Thursday 22 December 2016

Lion Rampant 3 way game

Sunday afternoon meant a game against my friend Ed. We'd had a Lion Rampant game planned for some time and I'd built up new models for my Wars of the Roses army and the medieval wagons I posted earlier so we could play the convoy mission.

However Ed brought his son, Henry, along as well and so a slight change of plan was needed. After a quick google I found that others had had some success with three player Lion Rampant. The modification needed was to sort out the turn sequence. It seemed popular to use playing cards to designate each player's turn. One for each player drawn randomly to designate the turn order then reshuffled and repeated.

The scenario would require a little more work as I still wanted to use the wagons. In the end each wagon was assigned to a player and the players had to get as many wagons as they could off the opposing side of the table from their starting position.

I also decided to put quite a few more buildings in than I normally see in a game of Lion Rampant. I have quite a collection now since I've been building up my Frostgrave city board and I fancied seeing how the game worked through more built-up terrain. We ruled that no models could go inside buildings.

Ed used his own force of Fireforge medievals whereas myself and Henry used my Perry Wars of the Roses. I picked Lord Fauconberg's retinue and that left Henry with Edward IV. I just had enough models to do 24 points of each, though Henry had no fast moving troops.

It looked like Ed would have the easiest job as he had the shortest route since he started on one of the long edges. But it was not to be. He found himself sandwiched between mine and Henry's troops and all but wiped out before I found a way around the back of Henry's forces. Unfortunately for Henry his slow army and having to move through the town meant he didn't get very far.

Eventually Henry's forces were wiped out and I captured his wagon. We ran out of time and had to rule that myself and Ed would have got the wagons we held off the table without further combat. This meant I had 4 glory from those and Ed had 2. In the end after boasts were taken into account that left myself on positive points, Ed on zero and Henry unfortunately on negative points.

We all agreed that the game had been great fun with some especially tense moments as troops fought amongst the town.












Thursday 15 December 2016

Lower Abyssal Horde

The army I chose in the Kings of War 2nd Edition Kickstarter was Abyssals. It was the Mega Army, so there's quite a big box of them. The box has been sat on the floor of my room for over a year now.

Finally I've got around to starting the army and I feel like I've started it well.

I painted up 38 Lower Abyssals for a horde base, which should officially take 40. I've actually only fit 26 on, as you can see they're fairly closely packed. The closeness is why this is my first ever proper multi-based unit. I am convinced that Mantic were a little confused and made the Lower Abyssals to fit on 25mm bases rather than the 20mm bases that are prescribed by the rules.

Anyway, I'm really happy with them, and also with the lighting effects thanks to Zinge Industries.

I now want to do a second horde of them as I have so many spare! Unfortunately I only bought one horde base so that will have to wait. There's plenty of other models to paint in the army in the mean time.






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Tuesday 6 December 2016

Wagons, Labourers and Clergy

I've had these sat ready to paint for over a year and decided it was about time I got them done. Again an upcoming game spurred me into action.

Anyway, what we have here is a set of 3 medieval wagons. One is from the Perry's Wars of the Roses range and 2 are from Irregular Miniatures. I've made them with interchangeable loads. These will be used in a game of Lion Rampant next weekend.



Next up are the labourers. These again are from the Perry's Wars of the Roses range.



Last, but certainly not least, are the clergy. There's a monk and priest and a bishop. I figure that as well as being useful objectives in games like Lion Rampant they'd make fun alternate "wizards" in games of Kings of War. They're from Irregular Miniatures.


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.





Sunday 30 October 2016

Frostgrave at Fiasco

Another show... Fiasco this time. A great day of games, many happy players and lots of kind comments.

This saw the premier use of my new water based dungeon piece. It's actually not quite finished yet and when it is I'll post a more detailed blog about it.