On the Painting Table: Korsythe von Carstein

Some years ago I made a half-hearted attempt to create some zombie pallbearers carrying the coffin from the Black Coach.

It was okay but the zombies were standing straight and it was a bit unimaginative. I toyed with rules for the vampire inside the coffin having ghostly attacks but soon afterwards gave up and just used it for colour in the unit.

Jump forward in time to the present day:

Meet Korsythe von Carstein, a special character who will play a pivotal part (when the time comes) in my Tale of Years. 

Once a powerful vampire lord living in Sylvania from the von Carstein line, Korsythe was slain by Marcus von Drak - my Empire lord. 

Refusing to be destroyed, the casket containing Korsythe's remains is now carried into battle by his zombie slaves and, able only to manifest in close proximity to his coffin, Korsythe fights again - now as an ethereal creature, more powerful than Marcus could possibly imagine.

(See what I did there?) 

These are Mantic zombies. If you want to know why I used them you obviously haven't ever seen a GW zombie.

The vampire is Dark Vlad, Human Hunter from Enigma Miniatures. It's a shame in a way to paint him as a ghost but needs must and this idea was too cool not to do. 

Korsythe von Carstein strides into battle in the midst of his zombie horde, a deadly opponent made all the deadlier by his rage. 

Special Character: Spheric!

Of all the warriors in the world they say that none is greater than Spheric.

Once he was a humble pig farmer living in the town of Lower Falls, but after he was dragged away into the darkness one night he returned far later in another more powerful form, bearing the fiendishly potent enchanted sword that he called simply "Plague."

No one knows what happened to Spheric while he was away but he possesses superhuman strength and endurance as well as prestigious skill at arms.

For many years he was a force for goodness, defeating many Dark Lords and becoming the saviour many times over of Tempest Falls; consort of Rachel d'Astatic, the merchant queen.

Now though his heart has been twisted.

Now he leads the legions of the Undead Nation as their general, second only to the great Nagash in command as he towers over the shambling zombies that surround him.

Wielding Plague, Spheric strides into battle, swinging the deadly sword through is foes as though they were already ghosts.

He cannot be defeated or reasoned with and he leads the forces of the Vampire Counts to victory against the Border Princes and then the Empire! 

	M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld
Spheric	6	7	5	5	5	4	7	5	10

Points: 410

SPECIAL RULES 

Always Strikes First

Wizard Level 1 (Lore of Death) 

EQUIPMENT

Plague (Magic Weapon)

Plague grants the user +3 Strength 



The Crimson Armour (Magic Armour)

This armour grants a 2+ Save

The miniature used for Spheric is the Forgotten Warrior from Enigma Miniatures. 

His rules are almost perfectly legal based on the abilities and upgrades of a Vampire Lord.

The full story behind Spheric's background can be found within the great tale of Tempestria on the Bretonnians and Orcs page above. 

Spotlight On... When a Bloodthirster met a Varghulf

Thought I'd showcase a bit of conversion work I did.

Ages ago I bought the Bloodthirster.

Ace rules and background but the wings were a bit ropey as far as I was concerned.

So what I cunningly did was get the Balrog wings from GW mail order and used milliput to blend them in.

I also added some extra dreadlocks so that I could turn his head into a more dramatic pose.

Now this looks suitably spectacular!

But what to do with the unused wings...?

Ah, I hear you say! The Vargulf has absolutely terrible wings! Surely we can solve two problems with one stone!

A bit more milliput later...

And we have a kind of scary looking Vargulf who looks like he's either about to take off or really pounce on someone.

The Defence of Beggar's Mount

Gill (Vampire Counts) vs Tim (Chaos Dwarfs)

The rolling tide of the undead invasion had been stymied and repulsed but with the massacre at Fortress Malefic it was rushing on again, pushing north, invading the lands snatched by the stubby grasping fingers of the Chaos Dwarfs.

But the stunted ones were not about to surrender their misappropriated lands. Their host arrayed itself as the two forces came together of windswept Beggar's Mount, in sight of the sinister guillotine that once had slain so many of the innocent and not so innocent.

Under moonlit skies, the two armies clashed, both of them circling in toward the guillotine at the peak of the mount; the dwarfs because this landmark stood as a rallying point of their conquests, the forces of the vampire counts for darker purposes.

Summoning the fell spirits that had long haunted that withering place, the vampire countess, Rebecca
Belikov, sent them charging forward, knowing that the towering behemoths of the Chaos Dwarfs could do them no harm.

As wraiths led the attack against one of the indomitable K'daai Destroyers, the spirit host assaulted the Dwarfs themselves.

