Also on the Desk

Prepped a few more minis I may want to paint soon. There's another KoW tournament in January. I've only done two, but I'm sort of burned out on the tournament thing already. But as my options are limited, I might do it again. Contemplating a Kingdom of Rhordia list. A bit premature, since I was planning on trying to fit a JTC army into that list. But I don't have nearly the minis painted for it that I'd like to.

But at the very least, a couple of mounted hobbit spellcasters would be nice. One, a bit more "feral", has temporarily dismounted.

Honestly, if I'm going to do a Rhordia list anytime soon, I really need to paint up a boatload more hobbits. I may go back to undead again for this event. As long as I prepped the minis, though, I'd like to paint these two soon.

St. Patrick's Day KoW

Played in a three round Kings of War tournament at Recess Games. 2500 points this afternoon.

In keeping with the holiday, I fielded my (Irish myth inspired) Fomorians using the ogre army rules. I had to field 2 giants, the bog demon (as a mammoth), and a unit of allied half-orcs (as humans.) I used the recently painted bog trolls as hunters. So still all themed with the army, just not exactly what I would have liked to field.

Lost all three games & came in dead last. (Further thoughts on my consistent crap performance in KoW in a future update...) But I had a good time & got best painted award. A few pics of my games...


Game 1 vs. Abyssals

Game 2 vs. Undead

Game 3 vs. Abyssal Dwarfs

 

KoW in a Week

Photo of most of what I plan on fielding for KoW next weekend. Not quite enough Fomorians/Fimir, so I'm using the trolls I just painted, going heavy on the big guys, and (not pictured) a regiment of half orc allies. (Using the KoW ogre list, with human allies for the half-orcs.)


Click photo to enlarge, as usual.

Marsh 2018

Working on bog trolls instead of Fomorians/Fimir for the Month of Marsh 2018. Progress so far...

There is a KoW tournament on St. Patrick's Day. Although it's premature, I am tempted to scrape together a force of everyone's favorite one eyed swamp bastards (plus guests) as a sort of themed army.

Slaughter Fest 2017 (KoW) Part 2

Back in the day, I would post detailed battle reports of each game after events, whether tournaments, convention or demo games, etc. Sadly, this is no longer "the day." So it will just be brief summaries this time around, with just photos from the start & end of the games.

Slaughter Fest was a 2000 pt. Kings of War tournament held at Recess Games and, if I understand correctly, associated with and/or organized by members of Ohio War Kings.

It's been over a year since I last played KoW, I only had something like 6 or 7 games under my belt, and I've been suffering from some rare (for me) pounding headaches the past few days... so it was going to be a rough return to gaming. But I managed to play by something pretty closely resembling the rules.

I had an all skeleton Undead army. I had to fake it a little bit, since my skeletal ogres were proxies for zombie trolls, the black knights were proxies for soul reaver knights, and my "lesser liches" were necromancers. But it worked. I took an allied horde of skeletons from the Empire of Dust so I could add an undead giant to my list. Lord (of undeath) knows I've got enough of those things painted, I wanted to use at least one!

Game 1

My boney undead against John's fleshy undead. Same army list, completely different composition.

The scenario involved killing the three highest point units in your opponents army. I completely blew the deployment as I was just dropping units without paying attention to what John was doing until the very end. He's got a bunch of zombies on my right, and heavy hitters on my left. I managed to redeploy some of my faster troops, and nearly pulled off a draw (botched the last dice roll of the game, which would have given me a draw.) But really, even that depended on the solidity of the soul reavers and some lucky dice rolling. Except nerve rolls. I couldn't even route small unit of zombies, or more importantly the last unit of lycans I needed to destroy.

Given that the table looks like some sort of lava field, I will blame my loss on the lack of a "fleshy & hairy troops burst into flame" rule, and dodge personal responsibility.

Game 2

Second game was against Grace's elves, which was four hordes of archers in the center, drakon hordes on each flank, supported by a drakon hero on one side, and giant tree/ent thing on the other.

