one of the judges I had to withdraw my entry. I painted the model in colourful robes & with lots of red details to get a nice 90's GW feel. 

Kholthrag made his debut on the Warhammer Renaissance weekend, used as a lowly level 1 shaman with Van Horstmann's Speculum. While not doing as great as my discrider, he did kill a few Phoenix guard in the first game & managed to kill a Vampire Count in a challenge, pretty good start!