The Prophet of Hashut, riding the powerful shoulders of his Bale Taurus soared to the right, hoping to outflank the enemy approach through the woods but he didn't see the charge of a Black Coach until it was too late to avoid it. The skeletal driver swung his scythe over and over, hacking at the dwarf general, but though the coach was destroyed under the hammering hooves of the great bull, its rider was slain.

Still the battle raged between the ethereal elements of the undead force and the most powerful units of the Chaos Dwarfs, both slowly being worn away but neither giving ground, while elsewhere, a morass of zombies closed on the stunted ones as Rebecca herself slashed and hacked at the whirling blades of a mighty Skullcrusher.

Bearing the Runefang she'd taken from the coffers of Sylvania, Rebecca tore the Skullcrusher apart, caring little for its devastating might, but as the Dwarfs alongside brought down the zombie horde, she was yet repelled and forced to withdraw.

The Chaos Dwarfs targeted the enemy magic users, taking away their ability to summon reinforcements and the Daemonsmiths ran to battle, their enchanted weapons the only thing that could harm the spirits immediately turning things around, even as one of the K'daai Destroyers fell with a roar.

Soon the undead army was little more than tatters but it was too late.

The guillotine was theirs and even as the the Chaos Dwarfs closed in to finish the skeletons left in guard, Rachel, from her observation point, uttered the last syllables of an incantation and the Dwarfs were cast off the Mount, their stunted bodies hurled to the very edge of the region.

The loss of hundred of zombies mattered not at all.

Beggar's Mount belonged to the vampires. Their invasion of the Devil's Pathway was underway once more!

Spotlight on: Nagash!

When I first created this blog I put a picture up of this beautiful model that I use to represent that most notorious of arch necromancers Sauron Nagash!

I think it’s one of the nicest miniatures ever created and though I own the original GW Nagash and did my best to “save it” with the paint job, it still wasn’t quite good enough alongside modern miniatures for the high standards I aim for (even if I don’t always achieve them). 

Now I wish I could tell you what model this is and I’d certainly be grateful for anyone who can remind me. I bought it on eBay a couple of years ago and I just spent ages searching for it again just now.

Each year I hope GW will release a campaign book about the return of Nagash but still no word as yet. I always hope he’ll appear in one of the undead army books, but no luck so far.

Of course my entire campaign storyline is based on Nagash leading his undead armies north toward the Empire so having him appear in games is pretty vital. Sadly, so far he’s not had much luck in games. I used rules for him based on those on the excellent Nagashizar website. And I just found sort of rules for him in the Vampire Coast campaign book on the Tempus Fugitives website.

Bascially in the game, he’s such a vast sink of points that he struggles to earn the points back. I guess it’s just a case of reducing the points until they make better balance. For example, in one game, he was in combat with a huge unit of zombies alongside. The zombies got their asses kicked but good while Nagash killed loads of the enemy, but because of the overall combat being a loss, Nagash was killed through combat resolution. The annoying thing being that if he hadn’t had loads of zombies “helping him” he would have easily overrun the enemy unit and gone on to win the game.

It’s that kind of thing. 

But who cares in many ways. He’s a beautiful model with a fantastic history that is integral to my campaign storyline.  

To paint him I used turquoise over a very dark blue for the robes and bronze over Tin Bitz for the armour. I was aiming for a fairly subtle realistic look.The "skin" was a series of greys.

I decided to have the skulls as bronze accessories rather than real skulls - because the model is 54mm and they would have been way too big for normal skulls. 

The dust weathering was graveyard earth under bleached bone. 

He has a really nice aggressive stance, making him look like a martial general rather than just an evil wizard. I just really do love this guy!  

Crisis Averted!

This is what I found in my war room the other morning when I woke up.

The screws were half way out of the wall; the shelf with all my Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings poised, ready to fall.

Man, just imagine the horror if that lot had plummeted to the ground!

See my Undead Rhino at the far end? He would have been the first to shatter!

Whew!

But ten minutes later with my son on the case, the Undead nation was safe once more!

Thanks Raish!

Tactical Review: Massacre at Fortress Malefic

TIM: 

Well! I finally beat Mike! 

But was it a fair fight?

Certainly I can assure you that there was no skullduggery on my part, but the Siege rules as they currently stand are extremely dodgy and severaly disadvantgae certain armies. Fortunately for me, I was up against Skaven, probably the worst army to be defending a castle. 

Mike fought hard but he as fighting an uphill battle. In a building, Skaven can't call upon their ranks and Strength in Numbers to hold on tight. The battle comes down to kills, pure and simple, which they struggle to inflict with their normal infantry. 

Things could still have possibly worked out but for two further elements.

