Kings of War - Sylvan Kin - New Formation

So since we're back at the club now I've started to think about playing Kings of War again. I've decided to concentrate on my Sylvan Kin army and have had a couple of games now using the new Clash of Kings 2022 book. 

So far it's been great with a wonderful synergy between the elves and the trees and the wide availability of the Scout rule has made it a really fast and scary army, up in the face of the enemy right on turn 1.

Of course there's a formation in the list and it looked interesting to me. But it needed two units I didn't have. Forest Guard and Boskwraiths. 

Looking at the stats and fluff I could see that Forest Guards were basically elves with sword and shield (and a little extra). The Boskwraiths seemed to be elves dual-wielding swords. I decided I could do conversions to make these models.

The Forest Guards I made from some of my spare, already painted bowmen and spearmen. I had far too many. It was a simple case of replacing their weapons with swords. Some were spares from the elf sprues and others 3D printed.

The Boskwraiths I used some new untouched sprues of Gladestalkers I got for Christmas and replaced their bows with swords in the same way.

The King is just the same Elf King model I've been using for years...

Tower Aeternus - 3D Printed

When I first started 3D printing I looked around at what was available to print. There's quite a lot out there and a lot of it is free. However some of the better bits are paid for items and I was drawn to the collection of models on Printable Scenery. I've been slowly building items from their OpenLock collection, including the tower I completed a couple of months ago, which is the start of a much larger castle project.  However there's a lot on the site that is not OpenLock.

Having quite an extensive Mantic Elf army I was drawn to their Elven terrain collection and decided that I had to print at least one of the items from that. Thinking this may be the only item I'd print from that I decided I might as well go big and choose the largest building, the Tower Aeturnus. 

I bought the STL files for this back in late June and have been printing it since then. It's a big model with a lot of detail and I've had a lot of stress getting it finished. I had initial success and then for a while my printer was failing to print any of it. This was due to me installing a very poor steel nozzle, which I replaced in mid august and since then I've been able to print things properly again. I managed to finish printing the model a couple of weeks ago.

I've just finished it off and now it's time for a few photos!

My Mantic Elf Army loves it's new tower.

The Elf Prince can now see the enemy from afar.

In Middle Earth, Galadriel and Celeborn also see the advantages of the tower.

There's a fair bit of internal detail visible from the outside.

The tower breaks into 4 pieces to allow
 access inside and easier transportation.

The tower really is huge and dwarfs all my giants
even the huge (unpainted) Mantic Giant.

Looking at how well this has come out I may have to do something else from the range... though at some point I have to print some of their historic ships!

Kings of War 3rd Edition - The Wiltfather

I've decided I will play a bit more Kings of War this year. Last year I decided to wait until 3rd edition came out and so had loads of time for Blücher. Now 3rd edition Kings of War is out I want to get back into that.

There are lots of new units to choose from in the new books. It really is like being a kid in a sweet shop. You want to have a bit of everything. But for once I'm going to concentrate my efforts on just one army and not even a new one for me really.

I've plumped for Sylvan Kin. It provides a theme I really like for my existing Elf army. This army is already well rounded and so I won't be looking to add much to it. I want to make use of what I already have in new ways. I don't really need new Kings of War models as I do have a heck of a lot stuff already!

So, I took Sylvan Kin to the Wild Charge tournament last weekend. In the games I didn't do that great, 2 losses and 2 wins. But I did get Judge's Choice for Best Painted. Which is great!

Discussing with other players the special Treeherder upgrade, "The Wiltfather" kept on coming up as a recommendation. This is a particularly sad/angry Treeherder who brings death to those that deserve it. Also in the rules it gives the Elite rule to all friendly Verdant units within 6", which sounds well worth it! I'll try it out for the first time on Monday night.

So I've spent a little bit of time modifying one of my existing Treeherder models to fit. The new paint-job is inspired by the Weirwood trees from Game of Thrones. It was suggested to me to add skulls to the branches, but instead I've gone with a Warlord Games Skeleton that the Wiltfather is looking sadly at. Has he just killed it? Why is it black? Has he burned it? Was it undead or alive before he got it? There's a story there...

