Skaven Archives - Brazen Wolfe Tabletop

Hobby Progress in January

January 28, 2023thebrazenwolfe1 Comment

Along with writing for soulbound and reading up on rules for RPGs I have also made some hobby progress in January.

Namely a few little bits here and there for painting. So while I work on the final character intro for Ymran I wanted to still go over some hobby stuff tonight.

Knight of shrouds

The final steps for my Knight of Shrouds is a colour for the scabbard and then some cleanup after the shades on the metal. The theme for my nighthaunt is dark wraithy-misty-shroud underneath and a blue-white cloth. Brass and tarnished steel for metals and then a bright snow base. It may be a lot of white but im excited for it to be part of my hobby update in January.

Arch-warlock

The white fur of my arch-warlock isn’t coming across as strong as I would like it to. Adding more shade and subtle highlights may fix this. Some more depth to the metals (highlights and shading) may help but the greens I am liking. A mix of Warplightning, striking scorpion and aeldari emerald contrast paints have parts of it a very Skaveny vibe. Still a work in progress but making progress none-the-less.

A bit of a smaller one tonight as I work through a big day out. Hope to send more progress pics as I push through my hobby backlog this year.

The Brazen Wolfe

Hobby update! Rats on parade

April 23, 2022April 23, 2022thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

Hello one and all to a Saturday special where I wanted to show off some basing I did today. No painting was completed today, well some on Monday, but I wanted to see how much I could get done during the week and boy dis I underestimate kids holidays.

Despite having perhaps two afternoons of doing what I pleased I didn’t manage to get much significant painting done, which is an issue. So today I spent some time, a hour or so, finishing up the basing process I did for my painted clanrats.

So enjoy the short reel and hope you like the progress!

Maybe the hardest model to paint, hence the extreme sub assembly…

Too many little bits, and big bits.. bits in general

Dry fitted together. Great little model – one day it will have better rules but until then its a good looking model nonetheless.

Thanks for joining me to look at my small hobby progress. 27 models with paint, 25 done, 1 nearly done (banner) and 1 half way done (doomwheel).

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of week write-up and as always, Don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Hobby update April 9

April 9, 2022thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

Hi all and welcome to a hobby update!

I finally put paint to brush and made a start on the first bits of the basing theme I have for my Skaven army.

The army will be neutral autumn tones with each clan of rats being a different tone of autumn, reds, yellows, oranges, purples, greens, browns and so forth and for my Verminus (Clanrats and Stormvermin) I chose red as there is something nice about a red Clanrat.

So tonight I painted the bases for the 26 painted clan rats I have been working on so far and I focused heavily on one of my Clawleaders, the leader of the clawpack.

So let’s have a look at some pictures!

The first step, done ages before, is using mod podge to form a basing texture using sand, tiny stones and some larger ones that you can get quite easily as aquarium gravel.

The second step was to paint with a dark brown – my paint of choice is cheap art acrylic (raw umber and just smother it all over, slightly watered down to make it flow into the sand to reaffirm that binding.

The third step is to do a heavy dry brush of the next darker shade of brown I have, burnt umber and try and leave some parts revealing that raw umber colour still.

Then its a repeat of the next few colours, progressively dry brushing lighter and lighter until barely touching the ground (focusing on the rocks where possible). The next colour for us is Burnt Sienna.

Then we hit it with “stone grey”

Next up is “Neutral grey” chosen for its slight warm hues in it.

Then sticking on the miniature, our Clawleader, superglue in this case to bone the raw plastic with the painted surface.

Afterwards more matte mod podge was dabbed onto the surface where I wanted larger rocks (Fine rock) and some super great fine green flock applied overtop and around the rocks (as to not completely hide them). The flock in this case is woodland scenics.

And finally I added a few choice bits of Gale force9 Autumn flock blend (fine consistency, I guess as I have a lot coarser flock there from them too). This was once again secured down with some undiluted mod podge and then had a watered down mod podge wash dabbed over the top.

I am quite happy with how this is looking at the moment, my Rats of Autumn are finally coming together and I am excited to have a full table full of them in their multi-coloured goodness.

This is just one of 26 that I have done, the process taking a few hours over all (paint drying, am I right?) but setting down with a clear goal in mind helped out massively.

Finally, I am not sponsored by any company and bought these quite some time ago but below are the products I called out in the above steps in case you like the look and want to attempt the same.

Thanks for joining me for a bit of this hobby update, I do have some more refining to do and extra bits for my clan rats but am working on provisioning the materials for the extra steps for the basing and extra bits of detail.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the writeup of our weekly adventure and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe

Hobby update April

April 3, 2022April 3, 2022thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

So it has been a while since I updated on the progress of my hobbies and in particular painting. Whilst I have many painted models for each pained model i have two or three unpainted models and, to be honest, I struggle to dedicate time to that part of the hobby.

Painting models it generally the last thing I think of when I consider my options for what to do in my downtime. But, this weekend I made a shocking amount of progress. 80% done on 20% of my current Skaven army. Some grander details and basing is still yet to be done but I am happy at how the theme and look of these lowly clan rats is shaping up.

The kickstart for me is always seeing the progress in my fellow local gamers painted army and wanting them to have a more immersive have when playing against me. So I give you an unnamed clawleader (the leader of a unit of clanrats) and his clawpack, with a select few models I painted this weekend.

The clawpack

Unnamed clawleader

Banner bearer (design on banner pending)

Bell ringer

‘nearly trusted clanrat’

Well thats the small update I have for my painted Skaven so far. Hopefully I can ride this momentum out and produce a fully painted army this year.

If you have an idea for the name of the Clawleader let me know, I’d be keen to hear any and all suggestions and I’ll take my favourite from the suggested ones!

