The Clash at the Crags - Part Three

The Wolves skulked back onto the battlefield with heads down and tails between their legs. They made their way, many of them limping with blood staining their matted fur, back to where they were routed and their pack leader lay dead, his head caved in by a mighty blow from Fergus’ human champion. They howled mournfully over the lifeless body.

As the howling began to reach a climax the old, dead wolf started to twitch and writhe. There were loud cracks as its bones began to snap and reform themselves. Its muscles and sinews began unwinding and reshaping, mass being added by some diabolic power. Its caved skull mended, spines and bony plates sprouted from its back and sickle-like growths sprouted from newly formed tails. The wolf-thing rose shakily up on all fours, now much bigger than its companions, and released a gut-wrenching bellow loud enough to panic the Skaven who were busy looting the dead nearby. Gorehowl had risen.

The Big Red Monster

Operation: Icestorm - Rules Roundup

Welcome to part two of things I've been dying to discuss. I've been scouring through Icestorm in order to get a glimpse of what is to come from Infinity N3 and have some pretty juicy things to share.

Please take everything here with a pinch of salt however; a lot of the rules in N3 appear to be slightly simplified for the purposes of a new player experience and only reference abilities and interactions that the models in the box can have with each other. As such, there may be further tweaks, clarifications and expansions on these rules with the release of N3 later this year.

Note that all images are taken from material published by Corvus Belli, they are not my own work.

With the disclaimer out of the way, let's dig in and see what we can learn!

Icestorm rulebook cover art

Unboxing Operation: Icestorm

I've been absolutely dying to tell people about this, but Corvus Belli requested that we don't disclose any pictures or contents of Operation: Icestorm until 1st August (fair enough, really). But that day has finally come!

This package arrived for me at work (and was freaking huge) so it raised a lot of questions that went somewhat like this:

Colleagues: Whatcha got there?
Me: Toy soldiers.
Colleagues: There's got to be a lot in there?!
Me: Mistakes may have been made...

Turns out, it was a copy of Operation: Icestorm that Corvus Belli generously let me buy early for the purpose of running demo events.

What's this? A Package? For me?

A Painting Riddle

So, I've been busy getting stuff ready for Bring Out Your Lead '14 and as part of that I committed to bringing a bunch of models to the siege of Avalone game. With that in mind, here's a question for you!

Question:
What has 12 mouths, 24 ribcages and 72 limbs?

The Clash at the Crags - Part Two

The Armies

The forces of Khorne (commanded by myself)

• Dorrin Blissbane - Dwarf 10 Hero with Chaos Weapon 'Lustdrinker'
• Melondil Nightnoon - Dark Elf 5 Hero 
• Marta Hartmann - Human 10 Hero
• Hermann Foerster - Beastman Champion
• 7 Beastmen - Light armour and shields
• 7 Skaven - Light armour, shields and spears
• 8 Humans - Bows and light armour
• 8 Levy Humans - Spears
• 6 Giant Wolves

Dorrin with retinue and Marta leading the village militia

The retinue of Fergus (commanded by Fimm)

• Fergus - Fimir 5 Hero with Chaos Weapon
• 5 Fianna Fimm - Light armour
• 6 Shearl
• 10 Humans - Shields
• 5 Witch Elves - Additional hand weapons and poison

Fergus & Co.

The Clash at the Crags - Part One

Well, Fimm and I didn't manage to continue our campaign at the Expo as expected so instead the much-delayed next chapter was played out this week.

Prologue

Slowly the village folk unbarred their doors and started emerging from their homes and hovels, their sense of curiosity outweighing their fear now that the fighting appeared to be over. The Beastmen had started dragging the dead Fimm to the centre of the village and began to create a pyre whilst the Skaven busied themselves tending the wounded.

Proof that my photography skill needs work.

The Long Road to Avalone

Every now and then I have a wave of realisation, one I'm sure many gamers are familiar with, that I actually have a lot of little toy soldiers to paint. The fact that Bring Out Your Lead 2014 is fast approaching - August 8th to 10th - has caused one of these realisations and this has forced me to confront my growing pile of unpainted lead.

A part of the 'pile' - I don't have a problem, honest!