Baby steps

Somehow it's been over a month since my last post. I've barely left the house during that time, but somehow my days feel busier than ever. This probably has something to do with the builders who are working on our garage, cutting a door through right next to the painting table, and generally covering everything in dust.

The general chaos has obviously affected my painting progress as well. I've managed to (literally) blow the dust off a few things, but really my achievements over this time have been limited.

I did finally get around to trying to tidy up the paint on the wolfybirbs, who have sat in their mostly-finished state since Cancon. I figured now I should really take their picture before hiding them in a cabinet, where they will hopefully not gather too much more dust.

Cancon 2020 Aftermath - Part 1

So after all the fuss about raging bushfires, damaging hail and the various other signs of the apocalypse that have been this Australian summer, the trip to Cancon ended up going pretty smoothly. The weather was relatively mild (especially compared to last year, which basically had me trying to play game 3 curled up the fetal position), there was little to no smoke whilst we were up there, and the long drive was uneventful. Of course Canberra was on fire the day before we arrived, and again immediately after we left. It was good of the fires to pause so we could all attend a convention and play with toy soldiers...

I survived the tournament, and somehow took over 300 photos on my phone. I'm sure I'll be able to weed my way through them to keep these posts manageable, but it seems like one game per post will be the way to go.

I posted previously about my list, but here it is again for convenience:

League of Rhordia (2000 points)

• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Halfling Archers
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Baron on Aralez
• Mammoth

(I warn you now that the Dukes on Ancient Winged Aralez are likely to be referred to as "birbs" for much of the report, as that is how we were talking about them all weekend. I can't get it out of my head. I'm sorry...)

I didn't quite get everything finished before the tournament, but my efforts the night before the event ensured the halflings were at least not obviously incomplete. That was about the best that could be hoped for. Anyway, on with the report!

Game 1 - Smoke and Mirrors

Tim Stewart - Kingdoms of Men

• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Regiment of Polearms
• Troop of Knights
• Mammoth
• Mammoth
• Giant
• General on Winged Beast
• General on Winged Beast
• Army Standard Bearer with Lute of Insatiable Darkness
• Hero on Pegasus with Indomitable Will

For once I know exactly what was in my opponent's list, because I printed it myself. And they're my models. Tim was in fact the only practice game I played with my army before the event, so it was a little funny to find ourselves matched up again in the first round.

Ah, this won't be confusing at all... Look how samey it all looks! You can see the hidden objective markers scattered all over the place. It's an interesting scenario. Each player only knows the value of the tokens that they placed on the other half of the field (they vary from 2 down to dummies with 0), and each player reveals one at the end of each turn.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 7

This is the final part of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here. You can find the first part here.

One game to go, and I was still leading the field with AG nipping at my heels. I guess that made it my tournament to lose...

Game 7: Push
Geoff Holland - Dwarfs

• Golloch's Thunder (formation)
• Golloch's Fury (Legendary Steel Behemoth)
• Steel Behemoth
• Steel Behemoth
• Earth Elemental Horde
• Earth Elemental Horde
• Greater Earth Elemental
• Berserker Brock Rider Regiment
• Sharpshooter Troop
• Ranger Regiment
• Berserker Lord on Brock
• Stone Priest with Martyr's Prayer

That's about 50 points short, so I've missed something again. But the important stuff is there, right? 3 Steel Behemoths, and a total of 6 units with Defence 6! It was a wall of steel and stone. I had seen this army sitting on a table and the thought of facing it had worried me a bit. Now we would get to see if those concerns were warranted.

At the start of the game we had to select a single enemy unit to be worth double attrition points. I chose the Brock Riders, and Geoff picked the Winged Beast over on my right.

I was on the same table as before, and Geoff put me on the same side as well. And I was playing Dwarfs again. So there was an element of deja vu here. But Geoff's list was very different from John's, and seemed a whole lot more likely to be pushing at me. He also stacked a lot of weight on my left flank.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 6

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

So I had finally lost a game, but with 2 games to go I was still a single point ahead of AG at the top of the field. I could yet emerge victorious overall!

Game 6: Control (2250pts)
John Healy - Dwarfs

• Ironclad Horde with Aegis of the Elohi
• Ironguard Regiment
• Ironguard Regiment
• Earth Elemental Horde
• Greater Earth Elemental
• Berserker Brock Rider Regiment with Brew of Strength
• Herneas
• Herneas' Ranger Regiment
• Rordin the Dwarf
• Ironbelcher Organ Gun
• Ironbelcher Organ Gun
• Flame Belcher
• Stone Priest (I presume he had Bane-chant)
• Battle Driller
• Battle Driller
• Mastiff Hunting Pack
• Mastiff Hunting Pack

I think that's about right, but once again I've missed about 35 points of items somewhere.