Don’t forget to look out for the end or month write-up that should be out tonight too and as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Lord Shrilleck

April 2, 2022thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

Hi all a brief note before I get stuck into it. This is the post game thematic view of the skaventide vs Fyreslayer game I had tonight with a mate of mine.

Army lists will be down below.

Lord Shrilleck mighty grey seer, second to only Thanquol (for now-now) swung atop his glorious clamouring-screaming bell.

Looking over the great hall of carved stone he screeched threats of a painful death at the clan rats that pushed and pulled his altar over the stone.

“Lord Shrilleck, we have found-found dwarf things. Not many but they have a monster of fire with them. They sound the horn-horns or war and march-march towards our forces.” Lord Verseks chittered from below the screaming bell.

Breathing in deep the warpstone from the brazer below he drew in power from the chaos stone before shrieking out “to war! Kill-kill, stab-stab. Leave none alive!!” He called as he beat the bound rat ogor that was chained to his altar driving him to ring the bell faster and harder.

The three clawpacks pushed forward whilst twitching manic plague monks pulled the plague furnace as the three plague priests chanted their prayers in the name of the great horned rat.

Giant rata darted around the screaming bell, nipping at clan rats and the tormented rat ogor excited to just be there as three plague claw catapults were moved to take up position overlooking the battlefield to gift these fyreslayers the gift the great horn rat felt them deserving; a bubbling, writhing miasma of filth.

The horns reverberates through the halls as lord Veseks skittered leapt around the battlefield throwing down a seed of power, a crystalline seed of dark power that could creat rifts in the warp, tunnels in reality which the clever skaven could use to move and shift around the battlefield.

The front lines could be seen now and the skaven forces moved into position before the clamoring of bells and screeching of bloodlust rippled forth and the battle began.

Grasping at the winds of magic Lord Shrilleck tried to pull arcane energy to form a wall of protection around him but the winds slipped from his grasp this far below the surface and the spell failed with an audible crack that splintered lengths of wood from the altars frame chasing him to fumble and lose his place in the spell.

The plague priests weren’t much better, their prayers of worship and evoking the horned rats power were met with disapproval as their dark lord tested their resolve by causing great sloughs of flesh to bubble and peal off them. Lord Veseks was the only one to snare power and drifted through the realm again with a skitterleap, appearing on top of an dias of some kind, a place of tactical advantage but as he tried to drain the life force from the massing fyreslayers the magic was whipped away from him. His loyal, well loyal enough, clawpack ran to form a protective ring around him trying to curry favour with the grey seer. As piles of filth rained down on the dwarves causing several to drop to the ground, recoiling as disease and bubbling toxic waste was launched at them from the plague claws.

The dwarves marched on, their priests calling out their own prayers and bright flashes lit up the dim light as runes of ur-gold burst aflame as their power was released. Then the dwarves charged forward, a wave of battle crying dwarves crossed the distance between the rats and them in a blink of an eye. As fire rained down towards Lord Shrilleck and the clawpack surrounding him he snarled ay the globes of magma as they missed and bubbled menacingly on the ground around him. Then they charged. Lord Veseks out as much distance between him and the charging dwarves as possible while a fyreslayer priest appeared from a tunnel.he carved from solid rock with.a detachment of warriors who charged at an exposed plague claw. Lord Shrilleck snarled in frustration at the poorly spent resources as he turned his back on the warmachine that surely wouldn’t survive the onslaught.

As the magmadroth, a beast of fire and lava charged over the dias and crashed into the clanrats ranks the onslaught that awaited those rats was swift and deadly, none survived. At the bottom of the dias plague monks screeched out challenges as prayers were read from scrolls and books. Turning towards the right flank lord Shrilleck was surprised to find the plague claw being defended bravely by its crew who appeared to be doing well against the veteran warriors.

The fyrelayers pressed their advantage, pushing further forwards crashing into the monks with a shattering downhill charge as magmadroth and fyreslayer dwarf cut their way through skaven. Seeing an opportunity Lord Shrilleck ordered his rat ogor to pull his altar away but the rats he left behind to defend him were quickly cut down to half their size. The plague monks threw themselves with reckless abandon as axes bit into their chest, leaving large wounds in magmadroth and dwarf alike. Still onwards did the plague claws crew fight and somehow their warmachine, and them, were stil alive.

Now the magic whipped through the air Lord Shrilleck turned just in time to see Lord Veseks skitterleap just as an axe cut down through the space he occupied a moment ago. Coward! Lord Shrilleck pulled ay the winds of magic, trying to use the chaotic energies to rip the earth under the dwarves apart and send them into the fire they worship so dearly, this time it was more successful and he managed to catch the runeson and cause a grievous wound. He then pushes forth a pestilent wave at a host of hearthguard beserkers causing diseases to infect their ranks but nome fell to the spell.

The plague priests chanted prayers to the great horned rat and a crippling curse was placed upon the Priest on Magmadroth, the clanrats, monks and plague priests themselves fighting with more fervour as eventually their cuts brought it down.

However a invocation made from living magma erupted from the battlefield and stated to splash molten rock at the skaven nearby. As the lines began to fold lord Shrilleck jumped from his altar and slipped through one of the nearby gnawholes watching just long enough to see his altar, the plague furnace and the remaining skaven rout – a solitary figure, one of thr plague priests darted towards another gnawhole but as lava was shot through the Sky towards Lord Shrilleck he dove into the chaotic energies and moved through the tunnels in reality swearing vengeance on the fyreslayers. Despite slaying the magmadroth more skaven was needed. Perhaps clan skrye or moulder would be able to spare him some of their creations so he can kill the dwarf things and rid them out of the tunnels the skaven have use for.

