Blogging from behind the wall........

So here I am behind the firewall that is China, logging in through a VPN to bring you the lastest from Shanghai... well there isn't really anything to tell to be honest.

So hobby related activities have been greatly reduced to practically nothing. I did however manage to make a visit to the GW store in Shanghai to pickup a bunch of the new Lord of the Rings army books. It really could have been any GW store in the world, the minute I walked in I was surrounded by a couple of very enthusiastic Chinese GW staff asking all the same questions and following me around bestowing the virtues of the hobby that I have been involved in before most of these guys where born.

The prices were exactly the same, although most things in China are anyway. The guy that runs the store actually used to be the area manager for the south of the UK and he is only there for a couple of years to get things up and running, as time went by more slightly overweight, slightly smelly Chinese nerds came in to start playing and I took some slight comfort in the fact that no matter what colour, race or religion you are - nerds are the same the world over and we all get excited over well painted toy soilders - and that's a good thing.

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The Secret Project

Well I am off to China for work for a few weeks and I know some of you just can't wait to know what the secret project is. So I am going to let you know.... to be honest I couldn't keep it a secret. It's going to take a while to get to the table top, but my next big project is Chaos Dwarves. Ever since the new models have been released from Warhammer Forge I just could not resist, so I have painted the first model to get the scheme right and then I will be set to make a start on the main units.

I haven't really decided on the list yet, but there will be plenty of war machines and warriors. The general will be mounted on a Bale Taurus for sure with some very specific items to allow him to take on some units on his own. The model in the picture is from the command group and is the Champion of the unit. The paint scheme is outlined below.

One of the iconic units is Chaos Dwarf armies is the Bull Centaurs. There are currently no new models for these and I am not that keen on the old ones. Bull Centaurs are now counted as Monster Cav and thus need to be on 50mm square bases, their stat line is also pretty chunky and the old models just don't do them justice size wise, so my conversations are a little bigger than the old ones. Half an Ogre, and half Juggernaut and a bunch of Green Stuff. So this is where I am up to right now, next step is get the Core units done.

The paint scheme for the Dwarves is as follows: -

Base Coat.

• Mechrite Red/Scorched Brown 50/50 mix.
• Baal Red wash.
• Paint metal areas Boltgun Metal. 
• Black wash whole model. 
• Baal Red wash the red armour areas. 
• Black wash the metal areas. 

Highlights. 

• Mechrite Red on armour. 
• Blood Red on armour. 
• Mithril Silver on metal areas. 

Final Touches. 

• Wash armour Baal Red again. 
• Apply 2 thinned washes of Sepia.

Flesh.

• Tallern Flesh. 
• Ogryn Wash. 
• Highlight with Tallern again. 
• Final highlight of Bleach Bone (if required). 

Beard.

• Midnight Blue base layer. 
• Dwarf Bronze the jewels in the beard.
• Black Wash the beard. 
• Highlight Shadow Grey.
• Wash with watered down Blue Wash. 

Ogre progress

So my new found addiction to Warhammer is proceeding at a great rate, I have managed to get several games in over the last few days and I think what I would consider my favourite Ogre list is taking shape. I have also started on my secret Warhammer project and painted the first model and converted one other which really looks cool, and in all honesty I doubt I will be able to keep the project secret for that long (so expect secret project pictures soon, probably).

So to the list. In the last few games I have played Orcs and Goblins, the new Vampire Counts twice and Chaos Warriors twice. I lost the O&G game, although it was very very close, the reason I lost (I think) was my opponent rolled an immense number of 5+ saves on his Savage Orcs and sometimes that happens, the tactical error I made was charging my unit of Mournfang in to a unit of Black Orcs and keeping the Thundertusk behind instead of getting it in too. The trick with Mournfang is charge and kill, if the combat goes on for more than a couple of rounds you are dead. Black Orcs hit pretty hard and have a decent save, so it wasn't a good matchup for the Mournfang.

The first Chaos Warrior game was also a loss, in this game I tried the double Mournfang list, I destroyed the whole of his army, but I could not shift the 30 Warrior unit that had a couple of champions in it. This was mainly due to how I tried to deal with it. In the second Chaos Warrior game I killed all the rest of the army and then manoeuvred my units to multi charge the large Warrior unit and this worked a treat giving me a good victory in this game.

I won both the games against the Vampires, to be fair the General was inexperienced with them and it was his first few games, but i'll take the wins. In the first game the Ironblaster took out the Vamp general and the army crumbled, in the second game the Mournfang charged forward and destroyed a large Zombie unit in one go and overran into the General. Vamps - General = not good.

So overall I am loving the Ogres at the moment. The double Mournfang at 2400 lvl are awesome, I am still in two minds about the Thundertusk and am yet to try the Stonehorn (still waiting to be painted). I think i am fixed on the Character setup that I am going to use for the time being and will probably go through those in another post in the future. A unit of Ogres with Ironfists and a unit of Ironguts make up the core and these vary between 8 to 10 ogres a unit (including characters). So essentially the main army is decided, the final choices are between the Thundertusk/Stonehorn or actually not using a monster at all and going for an Ironblaster or two, Leadbelchers or Maneaters. A few more practise games will no doubt help, but the fact that any of those units is viable is testament to the Army Book.