Gobwart's hit MOAB, here's the army list

So i've submitted my army list for MOAB 2008 which should be a fantastic tournament. I'm taking the trip up to Sydney and staying with Matty Cole who has kindly put his apartment up for fellow mates and gamers. As the event is using the new tier based composition system i've decided to leave my Vampires at home and bring the greenskins out for some fun and excitement. Not only will it be great to field some of my new models / additions to the army, the greenskins will benefit from a better starting composition score than the vampires.

Here is my list -

Black Orc Big Boss (General)
- Heavy Armour, Shield

** So here's my general, he is cheap and will be avoiding combat at all costs. He is purely used to provide leadership 8 throughout the army through the use of a hero slot, so i can still run a level 4 shaman. The great thing about black orcs is the quell animosity rule, so as long as my level 2 shaman is inside the same unit as him I know i'm not going to miss out on a crucial magic phase from squabbling.

Savage Orc Great Shaman level 4
- Wyvern
- Skull Wand
- Kickin Boots
- Dispel Scroll

** I've painted up a model which is meant to represent harry on buckbeak. While it's not as convincing as some of my other conversions, it's still a great looking miniature as i've used the gamezone griffin. I found a flying terror causer to be a fantastic addition to the army, as it allows me to put pressure on my opponents advancement and throws caution in the wind. I've been using the skull wand to great success against dark elves (hydra) and VC (vargulf) so it's a definite inclusion for this army.

Night Goblin Shaman level 2
- Staff of Sneaky Stealin

Goblin Shaman level 2
- Chariot
- Dispel Scroll

** Initially i had the tricksy trinket on the shaman in the chariot, but I needed to find points for a third unit of fast cav, so i needed to drop it. I'm a big fan of putting shamans in chariots as it makes them that magical unit strength 5 and allows you to field a chariot without using up a precious special slot. A few minutes after submitting my list i realised I should have put the staff on the goblin in the chariot and the scroll on the night goblin on foot so i could give him two magic mushrooms, but I wasn't thinking at the time and I guess I still would have needed to find the points which has been a real struggle. All up this gives me 10 power dice, 7 dispel and 2 scrolls which should give me enough magic defence against the vampires (i expect a lot to be there).

25 x Night Goblins
- Nets, Muso, Standard
- 1 fanatic

25 x Night Goblins
- Muso, Standard
- 1 fanatic

25 x Night Goblins
- Muso, Standard
- 1 fanatic

** Only one unit of night goblins have nets, so I need to consider that in my deployment, as only one unit is really geared to take a charge from enemy units. In this army the night goblin blocks are meant to be support to the squigs, they aren't designed to fight alone hence the lack of nets on all units.

5 x Wolf Riders
- Muso

5 x Wolf Riders
- Muso

5 x Spider Riders

*** Three units of fast cav is the minimum I like to run for my greenskins. Often I struggle to find the points for the third or a fourth unit but I do believe the army relies so so heavily on them. I could have dropped the spiders and given nets to the two other NG units, but with the climbing power creep enemy units are getting more stronger attacks, so not even nets guarantee your safety. If I can divert enough units then my night goblins shouldn't need to worry about taking charges from units I don't want to receive charges from.

3 x Squig Herd

** Squig herds are great, even if only for the explosion. I would like to run more units if I could, but special slots are too important for the army.

8 x Squig Hoppers

8 x Squig Hoppers

** I've been persisting with these guys to get them to work, as I never used to run them. I learned first hand from another O&G general how effective they can be but they do require finness to use. I've learned a few tricks which i'll test over the weekend and report how they do. The main reason for three units of squigs is to tackle the daemons and VC. My old goblin builds don't work anymore, as i lacked the hitting power to break undead units as static res alone didn't do anything. Let's hope my squigs can fill that role.

1 x Rock Lobba

** I'm not sure one rock lobba is a better investment than two bolt throwers, but it's a must have inclusion into the army for theme purposes. He's my whomping willow and must stay.

4 x Trolls

** I dropped these a while ago in fear of all the flaming attacks we were seeing to tackle regeneration. They have been included again now that I have a decent magic defence, as I don't expect too many flamming spells to get through. Trolls are great for keeping your important characters screened and alive.

