KoW: Abyssal Dwarf Army

 I’ve just “finished” my Abyssal Dwarf army for KoW mainly using Lost Kingdoms and Avatars of War miniatures.

My theme is an unholy alliance of Chaos Dwarfs and demonic allies/overseers. Avatars of War do some nice demon minis so I got some of the larger ones printed at twice the size to make suitable Abyssal Grotesques- I wanted my height 4 hordes to look height 4! Actually they ended up a little too big so could only comfortably fit 3 minis per base.

Demonlord (winged halfbreed), Hellfane, Grotesque Champ & 2 hordes of grotesques

The army consists of:

2 regiments or 1x horde of decimators

2x regiments or 1x horde of blacksouls or Immortal Guard

2 troops of Blacksouls or Immortal guard

2x troops of mastiffs

2x troops of gargoyles

2x regiments of Abyssal halfbreeds

2x hordes of Abyssal Grotesques

12x Halfbreed champs

1x grotesque champ (onwe more to opaint up)

2x Hexcasters/ Overseers

1x Hellfane (demon)

1x Overseer/overcaster on winged halfbreed (demon lord)

Craig

KoW- Orcs vs Kingdoms of Men

 I popped up to Timaru today and had a game of Kings of War vs my old gaming mate Nigel. Nigel hasn’t played since Onslaught IV in 2023 and was using the force he ran then, so no upgrades from the last couple of years of rules/army list churn. Nigel’s army is beautifully painted by Tony Rippin and has am awesome samurai/ Japanese inspired theme. It is truly breathtaking the detail that Tony has brought out in the miniatures and my army felt decidedly shabby lined up against it (which for orcs isn’t such a bad thing)

His list had roughly:

• 2x foot guard regiments
• 1x Pike horde
• 2x regiments of rifles
• 1x Knight regiment
• 2x giants
• 1x war engine
• 2x assassins
• 1x wizard
• 1x captain
• 1x general  

 

I faced him with 2000pts of my newly finished orcs.

• 1x longax horde with blessing of the gods
•  2x greatax regiments
• 1x troll horde
• 1x giant
• 2x wardrums
• 1x Krudger
• Ulpgar the mad
• Gakamak

To keep things simple we played the invade  mission so the objective was to get more units across the enemies side of the table. 

Deployment

Humans await the orc onslaught

Orcs prepare for war. 

 I won the first turn and with no shooting the orc army surged forward to engage the Samurai.

Nigel threw a giant forward to slow down the trolls, while a combination of rifles, lightning bolt and a war engine pt 8 wounds on the gore riders.  

On the far left flank Nigel sent the footgaurd forward to flank my longax while his pikeblock also advanced. 

In my turn 2 I "closed the door" on the exposed giant with my giant and the Oni giant was destroyed. On the far right of the screen Gakamak has charged the knights, done a few wounds and so prevented them from charging next turn. While in the centre the gore riders charge the rifles and destroy a unit. 

In his turn the second giant charged my giant, rolled maximum number of attacks (+12) so had 20 attacks and did 11 wounds but my giant survived. In the background footguard have attacked the greatax. The assassin and general attack the gore riders near the last surviving rifle regiment. 

Poor Gakamak. The assassin got treble attacks and did 11 wounds before the cavalry got invovled and chpped away with another 4 wounds. The assassin then cut poor Gak's 'ead off.

Turn 4 and things are getting messy. My giant did 6 wounds on Nigel's giant. My longax reformed rather than charge the pike block. My greatax in the centre charged a character (a wizard I think), killed it but ended u half an inch short of slamming into the rifle regiment. My great ax on the right did 5 wounds on the footguard- not enough!

A stunning army! 

A slight mistake here, we forgot the pike were hindered so my longax may have survived without being wavered had we remembered. Oops!

My gore riders get lucky vs the giant when Nigel rolls snake eyes for his nervetest. 

Another close up of Nigel's gorgeous army

Turn 5- the trolls charged the pike block not trealsiing they were pikes and not spears and needed 6s to hit. They caused 2 hits then rolled a double 6 to waver the pikes! In his previous turn Nigel ahd charged the pikes back across half way to do 90 attacks vs a wardrum (lets jsut say we hand waved the dice rolling) and with a waver was now too far out of positon. 

End of trn 6- the great ax have beenw avered agaon, everything else papart from them and the trolls were dead but i had 6 unit strength on Nigel's half. Nigel had 6 US on mine and so it was a draw! 

So there we have it. Nigel's first game in 18 months, my first game with my orcs and a well deserved draw. A very entertaining game and thoroughly enjoyed it. i will try to make it up to Timaru a bit more frequently to give Nigel a game

Craig 

Orcs for Kings of War

 A wee summer project.

I have decided to replace my current orc army with one based n GW models. The initial concept was (is) to run an all mobile Gore Rider force based around 4 regiments of gore riders and some chariots but I  also want to build up my infantry forces as well to run a more balanced combined arms force.

Absolutely love the GW Boar boys models, light years ahead of the mantic gore riders, and have been happily putting together a few infantry regiments as well. I picked up some second hand orcs as well as a boar boys set and have been happily hacking arms off the old monopose 2 hand weapon orcs and adding weapons arms from the orcs boyz mob to make the figures more interesting.

I’ve never actually been a fan of the GW cartoon orcs much preferring the LoTR/Mddle Earth/D&D (1e/2e) orc aesthetics and so wanted to avoid the BAH (boring as hell) Goblin green skinned orc look. Tolkien described orcs as sallow skinned or swarthy so I’ve gone with a a sallow skin tone based on Vallejo Ochre green with a wash of GW Athonian Camoshade to give it a greenish hue which is then  highlighted with yellow ochre. I am quite happy with the way they are turning out

My plan to differentiate infantry units is as follows:

• Great ax- Two hand weapons armed orcs
• Longax: Spear armed orcs
• Ax- axe and shield armed orcs.

