Topic: The Empire of the Sword & Sun

[wilsonthenarc]

I am about 1-1/2 hrs from Cuse... depends where. I have family in Camillus (West Side). Which store does Tourneys? I used to play at Final Frontier / New Frontier Comics (Camillus Mall) and at Altered States (Spaghetti Warehouse) too.

[BBorN]

Altered states is now Play the game read the story and they used to run tournaments - however two individuals were so bad we all stopped going. We go to Comixzone in north Syracuse. The manager, Mike is an awesome guy and we've had 10-12 people at each of the last 3-4 tournaments. We actually have a Facebook group dedicated to our little club so people know when tournaments are, see who is up for a game on a certain day trade models etc.

If you would like a laugh, one of the final nails in the coffin at play the game was when a certain individual (who was literally the worst person to play against) claimed his Dragon Princes counted as a Dragons (for stubborn from banner of the world dragon) and the TO who was a friend of his, agreed that a cavalry unit was a dragon. Google that. It caused so much nerd rage on the internetz

[wilsonthenarc]

I googled it and couldn't find a truly relevant hit, but... my Google Fu has been week over the past few days. 

That said, I just like to play. I like a good close game. I am not ubercompetitive. I like playing 4 or 5 full turns of maneuvering and action. I can't stand when a game is effectively over by Turn 2, one way or the other. 

[wilsonthenarc]

Hello All. I have been busy working on some new ideas for my Empire of the Sword and Sun Army. There is so much mythos and history as relates to medieval Japan and China, I feel like I have more ideas that I can ever hope to execute on. That’s not a bad problem to have!

First off, here a new addition. This is not necessarily a new idea, and it is one that has been discussed on this here thread here more than once. Terra Cotta Warriors.
For those unfamiliar with the idea, it is a true historic thing. The Terra Cotta Army. 1000’s of life size sculptures buried in a palace tomb. There are dozens of good pictures if you snoop around online or on Wikipedia. Here’s my favorite, and I feel one of the most iconic:

So, the paint job might be pretty easy here. I have do up about 40 clay colored dudes. I found a great pack of miniatures from Old Glory. Warriors armed with Nagintas (or, Naginatas, if you prefer). They will be arranged into a rank and file unit, a horde 10 x 6. There will be “Wall” sections intermingled with actual warriors to mimic the look of the true Terra Cotta Army.

I really like these miniatures. Their poses are almost perfect. The way I put them on bases might have been a bit foolish, as it is sometimes tough to get them to rank up just so.

There’s another look at the miniatures themselves. So far, it was a basecoat of terra cotta (yes, I found an actual paint called “Terra Cotta”). Then, a quick dry brush of a lighter khaki / pink color. After that, I have been playing around with washes to get some crevasse detail to pop.  Still very much a WIP.
I am going to spend some time this week seeing if there is a way to brush on dust. I think I have seen this before called “Weathering”. I imagine using sheet rock spackle, letting it dry, then sanding it off to get a pile of dust of the right color and consistency. Back to the lab on that one!

[wilsonthenarc]

Another really cool new idea I have been hard at work on: Outriders. Not just Outriders, the flying Birdmen of Al Catrza, modified to be the best and quickest and craziest kite riding gunpowder engineers of Cathay!  Bear with me here…
For anyone that has seen the Rime of the Ancient Marienburger, the artist did a unit of the old / OOP Birdmen as Empire Outriders. Just add big repeater guns! So cool. I am offering the most sincere form of flattery, and knowing full well I could never achieve that level of painting excellence.
Here’s my take on it. These guys are engineers. They carry the repeater handguns. They fly around on winged contraptions, half kite and half flying machine. They have a ground crew that tethers them down.

Above, the bases. The ground crew. Below, the quasi-finished look of the unit. Still need to do a lot of painting, still need to add kite string tethers. Still need to work on the basing.


I am head over heels to have Fast Cav. I am very interested in the aspect of having a machine gun unit that is BOTH Fast Cav AND Move Or Fire. I guess they move somewhere and just take a turn getting ready to unleash 20+ S4 shots. IF (and that’s a big IF) they get to shoot, I could imagine them actually doing some damage. I have yet to play a game with these fellows, but am quite excited to try a game or two over the holiday season.

[wilsonthenarc]

A few updates… back a month+ ago, I mentioned I was working on a chariot. Actually, two chariots. No real rules for these yet in an Empire Army, but I thought they fit the theme and thought they looked cool. I ended up NOT using the Hounds of Khorne for steeds, opting instead for generic barded plastic war horses. Yawn, I know.


