Wood Elves ready for OFCC!

Every year the gaming club here in Portland, OR known as the Ordo (Ordo Fanaticus) holds the OFCC.  The OFCC which stands for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge, it's a team based two day tournament for Warhammer Fantasy.  Unlike most tournaments, this club challenge is designed to be an event where the casual gamer and hobbyist can bring their army and enjoy two days of entertaining gaming without the worry of serious tournament players and their over the top lists.  The main goal of OFCC is to have each player have a fun and enjoyable game and build a memorable experience at the same time.  Now this is not to say there will not be competition and serious playing.  Most of the players that participate are pretty tough opponents so you can expect some really good and close games the entire weekend.

My gaming group has been scrambling the last few months to get their armies assembled, painted and based for the upcoming tournament on June 24th-25th.  This will be my first appearance at an OFCC event so I'm rather looking forward to the experience. After much debate our team captain decided on a name that would best describe our group, we are - "Team Tourettes - Epic Fail".  By some unfortunate twist of fate (and the inability for the tournament runner Raindog to properly read a damn email properly) my game handle "Sylvos" also has the nickname "Epic fail" instead of our team added to it in every entry.  The fact that I'm bringing Wood Elves just adds more irony to that situation.

One prevailing theme for OFCC is that the lists are to be balanced and fun.  While you can bring a devastatingly powerful list (within the list building guidelines of course), it's not really recommended.  It's supposed to be a fun event and not 'Ard Boyz.  After all this is a private and invite only event, why would you be a douche?  You do want to be invited back no? =D  Especially when there is prize support for just about everyone who attends and plays.

I've decided to bring my standard 2000 point list which has been referenced numerous times in various posts but you can view it here.

As soon as my buddies finish their armies I'll be posting their lists and doing an army showcase.  We have a lot of great players and I would really like to show off all the hard work they've put into their armies.

And now for the part that everyone really cares about - the pictures!

Wood Elf Tactica - Wild Riders of Kurnous

This will be the second post in my series on Wood Elf Tactics for Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition.  This topic will focus on ways that I use my Wild Riders and various methods of fielding, deploying, fighting and maneuvering them on the battlefield.  I will divide the post into three parts: Configuration, Deployment and Engagements and finally Synergy.

The Wild Riders of Kurnous, Outriders of the Lord of the Hunt.

The Wild Riders of Kurnous, the elite vanguard that serve as Orion's personal guard in the court of Athel Loren.  Part asrai, part fey, these mounted warriors channel the fury of the God of the Hunt as they charge into battle against the enemies of Athel Loren.  Whenever they leave the court of Orion, it is to engage in the Wild Hunt.  A mystical rampage that leads them to wreck havoc across the Old World in the pursuit of their quarry.


In game terms, the Wild Riders of Kurnous are a Special selection in the Wood Elf army.  They are elite fast cavalry that focus on close combat.  They are arguably the best Fast Cavalry in the game due to their high weapon skill, good strength, high movement and their special abilities.   

The Wild Riders have the following abilities that set them apart from most units.
1. Forest Spirits - this special rule means that they are Immune to Psychology, their attacks are all magical and they are granted a 5+ ward save (except against magical weapons/spells).
2. Elven Steeds - they are mounted on Elven Steeds that have a movement of 9
3. Fury of Kurnous - in close combat, if the Wild Riders did not charge they are granted an additional attack.
4. The Wild Hunt - they get a free musician and cause Fear the turn they charge
5. Talismanic Tattoos - grants them a 6+ ward save against all attacks and Magic Resistance of 1.

These special abilities give the Wild Riders an exceptional edge over most opponents. They will generally hit opponents on 3's and in the round they charge wound on 3's.  While they are Toughness 3, they are still fairly difficult to hit due to their high weapon skill, not to mention their initiative of 5 means they are generally going first in most combats.

The question is how do I actually field these models then?

Configuration


Wild Rider units may be fielded in one of three ways; Harassers, Rank Breakers, or Anvils.

Harassers - When fielded as Harassers, the Wild Riders are fielded in 1 rank composed of 5 to 6 Wild Riders.  They should have a Standard Bearer with either the +1 Movement Banner or the Terror Banner.  This set up allows them to function as War Machine hunters, outflankers and character hunters.  Since they are Fast Cavalry, they are able to move around the enemy's flank and get behind easily.  If they have a Terror Banner then they can rear charge units and hopefully make them flee into your larger anvil units.  They also are durable enough to take on your opponents ranged units and chew through them while the rest of your army focus fires on another group.  The typical point cost of this unit is around 148 points without a magic banner.