The scenario was Plunder, with 5 objectives. We sort of botched that and started picking them up and carrying them around when they should have remained stationary. We "reset" the objectives in the second to last turn of the game, and ended up with a draw. Our attrition scores were almost equal as well. Again, I've got to credit some lucky dice to me even doing as well as I did.

Grace said the army was borrowed, so I don't know who gets credit for the figures and movement trays, but they were very nice.

The game ended with a big rumble on top of one of the objectives -- which went very poorly for Team Undead.

Game 3

Third round was against Felix & his Herd. Beast pack speedbumps, some sort of badass guardian things, more lycans (which I faced in three of the 4 games I played) and a stampede horde.

Again, I just sort of dropped everything on the table, only slightly paying attention to my opponent's deployment. This was made more apparent when Felix moved everything (they moved fast) on my left across his deployment zone on the first turn. I was mostly able to manage this, as my own left was fast moving as well (soul reavers and wraiths), and ended up turning the flank. He did the same with his "freight train" on the other side, so the whole battle sort of rotated clockwise. I forget what the scenario was, but in essence it could probably be called "bloodbath." There was a scenario point awarded for yelling "_______ for the ________ god" at some point in the battle. It could only be earned once, but that didn't stop me from yelling various iterations several times throughout the game, including when my own troops were being ground into dust by massive elephants.

Another draw. By this point I think I was starting to get a grasp on the rules again.

Game 4

Last game of the day was against Kim's dwarfs. A lot of berzerker brock riders, more lycans & beast pack speedbumps, and a couple of flame cannons.

The scenario was dominate -- so we had to hold the center. For most of the game we both completely forgot that, only racing to the center at the very end. Again, it ended in a close game, both in terms of attrition and the final victory. As much as we tried getting everything back to the center, only one single unit (my wraiths) made it entirely there. If we had rolled for a 7th turn (which we didn't) I probably would have had one more unit there, but Kim probably would have managed at least two -- so possibly a draw or a victory for her if the game had gone on longer.

So I managed to barely squeak out a victory in the last game -- no final photo, unfortunately. At this point I was a bit out of it, between the headache and being tired. Apparently grandpa ZeroTwentythree can't handle his tournaments like he used to.



End

I finished 14th out of 20 players. All things considered, I'm OK with that. A far cry from my somewhat more competitive days of playing WFB or WAB. But I had a lot of fun, enjoyed meeting some new people (including some locals, it appears) and getting reacquainted with the Kings of War rules. I am completely sold on KoW. I think I already was, but now I'm even more certain. It's got a lot going for it. Simple rules that are easy to pick up, without getting bogged down in redundant detail or rules-lawyering. The end result is that it plays in a satisfying way. It feels like a wargame, rewards good tactical decisions, and has a nice degree of balance. While not 100% balanced (and what game is...) it still doesn't feel like there are any overwhelmingly bad or broken units or armies that I have seen so far. But at the same time, it's not a completely random dice-fest. Good tactics go a long way.

There were a lot of prizes that were raffled off, plus some give-aways. No one else seemed to be interested, so I eagerly snatched up the large sheet of brown/green "teddy bear fur" for some terrain projects. I had looked at buying some online before, but never did -- so now I've got some to experiment with. It honestly looks large enough to work as a full battle-mat! Or, as I joked at the event, I could cut a couple of holes in it and wear it to the next one...

I took a bunch of photos of the armies at the event, but a lot of them didn't turn out well -- either blurry or too dark to see. Below are those that turned out OK. Check out those LED lit golems! (Or elementals -- whatever they are.) (Click to gigantisize. They're straight from my phone, no editing or resizing...)

Slaughter Fest 2017 (KoW)

I'm tired and have had a wicked headache running for most of the day, but I still had fun playing Kings of War at Slaughter Fest. I will post more pics & comments tomorrow. But for now...

