Sunday 14 February 2016

Centaurs and Hunters of the Wild

Back in 1st edition Kings of War, when I started collecting my Force of Nature Army, there were two things I needed.

The first was something to use as either Sylvan Kin or Forest Shamblers. Mantic had no models available for either at the time so I searched around for something I could use. I plumped for the old metal GW dryads and managed to get 15 of them for a reasonable price on eBay. Having got those I was in a bit of a quandary as to which to use them as, but plumped for Forest Shamblers.

With the 2nd Edition Kings of War Kickstarter Mantic decided to make their own Forest Shamblers. I must admit to being a little annoyed that they'd decided to make a model I was already using the dryads for but I decided to buy 6 anyway. As can be seen in recent blog posts these have now been completed.

I had originally decided to re-base the existing dryads onto 25mm for use as Sylvan Kin, but with 2nd edition Kings of war the unit had changed. Not only had the name changed to Hunters of the Wild, but the base size had as well, with a reduction to 20mm. This left me a problem as the dryads I had were made for 25mm bases and no way would they fit on 20mm bases. I suppose I could have multibased them, but I've been trying to resist doing that as much as possible. So anyway, I decided to leave them as-is for the time being.

Then I started thinking about the upcoming Clocks of War tournament at the War and Peace Games club in Nottigham on 28th February. I decided I really needed to give my Nature force a run out and looking at the force list I needed something fast and hard hitting. Hunters of the Wild fit this requirement and so I decided to go ahead and re-base the dryads as them.

What I've done is base them up on 25mm bases. With 12 models I have a unit with a footprint of 100mm x 75mm, just 5mm off the usual footprint for a 20mm infantry regiment. To fill that I've made some 5mm x 25mm spacers. I have 3 models left which may be used as the start of a second unit. (I'm quite tempted to mix in some Reaper Bones mushroom men.)

Now I just need to get some more Mantic Forest Shamblers to build up my Forest Shambler Hordes back to their former glory.




The 2nd thing I wanted for my Nature army back in 1st edition was Centaurs. These were pretty poor in 1st edition and best used as screens and throw-away troops in my opinion. Looking around all the options seemed expensive for a unit that was not going to last long on the battlefield.

So I shelved the idea, until I had a brainwave... actually I found this page: Roman Centaurs. I had a look around and found that Wargames Factory Celtic Cavalry would do nice as conversions and set to it. The horses have separate heads which made the conversion somewhat easier. However much to my dismay they also had tack. This had to be carefully cut away as a centaur really wouldn't have need of a saddle.

There is one other odd thing about the Wargames Factory Celtic cavalry. There are 12 horses and 24 riders in a box. I found that they also sell the horses separately and even the Persian version, which have no tack. After some hunting around I found a set.

That was 18 months ago... Finally I've got around to building the remaining 12 Centaurs up. This means I now have two regiments and 4 spares, usable when breakages happen (which happens a lot with such weedy swords and spears) and for use as the Centaur Chieftain. Oh and of course now in 2nd edition Kings of War Centaurs are actually quite good!





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