Rank Breakers - When fielded as Rank Breakers, the Wild Riders will have 2 ranks of 5 to 6 models each with a full command.  The unit will be roughly 10-12 models big and have the support of a banner (if points allow) such as the Armor Piercing banner or the Terror banner.  Rank Breakers serve to remove rank bonus's from your opponent's block of troops.  You will hopefully have a larger unit such as Eternal Guard of Treekin serving as your anvil so that your Wild Riders can slam into the flank and begin to crush the unit.  The rank breakers sole purpose is to aid your bigger, tougher units like Treekin to ensure you are able to win. The typical point cost of this unit is around 296 to 348 points without a magic banner.

Anvils - When fielded as an Anvil, the Wild Riders will have 3-4 ranks of 5+ models each.  The unit will contain a full command, magical banner and a character.  Another popular option is to field the unit 3 ranks deep and 10 models wide.  This type of configuration will include at least 1 character, generally two.  The characters will usually be a Lore of Life Spellweaver on a Unicorn holding the Rhymer's Harp (5+ ward save that isn't negated by magic attacks for the entire unit) and a Wood Elf Noble Wild Rider Kindred with a Crown of Command making the unit LD9 Stubborn.   The other configuration is to have a Wild Rider Highborn with the crown of command and the Dawnspear and field him with 28 Wild Riders.  Wild Riders in this capacity need to be properly outfitted and supported otherwise they will fail.

Deployment and Engagements


Fielding your Wild Riders well is incredibly important.  If their role is to be harassers then you will definitely want to take advantage of the Vanguard special rule.  That 12" free move at the beginning of the game means if you march turn 1, you will effectively had moved 30 inches.  If you are using them as an anvil, you will want to position them in front of your opponents smallest rank and file unit. You want to be able to bust through their line and slam into their "killy" unit from the side or behind.  Remember, you're a wood elf and have the ability to pick your own battles due to high movement and forest walker.  If you are using the Wild Riders as Rank Breakers make sure you field them near to your anvil unit and hopefully avoid getting them entangled by a smaller unit before their responsibility is fulfilled.

Synergy


Ah, this is the part of the topic I have been looking forward to.  I learned long ago that you really can not depend on a single unit to beat another unit one on one.  I guess it comes from getting my teeth kicked in with my Eldar constantly by attempting to take on chaos space marines or tanks with Guardians by themselves.  It wasn't until I learned to utilize synergy that my tactics came together and I started to win...a lot.

Wood elf Synergy - The Wild Riders operate best when you have a big anvil unit for them to flank with.  Treekin come to mind as the best fit for their charging partners.  You never want to have a unit of Rank breakers go into battle unprepared.  The unit should be buffed or augmented.
1. Unit Synergy - flanking with Treekin or having other units like Eternal Guard of Giant Eagles flanking their model helps out Wild Riders a lot.
2. Magic Synergy - Lore of Life can significantly increase the longevity of your Wild Riders. Turning them into Toughness 7 models gives them serious staying power. Lore of Beasts can make Wild Riders even better at killing in close combat using Wyssan's Wildform.  Also, spells like the Hidden Path from the Lore of Athel Loren allow Wild Riders to escape being shot at and give them serious maneuverability on the field.
3. Character Synergy - The type of character you field can completely change how your Wild Riders function for that battle.  If you take a Spellweaver in the unit then you will more than likely be tougher and harder to kill, yet if you take a Highborn or a Noble then you become even more melee focused and as a result better in close combat.

In closing, the Wild Rider unit is one of my favorites in the Wood Elf army book.  They provide a tough unit (by Wood elf standards) that can go out and wreck absolute havoc on your enemy.  Wild Riders need to win the combat they are in, prolonged combat doesn't work so well for the Wood Elf army.  You should decide what role you are looking to fill in your army before deciding to field Wild Riders however.  Many folks will just throw them into their list because they "had the models" or they wanted to have cavalry.  That's fine but if Wild Riders aren't given  a purpose or support they fold because keep in mind, they are only toughness 3 models.  Anyway, I hope you are able to get something out of this article. I enjoyed writing it.

Warhawk Riders Update and Wild Riders continued conversion!