John had a lot of deployments, so I couldn't really control what would end up facing the Organ Guns (which scare me). I had a relatively token force on the right of the building, which was effectively dividing more forces.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 5

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

At the start of the second day, I was somehow undefeated after 4 games. However, I now finally ran into AG, who I don't believe I have ever beaten at Kings of War. Perhaps my reign of terror was finally at an end...

We were up to the largest army size for the remaining 3 games. My list didn't change a whole lot from the previous one; I added another Beast of War and a couple of magic items on my Winged Beasts.

Game 5: Kill (2250pts)
Andrew Goodman - Abyssal Dwarfs

• Abyssal Grotesque Horde with Potion of the Caterpillar
• Abyssal Grotesque Horde
• Abyssal Grotesque Horde
• Gargoyle Troop
• Gargoyle Troop
• Gargoyle Troop
• Ba'su'su the Vile
• Dravak Dalken
• Infernok
• Greater Obsidian Golem
• Abyssal Grotesque Champion with Inspiring Talisman
• Angkor Heavy Mortar
• Angkor Heavy Mortar
• Angkor Heavy Mortar

For once I think I might have the list exactly right. Helps when there are so few items. Ba'su'su again... I do dislike him.

AG's deployment was pretty compact. An advantage he would have in this game was that he had fewer unwieldy units. I had plenty of compact elements in my many many monsters, but the size of the Pole-arm hordes makes it harder to concentrate force where you need it.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 4

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

3 wins in 3 games. You wouldn't dare dream of it. I had come unstuck against Matt before however, so maybe my run of glory was at an end.

Game 4: Dominate (1995pts)
Matt Sellick - Elves

• Archer Horde with Heart-seeking Chant
• Therennian Sea Guard Horde with Brew of Sharpness
• Drakon Rider Horde with Chant of Hate
• Awoken Guardians
• Tree Herder with Healing Brew, Blizzard
• Tree Herder with Blood Boil
• Green Lady with Sabre-Toothed Pussycat
• Elven Prince on Horse with Sabre-Toothed Pussycat

Dominate. Nice and simple. It couldn't be too hard to move a pair of Tree Herders off the centre, right?

Matt's army actually looked pretty small. Sure, there was some good stuff there, but that's a pretty compact deployment.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 3

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

Somehow I was undefeated after 2 games, and it was now time to shift to our larger 1995 point army lists. This was the point where I kind of wished I wasn't packing away my Arquebusiers, but I was pulling a lot of monsters out of the box instead. So it was a matter of give-and-take.

Game 3: Ransack (1995pts)

Huw Evans - Ratkin

• Warrior Horde
• Warrior Regiment
• Warrior Regiment
• Enforcer on Fleabag with Diadem of Dragon-kind
• Lab Rats (Formation)
• Horde of Blight with Brew of Strength
• Horde of Shock Troops of Potion of the Caterpillar (I think)
• Troop of Clawshots
• Troop of Hackpaws
• Horde of Tunnel Runners
• Death Engine with Bloody Carnage
• Warlock with Critter's Call, Bane-chant, Amulet of the Fire-heart (I think...)
• Night Terror with Inspiring Talisman
• Swarm-crier

Again, this falls well short of the 1995 point limit. I've missed a few things. I'm so good at this. Hey, I've never fought Ratkin before, OK? This is all new to me.

Actually, I think I missed a character. Maybe a War Chief with 2 hand weapons? Could be a thing.

Ransack meant we scattered a number of control counters all around the field. The central (light grey) point was worth 3 points instead of 1, and the orange ones (both of which were slightly to my right) were worth 2. The dark green were just worth 1 each.

Huw stacked most of his speed over here, on my left flank. The Rat Ogre dude is the Night Terror (apparently the dude on top is his Inspiring Talisman). The wheels are the Tunnel Runners. The Lab Rats formation meant all the regular Warrior units (the 2 regiments you see here and the horde up the other end) all had Regeneration.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 2

This is a continuation of my tournament report of Convic. You can find the previous part here.