1. Mike chose to bring Warlock Engineers to the battle. Not a bad choice for the magic, but they didn't have the Leadership or combat accumen to lead the defence sadly (for them).
   
2. I very carefully chose my own forces to maximise my hitting power and minimise Mike's ability to strike back. With my Varghulf and ethereal units leading the assault and elite units and characters following on from behind, I was in a superior position from the get go. 

 The Siege rules are very sketchy at best and get very weird when units start fleeing in all directions at once. Who knows if we interpretted what sketchy rules we had correctly but none of it made much sense realistically! 

Next time we're going to just use the fortress as a back-drop and fight a normal game. It's a shame but until GW release a proper update, I would advise you all to steer clear. 

MIKE: 

Well I got it all wrong.  I hadn’t played a siege battle before and after this result I’m not sure that I want to again. 

After a very brief look at the rules that Tim sent me I understood it that I had to hold as many parts of the castle as possible so I stayed rooted to the spot.  Unfortunately in a low leadership army like those little rat bastardo’s as soon as you lose in combat you are stuffed.  I lost every combat, I fled every time and I lost by the end of round 2!

For the future I think that it is a must to charge out of the castle and meet them on the battlefield!  Still a lesson learned…

Massacre at Fortress Malefic

Tim (Vampire Counts) vs Mike (Skaven) 

It was simply the end for the Vampire Counts.

Fortress Malefic - the ancient castle in the World's Edge Mountains, flanking the entrance to the Devil's Pathway, most direct route from the Land of the Dead and the Empire - had fallen to the Skaven weeks earlier. Now, the entire realm of the Undead Nation was under threat as the lands previously captured lay perilously unguarded as, in desperation, the remnants of what had once seemed an unstoppable horde returned to their former home... to take it back!

 The Skaven scrambled into position on the battlements. They had fought hard at Still Water to stop the Vampire armies from reaching their walls but had failed. Still, their recent string of victories had left them smug. Perhaps even... complacent?

They squealed, baiting the silent undead horde slowly encircling their walls to come and do their worst.

At the centre of the undying ranks, Spheric, the Vampire's most deadly general, smiled grimly. He was more than happy to meet their request and gave the order.In a broad circle, the footsoldiers of the Undead Nation started to close the noose.

The order of attack had been meticulously preplanned by Spheric and his Vampire officers. Leading the attack were the most powerful and invulnerable elements of the force. Spheric knew that the Skaven, by their nature, were tactically crippled by having to fight within the confines of a castle, unable to bring their ranks and numbers to bear. He was confident that a hammer blow would not just crack this nut, but pulverise it.

His one concern was that powerful Skaven Warlords would be manning the walls. He chuckled to see only Warlock Engineers in place. This was going to be easier than he thought.

But the Skaven weren't going to go down easily and hidden behind the parapets were devastatingly powerful weapon teams. As Fell Bats swept in toward the closest tower, the disguising covers were thrown back and the cackling Skaven revealed the grinding barrels of a Ratling Gun.

They fired it up and the barrels started spinning, burning heat sizzling the air. Greedy for destruction they ratcheted up the pace, preparing to unleash an even more powerful salvo, and then let rip.

There was a brief explosion on the tower top and the weapon team vanished in a puff of blood and metal.

First to the wall was a powerful Vargulf. Spiking its claws into the mortar, it bounded up the wall and tore into the Stormvermin standing guard, brushing off the rocks they poured down the wall onto its mighty shoulders.

The Stormvermin were the Skaven elite. Of all the horde, they alone were perfectly placed to stand firm against any onslaught.

Their weapons failed to draw blood and the Vargulf ripped the heads off rat after rat as they floundered in terror. It roared and the Stormvermin fled under the mighty upthrust of its wings.

It was at this point that the Skaven commander started to realise that this might not end well.

Unable to rely on their strength of numbers on the narrow battlements, the ratmen lacked the confidence to hold firm. All the forces of the vampires had to do was hit hard and their units would flee. And as the Warlock Engineer looked out across the opposing forces his blood grew cold he saw the genius of his opponent. Half of the enemy battalions were powerful enough to destroy all enemies and the other half were simply impossible to wound.

Deep in his brain, he feverishly tired to work out who was to blame for this.

And then the Fell Bats hit; swooping past his crazed Warplock Pistol shot and smacking hard into him. He fought back desperately but they were too big, the mass of each one more than double his own. With their claws raking his back he fled through the trapdoor and down into the courtyard, past the Clanrats and Plague Monks eager for battle.

Down in the courtyard, he sighed in relief, glad to be away from the battle. This was all going so wrong. They had been in such a powerful position: two capitals under their control; and now it was all teetering on the brink of dissolution. What could have all gone wrong?!?