I'm going to make this a brief update because I'm rather tired and did a lot of work today modelling and converting.  I hammered out 3 Wild Rider conversions in about an hour and followed the same steps I did last time I converted them.  This round went much faster since I had already done this conversion once.
Finished product - ready to be primed and painted.

Next up are my Great Eagles and Warhawk Riders.  Now I have 6 Warhawk Riders but only enough trees to mount 3 of them (also I am only using 3 in my current 2500 list).  I wanted the Warhawk Riders and Great Eagles to have a rather unique look on the battlefield and so I chose to use Trees as their mount!

I plan on putting lead shot or fishing weights in the bottom of the trees to lend weight and then magnets to secure the models to my metal movement trays I will create for them.  This will be very important for the Great Eagles that will require a lot of weight on their base to maintain a stable grounding.

I was originally using copper rod and was told that that just would not do.  To demonstrate further Jeremy showed me just how bendy the copper rods got.  Not good... So I went to True Value next door to Ancient Wonders and secured a new drill bit for my pin vice and 3/32" brass rods.

I plan on adding foliage and leaves to the trees once I have the brass rods secured in the trees.  I will not be permanently affixing the warhawks and eagles to the brass rods in that I have a nice little pluck foam slot already picked out for them.  The brass rods fit snuggly and I have little worry about the models falling off.

I am currently debating on shortening the rod length to reduce the height of the birds above the trees. I'm thinking maybe an inch would suffice but i also don't want the tree leaves to get in the way or crowd the model when being viewed or trying to get it mounted on it's rod. I'm open to suggestions.  I also have the luxury of rotating the warhawks/eagles around in case I like the way they look on another tree or a different facing.  I really tried to get good angles when I was drilling so that I would have dynamic poses and I think I was successful in pulling that off.  Like I said earlier, the only thing bugging me is the length of the rod but I am hesitant to clip it if they look fine at their current height.

Here is Stage 1 of my Warhawk Riders and Great Eagles - more to come as I am able.

Wild Rider Update, 6 of 10 Completed. Wild Rider Champion WIP

I am now done with 6 out of 10 converted Wild Riders.  I have 3 more full conversions to complete and 4 models to paint.  I always wanted to use the Mounted Wood Elf Noble model but I did not want to even attempt to modify the body of the Privateer Press Raptors since it would involve literally shaving and sanding off the bottom torso of the wild rider.  I also did not want to alter the Wood Elf Noble model at all because I liked the way it was designed. So... I got creative and while I'm not 100% happy with the conversion, sometimes you suck it up and say "Works for me!".

Anyway here is a line up of 6 of the 10 painted plus 1 unpainted.

I wanted to match the Raptor models as closely as I could without having to do an insane amount of modification so... I cut and glued some Dryad arms together and pinned them to the metal Wild Rider mount head.  I kinda dig it!

Here you can see that I took some green-stuff and sculpted "fur" as best as I could.  This is really my first  try at sculpting something other than a knee or hiding a seam.  I'm pleased with it and I'm sure it'll look better when it's primed and painted.

This model and it's mount will serve as the Wild Hunter (unit champion for Wild Riders) unless I decide to use him as a Wild Rider Kindred in which he will be a full character.

Hope you guys enjoy my update.  I've got 3 more conversions to perform until I can move on to my Warhawk Riders and Giant Eagles!

Wild Rider Update and Warhawk Rider Pictures.

Here are some pictures of my converted Wild Riders.  I painted the armor Burnished Gold and then washed it with Thraka Green.  It got the metallic green armor look I was going for and I think I will be repeating this when I paint my dragon later on this summer.

The Wild Riders required a bit of detail work in order to make sure the mount looked like it fit properly with the rider - i.e. Greenstuffing the torso to fit the legs.

I also ordered 6 Warhawk Riders (Silvanus models) and 2 Great Eagles from Gamezone.  These models look great when put together but are horrible when they are unassembled.  Looking back I should have taken pictures of them before I had my friend Neil assemble them for me but oh well.  They are HUGE too.  6" wingspan on each and I think I will have to be creative with their bases in order to make them fit side by side when they are moved into close combat.

Anyway without much further ado, finished Wild Rider no.1 and Warhawk Riders.