So I had narrowly escaped with a win in the first game. This was an unusually positive start for a KoW tournament by my standards. Probably meant I was heading for a fall...

Game 2: Loot (1495pts)

Yan Lai - Empire of Dust

• Revenant Horde
• Mummy Regiment
• Mummy Regiment
• Revenant Chariot Regiment
• Revenant Chariot Regiment
• Scavenger Regiment
• Scorpion Husk
• Bone Giant
• Cursed High Priest on Mount with Blizzard
• Revenant Champion on Mount

I really should take a photo of people's army lists before each game. I can never remember the details in terms of items. I'm missing 35 points here somewhere.
EDIT: Thanks to Yan's feedback we now know the Revenant Horde had Brew of Strength and the Revenant Champion had the Blade of Slashing. Thanks Yan!

During setup we established that the last time I had played Yan was at Axemaster. It was Warhammer 7th edition. So probably over 10 years ago. The people you run into...

There were more loot tokens over on the right, so I naturally loaded that flank a bit more. I might have underdone it on the left, really. Oh well, can't be everywhere. 2 tokens is enough for a win.

Convic 2019 Aftermath - Part 1

So after more or less being in a state of hobby hibernation since Cancon, over the weekend I awoke from my slumber to attend Convic. Convic is one of the few 2-day tournaments left on the calendar, and I've been attending it nearly every year since it began as a Warhammer Fantasy tournament something like 15 years ago. The local Kings of War scene seems to struggle with multi-day events at present (with the notable exception of Cancon), and thanks to a number of factors, this year only saw a dozen or so players attend. This led to a very relaxed, community-style atmosphere that was really rather nice. It meant that with 7 games to play, you were more likely to play a given person than not, which was really rather funny - almost like a round-robin.

I had a bit of trouble coming up with lists for the event. I say "lists", plural, because Convic has an unusual format of 3 different sized armies - the games grow as you go along. This year the game sizes were 1495, 1995 and 2250 points.The multiple list format was not really what troubled me - I was just struggling to work out what army I wanted to use. I was mostly trying to stay away from armies I've used in previous events, in particular Ogres (which I have used twice at previous Convics). Whilst that still left me with a few options, the most likely were Dwarfs or Kingdoms of Men.

I'm still hesitant to use Dwarfs when I haven't gotten around to painting any Brock Riders, and a few of my units are under-sized which limits my options. On the other hand, friends were a little scathing of how bland KoM are, and it's hard to justify using them when you can field much the same stuff in League of Rhordia, but with more toys. But I have used Rhordia a couple of times, and really wanted to make a KoM list that would be worth running. I toyed briefly with nonsense like massed infantry flooding the field, but in the end the thing that caught my attention was the Beast of War. It had very solid stats, could add some moderate shooting in the form of a ballista on its back, and was something Rhordia didn't have access to. I decided to field plenty of Beasts of War, and went from there.

These were my lists:

1495

• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• Arquebusier Horde with Jar of the Four Winds
• General on Winged Beast with Blade of Slashing
• Wizard on Horse with Lightning Bolt, Bane-Chant and the Inspiring Talisman
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Giant

1995

• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• General on Winged Beast
• General on Winged Beast
• Wizard on Horse with Lightning Bolt, Bane-Chant and the Inspiring Talisman
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Giant
• Giant

2250

• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Horde
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• Pole-Arms Block Regiment
• General on Winged Beast with Blade of Slashing
• General on Winged Beast with Diadem of Dragon-Kind
• Wizard on Horse with Lightning Bolt, Bane-Chant and the Inspiring Talisman
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Beast of War with light ballista
• Giant
• Giant

No, the lists are not very imaginative. And it's slightly bizarre having more effective shooting in my 1495 list than the 2250 one. As soon as I was putting the Arquebusiers back into the box, I was wondering if I had done the right thing. Ah well, at least I had monsters!

I took plenty of photos during the event, although the first 3 games were a big of a juggling act given I was also using my phone as a chess timer. Hopefully the pictures will help tell the story.

Game 1: Invade (1495pts)

Tim Stewart - Orcs

• Ax Horde
• Ax Horde
• Morax Regiment
• Gore Rider Regiment
• Krudger on Ancient Winged Slasher
• Godspeaker on Gore with Bane-Chant, Inspiring Talisman
• Giant
• War Drum

Tim and I arranged a grudge match at the very last minute, because he hasn't played many games of KoW. He was still feeling a little shaky on the rules and was concerned he would instinctively revert to things like Warhammer movement. We decided playing the first game against someone who could watch for it and remind him might be helpful. As it happened, it really didn't come up. He seemed to have his head around things pretty well.