The crew are also Old Glory miniatures, with some conversions. Added long spears, added crossbows, added whip, etc. Big old scythed wheels. These are just fun ones for me. I might try to develop house rules for a basic human chariot. The stats seem pretty simple and the points might be easy to arrive at.


Also, back a month+ ago, I mentioned I was working on a Steam Tank. A Japanese / Korean take on a “Turtle Tank”. Here is it, assembled and somewhat painted. Seems like a lot of these get 80% painted and then never get 100% finished. That might be my job for today and tomorrow – finish painting this steam tank to a good level.

The base is too big. It should be 50mm x 100mm. it is about 70mm x 120mm. Oh well. That’s normally to my disadvantage, as the enemy can force more models into base to base contact.
Lots of fun steamy themey bits on here. need to get that paint job up to snuff.

[Xathrodox86]

Truly you make the Dragon Emperor proud. Oh wait, that's Cathay. Well... Awesome job anyway!

[wilsonthenarc]

Last Updates for today. Some characters.
First off, here’s a really cool miniature I found. Going to use him as a Captasus. I guess this falls under the theme of Tengu again. He’s a bit smaller than the other Tengu. He’s a RazorWing Griffon. Really nice plastic model.


Here’s a Wizard on a War Horse. Most often, this guy is a level 2 Metal. He runs around and casts searing doom on heavily clad targets. He might (or might not) join up with the Outirders in some games. He makes them lose their Fast Cav status, but it makes a decently shooty block. Between Searing Doom and the Spells, this small unit can actually kill some stuff dead.

The miniature itself is a super old school necromancer. Games Workshop.

Here’s two Elves from the LOTR / Hobbit line. Not sure the name. They are lightly clad and in cool poses.

The idea here is to put these two dudes on a 60mm x 40mm base and use them as a 3x2 (6 model) unit filler in my Samurai Swordsmen unit. The idea is that they are Elf Allies showing simple humans how to really fight with a sword.

I had initially planned on having these 2 guys be my chariot crew (see above). But, they just didn’t look right.

[wilsonthenarc]

Truly you make the Dragon Emperor proud. Oh wait, that's Cathay. Well... Awesome job anyway!

The more thinking I do [Owch] and the more reading and research I do, I realize my army is closer to Cathay than Nippon.
I was initially thinking heavy Nippon, due to Samurai... but Cathay really is a better fit.

Also, Cathay lets me take a Demons of Tzeentch army as allies, right ? 

[Xathrodox86]

Truly you make the Dragon Emperor proud. Oh wait, that's Cathay. Well... Awesome job anyway!

The more thinking I do [Owch] and the more reading and research I do, I realize my army is closer to Cathay than Nippon.
I was initially thinking heavy Nippon, due to Samurai... but Cathay really is a better fit.

Also, Cathay lets me take a Demons of Tzeentch army as allies, right ? 

If you want to gather some favour from lord Tsen-Tsen, then sure.

[wilsonthenarc]

Apparently, there is word in the End of Times books that the Sorcerers of Cathay are somehow stealing magic power from Tzeentch? I don't know for sure, haven't gone out and bought them yet. I'll tell you this, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch look A LOT like traditional Oni from Japanese folklore.

[GamesPoet]

A tremondous and creative effort being put into this army.  Well done!

[Xathrodox86]

Apparently, there is word in the End of Times books that the Sorcerers of Cathay are somehow stealing magic power from Tzeentch? I don't know for sure, haven't gone out and bought them yet. I'll tell you this, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch look A LOT like traditional Oni from Japanese folklore.

Actually this fluff predates the End Times. The cult of Tzeentch is legal in a way in Cathay. As long as it dosen't involve human sacrifice it's ok. Cathayans treat Tzeentch in a much more reasonable way, as an elemental force, rather than a Daemon God of mutations. It is also hinted that they are less prone to mutations from worshipping him, because of celestial bureaucracy, which is actually rather important part of real life chinese folklore. So don't be shy and stick those tzeentchain symbols on your dudes.

[wilsonthenarc]

Apparently, there is word in the End of Times books that the Sorcerers of Cathay are somehow stealing magic power from Tzeentch? I don't know for sure, haven't gone out and bought them yet. I'll tell you this, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch look A LOT like traditional Oni from Japanese folklore.

Actually this fluff predates the End Times. The cult of Tzeentch is legal in a way in Cathay. As long as it dosen't involve human sacrifice it's ok. Cathayans treat Tzeentch in a much more reasonable way, as an elemental force, rather than a Daemon God of mutations. It is also hinted that they are less prone to mutations from worshipping him, because of celestial bureaucracy, which is actually rather important part of real life chinese folklore. So don't be shy and stick those tzeentchain symbols on your dudes.