Wood Elf Modeling and Wild Rider Update

So... I've was looking at my army and realized I have some pretty boring looking Core troops for my Wood Elves.  I was hoping that I would have something that people would look at and go "oh neat" or "Hey that's cool".  So... I have been working on making some of the Wood Elf Glade Guard a bit more dynamic looking and hopefully after these new models are painted I'll be willing to redo the other 20 and have them all fancy looking and what not.
Anyway here are some WIP of my new Glade Guard and some Wild Rider conversion pictures:

I have painted the cloaks Codex Grey and the hair Blazing Orange here.

Here is an example of some of the Talismanic Tattoos that the Wild Riders have.  I really enjoyed free-hand painting these little designs and I think I will end up doing these on all my Wardancers and some of my Glade Guard.  Braveheart anyone?

In this pose I cut the knee and greenstuffed a joint and have the Wood Elf Glade Guard vaulting over a tree root to "join the fray".  This was a stupid easy conversion to do.

This is a Glade Guard using a bit from the Citadel Trees box as a "shield" or cover.  This will also double as a Standard Bearer should I ever need to include on in the unit.

This was perhaps my favorite conversion.  I cut the joint and bent his knee then turned his bow sideways so that he is doing the Legolas side shot angle.

This guy is also an easy conversion, all I did was again cut the knee and greenstuff the joint then model him in motion shooting his bow.

Here is how the unit of 10 Glade Guard will look when on their movement tray.  You will notice I have put some of my normal "Scouts" into this unit because I have already replaced my normal Scout models with another set I picked up today.  Overall, I'm pleased with how easy this conversion was to do and will more than likely end up doing this for all my Glade Guard in the future.  Thank you GW for making non-metal Core choices.  Soooo much easier to pose.

Finally, I purchased a set of Privateer Press "Reeves of Orboros " box which is used for their Warmachine and Hordes game system.  (The stags from the Wild Rider conversion also come from this system.)  While they do actually have pointy ears (yay) they do use double crossbows but ... Grats my new Scout models - I'd rather them be different looking than my normal Glade Guard so that my opponent doesn't confuse them (and also so that *I* do not forget about using them).  I really like these models and when peer pressure finally kicks in (I'm looking at you Roy and Shawn) I'll start a Circle of Orboros Hordes army.  Til then it's Happy Fantasy Warhammer time!

I've got an 'Ard Boyz tournament on May 16th that I am hoping to be rotated into.  I was the 3rd alternate on the waiting list at Ancient Wonders but hopefully some folks won't show up and I can unleash my 2500 point Ulthwe` Guardian army!

More updates to come later, thanks for reading!

Banners, Battles and Building... oh my!

This update pretty much is a collection of 4 posts that I have been meaning to do one at a time but ended up running short on time.  So without much further ado, the update!

'Ard Boyz 2250 Preparation Battle for May Tournament.

Aubrey wanted to test out her 2250 Necron list for 'Ard Boyz and being the kind and friendly person that I am, I decided to let her test her mettle against the ceramite armor of the Emporer's favorite Space Marine Chapter - The Black Templars.  After Roy and Shawn suckered me into getting into this money-sink..er I mean hobby and I collected my Ulthwe` Eldar army, I wanted to play Space Marines.  Roy mentioned that Black Templars not only wore black armor but were an assault based chapter.  I was sold!  So...allow me to narrate the battle.

Game 1 - Necrons vs. Black Templars.
Pitched Battle Deployment, Annihilation

 I went first during this battle and with standard Black Templar tactics, went barreling forward with everything I had in order to smash into her line.  She had a curious deployment in which she castled up everything into one corner.  This ultimately proved to be her undoing...

So Turn 1 movement

More of Turn 1, Aubrey's C'tan gets popped by a barrage of Las Cannon fire (teehee) while she assaults my bike squad with her Wraiths.

This is the scene at the top of Turn 2, she's already lost 2 squads of Necron Warriors, 1 squad of Destroyers, her Necron Lord was popped by Lascannon shots and both Monoliths have been Wrecked.
Her turn she managed to take out 3 out of 5 Terminators and 3/4th's of my Assault based Initiate squads with her rapid fire Gauss Rifles.  Things are looking ...grim.




Turn 3 ended up with the Necrons being tabled when the other 2 bike squads slammed into her flank and the rest of my melee squads sliced and dice through her Necron Warriors with their power weapons.

Resolution:
Helbrecht's IX Legion, The Black Company - 13
Aubrey's Necron's - 1 (she killed a Rhino)

MVP's - Marshall Siegfried - 11 body count, Sir Bautch the Emporer's Champion - 8 body count, Chaplain D'Morte of the Emporer's Holy Fist - 9 body count.  Safe to say the leaders of the Sword Brethern did a damn nice job this game.