1 x Giant

** I'm really excited to give my new giant model a run. I'll post some pics shortly of my new fluffy which (in my opinion) blows the old fluffy out of the water. Once again a giant is a mandatory choice for my greenskins for my Gobwarts theme.

So that's it! I can't wait for next week so I can test out the army and have some fun. I don't expect to do overly well as the tournament will have a very tough field, but you can be sure greenskins are always going to make it entertaining!

Going back to greenskins

So after completing my vampires i've learned at least one thing. Having a top tier army doesn't compensate for the enjoyment of playing O&G. I don't dislike playing with my Vampires but i don't get the same sense of enjoyment at tournaments without the unpredictability that my goblins offered. Each game with my goblins was a battle not just with my opponent but with my army itself and when things just worked they would be a delight to play. I miss that feeling with my vampires as everything does exactly what you ask it to, no fear tests, no break tests, just point and click.

So without further ado, introducing to you my next project - savage orcs! I managed to pick up an entire army from one of the guys on WargamerAU for what i considered to be a good price. The army itself has had some modifcations done to it, but only two models had been painted which leaves plenty of room for me to come up with my own theme and colour scheme. At first I intended to go with pink orcs with yellow warpaint and after testing it on a few goblins I had lying around I was less than convinced. Maybe it was the bright pink which didn't work but the models had such a ken and barbie feel to them. So instead i've decided to go with a animalistic approach to the army, and give the models animal like skin as if they were trying to blend in with the wild. Once i have a few models painted up I will post them for everyone to see.

Until next time!

Vampires completed!

Well thanks to some tips and advice from Curse of Beers my Vampire army is finaly complete. There is something to like about doing an army which doesn't involve too much effort, and overall I think they came up a treat. I still can't figure out how to use them properly but i'm sure it will come in time. Here is a photo for anyone interested, i'll try and post some better photo's of each of the units at a later date.

Couldn't resist the new Vampire Counts :(

So my girlfriend and I just purcahsed a new house, it's not the best time to be starting a new army but who could resist the new VC rules and models? I picked up my spearhead last weekend and was totally amazed at the quality of the sculpts and the content of the book. Vampire Counts look like an extremely interesting army to play with so many options available to them, which is the problem i'm faced with. I really don't know whether to focus on a skeleton list, or perhaps a Strigoi style list with lots of Ghouls as the core units. One thing i do know is that i'll be getting some of those Blood Knights because they look amazing!

My biggest dilemma is whether to include the corpse carts as they are such terrific models although i'm not sure if they warrant being included despite only being priced at 75 points. Since characters are so expensive now I find myself chopping models I would like in the army out, purely because I can't find the spare points. I know the answer is to leave the blood knights or Vargulf out but they MUST stay because I want new toys to play with :)

I will keep my blog updated after each game I play with the new VC's to express my thoughts on them as an army. Unfortunately i haven't come from a 6th ed VC background so I can't really compare them to how they used to play, but I often find it's good to go into a new army without any preconceived ideas about how they should play.

Gobwarts hit Cancon!

Well Cancon is over for another year and I was pretty stoked with their performance over the weekend. With quite a large field of 82 players I finished 3rd overall with what I considered to be a pretty tame goblin army. My army was as follows -

Goblin General

NG BSB

Lvl 1 scroll caddy shaman on chariot

NG Hero on Cave Squig

3 x 30 NG's FC (4 fanatics in total)

2 x spiders riders

2 x wolf riders

Squig herd (6 squigs, 4 herders)

1 x chariot

2 x bolt throwers

1 x stone thrower

1 x giant

4 x trolls

Since it was 8 games I won't go into any detail describing each game but i ended up with only 1 massacre loss, and 1 minor loss. All my opponents were top sports and had some pretty funky armies. The social side was awesome too.

Staks.

The Tzeentch Daemons are coming...

Well my new project is officially underway and it's a Tzeentch Daemonic Legion! I'm hoping this army will be ready to play by the time the new daemon army book is released and while in a way i'm commiting with eyes wide shut I'm willing to take the chance they will be enjoyable to play :)

I managed to get most of the models for a good price thanks to a trade with another gamer but damn, he wasn't kidding when he told me the paint jobs were bad, so I proceeded to spend 3 hours last night stripping models. So as I start painting up units I will link them on here so people can follow my progress.