The Assault on Castle Neuswaschtein

Nozalor the Elf Wizard seeks an orb of life so that he can rescue Telion from his undead curse. He and Caradryan head north into the chaos lands, following rumours that the chaos warlord Goroth has an orb of life in his Castle Neuswaschtein.

The Dragon Princes and Nozalor will assault the main gate.

The spearelfs will attack from the west.

The sword masters will attack from the east.

Nozalor cast Ghostly Appearance on himself, making himself appear as a lordly vampire.  
Azgul the Chaos Wizard casts Cause Stupidity on the elf spearmen, making them drop their scaling ladders and wander about aimlessly for the rest of the battle.

Yup, those elves are some stupid.

The swordmasters charged at the walls, ladders in hand, and two were shot dead by chaos crossbowmen. The dragon princes and Nozalor assaulted the main gate.

"Is that Chaos Warlord pointing at ME?" 

Nozalor cast his Smash spell, heavily damaging the castle gate and leaving it with a single wound remaining.  Elsewhere the swordmasters were thrown off the walls and fled for the hills.

"I think I left the water running."

Azgul the chaos wizard cast several fireballs at the dragon princes, slaying several. At this point, with the gate still mostly intact and most of the elf army dead, fled, or stupid, Nozalor sounded the retreat. A dark day for the elves.

The Battle of the Plains of Slaybraham

The Elf Prince Telion has returned from far off Lothern, after his cowardly flight in an earlier battle. He comes with the finest warriors the elven kingdoms have to offer, swordmasters and mounted dragon princes. He is astride Gwyndir his Hippogriff, and Sorelor the wizard is at his side. Nagashor feels invincible with his undead horde and advances on the tiny elven host, for a battle in the middle of the plains of slaybraham.

View from the Elven lines.

The Undead horde

The proceedings started with Sorelor casting a fireball that killed two zombies. Not to be outdone, Nagashor summoned a unit of 26 skeletons. The elven mage cast a zone of steadfastness, projecting out to enhance the fighting skills of the swordmasters. At this point every necromancers worst nightmare occurred - instability! Every undead unit had to test. One unit of skeletons was actually given extra strength - but scored no hits. A unit of zombies became confused. A unit of skeletons lost 4 of its members to the whims of the instability flux. In the next turn the swordmasters - boosted by the zone of steadfastness - made a whopping 30 attacks against the summoned skeleton unit, slaughtering it. Nagashor cast the Curse of Undeath on Telion, pumping extra CPs into the spell to make it irresistible - and Telion slowly started to rot away, doomed to become one of the walking dead. The swordmasters continued their killing spree, causing the unit of zombies led by Nagashor to rout. The recently undead Telion turned on his erstwhile comrade, slaying Sorelor completely dead. The Dragon Princes made a last charge causing the zombies and Nagashor to flee from the battlefield, leaving the elves in control of the plains of Slaybraham. But it was a hollow victory, for Telion, their mightiest hero, flew away as an undead thrall under the command of Nagashor.

Making new profiles

I decided to make some new stat profiles today to represent swordmasters and dragon princes. The WFB 2 rules for this are quite straightforward. For each new figure type I just increased the strength by 2, attacks by 1 and added a point of leadership and will power. Then I just added the points for equipment, and voila, instant new stat lines. I've played other, more modern games where making new stats is so complicated it's like doing your taxes. So I guess warhammer got it right all those years ago.

The Battle of Misery Mire

Telion having fled the doomed town of Glorahna, Caradryan took over command of the elves remaining forces and brought the pursuing undead under Nagashor the Great to battle in misery mire.

The forces arrayed for battle, elves on the left, undead on the right.

Nagashor immediately summoned a skeleton minor hero, because you just can't have enough skeletons of any kind, really. Elven archers with their mighty elf bows (Strength 4!) slew a few skeletons. The elf wizard cast fireballs, the necromancer replied with lightning bolts. A few more fire balls and the elite skeleton unit was utterly destroyed. The lightning bolts were disappointingly ineffective. Solenor, the elf mage tried to cast Steal Mind on the necromancer, who was forced to use many CP's to resist it.