The tables were smaller for the smaller games (4 feet wide at 1495, 5 feet at 1995 and the full 6 feet for 2250). This meant even at the smaller size, the field looked pretty full.

KoW Battle Report - Ogres vs Kingdoms of Men

After my flurry of posts following Convic, there has been a long period of silence here on the blog. This is partly because I was overseas for a period, but it's mainly because I'm a lazy blogger...

In the meantime my hobby activity has been limited to a couple of games of Kings of War with Tim, who basically hadn't played the game properly before. Both games were with my Kingdoms of Men and Ogres. The first time I used the Ogres, and I lost. The second time I used the Men, and this time I actually took photos. I figured I might as well share them here. Let's see if I can remember what happened based on these pictures...

The first game we had used pretty normal sized lists. This time we had more models with us so we decided to up the game size to 3000 points. More toys for us!

My list: Kingdoms of Men (3000 points)

• Horde of Foot Guard with 2-handed weapons and Blessing of the Gods
• Horde of Heavy Pike with Brew of Strength
• Horde of Heavy Pike with Hammer of Measured Force
• Legion of Militia with Brew of Sharpness
• Legion of Militia with Banner of the Griffon
• Horde of Berserkers
• Horde of Arquebusiers with Jar of the Four Winds
• Regiment of Knights with Potion of the Caterpillar
• Regiment of Knights with Brew of Haste
• Troop of Mounted Scouts with Pistols
• Troop of Mounted Scouts with Carbines
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• General on a Horse with Blade of Slashing
• General on a Horse with Mace of Crushing
• Army Standard Bearer on a Horse with Lute of Insatiable Darkness
• Wizard on a Horse with Bane-Chant and the Inspiring Talisman

Tim's list: Ogres (3000 points)

• Horde of Warriors
• Horde of Warriors
• Horde of Siegebreakers with Brew of Haste
• Horde of Siegebreakers with Blade of Slashing
• Horde of Shooters
• Horde of Boomers with Blessing of the Gods
• Horde of Red Goblins
• Regiment of Red Goblins
• Troop of Red Goblin Scouts
• Troop of Red Goblin Scouts
• Warlord on a Chariot with Dwarven Ale
• Warlord on a Chariot
• Boomer Sergeant with the Inspiring Talisman
• Grokagamok
• Mammoth with Ballista
• Giant

Given that I didn't have the Clash of Kings 2018 book on hand, we chose a scenario from the CoK 2017 book. It was Capture or something, where you had to control all the terrain pieces at the end of the game. Given the size of our hills, we decided to ignore those. So the fight was to control the walls, buildings and forests.

<EDIT: I've just noticed that Blogger seems to be locking down images do you can't click to make them bigger when I use captions. I'm moving the caption text outside the images for now. Can't be bothered digging at code to find another way around it now>

All lined up.

Convic 2018 Aftermath - Part 5

This is a continuation of my report of the recent Kings of War tournament at Convic 2018. You can find the previous part here.

Game 5 (2150 points) - Eliminate
Tony Lee - Kingdoms of Men

• Legion of Militia with Hammer of Measured Force
• Legion of Militia
• Horde of Foot Guard with two-handed weapons
• Horde of Foot Guard with two-handed weapons
• Horde of Knights with Potion of the Caterpillar
• Regiment of Knights
• Beast of War
• General on Winged Beast
• Wizard with Bane-chant
• Army Standard Bearer
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery

After a rather questionable performance on day 1, I was back for day 2 with a larger army. Maybe this 2150 point list would perform better than my 1750 point one... My army was pretty similar to what I had in that smaller list, but with a Giant and a Boomer horde.

My first opponent on day 2 was Tony, whom I had played in the final round of Cancon. This time he had a normal Kingdoms of Men list instead of the historical Conquistadors he had confused me with previously. Couldn't help but feel he would have a better chance with what he had brought this time.

The scenario was Eliminate, which means you get a point for destroying each of your opponent's 3 most expensive units. You get 2 points if you destroy the unit in combat. My targets were the horde of Knights and the 2 hordes of Foot Guard. For my part, I needed to protect the Boomers and the 2 hordes of Siegebreakers.

