Category Archives: Fantasy Gaming

8-player Kings of War Battle Report

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So it’s been awhile – almost a month since my last post. Combination of being tired from work and watching The World Cup (it’s on in the early AM hours, here), poor weather, no motivation to take photos, and going through boxes and boxes of stuff that had been in storage has all ganged up, even though I’ve now had more than a week off from work (though with unrostered days in, and work at home – the nature of “holidays” in my work, I’m afraid. Also, friends coming over a fair few times for some intense 4-way-LAN sessions of Dead Island.

The 24 tanks I ordered from Korea for Zavod 311 have come in, and I’ve almost finished the assembly on 4 of them. Pics in a proper update, later. I received some much-needed bits from a Dakka-friend, Carlos13th – to create a couple of musicians and such for Gondor. Also a work in progress that I’ll share later with proper photos of the figures.

What I have today, though are some photos taken from a large 8-player Kings of War battle last Saturday night. Our regular LAN-and-other-gaming friends, Pyro and Orez brought some of their old-timey Pathfinder friends over to play some games. We ended up playing KoW – 1800pts per side with each player controlling roughly 600pts. It took a fair while, mostly due to people getting to grips with the rules (and I haven’t played much lately, either!) and a fair amount of planning and bickering between allies and opponents alike, as it the nature of very-multiplayer games.

1st Turn

The Order of Battle on the Good side was comprised of a 600pt Basilean contingent, led by a Paladin with holy book (army standard) and Wizard, featuring a unit of Mounted Paladins, Foot Paladins, Men-At-Arms and a unit of Heavy Bowmen. These were all proxied from Rackham Confrontation Lions pre-paints, which resulted in much better looking Men-at-Arms models! Unfortunately, due to some issues with the Elohi figures (terrible arms and weapons) they didn’t make it to the field this time. Once I’ve found parts to proxy their horrible, mould-lined and ill-fitting arms and weapons (as I already have for the heads) then they’ll be painted and join their mortal counterparts. Mantic… almost!

Allied with the Basileans was a 600pt contingent from Minas Tirith. The Men of Gondor (Armies of Men) were led by Beregond, a standard bearer, and were made up of a unit each of Knights, Shieldwall, Spear Phalanx, and Archers.

Finally, sub-commanded by myself and Orez were 1200pts of Ogres. Warlord on Chariot, Standard on Chariot, a Shaman with a unit of Berserkers, one large unit of Ogre Warriors, two small units – one standard and the other with 2-handed weapons, and finally, a unit each of Crossbows and Blunderbusses. And I think I may have forgotten a single-ogre unit that might be supposed to be in there as well.

Fighting for the Evil Team on the day was a battle-tested 1200pts of Pan-Elven force (Twilight Kin), led by a mounted High Priestess, A Dark Avenger Hero and Standard Bearer on Cold Ones. The troops were a large unit of Knights supported by Spearmen, Darksome Guard with 2-Handed weapons, Shadows, Wardancers (Blade-dancers), Gargoyles and Heralds of Woe (scout cavalry). Finally, a Reaper Bolt Thrower.

Their allies were 1200pts of Undead, worked out the day before and based on “What undead stuff do I have painted?” So an unusually hard-hitting, elite-style undead army with one unit of skeletons, one unit of ghouls, one small unit of mummies, 2 units of Wraiths (Army of the Dead), a unit of Werewolves (Rackham to the rescue, once again!) and a Balefire Catapult, all led by a Liche King, played ably on the night by the Mouth of Sauron.

Bad guys move across the table at speed.

The Forces of Light prepare to advance.

Prepaint Rackham Lion Knights Line up for the charge.

Their opposite numbers – Dark Elven Cold One Knights. Painted by eBay. (Except for the WIP bases, done by myself).

Paladin Knights charge into the slowly-retreating Dark Elves

The Armies maneouver across the battlefield while the evil generals confer.

Getting close to the big clash!

Paladin Cavalry wiped out, but here come the Ogre reinforcements!

The centre lines begin to make contact!

The side of Good surges forward!

The Grand Melee

Ogres smash into the Elves!

In the end, we played 4 full turns, no scenario. After one of our number let us know that he had to leave shortly, the game took off at a much faster pace. So we were finished by around about midnight with what was effectively a draw – 3 units destroyed on each side. Thanks to all for coming, and especially PE for taking photos, since I forgot to bring my camera out to the room several times, so all of these photos are thanks to him.

Overall I felt that the Undead and Elves had a significant advantage in that they both had an artillery piece each, while the good side had none (this will be rectified!) and a significant speed and manoeuvrability advantage – the Werewolves with Speed 9 and Elves with their fast cavalry (S9) units overwhelm all of the others (Ogres merely go from S6 on foot to S7 in a chariot for some reason) and the units with Fly all being on the Evil side – Gargoyles and 2 units of Wraiths. Again, this will be balanced out when the various armies that I’m building start to fill out towards 1500 and 2000pts.

