Amazons - a NEW Fantasy Battle Army

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A FREE new Warhammer Army Book .pdf in the shape of luscious, scantily clad (and dangerous !) warrior women from Lustria - Amazons (for the 8th edition rulebook).

Another top quality army book from Mathias (now famous for his brilliant unofficial army books - all 9 of them plus Regiments of Renown !).

The Amazons Army Book is a 60 page, 20 mb pdf (which can be downloaded or viewed online)

The army book has been added to the Battle Reporter forum and has it's own forum page. You can see and comment on all of the unofficial army books here (no need to be a forum member* and all the army books are completely free with no catches) :-

Battle Reporter Forum - Unofficial Warhammer Armies

* although we'd be really pleased to hear your feedback.


Here's a quick review, from what I've read so far...

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Amazon - a new Warhammer Fantasy Battle Army for 8th edition

A quick army book summary:-

11 pages of the Mistresses of the Jungle and Handmaidens of the Gods including a map of Lustria. This section covers the origins of the Amazonians, their mythology, nobility, appearance (generally hot !) and their military. The background fits very snugly with the Old Ones and Lizardmen fluff.

5 pages on Amazonia which focuses on the birth of the amazon tribes, key locations, their timeline and important events such as the Coming of Rigg and the impact on the Amazon culture and religion.

21 inspiring bestiary pages which details :-

The Lord and Hero character classes, 5 core units choices (such as the Piranha (scouts) and Eagle Warriors and Jaguar riding Huntresses which act as fast cavalry), 6 special units (like the Handmaidens, Plumed Archers, Culchan Riders and even Pygmies !) and 3 rare units (Gorol - Giant Gorillas !, the Noblewoman and the Coatl, a lvl2 magic using, terror causing monster with a handy T5 and 4+ ward save).


The presentation and feel of the army book is fantastic and you begin to get that familiar, "I'd love to collect this army" feeling. This is made even more tempting by the whispered promise of routing your enemy with a nubile female army :)

The army book comes with 6 of it's own magic spells from The Lore of the Serpent (a relatively low level but easy to cast magic with a combination of direct attack, augment and hex spells). Priestesses can also choose from the lores of Heavens, Light, Beasts, Life and Shadow so there's no shortage of magic options. The army wide special rule enthuses battle successful units with extra energy to pursue foes and additional combat resolution in future engagements which is a very interesting and quite unique feature.

The army feels somewhat Elvish, (maybe more Wood Elf like) in so far as the troops are elite-ish warriors with plenty of missile weapons but they posses a somewhat glass-like jaw. Amazons might be suited to ambush type tactics and a quick hit and run approach with relatively cheap core scouts. They also benefit from generally being able to negotiate difficult and wooded terrain more safely than others. The Amazonians main disadvantage is certainly their average toughness of 3 and a lack of war machines for long range offense. The army's strengths lie in the the better than average Ws4 and a better than average leadership which includes some core units with a leadership of 8. The army is also relatively fast moving into combat  and pursuit and benefits from relatively cheap fast cavalry. The hard hitters can be found in the form of Special Unit Totem Guardians, they have Ws4, Str4 plus great weapons and are stubborn for a quite friendly 12pts.

There is a very nice selection of 39 varied and imaginative magic items. My personal favourites are; the Sword of the Protector which bites deeper with more successful hits (represented by +1 str per hit); the Mystic Power Bow, a long bow that inflicts wounds that cannot be saved in any way (for a neat 25pts);  and the Blue Stump Brew Enchanted Item - a one use item that allows you to increase any of your stats by d6 (for 1 full turn), either a single stat or by distributing the d6 roll result across any number of stats - now that could come in handy (esp. for wounds !)

Personally, I feel that the most compelling reason to collect the army is because it is almost totally female (bar some beasts - which might also be female I guess) and it really is something completely partly in gaming terms but more so in collecting and painting terms. The miniatures themselves might be tricky to collect, it would be a challenge but I know there is a Amazonian Warband for Mordheim and I believe citadel came out with some many moons ago.

Here's a sample of some of the high quality you can expect:-



And last but most importantly, here's the army list for you to peruse.

Enjoy reading and remember we welcome all feedback and would love you to join our forum. Also, don;t forget to give Mathias a firm and friendly pat on the back for all his hard work and amazing input into our hobby.

Here's a slideshow of the other Army Books in the forum, all free to view online or download:-
(and here are my other unofficial Warhammer Fantasy Army book reviews - click "Older posts" to see all)

All of the armies feature in this article and on the forum are
 completely unofficial and are in no way  endorsed by Games Workshop.

Vomit and the perfect High Elf unit ?

