Orcs for Kings of war

 I've been chipping away at a new army for Kings of War, based on using the Frostgrave Gnolls as the bulk of my infantry. As usual I've an eclectic range of figures co-opted into the army- Frostgrave, Northstar, GW and Mantic. 

The characters at the front are some of the character figures from the new Oathnmark orc range and are lovely, very Middle Earth inspired, orcs IMO.

LoTR Orc scouts are being used as Ax infantry and the Frostgrave Gnolls behind are Morax- berserker orcs. 

The Mantic Winged Slasher moel in the background is a lovely model too and makes a great centrepiece for the army, while the Mantic Gore Riders provide a fast, hard hitting cavalry contingent. 

And finally, a shot of the first of the thre regiments of Morax I've painted up. I really love the Frostgrrave Gnolls and with all plasctis are ripe for conversions. For this army I've been adding weapons and arms from the Mantic Goblins as well as the Oathmark Goblins and Orcs to make the army even more varied.

I've not had much success with them so far but reckon 5 games over two days at No Surrender in Christchurch later in the month will be a good opportunity to get to grips with the army. 

Cheers

Craig

Basing figures

 Gordon asked me how I base my figures. I use a pretty basic system these days and tend to stick to two versions of it-  field green or dry straw static grass depending on the army I'm working on. 

Here is the start of my latest project some "Orcs" fr kings of War using Oathmark Gnolls rather than orcs. I paint the figures then place them on the base to  figure out how I want them to look- in this case I wanted an orcish "battle wedge" formation. 

Once the figures are superglued  to the base I cover the base witha product caled permafilla from the local Mitre 10 DIY store. The orcish wardrums I based today and this is not my usual method in that they are based before painting but with only two figures and a drum I figured what the hell. 

Once the permafilla is dry I use PVA or superglue to add some stones borrowed from the local beach to add a bit more texture. 

A few of the basics- permafilla and test pot paints. 

I then undercoast the base black and dry a "heavy" drybrush of a dark brown shade. 

then the stones are drybrushed a light grey colour. 

Finally I use a yellowy/tan light drybrush to pick out the details of the base this step is done quite lightly. 

Next up is the static grass which covers approx 25-30% of the base. I like not having a uniform cover of static grass as the contrasts draw the eye to the base and the figures don't get "lost" in the base. 

Then I add green tufts for even more variety. 

And finally, some late autumn tufts. 

A contrast between the finished base and the one at the end of the dark brown drybrush stage. 

And the bases ready for gaming. 

Cheers

Craig

Southcon 2022- first run for the elves

 For the first time in many years I am heading down to Southcon and will be joining Josh and Gordon to play Kings of War. I’ve had lots of practice games with my Ogres and had planned on taking them but after a single game with my elves changed my mind so am taking an army I have very little experience using- a total of one game under my belt so the list is far from fine tuned.  

The elves are considered an elite army and somewhat of a scalpel force and nowhere near as resilient as my ogres are so it will be interesting to see how they go. 

 2x Palace Guard  Regiments

1x Therennian Seaguard horde

1x Quicksilver lancers (Stormwind) Reg

2x Silverbreeze Cavalry Regs

1x Drakon Riders horde

1x Elven King,  Mount on a Horse, shardblade (melee 2+)
2x Lords on Drakon 1 with the Boomstick

2x Elven Archmage’s- 1 lightning bolt, inspiring talisman, #2- lightning bolt

20x Unit Strength, 11 Units

Palace Guard

Elite medium infantry with CS 1, reasonable defence (Def 4). I was tooing and froing between taking them as a horde and the seaguard as regiments or vice versa. In the end I stuck with my original idea of having the palace guard regiments flanking the Seaguard and trying to manoeuvre into flanks. I see these two units also as working together when possible.

 

Seaguard Horde

The plan is to have hem holding the centre, plinking away with 25 shots hitting on 5+. Spears with Phalanx, hitting on 4s with elite is unit is a solid, versatile unit. I hope to blunt attacks and then counter attack with the Seaguard. The now have steady aim with their shooting too. I’m not expecting their shooting to do much but hope to aim at Def 3 or 4 units as much as possible.

I’ve used the GW Galadheim Elves as for these units and very happy with how they have turned out.