Armies.

Skaventide

– Army Faction: Skaven
– Grand Strategy: Dominating Presence
LEADERS
Plague Priest On Plague Furnace (235)**
– Artefacts of Power: The Fumigatous
– Prayers: Curse
Grey Seer (140)**
– Artefacts of Power: Suspicious Stone
– Spells: Skitterleap
Plague Priest (85)**
– Prayers: Heal
Grey Seer On Screaming Bell (265)***
– General
– Command Traits: Cunning
– Spells: Plague
Plague Priest (85)****
– Prayers: Heal
BATTLELINE
Clanrats (130)*
– Rusty Spear
Clanrats (130)*
– Rusty Spear
Clanrats (130)*
– Rusty Spear
ARTILLERY
Plagueclaw (135)***
Plagueclaw (135)****
Plagueclaw (135)****
OTHER
Plague Monks (170)***
– Pair of Foetid Blades
Plague Monks (170)***
– Pair of Foetid Blades
Giant Rats (40)***
TERRAIN
1 x Gnawhole (0)
CORE BATTALIONS
– *Hunters of the Heartlands
– **Command Entourage
– ***Battle Regiment
– ****Grand Battery
TOTAL POINTS: 1985/2000
Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

Fyreslayers

Army Faction: Fyreslayers
– Army Subfaction: Greyfyrd
– Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
– Triumphs: Indomitable

LEADER

Auric Runefather (125)*
– General
– Command Traits: Fury of the Fyreslayers
– Artefacts: The Daemon Slayer

Auric Runesmiter on Magmadroth (340)*
– Forge Key
– Artefacts: Volatile Brazier
– Mount Traits: Flame-scale Youngblood
– Prayers: Ember Storm

Battlesmith (150)**
– Artefacts: Nulsidian Icon

Auric Runesmiter (135)**
– Forge Key
– Prayers: Prayer Of Ash

Auric Runeson (80)**
– Ancestral War-axe
– Artefacts: Axe of Grimnir

BATTLELINE

1 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (320)*
– Berzerker Broadaxe

1 x Hearthguard Berzerkers (320)*
– Flamestrike Poleaxe

Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Handaxes (170)*

Vulkite Berzerkers with Bladed Slingshields (160)*

INVOCATION

Molten Infernoth (70)

TERRAIN

Magmic Battleforge (0)

OTHER

Auric Hearthguard (125)*

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Battle Regiment

**Command Entourage

TOTAL POINTS: (1995/2000)

Thanks for dropping by, if you liked this style of report, Albeit not as detailed as others done in the past let me know!

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the end of month writeup and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Saturday night – Skaven vs Sons of Behemat battle report!

March 19, 2022thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

Hi all and welcome to a Warhammer age of Sigmar 3.0 battle report write-up. No fancy pictures though but it was a tough matchup from the get go.

Without too much of a ramp-up I wanted to touch in with my other tabletop passion and have a writeup of an Age of Sigmar Warhammer game I had Friday night. It was a reasonably long game (a lot of rats to move..) but we managed to play it through to a point that it felt ok leaving it there.

The armies

Skaventide (mixed)

Allegiance: Skaventide

– Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery

– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Arch-Warlock (175)***

– Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: Warp Lightning Shield

Clawlord (105)***

– Mighty Warlord Command Trait: Verminous Valour

Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (265)*

– Lore of Ruin: Death Frenzy

Grey Seer (140)*

– Artefact: Suspicious Stone

– Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap

Verminlord Warbringer (305)***

– General

– Command Trait: Devious Adversary

– Artefact: Shield of Distraction

– Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon

Battleline

20 x Clanrats (130)**

– Rusty Spear

– 1x Standard Bearers

– 1x Standard Bell Ringers

20 x Clanrats (130)**

– Rusty Spear

– 1x Standard Bearers

– 1x Standard Bell Ringers

20 x Clanrats (130)*

– Rusty Spear

– 1x Standard Bearers

– 1x Standard Bell Ringers

20 x Stormvermin (220)**

– Halberd

– Reinforced x 1

Units

10 x Night Runners (75)*

Behemoths

Hell Pit Abomination (240)*

– Mutation: Toughened Sinews

Core Battalions

*Battle Regiment

**Hunters of the Heartlands

***Command Entourage – Magnificent

Additional Enhancements

Artefact

Total: 1990 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 1 / 4

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 153

Drops: 7

Sons of Behemat (stomper tribe)

Allegiance: Sons of Behemat

– Tribe: Stomper Tribe

– Grand Strategy: Beast Master

– Triumphs:

Leaders

Warstomper Mega-Gargant (470)*

– General

– Command Trait: Eager for the fight

– Artefact: Ironweld Cestus

Battleline

3 x Mancrusher Gargant Mob (475)*

Core Battalions

*Footsloggas – Unified

Total: 1895 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 0 / 4

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 143

Drops: 4

The Battle plan

Battle plan – Apex predators.

This is a tricky one as only leaders can capture an objective and they do so by two means.

Being within 3″ of that objective or killing the leader that already held it. Great for Skaven with many heroes and the means to move between them (gnawholes), great for sons of behemat if you have more than one leader unit – but a tough matchup for both of us. My List doesn’t have the damage threshold to push through the gargants and he didn’t have the volume of leaders to contest more than one objective.

The match

Deployment.

One gnawhole in my territory towards the right of the table. Another Gnollhole near each of the objectives but on the other side of the gnawholes.

Warstomper and his buddies toed the line with the middle objective.

Nightrunners out front to screen the center, clanrats to be a secondary screen, stormvermin just behind them, with a blob of heroes (all within 6″ of the gnawhole). Another unit of clan rats screened the top of my forces and my last screened the left of my little square of land.