Not only did I finish the 13 Nightmare Legion troopers an hour and a half before the tournament started, but I also painted up a skeletal standard bearer in the last 24 hours before the event as well. I forgot I had an army standard bearer in my list! As it turns out, it's a really bad choice anyway. At the very least it needs to be on a horse. A lone shambling walker will be left behind and out of the short range of his Inspiring ability -- the only reason for including him in the first place! Now I need to find a mounted skeletal standard bearer...

Photo of the army at the event...

Last Push for KoW Slaughter Fest

Trying to wrap up the last of the Nightmare Legion to form a horde for Slaughter Fest this weekend. (KoW tournament.) Need some highlighting, rust, and the shields. Just tonight and two more evenings to finish...

Unfortunately, I haven't been painting much, as my eyes are bleeding...

...literally.

I've also been finishing a couple of custom resin toys for an exhibit at Designer Con...

Halloween 2017

I should be playing KoW in a couple weeks. This is what I'm thinking of taking, nothing but bones. I needed to start sorting out figures anyway, and thought it was a good way to pass the time while waiting for trick-or-treaters who never showed up. (On the plus side, there's a full bowl of candy left for me!) I still have to finish 13 more Nightmare Legion to finish the horde. If I don't get them done in time, I will swap that unit out for some other skeletons.

Halloween craftiness below. I've been sick the past few days, but enjoyed a little bit of the holiday spirit. Made the mask but didn't really wear it other than for a quick photo.

Wandering

Got my hands on some more Nightmare Legion. I wasn't specifically looking, nor expecting to get any more. At all. But put a low bid (at least compared to the ridiculous BIN prices usually listed) in on eBay and won. So since I am playing KoW in early November, I think I might try to paint the remaining minis I need to run a KoW horde of them! They need cleaned up a bit. Looks like no/minimal cleanup of flash & mold lines. Not sure how much time I will be able to put into that.

End of October/Early November is a busy time. Work stuff is about to explode. But on a more persona note, I've got some resin toy stuff I need to finish for an exhibit at Designer Con ...

And then there's the Halloween, Dia de Muertos, All Souls, etc. stuff to work on, attend, etc...

So the next few weeks I will be wandering all over the place...

K......... A R L S Disco Wiener Haven

I've had this song randomly stuck in my head all day. Spontaneous outbursts & mumblings of it have followed. I haven't seen the movie or heard the song in decades. No idea why it popped into my head today.


So, naturally, I started thinking about gaming. Naturally. You see the connection, don't you?

About a year ago, I typed out a bit of the background & start of the campaign outline for the Jackrabbit Trading Company's part in my ridiculous grand Marienburg campaign that will probably never even get played. I think I've written a little more since. But the relevant part here is the Anabasis that follows in that outline. The plan has been a series of scenarios based on the classical "soldiers road trip" of the same name and its various relations & derivatives.

So with that in mind, the rest of my cultural mashing would involve our protagonists having a Straight to Hell like stop along their journey home through the Wasteland. I like the bonus tie-in between the hobbits' legendary wurst and Karl's Disco Wiener Haven.

At the very least, I will need to convert or sculpt (or have sculpted?) a Zander Schloss "wiener kid miniature. Maybe a few other characters.

KoW Tournament

I did end up registering for an upcoming local KoW tournament. I've got mixed feelings on the whole "tournament" thing. But I'm going to give it a shot. I think I'm just hoping to find someone (or someones) near me who are interested in playing more narrative/friendly type games. And I do like KoW. It satisfied the easy-going mass battle side of gaming for me.

Orctober

Orc's are not really a major part of any of my plans, but I'm going to paint up at least an orc or two, in the spirit of the season.

Fomorians & KoW

((For what it's worth, I've started adding a gallery of Fomorians and JTC minis to the site -- links are listed above. Still need to organize more!))


I've decided to put a little more work into the Fomorians, and get enough painted for a decent selection for Kings of War, using the ogre list. This also means a larger pool of minis to use for WFB3, should the opportunity present itself as well.

