Enemy Ships off the Starboard Bow!

Another week (and a bit) has passed, and more progress has been made on my painting goals:

• Painted one Cobra Cruiser, three Raven Frigates and one Raven Destroyer for The Uncharted Seas. Undercoated the rest of the fleet. This now gives me enough ships to form a 500 point fleet - enough to play against my opponents. I'll shuffle the rest of the fleet down my painting list until my opponents increase the size of their own fleets!
• Resumed painting two bases of Vassal and "Crusader" Knights for Field of Glory Teutonic Order army.

My Thaniras Elf fleet engaged in their first action last meeting. I was allied with a starter set of Shroud Mages against two starter sets of Bone Griffons. I decided to try something a little unusual with my first game, adjusting my list from the generic 'starter' fleet and trying out some of the cool Elven optional choices:

1. A squadron of 2 Cobra Cruisers
2. A squadron of 2 War Dragons
3. A squadron of 2 Raven Assault Destroyers
4. A squadron of 4 Raven Frigates

A couple of pictures taken during the game:

Just after the beginning of Turn 1. Some Bone Griffon Orcas have advanced, as have the Shroud Mage frigates and cruisers and Elven destroyers.


Sometime in Turn 3: The entire Elven fleet has swarmed two squadrons of Bone Griffon Orcas. One of the Orca squadrons remained safely submerged as their colleagues were dismembered by Elven Orb-fire and Marine boarding actions.

The game was great fun, and it was a real shame that we ran out of time. I am looking forward to my next game. I think this will be a game where the basics are easy to learn, but with many subtleties that will take a long while to master.

I also had a chance to field my freshly painted Angmar army in a game of War of the Ring. Due to a high number of characters in my army (captains and command for each of my main units, a shaman for my goblins, and three Nazgül including the Witch-King of Angmar), I was feeling a little dubious about being outnumbered by an Elven army! However, the game progressed well for me. With the Witch-King offereing 'moral' support to the orc mob, they zoomed across the table through a withering hail of elven bow-fire and managed to launch successfully into combat.

My spectre was taken apart by Gandalf almost as an afterthought, but my unit of Ghostly Legion managed to neutralise two huge Elven combat units behind some impassable terrain and keep them out of the fight (2/5 of his army!). The rest of my army was then able to concentrate on his three remaining units, assisted greatly by the spellcasting ability of my Ringwraiths. Being a scenario game (capture objectives), I was able to hold on long enough until my opponent conceded defeat. A great game, well deserving of a re-match in a couple of months time.

I've now resumed painting my Teutonic Order army for Field of Glory, as this is next in line to be completed. I've been trying to work out a list to field in the next tournament, and it is proving to be troublesome. Events in the FoG world seem to be indicating the might of horde armies fielding masses of cheap troops, with the highest scorers at CanCon listing no less than 18 battle groups in their orders of battle! I can't get anywhere near this with my Order, even fielding all my vassals as poor quality, so I'll just have to run with what I can and trust in the might of the Brother-knights' unstoppable charge!