That all sounds so very cool, thanks.
This is knowledge, dropped! Do you know the source material... I might go buy it.
Yes, adding Tzeentch symbols now, bwuhahahahhahahahaha!

[Xathrodox86]

Apparently, there is word in the End of Times books that the Sorcerers of Cathay are somehow stealing magic power from Tzeentch? I don't know for sure, haven't gone out and bought them yet. I'll tell you this, Pink Horrors of Tzeentch look A LOT like traditional Oni from Japanese folklore.

Actually this fluff predates the End Times. The cult of Tzeentch is legal in a way in Cathay. As long as it dosen't involve human sacrifice it's ok. Cathayans treat Tzeentch in a much more reasonable way, as an elemental force, rather than a Daemon God of mutations. It is also hinted that they are less prone to mutations from worshipping him, because of celestial bureaucracy, which is actually rather important part of real life chinese folklore. So don't be shy and stick those tzeentchain symbols on your dudes.

That all sounds so very cool, thanks.
This is knowledge, dropped! Do you know the source material... I might go buy it.
Yes, adding Tzeentch symbols now, bwuhahahahhahahahaha!

Mostly old White Dwarfs and certain BL books. One of Gotrek & Felix novels mentioned that I belive. Also some old school 2nd edition WFRP stuff may had some of that knowledge as well. I'll try to find the source of this, but it'll take some time.

Oh and I'm glad I could help. Just remember that Tsen-Tsen is only one of thousands of Gods and spirits worshipped in Cathay, and that Cathayans are not Chaos worshipers per se, so be gentle with those extra arms and tentacles.

[Zak]

 

[wilsonthenarc]

Day off work. Wife is at work. Feeling lazy, not painting.
Watching "Last Samurai" and then "47 Ronin" (the Keanu Reeves one) for some inspiration.

Anyone have any idea what that fantastical beast is in the opening scene of 47 Ronin?
Giant water buffalo / elk / rhino thing.... I want.

[Xathrodox86]

Day off work. Wife is at work. Feeling lazy, not painting.
Watching "Last Samurai" and then "47 Ronin" (the Keanu Reeves one) for some inspiration.

Anyone have any idea what that fantastical beast is in the opening scene of 47 Ronin?
Giant water buffalo / elk / rhino thing.... I want.

It's called the Beast of Ago. Apparently it was designed specifically for the movie.

[wilsonthenarc]

We had a big game yesterday, 10K points versus 10K points. It was awesome.
Our side was Empire + Empire + Empire + Ogres.
The “Bad Guys” was Warriors + Daemons + High Elves + Bretonnia (weird, I know).

Here’s a scenario. Curious for how I could play it better.
Bottom T3: Their turn. His Juggernauts of Khorne slam (charge) into a small unit of Demigryph Knights (Unit A). The Juggs win combat by 2 or 3, and they break the small unit of DGK. The Juggs pursue into a unit of weedy arse crossbowmen. A detachment of 12 I think.

Top T4: My turn, I send in a unit of 5 DGK (Unit B). They had the full flank charge; 5 of my DGKs into the side on 1 Jugg.  That 1 Jugg can only attack back on my DGKs. The other 2 have to attack crossbows. Seems fine.

But, the Juggs own the crossbows in combat and kill like 10 of 12. They did 1 W to the DGKs as well.  Obv, it’s a combined combat.  The DGK Unit B killed a Jugg, 4 Ws I think. I get 4 + 1 (flank) +1 (charge) = 6 versus his 10 +1 + 1 (standard).   Enough to pretty much auto break both units. I had no General and no BSB, even then it would have been rolling for 3 or less with 2 tries, not great odds.

How do you prevent a KILLY unit running up the score by slaughtering cannon fodder troops?

In my scenario:
A strong unit got the charge, in the flank on an equal (ish) unit.
Both a monstrous cavalry. Both a comparable, Juggs might be a bit better… ignore that for now.

In a REAL WORLD tactical sense, looking at the board, it seemed a no brainer to make that charge.  But, IF IF IF I slowed down I would have realized – DUH – his Juggs are gonna kill tons of crossbowmen and I will lose combat. The dice roles weren’t even that statistically against me.  What looked like a sound charge was doomed from day 1.

I understand the rules in 8th, I am asking more for how could we fix it in 8.1 (the home brew edition)?

[Padre]

That does happen, and does VERY badly need fixing 'cos there's no kind of sense in it other than "The rules say it".

[GamesPoet]

After all these years, wondering how this effort is looking these days, was it completed, is it still being used with WFB?

Plus ... with the return of GW to the Old World, perhaps we'll see an army from Nippon at some point.  Perhaps.