Saturday 26 November 2016

Kings of War Big Game today at the Mantic Open Day

When Mantic invited us to put on one of our big Kings of War games at the Mantic Open Day I jumped at the chance. It was a great honour to be asked to play Kings of War at the home of the game itself.

Well, today was the day, and myself and twelve other lucky souls turned up at Mantic HQ bright and early. We had access to a 16ft x 6ft table that consumed a huge amount of the space available. By far the largest single game at the open day with over 25,000 points of models on each side.

By opening time at 10:00am we had already started playing and were well into turn 1. Pretty soon the battle lines engaged and troops started to rout. On my flank however the Green Lady and a Unicorn were able to keep healing the three Tree Men I was using to hold back the tide of Jeff's Orcs and Twilight Kin. Further over to the centre Kieran's Dwarves and Ogres were dealing damage to Martin's Undead. Andy's Zulus, Salamanders and Ogres were having quite a few problems with Jonathan's Varangrrrr in the centre. Over on the right flank Ed and Gerald faced off against Justin and Brendan's Undead and Steve's Twilight Kin and Goblins. Though I kept on hearing bad reports of losses from that far flank, whenever I looked over there the battlefield still seemed to be covered generously by the forces of Good.

By 3:30pm we reached the end of turn 6. We checked the available time and decided we didn't have enough to get an extra turn in. On my flank I'd held back and was slowly pushing through the enemy, however there was a fight between my Greater Earth Elemental and Martin's Bone Giant that still had not concluded and as a result the objective was contested at game end

However further towards the centre we'd broken through the enemy lines and taken an objective, holding our own two in that area as well. On the other flank there were two more contested objectives and far, far at the other end Evil had solid control of the last.

With 3-1 in favour of Good we had won the day. Looking over my forces (Nature and Men) I could see that our victory had been relatively cheap for them, with only a handful of units having been routed.

Anyway, here are the photos and a video as well...
















Thursday 24 November 2016

Reinforcements for Lord Fauconberg's Retinue

Myself and Ed arranged a game of Lion Rampant for some time in early December. When we arrange a game I like to have something new prepared. Doing so gives me a target point for getting some painting done and it's always nice to get some new models on the table.

So with that in mind I started work on some light cavalry for my Wars of the Roses army. These I decided would be under Lord Fauconberg's banner the same as the bowmen I painted a few months ago. They are Perry plastics.

However with the Mantic Open Day coming up we have been invited to put on one of our big Kings of War games, so I thought it would be a good plan to have these ready for then as well.

Well they are ready, plus a couple of bonus items in the form of some dismounted knights and Lord Fauconberg himself.

They'll join the ranks of the armies fighting at Mantic HQ on Saturday. I think it's going to be our biggest big game yet, with over 25,000 points on each side.









Sunday 13 November 2016

Post Mill and Wealdon House




My son and daughter bought me a couple of MDF kits for Father's Day this year. With all the Hirst Arts excitement recently they've sat unmade since then. However with the Hirst Arts stuff slowing down I finally got around to completing them.

The kits were actually bought at Salute from Timeline miniatures and are their Post Mill and Wealdon House. Both are great models as they come, but I thought I'd improve them a bit.

With the Wealdon House this meant adding the roof tiles to match my other half-timbered MDF buildings. Being made of thin card roughly cut and glued on with PVA putting these on is a really simple and quick way to improve the roofs which always seem to be a weak point on MDF buildings. I also put some Hirst Arts blocks in as the firepit rather than using the piece of MDF that had been supplied with the kit.

With the Post Mill however I had bigger plans. I've motorised the sails, applied coffee stirrers to improve the outside of the mill and added canvas to the sails.

These are fairly generic medieval models so can be used in Kings of War, Frostgrave, Lion Rampant or any other medieval historical or fantasy game so will get a lot of use I'm sure.









Update:
Since making the windmill I have found a far better solution to the motorization. I have added one of these motors. Found on eBay with the title: "DC 6V 12V 8-16RPM Long Shaft Turbine Worm Gear Motor Slow Reduction Gear Box". The motor is fixed direct to the inside wall of the windmill and the shaft cut down to size.



Wednesday 9 November 2016

Marauder Giant and Green Lady

I've just finished a couple of new models for Kings of War.

The classic Marauder Giant and the considerably newer Green Lady for Mantic.

The Green Lady can be used in both my Elf and Nature army for Kings of War and the giant can be used in Ogres and Orcs.