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Beware Troll King Throgg and his bilious cohort - they don't mix well with shiny High Elven armour ! Something else came out of last weekend's battle... I think I may have discovered the perfect High Elven unit and I'm not talking about Swordmasters or White Lions !

King Throgg made a very unwelcome appearance on the glorious High Elven battlefield (around at my pad) a couple of weeks ago and I have since installed a King Throgg detector (Tyrion's big brother) on the front door to prevent his return.

My High Elves did not take any porcelain toilets or large buckets into battle and so were not well prepared for the Troll King's rampage. He literally puked his way to victory along with 5 of his buddies suffering from extreme "gut rot". I can only assume that late night doner kebabs and 10 pints were the order of the day on the evening before the battle.

The High Elves made a decent start by taking out all of the enemy's vanguard units (warhounds, and 2 marauder horsemen) with some ease, although it resulted in a mistake... one of the Marauder units was bait ! (at least that's the way it turned out). Here's what happened...

The Dragon Princes dispatched one mounted marauder unit to find themselves a bit too close for comfort to a unit of 6 trolls including king Throgg himself.  It should be said that the Trolls needed to charge 10 inches so it wasn't a foregone conclusion but once they rolled the 10 they needed death proceeded on a mega scale.

The Trolls dispatched the Dragon Princes in 2 combat rounds and even survived (what turned out to be an illegal) charge in the rear by a White Lion chariot (which rolled 1 impact hit !). I don't think the chaiort caused even 1 wound on the trolls. Once the trolls had finished puking their way to victory against those two units they moved on my back line which consisted of 15 Swordmasters protecting 2 repeaters and 2 units of archers and Teclis (who wisely decided to start moving out of the way). The rest of my force had moved slightly forward to take the incoming charges from marauders and warriors.

The Swordmasters were my only hope for my back line. They fought bravely and caused a few wounds but Throgg kept rolling high for his copious vomit attack and they were literally dissolved to death by stomach acid.

The archers were next and then the repeater, obviously none of them managed to do much damage to the Trolls. Teclis, who was now well out of the way, managed to cause a few wounds with his Lore of Fire spells but there were still about 3 trolls when they met up with my final unit of archers who valiantly caused a wound before being puked to death.

It was one heck of a Troll show. They had taken out 5 Dragon Princes, a Lion Chariot, 15 swordmasters, 2 repeaters and 2 units of archers single handedly by using nothing other than vomit attacks ! Only the Swordmasters and Teclis had managed to fell any of the bloated monsters.

My back line had been destroyed and the game was only heading in one direction - total annihilation !

Things looked completely different however in the center of the battle ground where White Lions and Phoenix Guard fought valiantly on and were cutting large swathes through the marauders and cutting down far more Chaos warriors than I thought they would be capable of. The High Elves magic had been severely curtailed by the loss of a wizard that, due to a miscast was now a level 0 non-spelllcaster and the loss of the Banner of Sorcery (carried by the Dragon Princes) which had granted the elves an extra +d3 power dice.

Nonetheless, Teclis remained very much part of the game. He successfully cast Flaming Sword of Rhuin 3 times on the Phoenix Guard which granted them +1 to wound for 6 combat turns and he had made quite a few fireball kills and wounds on the trolls. He was however, not really worth his 475 points cost in terms of damage but he was worth the points in terms of fun (from my perspective !)

The White Lions were eventually surrounded and cut down although they stood until the very last elf and were  worth their points cost.

The Phoenix Guard were the real heroes of the battle (from my point of view) and caused almost as much damage as the trolls had. I had "tooled up" this unit a bit and it included not only the BSB but a noble and some a nice magic item combo (to make sure they hung around). This is probably the best performance I have ever seen from a High Elf unit.  Here's what the unit consisted of:-

Noble (Hero) with Crown of Command [Stubborn, leadership 9], heavy armour, great weapon
Noble (Hero) BSB with battle banner [+d6 combat res], heavy armour, great weapon
13 Phoenix Guard + Full Command

With always strikes first and initiative 6 they were almost always going to re-roll missed hits and with a strength 4 attack (and +1 to wound, due to Flaming Sword of Rhuin), they were going to cause a lot of damage. Note only that but due to their ward save, leadership 9 and stubborn and with the BSB for leadership re-rolls they were not going to go anywhere either.

The Phoenix Guard made a real mess of the marauders and chaos warriors and the enemy lost their general who was cut down when he turned to flee the onslaught. When it was clear that Chaos had taken the day only the Phoenix Guard and Teclis still stood (and the Trolls were hot on his heels !). For a bit of fun we put the Phoenix Guard in the center of the battlefield and surrounded them with all of the remaining chaos units (some warriors, marauders and two depleted units of knights). Get this... if the Phoenix Guard had rolled a 3 on their Battle Banner roll, they would have won the combat !  Alas, they rolled a 1 and then failed their leadership test (and I forgot to re-roll for the BSB) so they were cut down where they stood.