After several turns of mucking about in the...uh, muck, the lines met.

But Sir, I'm getting my pretty elf armour all icky!

The elves met with initial success, scoring a pushback on the skeletons, but the skeletons advanced their entire horde. The elves started failing fear tests and fled. Caradryan withdrew the rest of his army, the archers without a causalty, the spearmen having fled before getting too slaughtered. Nagashor claims misery mire for himself.

A mysterious beast with glowing green eyes watches from the depths of the swamp.

My second game of warhammer 2nd. I ignored the advanced rules, things went much more quickly and smoothly. This seems like a good game to paint up whatever units I feel like painting in no particular order or series. Thanks for reading!

The Battle of Gorahna

Nagashor, the mighty necromancer, has raised a horde of skeletons and is assaulting the Elvish trading town of Gorahna, on the south-western coast of the old world.

The town of Gorahna. Happy elves prance about.

The elf prince Telion on his loyal hippogrif Gywndir have recently arrived in Gorahna after the mysterious death of the governor. Telion wears a prescious amulet of Thrice-Blessed copper, which Nagashor desires greatly. His undead horde approached the town and battle is joined.

A viscious wolf skulks nearby, looking to eat any stragglers.

The High Elf host: Telion on Hippogriff, spearmen, archers + mage, more spearmen.

Brains! Brains and a tossed salad with french dressing!

Nagashor summons a unit of 15 skeletons.

Telion goes to inspect the baggage train.

The 1000 point battle starts out with a little light archery, killing a few skeletons. Nagashor casts 'Total Control' to keep his minions from stupidity. Telion charges into Nagashor, hoping for a quick kill and early end to the fight, but Nagashor and his zombies send him flying away, screaming like a little elf girl.




Sorelor the elf wizard (level 1) casts steal mind at the necromancer, but accomplishes nothing other than wasting both his own and Nagashors power. Telion rallied and charged the necromancer again, but was defeated and fled for good this time. It looked to turn into a battle of attrition, but the far unit of elves sent a unit of zombies running. Yes, in second edition zombies can run away!

Apparently pansy elves are scarier than rotting dead guys.

But we already killed those guys sir! 

Nagashor had finally regained enough constitution points to cast summon undead horde again. The elves had nearly defeated a unit of skeletons, but now they were right back where they started. Telion, from far in the rear, sounded the retreat. Nagashor plunders the town of Gorahna to his hearts content, but the thrice-blessed copper amulet was halfway back to lothern by then.

Conclusions: A fun game, very different than editions 6,7 and 8. I'd like to play it again, maybe this time ignoring the "advanced rules" section, at least for now. I love the magic system, there's a lot of cool spells, many of which require a gamemaster to adjudicate. That's all for now, thanks for reading.

I recently received Warhammer Second Edition in the mail from nobleknight.com Always excellent service. While my copy is missing the box, everything else is in great condition, including the Magnificent Sven cardboard figures, the reference sheet and errata. Strangely, my copy of the Battle Bestiary is missing the second staple. It didn't fall out, there's just no sign it was ever stapled in the first place! Well, that was 1984 and my High Elf army book I bought last year had pages falling out from the beginning, so some things don't change I guess. I'll be playing WFB 2.0 with modern figures, though not all GW figures. Getting original 1980's figures off ebay is too much hassle and expense. While I played WFB 6,7 and 8 a lot (especially 6) I'll need to learn a lot to play 2nd "right". But not getting got up in the rules is part of what I like about Old School.

I like old school historical games (Tony Bath, WRG 6th) and RPG's (Rolemaster 1st) this is my first go at old school warhammer. Should be fun.

The Beginning.

Welcome to my terse, rarely updated blog about Warhammer Second Edition.