Twirling!

"As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball; but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling..."

Right now I feel like I have been taking slightly too much of my advice from Kang. Sure, it sounds like a good motivational speech (in places), but I'm not sure it really points towards progress...

Anyway, I have been making some limited progress in certain directions. I just don't feel like I have much to show for it right now. I think I am still in the twirling stages. I continue to hope that at some point I will settle on something and have a little more focus in my efforts.

Somewhere under there is a work space. Truly.

Recently I bought more movement trays from Shogun Miniatures. This is the third time I've ordered from them, and I will surely not need any more. I've now got over 200 steel trays of all shapes and sizes. The difference with this latest order is that all 50 of the trays I got are for Kings of War formations. Far too many of the ones I got previously were to accommodate the various shapes of regiment you might field in Warhammer, and most of them are not really helpful in KoW. It might take me a while to get all of these trays painted, but when I do it should be easy for me to organise and magnetise all of my stuff into the right formations so that it's much quicker to grab an army and put it on the table. At the moment I have too many hordes and regiments from different armies fighting over too few trays.

50 movement trays, capable of holding about 800 models if it's all infantry. How can I possibly have needed to order this many trays again? Sigh...

In terms of hobby progress, I have finally started to focus on something. I have been wanting to put together a horde of heavy pikemen using the old Ricco's Republican Guard models, but for all that I have enough of them, I don't have enough of the correct pike hands. This has been a bit of a headache to address, and it's been enough to stall my progress given my current lack of determination. I've finally come up with a couple of plans, but I've only just started to really put them into action. My intention now is to paint up a regiment of them, and then do the rest of the horde (including suitable Ogre fillers) in a second sweep.

Ricco's Republican Guard and pike... which does not fit. Note the absence of a second hand on the pike. This guy is one of the lucky ones. Others don't have a pike to work with at all. Brass rod will have to be employed.

A repaired model with an improvised right hand "borrowed" from a current era Empire Halberdier/Spearman. It's a little big and goofy and it's not a gauntlet, but I can get away with a couple like this. Other plans are yet to be implemented.

On the weekend I played another game of Kings of War. I went back to the Kingdoms of Men (it requires less thought at the moment given it's in better order to be put on the table). This time I mixed things up a bit and threw in some League of Rhordia allies, so that I could use some of my other Empire stuff like the Wolfygryphs and Steam Tank. This is the first time I've used allies. I can see why people would do it, especially when you can build the allied force around something as potent as a horde of Honour Guard. Those things are scary.

Owen was my opponent, and he suggested 2500 points so that he could make use of all the Dwarf stuff he has recently painted. I won't bother with a proper report, but here are some pictures of the game.

My army:
Kingdoms of Men

• General on Pegasus with Medallion of Life
• Army Standard Bearer on Horse
• Wizard on Horse with Bane-chant, Lighting Bolt
• Wizard on Horse with Bane-chant, Lighting Bolt
• Arquebusier Horde with Jar of the Four Winds
• Arquebusier Horde with Brew of Keen-eyeness
• Foot Guard Horde with Brew of Haste
• Knight Regiment with Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar
• Knight Regiment with Wine of Elvenkind
• Knight Troop
• Knight Troop

Allies: League of Rhordia

• Duke on Horse
• Honour Guard Horde with Dwarven Brew
• Halfling Iron Beast

Owen's Dwarf army:

• Dwarf King
• Dwarf King with Bangstick
• Warsmith
• Army Standard Bearer
• Stone Priest with Bane-chant, Kaba's Holy Hand Grenades
• Ironclad Horde
• Ironclad Regiment
• Ironclad Regiment
• Shieldbreaker Regiment
• Shieldbreaker Regiment
• Berserker Regiment with Blessing of the Gods
• Berserker Brock Rider Regiment with Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar
• Ironwatch Rifle Troop
• Ironwatch Rifle Troop
• Sharpshooter Troop
• Greater Earth Elemental
• Flame Belcher
• Ironbelcher Cannon
• Ironbelcher Organ Gun

I'm a little vague on the details here. No doubt the items are not quite right. But you get the idea.

2500pts, Kingdoms of Men (with Rhordia allies) against Dwarfs. Fighting for possession of the centre of the field.

Owen's forces, including newly painted Brock Riders and a Greater Earth Elemental.

My army, with Rhordian Honour Guard on the right.

The Wolfygryphs are excited to be back on the field, but their basing is not yet correct. I have a plan on how to adapt them to the correct 50x50mm bases, but this plan has not yet been put into action.

