On the workbench.....

After the last KoW battle it was felt - by me, no one else mentioned it that the Kingdoms of Men need a bit more Grrrrrr. So I rummaged through the lead pile to get the reinforcements at least to the ready yo paint stage.

We have another elephant (beast of war) - got to sort the crew and light ballista out. 

Adding to the fire power will be this very old Orc War Machine (TA4) with its human crew! Hand to be done. 

Will also paint up the old Orc crew - and dual purpose it!

The an army standard bearer and the Captain both mounted - from the foundry King Arthur pack!

Printed colour on the flag to save some time. 

Managed to paint (still to base) the 12 figure Saxon/Viking unit for SAGA - also works for KoW. 

I think another colour (black?) stripe or something on the shield might be good. But I am waiting to sort the Saxons shields out - thinking green or blue background with a red or white cross. I'm planning a similar shield/colouring thing as I did for the Vikings. 

The Hobgoblins/Orcs can't miss out so a regiment of "gore" riders

Nice old Nick Lund grenadier/chronicle sculpts - black orcs (planning a purple skin colour!)

And a war machine of their own - which in KoW will be classed a goblin unit!

I was planning to do some undead but got side tracked.....

Morts

Kings of War - 4 way battle ....

Steedo, Snake-eyes and Sylon came around for a game of Kings of War. I pointed out about 1100 points of elves, men and 2 lots of hobgoblins. The armies were randomly allocated and everyone could pick another 150 points of abilities/artifacts to personalise their force. 

The down side of this was that we started over an hour later than planned. 

The sides were Snake-eyes and Sylon (Men and Elves respectively) versus Morts (Hobgoblins with Wyvern, giant and some skeletons) and Steedo (Hobgoblins and Ogres). 

We rolled for the scenario - we got Dominate. 

Initial deployments - slightly out of focus. The hobgoblins advanced - making sure the Wyvern was out of missile range. 

Steedo stealing Snake-eyes Thunder! After an attack on the elephant (beast of war). 

The hobgoblins continue their advance. 

The beast of war forces the ogres to waver. The skeletons fail to hit the gladestalkers. 

Cunning manoeuvring catches the elven Knights in a horrible and fatal melee with a frost giant and the Wyvern. The wolf riders in the background forgot to fire twice in the game - they died having done nothing but provide target practice for the elven archers. 

Above the hobgoblin horde on the other side of the battlefield have just despatched the human Knights  (they had already taken out a human spear phalanx). The shieldwall horde in the background was going to suffer). 

If I recall correctly it was at this point Sylon tried to force a hit on the Ogres - 15 dice were rolled needing a 5 or 6 and not a single hit was made. It sort of summed up the forces of good evening. 

Back to the other side and the elven archers have been destroyed by the Wyvern!

The final positions - well what was left of the combined elven and human armies - a massive victory for the forces of evil!

The game was actually pretty tight at the start with the Sylon and Snake-eyes having the best of the first couple of turns. In retrospect the sides should have been different with Steedo and I being the more experienced players on opposite sides. 

Having played a few games of KoW the elves are yet to win a game - so more advice on bane-chants and useful artifacts would have helped the army. 

Flying is really powerful so I might look at the unofficial/tournament rules which mean disordered flyers can't fly, so like no shooting or thunderous charge if disordered.

Inspiring is very useful - saved the Ogres!

The skellies were a lot of use - need more of them - Steedo get you painting on!

Hopefully the newbies are put off and we can get another game in soon. A list of available units would be useful. KoW is a really good social and fun game - I'm getting vfm out of it!

After KoW we had a cheese break - thank you guys for bringing so much, we need to organise the etiquette of food games evenings. We then had a game of Tammany Hall an interesting game based on mayoral elections in late 19th century New York. Snake-eyes took an early lead over the first 2 elections, them I managed to get level with him by the 3rd election (Steedo had taken to strategy of stopping Snake-eyes win). The final election saw Sylon come from nowhere to be mayor and almost get surprise win - however Snake-eyes and myself were tied on points, but the victory when to Snake-eyes on some technicality after he studied the rules for sometime......

Battlefields - bargains to be had!

About 8 years ago I embarked on a battlefield building project - courtesy of a supplier to DK who provided me with 5 pieces of foam 45cm by 120cm. Using gaffer tape and GW paper backed grass I attached 2 boards together (twice) - this gives me 2 3ft by 4ft boards ideal for 15mm Maurice or DBA/HotT and skirmish games and with the cunning use of Velcro a single 4ft by 6ft as shown below.

On the whole I am happy with this - not as happy as I could be but it does the job!

There Aldi sold this for the princely sum of £6.99 for 1m by 2m!

This is a nice surface and is easier to move and store than the boards - but as the table is only 3ft wide I can't trust the gaming team not to place models on the mat without the table beneath.....

Now thinking about cutting it in half for small games or leaving it for visits the club ....

Morts

Beast of War - done!

Managed to finish off the Nellie!

Overall a good job - few things I would change for next time. 

Want to get the humans to the table soon .... Might do a 1200/1500 point game to see how it plays!

Might have to get a flying thing!

Morts

Beast of War - nearly done.

Well in the background with all the other stuff I've been doing I have slowly been working on a Beast of War for my Kingdoms of Men Kings of War army.

The painting is now done - so next stages are varnish and glue together.

The beast itself is an old Essex minis Macedonian Successor elephant (a refugee from the Lord of the Rings Haradrim army - who were sold at Legionary on Saturday) with crew converted from figures like the one on the left - had to replace heads and right arms used on the cavalry conversions. 

The ballista on the right is a press mould and scratch build. 

I am not totally happy with the legs on the driver so will change my method if I do the other elephant and I should probably do the star design on the shields on the howdah. 

Morts

Been a bit busy .......

Well I have been a bust over the last few weeks - got a new job to star in September. Will have to see how that impacts on gaming and painting etc.

Managed a game of Risk Legacy a week or so back with the team - Steedo managed to win after I pointed him away from attacking me - I was about to go for the big offensive - and onto a he short cut to him victory! Aaaghhhh!

Saturday got to go to Legionary - still at the Matford Centre. But it wasn't raining this year. Have a game of Lord of the Rings Dragon Rampant - nice tense scenario - fellowship trying to get across Moria. Nearly got there but lost to a 9 year old! Showed the flexibility of the Rampant system.  Sold some stuff on the bring and buy ..... But came back with nothing! I was shocked, but there was just nothing that I "needed" - although do you need any stuff for gaming? Discuss.

Got to see Captain America Civil War last night - it impressively passed the "numb bum" test in the local flee pit - a recommended Marvel film. I think the Captain America films (and Thor) are the best I have seen in the Marvel universe. I liked Ant-man so will look out for it on Netflix and the new Spider-Man was good to see. I am interested to see how (general) now secretary Ross pans out in the wider Marvel universe - he a bad man! Things which annoyed me were the running chase scene - some of the fx were meh! And the Capt couldn't keep up? Also the random movement around European cities  in seconds didn't match my understanding of time and distance. But overall a good film with some nice plots and twists. 

Morts