 Quicksilver lancers (Stormwind) Reg

Elite elven heavy cav. They have been boosted n Clash of Kings 2021 with the Quicksilver Lancers option for one regiment which makes them nimble and increases their nerve to 15/17. This makes them a real threat on the flans with their options to turn on a dime. I’d have loved to add Jesse’s boots to them but alas not enough points. I am using Galadhiem Knights and also Riders of Rohan to make up this unit.

 

Silverbreeze Cav reg

I like using light Cav type units and the Silverbreeze are some of the bs tin the game. No thunderous- unless charging off a hill memo to self for during the games!), speed 10,  melee and ranged 4+ which isn’t too shabby, nimble and elite and steady aim. For this unit I am using GW riders of Rohan.  

 Drakon Riders horde

I love the look of this regiment, using the new Mantic mini’s. These guys fly and have CS 1 and TC 1 + elite. 18 attacks, hitting on 3s. A real threat and I will need to combine with my other cav units when possible. A dangerous unit and so one that opponents will focus on.

 

Elven king

Speed 9, 5 attacks, CS 1, with the shard blade (hits on 2+). My mobile anti-flyer and anti character unit. I didn’t have points for the sabre tooth a cat (duelling). A mobile, inspiring support unit.

 2x Lord on Drakons

In my practice game I only had one but have dropped my other unit for a second one. Again I am using the new Mantic Drakon models which are stunning. I have one the Boomstick for 3 lightning bolts but am kicking myself for not taking the blade of the beast slayer. My reasoning was the broomstick turns him into a mini dragon with a breath attack option so we will see if it works out. Again highly mobile with elite melee, fly, inspiring, nimble and TC 1. Not as tough as Gordon’s human kings of winged beasts but are also cheaper. Hitting form the flanks or rear will give them 10 or 15 attacks so I need to make sure I position them correctly.

 

2x elven archmages

Again pretty simple- lighting bolts and one with the inspiring talisman to inspiring trools. I intend to use them as speedbumps/chaff if necessary but their main role witl be for close fire support with lightning bolts with the sea guards.

 

So there we have it, 11 units, 20 unit strength. Having seen the other army lists I think it might struggle in some match ups but I am hoping to be able to work the flanks and manoeuvrability. I don’t think it will do that well but am hoping to win 2 and would happy if I could win 3 games over the weekend.

 

 

More Elves

 Operation pointy ears continues, with a few more elven reinforcements rolling off the production line.

A few yars ago I picked up some GW Galadhrim warriors off Ebay and they came with 4 of the Galadheim knights. I painted the infantry up a about 18 months ago as the start of a small elven contingent for Dragon Rampant but moved on to other things. I've decided to use them for Kings of War now instead. 

These figures are my favourite elven sculpts on the market- I'm not a fan of some of the stylistic choices Peter Jackson made in the movies but do like the way he portrayed elven weapons and armour.

The 4x Galdhrim knights have been painted up and based as a troop of Windborne Cavalry for Kings of War but have made them on two smaller bases to use on Dragon Rampant and other skirmish type games too.

These are probably my favourite LoTR cavalry sculpts and I am keen to get a couple more boxes of them to use as heavier cavalry- Stormwind or Silverbreeze as required. 

And the first unit of elven warriors- basing to be finished. I've based them up to  use as Seaguard for Kings of War.  I've enough figures to make a second regiment of these but they can be combined to make a horde if necessary. 

I've ordered another box or two of these guys to also be abe to add a horde of Palace Guard and also some archer and spearmen units.  

Next up will be some Drakon Riders- a horde and a couple of drakon riding heroes. 

Craig

KoW: Slyvan Kin

 I am enjoying getting to grips with the ogre army for Kings of War but have had a small project sitting in the background for some time and when motivated whch is not very often I'm afraid to say these days, I've been chipping away at it. 

My aim it to create a small Slyvan kin force. I faced the Sylvan kin a few weeks back in a game against Gordon and was pretty impressed with them so that has inpsired me to get some work done on this little project. 

The figures are mainly GW. I've made one regiment using the rangers and two regiments from wood (?) elves that I've had lying around for years.

The tree herder/wiltfather is from the D&D Nolzur's line (Treant).

I've a horde of Mantic Forest Shamblers as well.