As for the merging of concepts, my thoughts as far as KoW units to use:

Warriors = Reaper conversions & old Citadel Fianna/Nobles
Berserker Braves = Savage Orc Conversions
Hunters = Also Savage Orc Conversions, but with frog spears, nets, etc.
Red Goblin Scouts = Moor Hounds
Giant = Large Beasts, Demons, etc.
+ Characters

A few thoughts on expanding this:

Red Goblins: I've got vague ideas, but just haven't found the best minis for some small, cowardly bowmen (or bow-creatures.)

Mammoth: Most "big things" will fall into the Giant category, but I wouldn't mind a beast carrying more small, cowardly minions to go with the previous entry. Still sorting out ideas for this.

Chariots: I like the idea of having just a few chariots the problem is finding suitable chariot models (probably better to scratch build my own?) but more importantly, I need some suitable beasts pulling them! I like the idea of wolves/supernatural-hounds or maybe some sort of shaggy horse-like beast. But not sure what miniatures to use. If I keep this sub-project small, I don't mind doing some heavy conversions.

I'm currently working on more warriors, and another hero. The former are now primed and ready to paint. The latter is still being converted and still has some modeling & sculpting work before it's ready.

My goal for the next few months -- definitely end of year -- is to have at least the following available for KoW:

2 x Hordes (6) of Warriors (400 pts.)
1 x Horde (6) of Berserkers (230 pts.)
1 x Regiment (3) Hunters (145 pts.)
2 x Regiments (10) of Moor Hounds (310 pts.)
2 x "Giants" (230 pts.)
1 x Warlord (185 pts.)
1 x Warlock (100 pts.)
1 x Caprain (135 pts.)

= 1,735 pts.

If I want to push up to 2,000 pts. my plan is to either use allies for the moment, or (if I can) paint up more Warriors, Berserkers, etc. I've already been  considering the half-orc option as being a good "co-outcast" ally for the Fomorians. I would most likely use one of the human options in the case of allies (probably  KoM.)

My eventual goal will be to have at least 3k available.


The miniatures/modeling options I'm still seeking, then are:

Chariots: Mostly this is a matter of exactly what sort of beast is pulling them. The chariots themselves are easy to convert of scratch build. Crew would be Fomorians -- probably Reaper based. Beasts: Wolves? Not-quite-horses? Something else?

Mammoth: What sort of a large critter, and who to put on it?

Kings of War - Marienburg

I did, in fact, get to hang out with some old friends and play a coupe of games of Kings of War today! I didn't think about taking pics for the inevitable blog post until after the second game had started. So that's what ye get.

We played 1500 points, which seems like a decent size for a casual game. This time I took my Marienburg army and went with a bunch of regiments instead of all of the hordes I took with the undead last time.

First game was against orcs. I learned about their good ME score, and crushing strength. I lost (technically a draw based on the scenario, but I had almost no army left to theoretically contest the loot left unclaimed,) but did better than I thought I would after the early game seemed to go downhill for me. As much as the orcs were tough to deal with, I think the flyer (a chimera) was what really screwed me up. I just didn't deal with it very well. My cannon and mage never managed to do more than a single wound to it, it kept my knights tied up most of the game, and still managed to cause some decisive casualties at the end.

Second game was against Skaven Ratkin. More hordes. I did much better this time, though I think I owe a lot of that to my dice and my opponents dice. This time it was the Invade scenario. I did take a few pics, below. On the left I hung back and tried to soften the rat ogres and plague monks up with a cannon and mage, while on the right I charged forward, hoping to hurt his weaker troops (mostly warriors and slaves) quickly and decisively. It worked, but took a little longer than I had planned. Things went better than expected on the left. The first turn I put 5 wounds each on the two heavy hitting units, pressuring them to move up as quickly as they could while I moved back so I could get the charge first.