My summary:- Trolls are bad (in a good way) but, with the right support, Phoenix Guard are better !

Images are © Games Workshop. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

Warhammer vs THE AUDITORS !

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I thought I was about to be "de-souled" by some wanton Daemon auditor from the realms of Chaos.

By Sigmar it was a close call but the gods have fanoured me and I emerge almost unscathed from my 4 weeks of working hell. I now clearly see the Ulthuan light through the haze of the foul, debilitating auditor energies.

If you're a regular visitor wondering what's happened to my previously oft updated blogs then worry no more for I have returned to Warhammer blogging heaven. I have almost slain three projects and have fended off the dreaded auditors, at least for now. What I'm trying to say is... I didn't have a good month in the office (or working at home at the weekend !) but now I'm back - something had to give and I thought it wise to postpone my blogging rather than my source of gold crowns :)

I have a few blogging plans over the next few weeks:-

• First and foremost is to bring this blog up-to-date with all the latest Warhammer and Games Workshop news which is probably actually now "olds".
• Secondly, I'd like to share a summary of a great battle that I managed to squeeze in a couple of weeks ago (my 1st 8th edition battle). Great for Chaos, not so good for the High Elves. Although, I will be telling you about the best High Elf unit magic items combo I have ever seen in combat.
• I'm going to start posting on the Warhammer Fantasy Gallery (I have quite a few weird and wonderful modeling projects and miniatures that I stumbled across some time ago to share).
• 8th edition WFB reports !!!
• And last but not least, the Nauticans. I hear them gurgling of their underwater cries for an 8th edition army book update :)  They shall get it !

Thanks for visiting folks and sorry I had to put the blogging to one side while I battled the auditors and other daemonic monstrosities at work.

Sigmar

Dogs of War Warhammer Army pdf released (NEW)

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Cry Havoc ! A new FREE unofficial Fantasy Battle Army book pdf - The Dogs of War

This book is a collaboration between Mathias Eliasson, Bill J. Wilson and Mathew Weiss (Mathias [M4cR1II3n] and Bill [BilboBaggins] are both highly valued members of the Battle Reporter Forum).

I'm very pleased to have been given the opportunity to share this army book review with you which is, frankly, the dogs boll.. (err...) proverbial bits !

The army book is fully compliant with 8th edition rules !

Doggy Facts
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Size: 64.9 MB, 99 Pages (!) & Free to view and download

I have added the army book to the:-
Battle Reporter forum army projects*

* (where you'll also find 10 other unofficial Warhammer Fantasy Battle Armies).
Please post some feedback in the forum for the army designers.

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Here's a brief summary:-

Loads and loads of background (40 pages) covering the history, the land and principalities of Tilea and the Age of Exploration, loads of short stories and a 30 page Bestiary including :-

7 Special and standard Lord level characters
7 Special and standard Hero level characters
6 Core Units
6 Special Units and
5 Rare Units

and about 50 magic weapons, armour, enchanted and arcane items and of course banners.

Most of the older Warhammer players will be familiar with many of the units, such as the halfling hotpot, pikemen, the paymaster and others but some unfamiliar units also make it into the list such as Stradiots (mounted crossbowmen), Cavaliers (basically Bretonnians after a quick buck), and Espringals (small cheap bolt thrower-type skirmish units).

Now here's something new...

The War Academy

...a great new concept that allows you to select veteran type abilities to bestow on your characters (similar to the Gifts of Chaos but actually a lot more fun !)

There are 22 abilities you can allocate, they cover:-

Veteran abilities, such as The Grizzled Warrior ability which forces your enemy to reroll their first successful "to Wound" against that character or Hawk Eye gives the character the 8th edition Sniper rule.

Intrigue qualities, such as Spies, Master of Intrigue, False Orders and Propaganda which generally mess with the enemy's best made plans.

Leadership attributes which generally inspire your troops onto greater deeds.

Strategies like Sapper, allowing entrenched infantry and war machines, Forward March giving you a free move, Rapid Deployment, Cunning (allowing you to redeploy a unit !) and the very sneaky Prepared Battlefield which acts a bit like an improvised explosive device !

The final category is Arcane which obviously benefits your wizards and spellcasters.

The War Academy concepts are brilliantly inspired. Check them out.

If you have a load of different army miniatures and you fancy pulling them all together (Ogres, Dwarfs, Humans, Elves, Giants and even Halflings !) then this could be the army book for you.

Some of the other great army books on the forum, just click the image

All of the above armies are unofficial and none of them are endorsed by Games Workshop