And today I am rebasing some Footsore Goths, which are great sculpts, and will be used as the Stormwind Cavalry. 

I will use some Riders of Rohan as the Windborne cavalry troop. 

And finally, Silver Breeze Cavalry. Again using the very versatile GW Riders of Rohan. I've come to detest the horses in this particular range but the riders are nice and this range of figures has been press ganged into wide range of armies over the years.

So all I need is to finish the basing once the permafill I use for texture is dry. I'll add a few of my D&D figures as the characters- wizards and various heroes- and we are good to go. 

Craig 

More KoW

I've been budy with real life etc but have done the odd bit of gaming related stuff.

One thing that I ahve recntly done is a bit of work on my siegebreakers. 

These are the main change. I painted these GW metal minotaurs up in 1999 and they have hardly been used since but ahve added them to my ogre army as a third horde of siegebreakers. they are painted using different colours and techniques and don't fit exactly with my other sigebreakers but don't want to repaint them...

So I have drybrsuehd lighter brown tones on my plastic siegebreakers so they are a bit lighter in colour, not quite the same but closer than they did look a few days ago. 

Altohuhg i've not done much on the modelling front I ahve managed ot ahve a few games and I have started to do video reports which I upload onto on my youtbe channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC646bOCVqWQjpKUJmPFEAQg.

The lastest reports are: 

Cheers 

Craig 

A Couple more games

 Last Saturday I took my ogres for a spin, back to back games. First vs Josh's goblins then a second vs Gordon's undead. 

I've tried a new way of doing my gaming reports. 

And Game two: Vs Gordon's undead. 

Craig 

KoW: Ogres vs Undead

 i had another game vs Gordon's undead on Monday. He's tweaked his list slightly, dropping the very effective balefire catapults for some cavalry. 

I too have been tweaking my list, this time trying out a troop of boomer chariots and a regiment of regular chariots and also adding back in the shooters for some board conttrol (a suggestion of Gordon's. 

We rolled up Control, which means you get points at the end of the game for the number of table quadrants your control, with a small army like mine this could be a challenge. 

Gordon won the dice roll to see who went first and decided to  take the first turn. 

I decided to try to defend 2/3rds of the table- thanks to Godon ponting out I always try to deploy central and defend both flanks. This time the aim was to secure one flank and push though the centre. I decided to avoid the wood on the right, manly as I knew the werewolves would race round the tower and flank me, and htat was one of my main aims to try to deal with the superfast flanking force that is the werewolves. 

The skeletons assemble. Not the greatest troops in the game but they have proved to be quite good at holding up and allowing other troops to get flank attacks. 

Turn 1 the undead shuffle forward in an almost continous line. 

The ghouls take the high ground. 

On my turn I pivot towards the threat on my right flank. As I suspected the werewolves race round the tower. 

Turn 2 the undead continue their advance. Gordon amde a mistake here in that the horde of skeletons behnd te hill proved to be in my side arc and allowed me to focus fire and wipe them out. 

In my turn the boomer chariot troop and a regiment of boomers advance onto the hill to get line of sight on the skelton horde.

Another shot. 

The skeletons are no more. 

Gordon responds swiftly, surging skeletons into the boomer chariots

The boomer chariots are destroyed but the boomer regiment holds. The shooters and nom Nom turn to face the werewolf threat. 

In the distance Manny takes on the ghouls. 

skeleton hordes surge into the warrior chariots. 

The game has see-sawed back and forward and still lies in the balance. Both siege breakers ahve been forced the turn and face the werewolf menace- 480 pts vs 200 odd is not efficient use of points!

However we are running out of turns so one siege breakers turns back to try and get across the table.

The charitos ahve proved quite resilient, well until the zombie trolls join the fray. 

Gordon is massing too much unit strigngth in my central area. 

Manny has dealt with the ghouls and the ghoul ghast has also been seen off. 

I am outnumbered. 

Gordon's turn 6. Finally the werewolves are committed, aided by Lykanis and a regiment of skeletons...

The siege breakers are destroyed. 

On my turn 6 I avoid combat and claim 4 table sections vs 2, and then roll and there is no turn 7 so sneak a win in really close entertaining game. If there was a turn 7 I was screwed though!

I really enjoyed this one we both had our chances and it went right down to the wire. 

Good game Gordon

Craig