I was once again very pleased with the way Kings of War played. The rules were pretty clear and simple, and the gameplay fast, though everything still felt the way it should, even if some of it is a bit abstracted. Although combats usually seem to be brief, there is also a buildup of casualties that prevents the lack of casualty removal (and full ability to cause damage) from being a problem. I think the game encourages decisive action. I'm once again impressed, and admit (again) that my initial aversion to the rules is unfounded. The simplicity of the rules is misleading. It is a fun and fulfilling game. I'm definitely on board with Kings of War.

KoW: the Gateway Game, and Some Deadcember Planning

Kings of War

Holy crap, I'm going to slip in a THIRD day of gaming this year! Here's my 1500 points of Kings of War, Kingdom of Men "Multiversal Marienburgers" army. I'm starting to consider a (my) version of Marienburg as another iteration of Moorcock's Tanelorn.

I'm also going to try introducing a friend to miniatures gaming soon. We've played boardgames and RPGs together. I think Kings of War will make an excellent "gateway" game to get into miniatures. I measured everything out and, as small as our new house is, I'm pretty sure I can temporarily set up a gaming table in the dining room. So I brought up the idea, we just need to see when our schedules can work out time for a game.


Deadcember

I'm kind of getting into some of these painting themes... Orctober, Deadcember, Month of Marsh, and my own April Whatever I'm Going to Paint Giants. I totally failed at Deadcember last year (and didn't even realize that it was already a thing -- I thought I had made it up!) As with 2015, the end of the year is already a non-painting fustercluck. November has been pretty dry. But maybe I can turn it around in Deadcember? Going to be tricky...

Here's what I've got prepped: 4 skeletal ogres, 8 remaining Nightmare Legion skeletons, , an oldschool Ral Partha skeletal balrog, 10 old Citadel wight cavalry, the Lord of the Feast, my vulture-man sculpt, and I have a painted skeleton giant that needs a base. I think I have a Citadel mounted wight lord I should probably prep, too -- awesome figure.

Kings of War Epiphany

I've had a sudden epiphany. And I feel dumb for not realizing this sooner. (In my defense, playing KoW at all has only been on my mind for a few weeks now.)

If I'm playing KoW and supplying both armies, then the physical unit sizes are really up to me.

The "stock" KoW sizes are a bit inconvenient for me since the smaller units use "odd" divisions of 20mm bases for total unit width. For example, 5 x 20mm (100mm total) wide for troops & regiments. Hordes are ok for me as they are 200mm wide. The basing plan I've been working with for other games uses 40mmx40mm bases. SO I've got to add an inconvenient filler or some similar solution.

But for either trying to adapt it for a solo game or hosting a game where I supply both armies, I can go 80mm wide for troops & regiments, and 160 wide for hordes. My basic "building block" is 4x(40mmx40mm) so my basic unit is = 2x troops = 1x regiment = 0.5 horde. Works well!

Holy Bog-burgers, I Played a Game!

Actually, three games! I managed to shirk my daytime responsibilities this past Saturday and meet up with some friends I haven't seen in far too long. They've been playing Kings of War since the new edition came out, and although I had my doubts about the rules I figured it was worth a try.

I was pleasantly surprised at the gameplay.

I had initially drawn up a list for my Marienburg mercenaries, but at the last minute decided to switch to a one-dimensional Undead list. If I just spent the past year painting all that monochrome, I was going to see them get some action on the (tiny) field of battle!

Mid battle vs. Abyssals -- doing well in the center and right, but will the left collapse before the Undead can pull off a victory?

My list was: One zombie horde. Two skeleton hordes. Two soul reaver troops. One zombie troll (ogre, in my case) horde. One revenant knight regiment. One liche king with bane chant (3). Two necromancers with bane chant (2).

My opponents were Abyssals (lost,) Abyssal Dwarfs (lost,) and Undead (won.) It was a pretty evil round of games, obviously. We played three scenarios from the rules. The free PDF doesn't come with these, so I don't remember the names, but the first was to occupy the center of the battlefield, the second was to hold a random number of objectives on the battlefield, and the last was a combination of the objectives plus casualties.

Abyssal dwarfs dominating the flanks, thanks to deadly mortar fire and... thrown mutant dogs?