Ogres will get Red Goblin Cavalry (played by wolves without goblin riders), and units of chariots (played by Ogre Stonetusk cavalry)

Gondor will get Trebuchets and Ballistas as well as Rangers of Ithilien and Swan Knights of Dol Amroth (using Elven Ranger and Elven Knight stats respectively, as befits the elite of Gondor – but no gunpowder or Ogre units, despite the KoM list, as I want the army to fit the Gondor theme.) As well as more foot troops. And eventually, they will be joined by my unpainted Rohirrim.

Basilea will get their Elohi Angelic units and possibly some exotics like Griffons and Phoenixes, as well as more foot troops.

The Undead will ironically, get more non-elite units – more skeletons, ghouls and zombies to fill out their numbers, as well as undead cavalry, wights and more heroes to Dark Surge their minions forward.

The Elves will be split into two forces (once a lot more painting happens – High (Blood) Elves with their woodland offsiders, and proper Druchii – Dark Elves. This will mean warhawks, and possibly treemen/Ents and perhaps a Phoenix on the High side, and things like Manticores, Hydras and even a Cauldron of Blood on the Dark side.

And then I can start on adapting Nurgle, Chaos Warriors, Beastmen and Chaos Dwarves. I really can’t wait for those…

From the Painting Desk #4 – Beregond and Dark Angels Dreadnought

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I’ve been painting a little in the last month or so, just haven’t finished anything especially interesting or worth sharing. I’ve finished a bunch of soldiers of Minas Tirith to a tabletop standard for my KoW Armies of Men force (as well as, obviously – LotR SBG and eventually – WotR). I’ve also finished the odd Dwarf, Human, Orc and Goblin as well, though I’ll share them later down the line when they have more substantial groups to pose with. I’ll try and take some more proper photos in a couple of weeks.

Dwarves and other random painting desk models.

I did finally finish something worthwhile though – Beregond, first Captain of the White Tower – guard and friend of Faramir.

Beregond and (bad) Faramir model.

Both of these two were started at least four years ago, at a guess. Maybe longer. The Faramir model is quite an average sculpt in many ways and also suffers from mould slip on the face. I’m just going to use him as a more generic captain, and use a better Faramir model as Faramir. The shading on the cloak hasn’t come up all that well in the pic, but then, the photo backdrop this time around is… well… read on.

Beregond and Faramir models.

This is the main reason why I decided to share Beregond here. While the pair still needs to be varnished and have flock added to their bases, I was quite happy with the freehand on Beregond. The knotwork on the front of his cloak and tunic came out decently, but The White Tree turned out quite nicely, despite the folds of his cloak making the tree look even tricky. Using white (and yellow) on black is a bit of a pain – darker colours on lighter colours would be easier but that’s not really an option. Perhaps gold on off-white would work for a future cloak if it comes up.

Dark Angel Dreadnought

This Dark Angels Dreadnought was originally started back during 40k second edition. I’ve finally dug the thing out and decided to finish it off. I also decided to stick some of the plastic DA bits from the intervening years on the model to liven it up a little more.

Dark Angel Dreadnought Legs

I tried the salt weathering technique. It went badly. The panels on the Dreads’ legs are just too small, and it’s probably not the best model to learn that technique on. That’s been scrapped. Just trying to repaint it green now.

Dual Assault Cannons!

And there we are. The paint on the arms dates these arms back to 1997 (when I added the nWo logo) and then 1998 (when I went over it with the red of the Wolfpac). The long scroll is from 2014. I imagine the painting of this model got abandoned late in 1998 when 40k 3rd edition was released and the uber-combination of dual assault cannons on Dreadnoughts became a thing of the past. Back in the day there were no “left-handed” Assault Cannons and dreads were 100% metal models, so I cut up a right handed one (in metal) and a Missile Launcher left arm to make the above. With the Contemptor Mortis pattern Dreadnought being an actual thing, I’m also considering adding a magnetised missile launcher battery to the top of the model. Both arms are already magnetised.As part of my “1k 40k Armies” project, I’ve costed out a Dread with Dual assault cannon for a 1k Dark Angels army, and plan to finish this sucker off in the coming couple of weeks. Since, like the KoW forces I’m working on, the 40k armies are all going to be supplied by me for friendly games in my War Room, there should be no arguments.

I’ll be showing more of the small 1k Dark Angels force in the coming weeks as well. Many of the models are already painted. I just need to sort out the vehicles and a few more troopers. And the characters.

Discount photo box?

Those pics of Beregond not being the best? This is why. 😉