Well that shot is pretty blurry. The Steam Tank (Iron Beast) has been borrowed from the Halflings of Rhordia.

Yay, first turn. Forward!

This flank was shaping as the tricky one.

So much shooty, led by a King with the Boomstick next to the Cannon.

A look along the lines.

Evidently I didn't take any photos during Owen's first turn. He shot one of my troops of Knights to death before they got to charge.

The horde of Ironclad cops a combined charge from the Honour Guard and Iron Beast. It went badly for the Dwarfs.

The Knights dealt with the Organ Gun. The Pegasus General failed to rout the Flame Cannon, but stopped it shooting for a turn.

This one was odd. I had intended to charge around the Elemental and into the flank of the Berserkers. But then we realised that the Stone Priest was in the way, so I charged him instead... Then into the Army Standard Bearer...

... and then into the flank of the Ironclad regiment. It was quite the slingshot turn.

The Dwarf centre suddenly looks a little thin.

The Dwarf King took offence at my Knights having cleaned up all his friends, and charged in. They spent most of the game bouncing off each other, always inflicting a little damage with each charge.

The Brock Riders charged in against my Honour Guard.

The Berserkers went into the flank of the Iron Beast. Thanks to all the attacks from the flank charge and some good rolling of 6s, they did 6 damage and then managed to waver it.

With nothing in his arc of sight and no Surge left to help him, the Greater Earth Elemental was left to go interfere with my general advance.

In my turn the Honour Guard hit back at the Brock Riders, whilst my shooting took aim at the Berserkers. 18 damage does seem like a lot...

It was a lot of shooting, though.

Give him the chop!

This might be a better shot. Anyway, the Elemental couldn't take the punishment and routed.

Blurry action shot of the Knights pressing on to clean up the forces on the hill. The Cannon was next on their list, apparently.

The Dwarf forces are thinning further in the centre. The Pegasus spent 2 or 3 turns wavering thanks to shooting from the nearby Ironwatch Rifles and the Flame Cannon.

Somewhat surprisingly, the Brock Riders cleaned up the Honour Guard on the second attempt. I really expected them to take more punishment than that.

The hill became a mess, thanks largely to a couple of characters - the King with the Bangstick (who gave up on the lightning and started cracking heads in combat to knock off Thunderous Charge bonuses) and the Warsmith seen here flanking the larger Knight unit. There was wavering and all sorts of nonsense going on.

This guy was made of stern stuff. I mean really, who puts a King up with the war machines and missile troops??

My Foot Guard had made short work of the (admittedly already damaged) Earth Elemental, and went on to deal with the Rifles.

The Iron Beast "handled" the Brock Rider problem with the judicious application of brute force.

My Rhordian Duke rode in to try to silence the Sharpshooters. He did 1 damage, so mission accomplished.

Rifles gone.

Brock Riders smeared to a paste. I should really have reformed to look at the pesky Dwarf King, but as you can see the damage was starting to mount up on him. How much longer could he possibly last?

The Sharpshooters sit and glare at my Duke, watched by the ghosts of their fallen comrades.

There was a regiment of Shieldbreakers that had been running toward my Arquebusiers all game. Just as they got into charge range my unit finally paid attention and fired upon them. And they simply vanished. It was all a bit easy. I guess a low defence unit with no Inspiring can be like that, but it felt insultingly dismissive.

I'm note sure these Shieldbreakers were really in a legal position to charge (from right behind the Flame Cannon), but it would have been a bit lame for them to just sit there and not participate. So in they went, trying to avenge the fallen Ironwatch Rifles. The damage was not enough, however.

See how static this corner looks? It's because we keep bouncing off each other. It was funny; one turn Owen wavered everything conceivable with some solid nerve test rolls. Then the next turn he couldn't waver anything, despite everything being closer to their nerve value. He almost wavered 6 things, every single one of them failing by a single point.

The Duke was not getting the job done. Send in the cavalry!

I think we have control of the centre covered. Mission successful.

The King is dead!

But the pesky Warsmith was still there, despite copping a charge from the Knights in the closing stages. He was an admirably stubborn Dwarf.

All in all it had been a bit one-sided. Discussions were had about shifting around some of the items and stuff in Owen's list. I think he has already formulated some more purchase plans. And one thing I took away from the game was that Flame Cannons seem a bit useless. 12" range and no piercing value built in? Far too easy for an army with units like Knights to handle, I think. I won't be hurrying to paint up mine.