Wow, I actually got a photo before things had started to move. I didn't really like my chances of getting to the artillery in this game. It was a pretty solid wall of infantry between me and them. Hopefully the artillery would just miss all game. That's what I'd expect mine to do...

General update

Sorry for the lack of campaign updates. I seem to be a bit busy at the moment. I still have several games to catch up on, and one more game to organise. I'll get there in the end, I promise...

In general hobby terms, I have been slightly lacking focus again. I started working on some MOM Miniaturas Dwarves that I have been looking forward to tackling, but then shifting priorities mean that I have altered course again. I will have to come back to the Dwarves.

The almost-finished prototype is shown at the front on the right. They will have the same colour scheme as my old Marauder Ironbreakers. And the Siegebreaker Ogres, when they're done too.

Empire Swordsmen with special round Ostland bull-head shields. I hope to get 40 of these done in a couple of waves.

On the weekend I also managed to play another game of Kings of War. I had a camera with me, so took a few pictures. Some of them came out OK. But the game ended up a bit of a blow-out, so I thought I would just share a few shots here and be done with it. Busy busy busy, don't you know.

Lining up against Ben's Undead. Having not really done it before, I thought I would try a shooting-heavy list just to see how it performed, and then of course we rolled up a scenario where you have to move. An obvious flaw with this plan.

Cancon 2016 KoW Aftermath - Part 3

This is the final part of my tournament account. You can find the previous part here.

Game 5: Loot!
Lockjaw, Kingdoms of Men

• Berserker Horde - Pathfinder
• Berserker Horde - Fire Oil
• Berserker Regiment
• Berserker Regiment
• Beast of War - Ballista
• Beast of War - Ballista
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Ogre Shooter Horde - +1 to hit
• Wizard on Pegasus - Inspiring
• Wizard on Pegasus
• Wizard on Pegasus
• Army Standard on Horse - Boomstick

Coming into this game I was on 2 wins and 2 losses. I'm afraid at this point my photo-taking broke down entirely. I was aware of having already failed at it in my previous games, so I decided to give up and focus on playing my games instead. I've patched together something approximating the battlefield so you can get a handle on what I'm talking about, but from now on you're on your own. Best of luck to you...

This was the table and deployment. More or less. The little compasses are the loot markers.

Painting Heavy Pike Ogres

Well in my last post My Republican Guard Ogres were assembled. Now they are painted! Hooray for progress! 

3 very heavily armoured Ogres, ready to go poke something with their long, pointy sticks.

As is always the case for things that I've sculpted myself, these guys didn't take long to paint. There is a certain lack of detail that helps speed things up. If they all had hourglasses and fish and dead cats hanging from their belts, it would take a lot longer (even if they might look fancier at the end). Simple is good. Simple is fast.

This guy was the first I constructed, and probably still my favourite.

Making Heavy Pike Ogres

In my previous post I showed 21 completed Ricco's Republican Guard models and stated my intentions to fill the unit out to a horde of 40 including 3 Ogre fillers. I've been quiet for a while on the blog, but I've actually been working on these silly Ogre pikemen every chance I could find. Progress has been slow.

My main problem is that I seem to be getting a bit pickier as I go with these Ogres. I already had moulds for the arms, legs and torso of an Ogre in heavy armour. The detailing didn't really match the Republican Guard, but I don't think that would have bothered me in the past. Apparently it bothered me this time though, because I set about modifying various components to get them to tie in better with their little friends. Here are some photos showing my efforts.

Making new heads and feathers.

Painting Pikemen

I stated in my last post that I was intending to work on my regiment of Ricco's Republican Guard, and I actually seem to be following through on it. This is relatively novel, as my last few months have been full of stalled efforts to pick a project and try to build up some momentum with it. I think this time I will actually be able to push through to my goal.

I've finished painting the first wave of 21. That leaves 7 more models and 3 Ogre fillers (which don't exist yet) to push the unit up to KoW horde size (ie 40 models). That's my current goal, despite the fact that I will have a number of models left over at the end. Given that they need work to sort out their incorrect and/or missing pike situation and 40 is a reasonable footprint in Warhammer too, it might be a while before I get onto doing anything with the remaining models. Let's not be picky. At least I'm making progress!

21 Ricco's Republican Guard, or if you speak KoW, 21 Heavy Pike. I thought these guys would be really fast to paint because they're pretty much fully encased in plate armour. But there is still enough feather, leather and cloth to slow me down more than I would have liked.

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.