After looking at our battle, I sat down and tried to figure out why after turn 2 the game became a total route.  I decided that castling up like the way she did against an assault based army instead of setting up a gun line with her monoliths shielding her C'tan was not the best of ideas.  If she had used her Monoliths (or just taken 1) to shield the C'tan and put her Necron Lord in a squad I think she would have had a larger margin of success against my Black Templars.

Now for Sir Bautch's Theme Song - sung at every battle!

Sir Bautch.....SIR BAUTCH!
Sir Bautch.....SIR BAUTCH!
Eyes of the Hawk, Ears of the Wolf!
Sir Bautch.....SIR BAUTCH!
Sir Bautch.....SIR BAUTCH!
Strength of the Bear, SPEED OF THE PUMA!
SIR BAUTCH!

Battle no.2  - The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren vs. DINO-MITE - 1500 points.

I played a second game that evening against Mike's Lizardman army.  Mike is slowly building to 2250 and since we are both relatively new to Fantasy we enjoy the smaller point games til we get the full swing of things.

Mike reaffirming that I am in fact awesome.

This game went a little bit faster than my game with Aubrey.  Mike was plagued with bad Stupidity roles on his key units (his General with his saurus unit and his Cold Ones calvary).  The game ended up being a Massacre (a total victory) for me and I have to say the dice just said no that game to Mike.  There really wasn't anything he could have done that would have changed the outcome.  Sometimes the dice just say NOPE!

I recently decided that I wanted to have some customized Wild Riders for my Wood Elf army.  Primarily because I decided that I hadn't spent enough money on a single unit and I needed to ensure that I had hit the ridiculous level for this army.  I didn't really care for the horses that the Wild Riders come modeled with so I decided that by using Privateer Press's Raptor units I would be able to have Wood Elves on Stags...AWESOME RIGHT??
Anyway here are some pictures of the assembly process as well as some WIP's thus far.

Here I have drilled a hole in the bottom of the Wild Rider torso's and put in a pin to be fitted to their mount.  Wait a sec....John pinned something? No, seriously John pinned something and didn't have the pin vice spear into his hand causing a fountain of blood to cover everything like a Khornite orgy?
I then did a quick measure and figured out how much of a torso I would need to green stuff in order to make the rider fit properly on his mount without having a heinous gap.

As you can see here it worked out fairly well, I'm not the best person at molding green stuff but this was definitely a great way to get better at it.

For those of you who are not the best at pinning yet want to use a very strong bond, I would like to throw out this trick to you.  I like to use a very thing piece of tissue or toilet paper and put glue on each side of it.  I then push the pieces together and the paper adheres to each side of the model forming a solid and complete bond.  Sometimes the bond is so solid you have to pry it apart with a tool, other times it's just a little stronger than your standard super glue bond.  Either way it's worked out very well for me and so I thought I'd share that with you all.  The excess paper is easily trimmed off since it's dry and brittle minutes after you glue and it also fills in the gaps rather nicely!

Wild Riders all primed up along with Morghur (Beastman army Special character).

Wild Rider torso testing out the new Liquitex flo-aid that I purchased a few days prior.  It lays down a pretty smooth coat with the darker paints but the lighter shades it makes the paint a little too thin.
I've been using a 1to 10 ratio on it using distilled water.  I guess the trick is to get used to it and from there I'm sure I'll have better results.

Not to be confused with the feminine product flow-aids....ahem....moving along now....

Stage by stage on the Wild Riders
1. Black Primer
2. Beastial Brown basecoat
3. Elf Flesh on top of the Beastial Brown
4. Ogryn Flesh wash on the Elf Flesh.

I am so glad I remembered to actually start lowest to highest unlike last time.  The picture was taken when the wash was still wet on the right, after it dried it looked a lot better and had really shaded the Elf flesh well.


And lastly, I had wanted to use a Battle Standard Bearer for my Wood Elf army.  Rerolling break tests is kinda big when you have multiple combats going on withing inches of each other.  So I figured why not try to make your own banner?
I will just throw the pics of what I have done so far in a smaller format that you can kinda figure out what I did step by step.   It looks kinda wonky and I may just end up getting the actual Battle Standard Bearer model later but we'll roll with this for now.

Hope you all enjoyed this post, it's insanely long and I apologize for that.  Next go around I'll just do multiple smaller updates!