The HPA backed up the left flank.

Pregame

Warpstone – 3+d3(1) – 4

Left-center unit of Nightrunners moved 4″ forward, right-center unit moved 11″ to screen my entire force..

Round 1 – Turn 1 Sons of Behemat

Battle tactic – monstrous takeover

Sons of Behemat Heroic action – Heroic Leadership (fail)

Skaven Heroic action –

Hero phase.. Yup that was it..

Movement phase he moved everything forward – that was terrifying…

Shooting phase he threw a bunch of boulders using the stomper tribe command ability… All out defense saved my stormvermin from Total destruction as those rocks hurt! But a 4+ save helped. The nightrunner screens didn’t fare too well and my Bell managed to spike a few saves and ward shrugs.

Charge. Terrifying.. 3d6 for big boy means he goes where he pleases.

Well my screens didn’t last, in fact they crumbled and with some cheeky pile-ins he managed to get within 3″ of not stormvermin and smash over half of them to a pulp. Oof.

All night runners died but that was their job.

My eight stormvermin in range dealt 4 damage to his mancrusher gargant unit.. 32 wounds to go for that unit.

Most importantly his decision to pile in to try and finish my stormvermin removed him from the objective zone and so he didn’t score his battle tactic OR the objective. An oversight or smarter-than-Skaven big brain play I don’t know but regardless it wasn’t looking good and it all depended on what the Bell and spell casting could do for me.

Battleshock didn’t happen (nothing eligible. Thanks Bell!)

Round 1 – Turn 2 – Skaven

Tactic – ferocious advance.

Skaven Heroic action – healing on my bell – healed 2 so back down to 1 wound!.

Sons of Behemat – Willpower (and got it!)

Bell tolled, a 2… Well that hurts.. Mortal wounds splashed about across my heroes with a few of them getting 3 wounds on them (2 wounds remaining for my little foot heroes).

Death frenzy was successful and went on my hell pit abom (since my other units that remained were not worth putting Death Frenzy on).

Be got mystic shield off on verminlord warbringer.

Verminlord warbringer failed both casts.

Grey seer on foot managed to get skitterleap and teleported my arch warlock to take the top objective (so I could camp both top and bottom objective and double his points easily).

Arch warlock lined up his overcharged warp storm and.. failed.. even with reroll (a first for me). Then self immolated for 12 mortals.. so he died.

My top units of clan rats went to form a line near the objective and the gnawhole I put to pressure the top-right objective.

My left unit of clanrats went to do the same on the bottom left objective and provide a rat-meat shield for my verminlord warbringer who I would take through the gnawhole.

HPA moved to support left clanrats, everything in the middle moved up to pressure the middle objective. My stormvermin retreated to “safety”.

Due to my top unit of clan rats suffering 2 mortals from my bell failure they were due a battleshock test but rolled a 3 (-1 because of 10+models) and vs a bravery of 5 (inspiring terrain) – they were fine.

Ended my turn scoring 4vp.

SoB won the roll off, something that would happen often and took the turn.

Round 2 – Turn 1 – Sons of Behemat.

Battle Tactic was “Slay the wardlord” to try and kill my General.

Gargant Heroic action Warstomper finest hour.

Skaven heroic action – Finest hour on my verminlord warbringer.

This saw the topmost unit of gargant move to engage my clanrats that were defending the Screaming bell, another unit moving to engage and threaten the clanrats and hellpit abomination guarding my verminlord warbringer and the third doing the same to flank the warstomper who was coming over to say hello to my verminlord warbringer. A 2” redeploy of my clanrats saw them move to make the Warstompers charge to be a 13” to my verminlord warbringer.

The left unit of mancrusher gargants ran into my clan rats and killed a few poor little rats on the charge.The other Gargants charged the edge of my clanrats and brought in my Hellpit.

The warstomper didn’t make the charge to my verminlord warbringer but hit the clan-rats hard.

Combat saw my clanrats near my Screaming bell fair well enough against the mancrusher mob.

My clanrat screen died, but kept the mancrusher mobs away from my verminlord warbringer, but the warstomper was free to engage my poor verminlord warbringer.

But not before the Hellpit had killed one mancrusher gargant and dealt 9 wounds to the next.

The Warstomper piled into my verminlord warbringer, I activated all out defense.

The verminlord warbringer managed to gain 4 extra attacks due to devious adversary and with a 3+ save and ignoring 2 points of rend (and the verminlord 5+ ward) the verminlord warbringer survived.

The punchback on the verminlord warbringer into the mega (finest hour and rerolling saves) meant I received 1 mortal wound back and dealt 1 wound to bring me up to 9 wounds taken but not dead.

The Mancrusher mob then killed the hellpit abomination, triggering death frenzy which dealt about 12 wounds and brought the final Mancrusher gargant in that unit to 4 wounds.

Battleshock phase saw that last gargant run.

End of turn, Sons of Behemat scored 1 for killing a monster, Skaven scored 1 for killing a monster but the battle tactic failed and the mega-gargant was .5” from contesting the objective.

Round 2- turn 2- Skaven

Tactic was “conquer” which I wasn’t able to do, but there was no other way to score another tactic.

Heroic action – Skaven – Heroic Leadership on screaming bell, failed.

Gargant was heroic leadership which was failed.

This turn saw the bell roll a 10, not quite the 12 I was wanting but it was far from the worst outcome. It dealt a few mortal wounds here and there but not enough to write home about.

Spells saw Verminlord warbringer gain flaming weapon and mystic shield, cracks call went off and no damage was dealt, skitterleap was successful which enabled me to score the middle objective and a arcane bolt dealt 1 mortal wound to a mancrusher gargant.