I also added a few more old GW Dryads to my unit of Hunters of the Wild to make them up to a regiment.

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...

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.

"My Kings of War Armies so far" an update for 2016

Back in November 2014, I posted photos of all the Kings of War armies that I'd amassed at that point.

Well it's been 16 months since then and I've been very busy...

To be honest, those are not actually all mine. The Undead at the back are actually Brendan's though I did help him paint them.

Click read more for some close-ups...

Hammerhead Kings of War Big Game 2016

Another show... another Kings of War big game. We're getting quite experienced at this now.

7 players on a 14 foot x 6ft table, approx 14,500 points each side. Setup began at 8am and we'd packed up and left by 5pm. 6 turns were played in total.

At the end of their turn 6, Good had 4 objectives to Evil's none with 3 contested. By the end of their turn 6, evil had made it a 2-2 draw still with 3 objectives contested.

The game was a very mobile one with objectives in both side's rears being taken or contested.

Stars of the game were Martin's Reaper Bones Bone Giant

and Andy's Zulus complete with Zebra Centaurs and Rhino Riders.

Next stop... Salute.

(BTW, I just updated the Big Game Rules that we use for these games... they were a little out of date.)

Vapnartak Big Kings of War Game 2016

Last Sunday we (COGS) put on a huge Kings of War game at the Vapnartak wargames show in York.

This had almost 15,000 points of fully painted models per side from 8 people's collections. The models were from loads of different manufacturers with some scratch built and some conversions. There were 11 players taking part.

Some of the models before deployment

The game took place on a 14ft x 6ft table and was an objective marker game similar to Pillage with 9 objectives on the table. We used the Big Game Rules with a change in that deployment was a simultaneous free-for-all after the Patrol Phase had been completed.

On one flank a combined force of Orcs, Undead and Twlight Kin decimated the Elves until only the Elf King's court remained.

Two Dwarf armies and a Nature force held the centre against Kings of men and more Twilight Kin.

On the other flank a combined force of Ogres and Kings of Men destroyed more Undead and a Goblin army.

By turn 6 Evil had taken 4 of the objectives, with good holding 2. The remaining 3 were contested. All agreed to play a 7th turn as we had time.

That was to be a bad decision for Evil as the objectives changed hands. Good ended with 4, Evil 3 and just 2 remained contested.

Victory for the forces of Good!

We'll be running another huge Kings of War game at Hammerhead on Saturday 5th March.

Kings of War - Forest Shamblers

I've been running Forest Shamblers for some time now in both my Kings of War Elf and Nature armies. They generally very good with Vanguard, Pathfinder, reasonable defence and attack and the ability to be Surged into flanks.

Old Metal GW Dryads have been working fine for them and fit my concept well. However when the 2nd Kings of War Kickstarter was running Mantic decided it was time for them to produce some proper/official models for them. I included 6 in my pledge.

Initially when the pictures appeared I was not sure I liked them (this seems to happen a lot with Mantic models) but now I have finished painting them I really, really like them, the detail is great and they fit the fluff brilliantly

I think when they finally become available at retail (they are at retail) I'll be getting another 6 and my Dryads will be converted to be Hunters of the Wild. However until then I will mix the models up in my shambler hordes. I think they go together rather well!

Kings of War - Elf King on Dragon

I've been waiting for this model for ages. It would have been in my Clash of Kings army if I'd had it then. But I'd decided not to get the one available then and instead get the new version so included it in my Kings of War Kickstarter.

The model I'm talking about is the Elf Dragon Kindred Lord. This is based on the same Dragon as used in Dungeon Siege, the dungeon crawling game by Mantic., but has an Elf King/Lord on the top.

The dragon itself is boardgame plastic, the elf is metal. It's a lovely model, but does have one major problem. It's actually too big to fit in with the existing Mantic elves. The Elf Lord is massive in comparison with the diminutive Mantic elves. A shame, but luckily it's high up on the neck of the dragon so the difference in size is not quite as noticeable as it might be,

Anyway, I love the model. There's loads of detail and I'm really happy with how it has painted up.