Then he heard a low growl and from the shadows beneath the parapet he saw the glowing eyes of the Vargulf.

And then he saw no more.


At the front of the fortress a massive horde of skeleton warriors approached the gate with Spheric at its centre. The dark lord was in no hurry. He wanted to relish this slaughter. And that was what it was. The Fortress was like a wooden crate filled with rats. Nowhere for them to go as he reached in casually with a hammer and pummelled them to death one by one.

A poisoned wind mortar blast fell into the skeleton ranks, obliterating almost a dozen fleshless warriors but the rest of them didn't pause, striding forward and a with a flick of his wrist, Spheric activated the incantation to bring them back to life.

Undeterred, the surviving Warlock Engineer conjured a scorching shower of fire in the approaching ranks of Crypt Guard, cackling madly as the rear ranks were stripped from the battalion.

But still they came, soulless and uncaring at the death of their brothers.

Cairn Wraiths and Spirit Hosts glided soundlessly over the walls and where the Wraiths found the battlements empty, the ghostly spirits ignored the panicked attacks of the clanrat defenders before hacking them apart with their fell blades, setting them to rout. Cornered and surrounded in the courtyard, the clanrats were cut down.

The rats were still trapped in their box and the hammer was falling again and again. At each hammer strike a unit was being crushed and the ratmen were running out of troops.

"It isn't fair," stammered their remaining Warlock Engineer, casting the powerful Death Frenzy on the Plague Monks guarding the front of the fortress in the hopes of at least maintaining the defence there.But he couldn't take this anymore.He fled from the walls, dropping down to the ground and trying to get away from this terrible trap, but he was hacked down by the waiting Crypt Guard that he had used his magic on and his bones were shattered.

The Plague Monks on the walls slavered and foamed as the Death Frenzy took over, making them more than powerful enough to take on any enemy, but rather than attacking, Spheric called his skeleton warriors to halt. He looked up at the gatway and the frenzied Plague Monks and he actually laughed out loud.

Conjuring a Curse of Years, he unleashed one his most powerful magics, causing the Plague Monks to drop from old age, one by one. The Death frenzy was too draining. It was burning out their hearts, making them drop and die, even as they waited for battle.

Spheric laughed and laughed. He didn't even need to attack. Their own magic was going to wipe out the last defenders. Already overunning most of the castle, the forces of the Vampire Counts grew still, all of them watching as the last of the Skaven fell.

This hadn't been a battle. It had been a massacre.

Fortress Malefic belonged once more to the vampires!

Vampire Counts Spell Cards for Download

Spell cards are kind of cool when you get right down to it. But what about the races that don't have them?!?!?

Well...

Here for your gaming pleasure is a set of downloadable Vampire Counts spell cards that I made up. No more will you need to keep referring to the cumbersome army book mid game!

It's a PDF document that you can print on card then cut the cards out. Click on the link to download them.

Vampire Counts Spell Cards

Art by George Patsouras

Tactical Review: On the Plains near Spikehole

MIKE:

I gave Tim a whooping!  A whooping that won’t be forgotten for a long time (at least by me anyway).

The Skaven are fast becoming my second favourite army they are durable, tough and quick.  With a unit of Gutter Runners they are a match for anyone I think.  The plague furnace was truly epic and it wiped out a horde of zombies in one turn of combat, creating a truly awesome +25 combat resolution in my favour.  I love these little rat men.  To be fair both Tim and I played really well, we both rolled well and Tim’s magic was always a threat it was just the number of Skaven far outweighed that of the Undead. 

TIM:

Chuffing ‘eck! I got my ass kicked but good there! Why does this keep happening to me?

Could it be because I am a terrible player? Maybe…

So what did I do right? And what wrong?

 First of all I utilised my Black Coach, Vargulf and Cairn Wraiths well. They worked well together and with the addition of Vanhel’s Danse Macabre giving rerolls to hit and Always Strikes First, they did me very proud.

In the centre and at the other side of the battle things did not go well, but I’m not sure how I would have acted differently – even now. Mike’s Plague Furnace unit was unbeatably good and I found myself playing fearfully around it. His Skaven leadership values, enhanced by their rank bonus withstood my fear and I got nowhere near as many spells off as I could have done with. I was experimenting with the lesser used spells available which meant I wasn’t summoning extra zombies so much. That certainly would have helped me I think.

This was the first game we’ve played where the Skaven really had a horde, but at 3,000 points, the Vampire Counts didn’t have any more troops than usual. The extra points were swallowed up by Nagash, meaning I was overwhelmed on numbers.