My 3 man unit of stormvermin rallied and I rolled 6 6’s from 17 dice. Big play.

Movement saw my clan rats shuffle to screen the verminlord warbringer and his teleport (through gnawhole) to the top objective.

The Screaming bell ran up to help contest the middle objective and support the Grey seer.

Stormvermin moved to charge and the clawlord moved up to support them.

Vermin lord abandoned the bottom left objective and teleported just outside of 3” of the top right objective, that hurt.

Charge. Stormvermin made it and dealt 4 more wounds leaving the Mancrusher gargants on 2 remaining. They piled in and managed to get on the line of 3” for my Clawlord which saw him fall to 2 more damage than he had wounds remaining.

The clan rats dealt 1 more damage to them leaving them on 1 wound remaining.

The stormvermin were removed.

Battleshock once again wasn’t a thing but the end of the turn brought another 2 points to the Skaven.

Score was Skaven 7, Sons of Behemat 1.

Roll off – the Sons of Behemat won and took initiative. I burnt the middle objective so they had the choice of keeping their Warstomper on the other side of the table or abandoning that objective to come and get my models – they went for the models.

Round 3, turn 1 – Sons of Behemat

Battle tactic – Broken Ranks (my 4 clan rats..)

Heroic action for Sons of Behemat- Heroic Leadership (success)

Heroic action for Skaven was heroic recovery on Warbringer. (1 wound healed)

Everything moved, threw rocks and killed my Clan rats (Sad times).

Big charges saw my Grey seer on foot get pulverized by the Warstomper and two units of Mancrusher mobs (6 models) into my Screaming bell. The less wounded unit attacked and brought him to 9 wounds out of 13. Attacking back the bell managed to kill one more Gargant scoring me 1 point for killing a monster this round.

That was really the round.

Sons of Behemat scored their tactic, with a monster but had no objectives scoring 3 points, Skaven scored another point for killing a monster going up to 8 points.

Round 3 – turn 2 – Skaven

Battle tactic – savage spearhead (wasn’t going to get it sadly..)

Heroic Action – Heroic Recovery (healing 2 more wounds!)

Simple really with 18 clan rats and my verminlord warbringer left – I cast mystic shield and flaming weapon on the doom glaive.

Moved my Rats to brace for a gargant charge and moved my warbringer onto the objective scoring 2 points.

End of the battle round saw Skaven 10 (1+more), Sons of Behemat 4

Round 4 roll off – Sons of Behemat won and took it again. I burned to the top right objective making him choose between fighting me with his warstomper or running back towards the only remaining objective (as none of them are Prime objectives?)

Round 4 – turn 1 – Sons of Behemat

Tactic – Bring it down

Heroic action gargants – Heroic leadership (Got)

Heroic action Skaven – Heroic recovery (Failed)

Hero phase was a non – event.

Movement phase saw the gargants advance and I redeployed my Skaven to once again make it really hard for the Warstomper to get to my warbringer (this time forcing a 15” charge). The

Command ability was used (like every turn) for all gargants to throw rocks, this hurt the clan a little bit but failed to hurt the warbringer.

Command ability was dropped to give all gargants re-roll to charges.

All gargants made the charge into the rats and the Warstomper made a 11” charge from 3d6, twice.

Combat and impact hits saw all my clan rats dead and the warstomper ended up piling into 3” of my verminlord warbringer – just. Because I never started combat phases with him within 3” I never was able to activate “shield of distraction” for the -1 to hit, but was able to still reroll 1s to save which had saved him quite a few times.

He survived and manage to gain 4 stacks of “devious adversary” without finest hour on the Warstomper I managed to punch through 17 damage from his fist attack and the boosted doom glaive and piled 3” further away from the mancrusher mob, within 3” and closer to the Warstomper (and within 6” of the gnawhole).

This ended the turn with no VP scored either side.

Round 4 – turn 2 – Skaven.

Battle tactic – err.. Slay the warlord (wasn’t going to get it again..)

Hero action, it didn’t matter so I didn’t bother and neither did Sons’ player.

Spell casting – both went off in case of a miracle.

Teleported out using the gnawhole and onto the last objective.

We called it there when my score ended up being 12 – 4 in favour of Skaven.

Conclusion

Despite losing ~1680 points worth of models and killing.. 475 points of models the battle plan favoured me heavily – it was pretty rough going.

A first for playing against SoB for me, and not the first for playing against Skaven for my opponent – but a first for this list. They are hard to chew through without rend and range and especially the stomper tribe who do increased damage vs horde (or 10+ model units). This made all hits or failed armour saves feel really impactful and probably why I had only a single model left (on 7 wounds remaining out of 12…)

The multiple ways for Skaven to have a leader with a ward is incredible. Only my poor arch-warlock (who was incredibly unlucky this game) didn’t have a ward of a 4+ or 5+ (as Verminous Valour is counted as a ward) and it was felt.

Devious adversary felt good but was a high-risk high-reward playstyle and when coupled with the bonuses to save, the ward save post fact and the shield of distraction (that never got to distract anyone) it made him survive two combat rounds against a unbracketed mega-gargant and live to screech about.

Well that’s all we have for tonight, I hope you dropped by. If you have any questions about the lists or any take-aways from the game please reach out. I didn’t manage to capture any images of the match (was on Table-top simulator.. having two young kids makes it hard to get out during the night time to play in person…) but it was a good game and a hard lesson to learn.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for our end of week writeup and, as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage*
The Brazen Wolfe

*or in this case re-roll your saves

Weekend update

November 27, 2021November 28, 2021thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

It’s Saturday and here in Australia (particularly Victoria) a lot of places are closed to you until you’ve had two doses of the Covid Vaccine and now that I am… It’s time to hit the wargaming hall and have a warhammer game against a friend!