 The Gore Rider regiments. The boar boys are large minis and 6 fit on the base comfortably and doesn't look too spares. 

The first infantry regiments- a regiment each of Greatax and Longax. In front are two wardrums which are very importnat for the orcs in KoW to boost their nerve. The wardrum on the left is by Mantic the one of the right made out of some of the second hand mini's I bought for this project. 

A couple of characters on gores lead the gore riders.

The army so far. 

Craig

KoW- reinforcements

 I've decided to add some red goblins to my ogre army for Kings of War. I am not a fan of many of the Mantic ranges but the new goblin range is one I do like. The sprues come with options for bows, spears or hand weapons and I've used many of the spare weapons on various other figures such as Oathmark gorcs and goblins.

I tried a spitter (bow armed goblins) horde the other night and was quite pleased with its performance- not stellar but very useful. So I used the last of the goblins I had an some reinforcements from Gordon to make a horde of Sharpsticks (spears) as well. Not sure if they'll get used much in my army but now have the options to do so.

Mobile Orcs

I enjoyed playing Gordon's all mounted dwarves the toher day and thought, how could I do this? The answer? Orcs! When I started an orc army a couple of years back I had wanted to make a mainly mobile orc army but ended up making more of a typical infantry based combined arms force. But Gordon's Brock rider force got me thinking, maybe my orcs could do that style of army. So yesterday I had a bit of a rummage around in my gaming shed and found my orcs. I've added a few extra Gore Riders to finish a second troop and then painted up some Oathmark orcs to mount the chariots. 

Originally the chariots were part of my ogre army but now I've upgraded them to the boar rider models which I prefer meant I could replace the ogres with orc crew to create the orc formation.  I've just added a few Oathmark Goblins as crew, repainted the bases of the entire force in a lighter brown and finished off the last few units and a war drum on a chariot to represent Molgurk. 

Not sure how effective it will be on table but it should be a laugh, especially vs Gordon's brock rider forces.  

2300pt mobile orc army

• 4x Gore Rider regiments
• 2x Skulk outrider troops
• 1x Wardrum 
• 1x Krudger ona  gore
• 1x Krusher on a gore
• Gakamak
• Krudger on Winged Slasher

Molgurk's Mad Mob 

• 2x Gore chariot regiments
• 1x War Drum

I hope to give them a game in the next week while. 

Craig 

KoW- Ogres vs Dwarves

 A great game of KoW last night vs Gordon’s latest  list- mobile imperial dwarves. 6 regiments & 4 troops of Brock Riders, 2 lords on brocks and 2 lords on beasts. 14 drops and everything moving at 8”.

I had made some changes to my Ogres, adding a horde of splitters (I liked Nick’s spitter horde in his Goblins at GOATcon), a chariot troop and Slashy McSlashface a Goblin Slasher. The mission was push.

The game started well for the ogres with my taking off 2 troops and a regiment of Brocks in turn 2 (thanks to an ogre warrior regiment getting hits and 8 wounds to take out one troops single handedly) but the canny dwarves came back- taking out my sergeant then next turn.

In the centre the game devolved into a series of bloody melees. I managed to “win” the right flank, or so I thought, thanks to the intervention of my Boomers and in the centre a devastated bully shrugging off the wounds meant the siegebreakers were set up for an unexpected rear change on another brock regiment and the ogres were feeling confident of a long overdue victory!.

Still on the left flank the brock lord and a couple of regiments played smart clashing with the hunters and the chariot troop. In the end the brock lord abandoned the brocks to their fate and took off with a token to claim 2 VPs and threw his followers in to the fray to chaffed up any possible pursuit.

After sterling work the token carrying goblin spitters came to a messy end being charged in a swamp by 2 units of brocks- even hitting on 5s 78 attacks wasn’t going to be fun for the gobbos and they were crushed. Then on turn 6 Gordon used his last brock riding lord to chaff up a warrior horde racing to the rescue and grabbed the token formerly owned by the goblins to take the win.

Deployment

Turn 1- the dwarves advance

Ogres prepare for the onslaught

Dwarven brock rider troop crests the hill and becomes target of the goblin spitters and slasher. 

On the right the warriors advance to form a screen

The new slasher waits.

Brock riders smash into the slasher- the combat lasts a couple of rounds. 

The ogres get lucky with a snakes eyes nerve which saves the bully and seals the fate of the brock regiment. 

Using the wood for cover the ogres hold the left flank and make progress in the centre. 

The battle devolves into a number of skirmishes.

On the left flanks the brocks attack the hunters but do little damage thanks to being hindered and entangled. 

On the right the spitters face off vs two regiments. 

Things are looking gri for the spitters

Even with terrain the goblins are overwhelmed. 

They had dropped the token to prevent the dwarves taking it. 

Turn 6- the brock lord acts as chaff to slow up the ogre warrior horde. The seigebreakers have an objective and the brocklord at the bottom left is about to scurry off to safety. 

End of turn 6 the warriors advance after killing the brocklord the warriors fall just short of following through to the brock regiment. 

Result: 4-2 to the dwarves

A fun, close game and Gordon never took his eye off the ball (the scenario objectives). A damn fast dwarf army that is for sure! We will be having a rematch soon vs their Free dwarves brock riding cousins.

Well played once again Gordon