At 700 points, Nagash is a tricky model to have. I’ve been using the excellent stats on Zombie Squig’s Dark Hordes of Nagashizzar site but he has failed me twice in a row now. Partly this is due to inexperience on my part but maybe his points need tweaking a bit. Also, although powerful characters are cool, I always wonder whether it would be better to have 175 zombies or 87.5 skeletons.

In this battle, Nagash was doing well actually. He got killed through the extra wounds caused by combat resolution in a double combat. If he hadn’t been in combat alongside a unit of zombies he would have been fine because he did very well himself. A lesson learned for the future.

I want to keep using Nagash from time to time but the need to play 2,800 point games when I do and the limitations he imposes can be annoyingly limiting.

With only two Vampire Counts armies left I have to play it safe from now on I think.

On the Plains near Spikehole

Skaven (Mike) vs Vampire Counts (Tim)

Calamity was befalling the Undead Nation.

When Fortress Malefic had fallen to the Skaven the strength of the Vampire Counts within the Border Princes was severely weakened. Although the greater strength of their armies lay hundreds of miles away to the south in the Land of the Dead, without a stronghold to act as a staging post and strategic headquarters, full scale war was not tenable. Worse, the Vampire Counts were soon going to run out of time. With supply lines disrupted there was only so long before the armies of the Vampires could no longer support themselves.

However Nagash had a plan that he had already been manoeuvring towards. Calling on his Tomb King allies for support, the Vampire Counts would launch an all but simultaneous assault to both retake Fortress Malefic and capture Spikehole, the Skaven capital. In these actions, the Vampires would not only cripple the Skaven forces but triple their own power. With the support of the legions of the Tomb Kings there was no stopping them.

With his southern armies marching on Fortress Malefic commanded by Rebecca, Nagash himself led a vast horde of shambling zombies and creeping ghouls toward Spikehole.

But the vicious ratmen knew of their approach. They had long anticipated it and prepared for it, bolstering their forces with reinforcements. And the Skaven did not wait for the Vampire Counts to arrive. A gargantuan army of ratmen scampered from the depths of Spikehole and formed ranks in the marshy fields before it: a larger army of Skaven than had ever been seen before within the Border Princes.

The armies met, locking in battle quickly, and Nagash’s powerful minions immediately seized the initiative: a mighty Vargulf bounding forward to rip into the enemy ranks, the deadly Black Coach speeding alongside it and eerie Cairn Wraiths gliding nearby. As they tore into the rats, Nagash confidently summoned his powerful magic while ordering his zombies forward. He laughed, knowing his period of weakness was over.

But the laugh crackled and fragmented as he saw the Skaven Plague Furnace plough into the huge unit of zombies. The corrosive fumes coming from the censers, coupled with the frenzied attacks of the Plague Monks ripped the zombies apart far faster than the vampires and Nagash could bring them back. And the Skaven were doing so much damage, the unnatural instability of the zombies was causing them to break up. In seconds, almost fifty zombies were obliterated by the Plague Furnace and its deadly worshippers as the Plague Priest onboard screeched in triumph.

And while this was happening, Clanrats and Gutter Runners were hacking undead limbs from their bodies; giant rats crawling all over the remains. Suddenly Nagash realised that he might not win; suddenly he realised he could not risk himself: he had to fight more cautiously; avoid being locked in combat with the Plague Furnace and its unbreakable troops.

The Vargulf, Cairn Wraiths and Black Coach were still slaying more than their share of ratmen but across the rest of the battlefield the army was being wiped out. And then worse: almost indomitable by himself, Nagash was brought down – not through wounds and combat but by the same instability that had crippled his zombies. Overwhelmed by numbers, he could no longer maintain his corporeal form and had to slip way on the dark magic winds.

And without Nagash, the entire army started to crumble.

Instantly the battle was lost, and worse, within minutes the army of the Vampire Counts was utterly annihilated; wiped from the map as though they had never been.

And with them all hope.

Nagash would reform – he could not be so easily defeated – but the loss of one third of his armies was devastating. More than anything, the Vampires needed to capture a capital fortress. Not only had they failed but now they only had two armies remaining. Their chances of maintaining any presence at all within the Border Princes, with nowhere to generate new forces now, were now close to zero.

On the Painting Table: Skaven Plague Furnace & Spheric!

Continuing my undying commitment to Skaven, I've finally painted an extra twenty Plague Monks and my brand new Plague Furnace!

Click on the pictures to zoom in. They're a little blurred but I have a new camera on the way.

And here is a Gamezone knight I bought to represent Spheric, my special character from the Tempestrian history.

I'm not sure whether I like him or not yet...