As far as the rules, I went into it with mixed feelings. But I was pleasantly surprised so far. The mechanics are pretty simple & straight forward. It's quick to pick up the rules and relatively easy to keep track of your army. Maneuver, flanks, and positions are important -- it seems like you to need to think of the whole battlefield plan rather than relying only on a super-hero, death star, or game winning spell from what I saw. There were definitely some more powerful units/monsters/characters, but they were neither invincible nor all-powerful. There was a pretty good flow to the game, but it tends to swing back and forth a bit since each player only acts in their own turn. The only thing I ever did during an opponent's turn was put down wound or disordered markers. I think that's one of the chief downfalls of the game design. Fortunately, game play is pretty quick, though, so you aren't waiting for long. Might be a bigger issue in larger games, though.

I've seen a number of complaints about the mechanic of not removing individual troops. That never came to mind. It's simply not WFB, so I never thought that was something that was missing. Units do fight at "full strength" but combats run their course pretty quickly, and there's enough going on anyway -- units moving to flanks, wavering after a nerve test, casualties mounting up, etc. that there was still a sense of direction to a units fate. In fact, wavering is a big deal.

Rules and armies have a reasonable amount of special rules, so the game is easy to pick up and understanding what's going on with your opponents army is relatively easy to figure out. One of my pet peeves about WFB was that every month or two you had to learn a pile of new rules for the latest army, let alone sort out how they dealt with all of the other rules, how to counter them, etc. Each army in KoW still seems to have it's own flavor, though. For example, a lot of the Abyssals had fury & regeneration, which really kept them aggressive in combat. My undead had the combo of shambling and surge, and were largely immune to wavering. Abyssal dwarfs had crazy shooting (mortars and thrown mutant dogs??) to soften the enemy and break formation a bit.

Undead on Undead action. Zombies are chanting for brains... but none to be found.

Not my favorite game, but it had a decent balance of detail and easy play-ability (leaning more towards the latter) that made it fun. More detail and character than something like Hordes of the Things, but much simpler than WFB. And the rules are much cleaner than either of those. My friends have been playing since KoW2 came out, and they said it had enough nuance to keep them interested (and from what little I've seen so far, I can see that) but also accessible enough to a new or casual gamer. It doesn't feel like you have to devote a large chunk of your time (and money) to keeping up with army books, "killer combos" and internet strategies to play without getting tabled all the time like WFB or Warmahordes.

That's only from three games, so I may be proved wrong or learn otherwise. I do hope to play some more. Like I said, I had fun. That's really what matters (along with the crushing of enemies, driving them before you, and the lamentations...) So... more KoW in my future? If I can manage it, yes.

Giant Centipede

I quickly and poorly painted an old Ral Partha giant centipete model. The eyes are sculpted like that (recessed pupils) and after I took the photo I repainted them flat black to hide that fact. I also gave the centipede a nice gloss varnish. Looks a little better, but not worth taking a new photo. ;)

Oldhammer -- it's not always pretty, and my painting didn't help any.

Fimir! Fimir?

Thanks to one of my friends at the Kings of War day (the host, in fact) I am now the proud owner of an almost complete set of the old GW Fimir figures. I didn't really get a chance to look at them til today, but it looks like all nine figures, plus a duplicate Fimm -- so this will work out well for two units of 3 or 4, plus a Dirach & Meargh. Oddly, when I was looking through the old catalogs, one figure is listed as different things depending on which catalog/ad. Looks more like a warrior (Fimm) than a Dirach, and I don't think I would need a second Dirach anyway -- so that's what I'm calling him!

The one thing I would like to get, however, is a proper Meargh head (aka "Head 3".) A long shot, but... does anyone out there in the internets have a spare one?

Comparing these figures to my own conversions and sculpted heads & tails, I'm pleased that there is so much inconsistency of scale & proportion within the very small Citadel range that they will fit OK with what I've done, and have encouraged me to worry even less about consistant scale in plans for including more figures in my own conversions & army.