Kings of War up-sized

The weekend saw my first game of Kings of War using anything other than 2000 point armies. Pete and I decided to increase the size a bit and see how it played. We went for 6000 points, based on what we thought we could do with the Undead we had on hand. I matched it with Kingdoms of Men, keeping the list fairly light on for magic items in an effort to keep things simple and to get more models on the table. In the end it turned out that 6000 was pretty close to the limit of what the Undead could muster, and so the list wound up a bit more character-heavy and loaded with magic items than my list. This may have contributed to how the game went - who knows?

Kingdoms of Men

• Horde of Knights (Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar)
• Horde of Knights (Brew of Strength)
• Horde of Knights
• Horde of Knights
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Pole-Arms Block
• Horde of Shield Wall
• Horde of Pike Block
• Horde of Foot Guard (2 handed weapons)
• Horde of Foot Guard (2 handed weapons)
• Horde of Arquebusiers (Brew of Keen-eyeness)
• Horde of Arquebusiers (Jar of the Four Winds)
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Regiment of Pole-Arms Block
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Pistols)
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Pistols)
• Troop of Mounted Scouts (Carbines)
• Troop of Crossbowmen
• Troop of Crossbowmen
• Cannon
• Cannon
• Cannon
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Siege Artillery
• Beast of War (Light Ballista)
• General on Winged Beast (Medallion of Life)
• General on Winged Beast (Ensorcelled Armour)
• Hero on Pegasus (Diadem of Dragon-kind)
• Army Standard Bearer on Horse
• Wizard on Horse (Bane Chant)
• Wizard on Horse (Bane Chant)
• Wizard (Heal, Bane Chant)
• Wizard (Heal, Bane Chant)
• General on Horse
• General on Horse
• Army Standard Bearer

Undead

• Vampire on Dragon (Ensorcelled Armour)
• Vampire Lord (Wings of Honeymaize)
• Vampire Lord (Blade of Slashing)
• Vampire on Pegasus (The Fog)
• Liche King (Bane Chant, Lightning Bolt, Amulet of the Fire-heart)
• Liche King (Bane Chant, Lightning Bolt, Mreb's Grimoire)
• Necromancer (Bane Chant)
• Necromancer (Bane Chant)
• Revenant King
• Revenant King
• King on Winged Wyrm (Medallion of Life)
• Lykanis
• Legion of Zombies (Undead Rats/Dogs, Brew of Sharpness)
• Legion of Zombies (Undead Rats/Dogs, Crystal Pendant of Retribution)
• Horde of Revenants (Undead Rats/Dogs, Brew of Strength)
• Horde of Revenants (Undead Rats/Dogs, Blessing of the Gods)
• Horde of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Horde of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Horde of Werewolves (Dwarvern Ale)
• Horde of Ghouls
• Horde of Ghouls
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry (Potion of the Caterpillar)
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry
• Regiment of Revenant Cavalry
• Regiment of Skeletons (Undead Rats/Dogs)
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Wraiths
• Regiment of Ghouls
• Troop of Soul Reaver Cavalry (Chant of Hate)
• Troop of Ghouls
• Troop of Ghouls

I'm not going to bother with a proper battle report here. I'll just include some photos and describe what happened in the captions.

A view down the table. We went for a simple 12x4 playing surface as the consensus was that playing on a deeper table wouldn't achieve much for this first try. Might mix thing sup a bit next time.

Hobby Update

I've been a bit quiet recently, but I've been working away on the hobby side of things. This will be a bit of a general update on what's been happening.

Working out how some of my armies need to adapt for Kings of War has been an interesting process. Some of my armies are really not where I would want them to be - for instance my Dwarfs, who simply don't have the right unit sizes in the right places, and currently have no models to use for Brock Riders or Earth Elementals. Clearly they need some work, but I've already earmarked them for attention during Duelling Paintbrushes, so I guess steps are already being taken there. 

My Orcs, Elves and Empire are in better shape, thanks mainly to the size of the armies. They cover most potential short-comings through sheer weight of numbers. There are still things that need to be addressed, however. The main problem for my Empire is the Horde unit size for missile troops. I didn't have a single coherent regiment of 40 Crossbowmen, Handgunners or Archers. This is not really surprising, given it's a completely impractical unit in Warhammer. Too many of the models in such a unit wouldn't get to shoot. Anyway, it's an option I now want. So I set about increasing one of my Handgunner units to a 10x4 formation.

40 Handgunners, complete with a 15-man unit filler.