But I wanted to take this opportunity to have an update on the next few weeks..

I’ll attempt to do a post a day!

…Well that’s nothing unusual tonight marks 90 days straight of posts to Brazen Wolfe Tabletop (feel like I should celebrate somehow hmm…) But I will change the format a bit. I am not w Christmas person but the holiday season does bring certain joy to my household with my two kids so I will be doing 25 days of Christmas, an advent calendar if you will where I will create NPCs, Maps, plot hooks, story-style writeups, homebrew monsters and, hopefully, something new.

So make sure to drop in for December and enjoy the lead up to a Truly Brazen Christmas.

So for those here since I mentioned warhammer I will publish my list tonight, update the post with my opponents list – know it’s Duardin (Dwarves) and will do a written battle report tomorrow!

The Garden Rats

Allegiance: Skaventide
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Arch-Warlock (175)***
– General
– Command Trait: Overseer of Destruction
– Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
– Lore of Warpvolt Galvanism: Warp Lightning Shield
Warlock Bombardier (125)*
– Universal Spell Lore: Ghost-mist
Plague Priest (85)***
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal
Plague Priest (85)***
– Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse
Grey Seer on Screaming Bell (265)****
– Lore of Ruin: Warpgale
Grey Seer (140)***
– Artefact: Suspicious Stone
– Lore of Ruin: Skitterleap

Battleline
RatPack1 (130)**
20 x Clanrats
– Rusty Spear
– 1x Standard Bearers
– 1x Standard Bell Ringers
RatPack 2 (130)**
20 x Clanrats
– Rusty Spear
– 1x Standard Bearers
– 1x Standard Bell Ringers
RatPack3 (130)**
20 x Clanrats
– Rusty Spear
– 1x Standard Bearers
– 1x Standard Bell Ringers

Units
6 x Giant Rats (40)****
6 x Giant Rats (40)****
1 x Ratling Gun (65)***
1 x Ratling Gun (65)***
1 x Warpfire Thrower (70)****

Artillery
Warp Lightning Cannon (185)*
Warp Lightning Cannon (185)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Soulsnare Shackles (65)

Core Battalions
*Grand Battery
**Hunters of the Heartlands
***Warlord
****Vanguard

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1980 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 0 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 136
Drops: 16

Come back later for the Duardin list and tomorrow for the outcome!

Update! The Cities of Sigmar (not quite all dwarves…) list

Cities of Sigmar: Tempest Eye

Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar
– City: Tempest’s Eye
– Mortal Realm: Ghur
– Grand Strategy: Pillars of Belief
– Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Runelord (100)*
– Artefact: Patrician’s Helm
– City Role: General’s Adjutant
Runelord (100)*
– General
– Command Trait: Hawk-eyed
Drakesworn Templar (455)*
– Tempest Axe
– Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
Gotrek Gurnisson (435)*
– Allies

Battleline
20 x Irondrakes (320)**
– City Role: Honoured Retinue (Must be 5-20 models)
– Reinforced x 1
20 x Longbeards (210)**
– Ancestral Weapons & Shields
– Reinforced x 1
10 x Arkanaut Company (100)**
– 1x Skypikes
– 1x Light Skyhooks
– 1x Aethermatic Volley Guns

Units
10 x Shadow Warriors (120)*

1 x Grundstok Gunhauler (155)*
– Main Gun: Sky Cannon

Core Battalions
*Warlord
**Hunters of the Heartlands

Additional Enhancements
Artefact

Total: 1995 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 435 / 400
Wounds: 106
Drops: 9

Don’t forget to roll those 6’s.. err.. nope.. let’s stick with not forgetting to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Weekend Skirmish – battle report Skaventide vs Blades of Khorne

October 17, 2021October 17, 2021thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

A quick writeup for a 2000 point game of warhammer age of Sigmar 3.0.

The armies

Skaventide (Moulder) – The Brazen Wolfe

A bit of a long list to get in a single image (on a phone) but there it is. Normally I try and run with a Warlord battalion for an extra artefact/free 1 command point. The idea here was for the board with meaningless (sorry rattos) chaff and play the objective game. I hadn’t used rat ogors before in 3.0 but remember them being mediocre. So I was going to use them with my hellpits as a counter punch once my giant rats failed.

Was also hoping to use unleash more more beasts command trait multiple times per which meant making sure that they would be dying in every phase

Blades of Khorne – Josh

A pretty scary list with a focus on stacking +1 attacks on the bloodthirster and bloodletters to try and dish out scattered mortals. Having dealt with bloodthirsters of Insensate rage a few times and having witnessed them butcher armies before I was a bit worried. I mean the thing is only 280 points!

A big difference in drops here so skaven was my ever going to get the choice. With that in mind lets talk about the battle plan.

Power in numbers

An interesting battle plan. 6 objectives 3 just in each players territory. You score 2 points per tactic you complete but only score VP when you burn and objective (starting at round 2) which is worth more points the longer you have hold it. 2 points if you just nabbed it, 4 points if you held it the turn before the current and 8 points if you held it since turn 1.

Deployment

Deploying a wall of giant rats across the entire front of the battlefield with rat ogors as a second wall followed by heroes, support units and hellpits to ensure that the bubbles from the master moulders, pack masters and bell had good coverage for buffs.

Khorne had heroes up front to lead the charge with the blocks of letters covering the three objectives. Wrathmongers and Bloodsecrator auras overlapping to give the majority of army giving a bonus +2 to attacks. The bloodmaster was positioned within teo blobs of bloodletters to get them to fight straight after him.

After deployment I selected my hellpit on roids to be loved by his daddy master moulder more, adding 1 to his already impressive 14 wounds. Karanak selected my bell as his target of affections.

Josh gave me 1st turn.

Round 1

Skaven turn 2.

Tactic: Ferocious Advance (2 units of giant rats and a 2 man unit of rat ogors)

I tried to generate an additional command point for my master moulder with rabid crown but failed as I rolled 2. My opponent bloodthirster gained an additional unbind with heroic willpower.

The bell tolled and rolled a 2, giving myself 2 mortals and killing 1 rat from my 12 rat shield and dealing 3 wounds to my master moulder near my bell. No shrugs were made. I then tried to cast warpgale but failed with a double 1. Rerolling with the generic command trait master of magic i re-rolled the casting attempt getting double 1s again. Oof. Suffering 2 mortals (non shrugged) this ended my hero phase… The great horned rat was obviously mad at me

Running my up units I made a line to prevent my opponent from getting any where near my objectives whilst I set up for a counter charge if he fid made his way here. I scored 2 vp

Khorne turn 1

Heroic will power went off for his bloodthirster and I healed 1 wound on my screaming bell.

He then ran up most of his army to push into the middle of the field, shooting with his flesh hounds borks at my giant rats on the left flank.

The skull cannon shot at my bell and failed to wound

They fell to the dogs attack (2 models died). The dogs then charged the rats and they died easily to 12 attacks. Spending a cp and rolling a 5 I summoned the 6 man unit of rats into his backline threatening his left and middle objectives.

Round 2

Skaven turn 2

Selecting monstrous takeover i knew id be able to keep one of my hellpits on the objectives away from the bloodthirster. Opting to heal my screaming bell (heroic recovery) I rolled a 6 and healed 1 wound.

Casting spells I managed to get warpgale off dealing 1 mortal to his blood thirster but halving his move,run and charge characteristic. My second spell, mystic shield, was unbound by Karanak dealing 2 mortals to my bell.

Moving my giant rats up to screen my forces and backing them up with rat ogres, moulder support and hellpits I moved a bit too close to his bloodthirster so he redeployed closer to my rats and out of sight from 2 of my rat ogor warp guns.

My screaming bell went down one gnawhole on my right side of the table and to the left to support where the majority of my troops would be.

Shooting, not much. Dealt 1 wound to bloodthirster. No charging was declared as I braced for the khorne charge.I

Scored 2 points this round. And opted to not burn

Khorne turn 2

Ok. Pain town. Battle tactic was broken ranks, picking my 12 man unit of rats near the bloodthirster and 20 bloodletters. On the right of the map. Healing bis bloodthirster to full he moved to get army wide charges on my forces, but. He ignored my 6 man unit of giant rats on his left objective – moving off it so I gained control.

A small misplay on my behalf, I redeployed my rats when the first unit got within 8 meaning his bloodthirster could still move to get to 3″ away. I rolled a 1.

Shooting, a pot shot from his skull canon missed when targeting my screaming bell.

Charge phase. Oof. bloodthrister rolled a 8 (halved to 4) and just made his charge. If he had failed Josh would have struggled to get his battle tactic. Everything else made the charge into my rat walls and engaged all my rat ogors and my suped up hellpit

Well well. The giant rats all died, except my left wall who only suffered 3 casualties from the 6 bloodletters who attacked.

The bloodthrister attacked and killed the giant rats, the master moulder and a rat ogor model. Luckily it was only one proc of outrageous carnage.

My rat ogors (6 man unit) engaged. Killed the bloodmaster and 4 wrath mongers with only 3 models being within range to fight. Wow.

My 6 man giant rats on the left flank, protecting my pack masters and hellpit from being charged, managed to kill 3 blood letters well done rattos! They also shuffled along so that they would block his skullgrinder from getting anywhere near my hellpit. The bloodletters retaliated and killed 3 rats, leaving a gap for my hellpit. The hellpit killed the rest of the bloodletters (oof) and the skullgrinder. He earnt his points in that one combat.

The last 4 rat ogors (2 units of 2) piled into the central blob blood letters and killed them down to 6 models from 20. Considering 1 of them was out of range the rat ogors when supported by pack masters AND a master moulder with rabid crown was brutal.

I tried to bring back my 12 man unit of rats but failed with a roll of a 3.

Battleshock. All his units that suffered casualties fled. All of them. My rat ogors who suffered 1 loss stayed around, phew, but my giant rat pack on my right side fled.

But a cp and they were brought back to capture his other forgotten objectives. I now controlled 5 of 6 objectives. That was until he burnt his middle objective scoring 5 points for the round putting him on 7 to my 4. I then controlled all objectives.

Round 3

The rats did it. Rolled a 6 and kept turn order. No scary double turn.

Skaven turn 3

Start of round I selected aggressive expansion, I already controlled the two objectives in his territory so it was already a thing. I healed my rat ogor packs, rolled a 8 for the bell and splashed mortals across his entire army. That felt good. I also healed my bell, rolling a 4 i tried to heal d3 and got a 1. Sad rat.

Spells. His bloodsecrator was within 16″so I tried cracks call. A 4″ move meant surely he would die. Rerolling the success into another success I was then unbound my the filthy bloodthirster. Dam nit. Then casting warpgale to stop the bloodthirster from getting away i got a 13″. Being within 1″ of gnawhole is Precious. But he rolled a natural 8 and I suffered 4 mortals and failed my cast. Damn it.

He kept the theme of extra unbind for heroic action and spend 8 points for exploding 6s army side. A bit terrifying.

Movement. I ran my rats up using their vanguard once per game 6″ run to get near his altar to prevent future summoning as I planned on leaving him heroless soon. I moved my bell home to be near the thirster and provide battleshock immunity where there would be the most rat casualties.

Shooting I did nothing. Feels bad.

Charging, I got everything in. My suped up hellpit on the left flank got into the wrsthmonger unit and flesh hounds, sending everything. into the wrathmongers. My 6 man rat ogors charged into

My regenerative hellpit got into the bloodthirster and started swinging with Titanic Duel. Sending avalanche of flesh into the remaining bloodletters next to their king(?) I managed to deal 4 mortals out of 5. The hellpit dropped the bloodthirster down to 4 wounds from 14. Close.

Spending a command point he made his thirster fight at full profile. No 6s rolled to explode, and 2 misses. Then only a single 6 on the wound roll into my 6 man (now 5 man as a deadly check on the charge killed one…) feral rat ogors. This left my rat ogors on a single wound on a single model left.

My 2 man rat ogor unit on that side moved up and piled closer to the thirster to wall off my last feral rat ogor model and slew all but 5 bloodletters from that unit. Not bad for 2 models outside of buff range.

He swung with his skullcannon, killing my poor 3 man unit of giant rats (charged in as a unleash hell deterrent)

My hellpit opened up a can of hurt on the wrath mongers leaving none alive.

My feral rat ogor attacked the bloodthirster and after the bloodsettled the leader of the khorne forces was over-killed by 2 damage!

Mop ups continued and at the end only 9 flesh hounds, Karanak, 4 letters and the skullcannon (on 1 wound) was left standing. Burning all objectives and completing my tactic AND killing a monster saw me gain 19 points and leaving no objectives left on the field.

Losing all my giant rat packs, re-summoning 2 of them though, 5 rat ogors from my original 6 man pack, 1 from one of my 2 man pack and 2 from my 4 man pack most of my field was battleline. My screaming bell was feeling the hurt, but he kept my forces from running, both my hellpits had suffered some wounds that they would heal and be fine with in the end and losing 1 master moulder (nearly 2…) It was a close battle until the fighting beasts of moulder got into the fray.

At the end of the battle I have a new respect for rat ogors.

Thanks for listening to my writeup! It was a tense game at points there.

As always don’t forget to roll with advantage,

The Brazen Wolfe

Ahhh.. Rats..

September 17, 2021September 17, 2021thebrazenwolfeLeave a comment

Happy fightnight all! With Friday comes something I have been excited to reveal – some stat blocks created in Tetra-cube.com with assistance from Kobold fight club to make sure I didn’t have things too difficult for the players. We are here to challenge them, not kill them.

As with the adventure below – if you want to be able to describe these monstrosities I would recommend looking at the inspiration for this week’s adventure, Warhammer and in particular my favourite faction, the Skaven. Everyone’s favourite, insane, egotistical and fundamentally broken race of ratmen.

For this week lets assume that we have a party of 4 level 2 PCs. Since are are into our 3rd week surely they have had a level by now 😉

Proud parents and their Brood

03FrRS1 + 03FrRLB1

A combo that many dread. A ratling brooder is never alone, you generally encounter 2 or 3 of them and they generally have a swarm of rats that they have raised since infancy. And trained to kill on the smell of their favourite fermented food.

The Ratling Brooders will always try and open with a salvo of their fermented Goo, at which point the Rat swarms burst forth from the baskets their keepers carry on their backs or sides and race towards whatever is covered in their favourite treat, eating it and the still living thing underneath.

To reach our ideal “Challenge rating” we want to have 4 Ratling brooders and 2 Ravenous Rat Swarms. this is a medium encounter (but lets not forget that rats are never alone). The encounter idea here is that the good would come out and then the rat swarm would use it’s movement to run at the target hit by the goo and immediately begin to eat it.

Ratling Warrior Caste

03FrRLSk + 03FrRLWa + 03FrRLSl

During the initial encounter with the Ratling humanoids there should be a few ratling Skulkers leading the pack, investigating and positioning themselves to ambush the party. The Ratling slaves then rush in, prodded and provoked into fits of madness that see them rush headfirst into the enemies whilst the slightly better equipped ratling warriors move in behind the slaves to hopefully see their enemies easy pickings once worn out from the initial waves.

When looking at balancing out the above, you want the waves of Ratlings to feel very overwhelming. It’s a horrific sight really for any player. A bunch of dark dwelling small-human sized rats rushing at the party with sharp rusty weapons and even sharper teeth.

We want this to feel tough so let’s go with 2 Ratling skulkers that aim to attack from the flanks once the party are engaged in melee (targeting the ones at the back of course), 4 Ratling warriors and 6 Ratling slaves that will run as fast as they can to get to the party, followed closely behind by the warriors.

Leader Caste

03FrRLBW

The Black furred ratlings, or those blessed with the ability to chitter the very weave from their crooked and bent teeth are the highest of the caste, these rats are generally heavily guarded by several guards (Ratling Warriors) and possess no small amount of magical abilities.

The final fight, probably somewhere deep underground in one of the chambers that are there, the Ratling Black Fur should be a hard encounter. For this purpose we have it guarded by 2 ratling warriors and 6 ratling slaves (who act as its body guard, and will throw themselves at the enemy one by one to give their magical master time to weave it’s evil spells.

Thanks for joining me for another day – hope these few stat block and encounter size directions hope to jump start that creative spark we all have so that you can have a great adventure this weekend.

Don’t forget that with any Dnd 5e stat block or monster, with a fresh new name, a brand new description these ratling (Rat men / Skaven) could be slugmen or roach-men. With some very simple tweaking and a bit of creative flair it’s very easy to create your own content in DnD.

Please have a good weekend and join me for the full adventure hook this weekend!

And as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage!
The Brazen Wolfe