Hot Lead Instead

Hot Lead, the premier gaming convention of Southwest Ontario, has been cancelled due to the present COVID-19 situation. It was the right thing to do and I compliment James on his decision, which came before the provincial mandate to suspend most group/crowd activities. Beth and I were going to go so we were disappointed even while fully supporting the decision. NEXT YEAR IN STRATFORD!
With that in mind, my daughter challenged me to a game of Kings of War using our 10mm WarMaster figures. We've done this before, especially since Katie's 25mm Elf army is still in the process of being painted. We used the second version of the rules since we're not yet familiar with the third. For the game, we use centimeters in place of inches. It works for us. So on Sunday, we hit the table.
We rolled for terrain and all the rolls were negative - no hills, no trees, no rivers - so it was some meadow somewhere in the world of fantasy. The Elves fielded lots and lots of bow-armed troops, both horse and foot, and a bunch of spear-armed infantry with one bolt thrower, some chariots, a mage, and a general. My Kings of Men army had two "hordes" of pikes , one of halbreds, a horde of berserkers, a horde of knights, some troops (smallest units) of mounted scouts and arquibusiers, two siege guns (which are really howitzers), a mage, the Captain, and my giant, Tiny.

Elven long spears horde, using GW WarMaster figures

Chariots, bowmen, and horse archers.

 

A regiment of long spears

More chariots and some horse archers.
The horse archers need to be wider than deep, but I don't feel like
unbasing them and chopping up the stands,

The Elven mage, riding a whirlwind. I really like the figure.
The swirly die means that the mage had a battle cat with him.

My horde of human pikes and a troop of arquibusiers
Pendrakon and Old Glory Miniatures from the 30 Years War and
English Civil War offerings.

GW WarMaster Empire halbrediers done up as the Black Company
from Glen Cook's series.
I think Croaker, Silent, and Goblin would be proud.

Tiny the giant pointing out the enemy to two troops of mounted scouts.
I use GW WM pistoliers as the scouts. Tiny is a 25mm Highlander.

The pikes again with the human mage and a howitzer to the rear.

Knights ---- flag stands from four different regiments. GW figures.

Berserkers!
Minifigs 10mm ECW Highlanders used as berserkers.
I didn't feel like digging for Chaos foot or barbarians.

I won the toss and made Katie move first. We were both out of range of each other except for my howitzers, who were not effective in general. I made the mistake - one I almost always make - of not being aggressive against a missile-heavy army. (If you spend less time in the rain, you don't get as wet... as it were.) She hacked up my berserkers early and our smaller units paid the price of being on the field. Tiny fought two units of Elven cavalry, destroying the first and being destroyed by the second. The Black Company and the two pike blocks suffered from missile weapons, but soldiered on. My knights exchanged charge and counter-charge with Katie's long spears until some flanking units hit them.
In the end I conceded the game since all I had left was the knights, the artillery, and some odd-ball stuff. I often loose to Katie and to my son, Robb and his dwarves, as well, but playing the game is fun, no matter what the out-come... although winning once in a while is nice.

Elven Knights vs. Mounted scouts? You can guess the outcome at any distance.

Human knights vs. Elven long spears.
We fought back and forth for a while until Katie's flanking troops entered the fray.

Human pikes vs. Elven chariots and flanking longspears.
Yeah, it was a mess.

Then a guest arrived. Katie's junior cat, Maeve, jumped up on the table at the end of the game and sat down on a unit of Elven bows. I suppose we were not paying enough attention to the death kitty. So she took matters into her own hands. (Paws?)

"So where can I sit?"

Maeve lays hands on the Elven prince.

Maeve HATES bolt throwers. She always attacks the Elven artillery.
None of us knows why.

"Why you clean up? Leave pointy thing for me to sit on, Hooman!"

Maeve and the Elven mage stare each other down.

Katie thought an over-head view was necessary.

Some Elves hide under the cat's coat.

For those interested in playing in 10mm, I recommend the ranges from Pendrakon - ancients, Medievals, SYW, ECW, 30YW, and fantasy. There's more than enough there. Also, Napoleonics, WWI & WWII, moderns, sci-fi. I recommend them almost anything you'd want to do up for a 10mm KoW army... including tanks! (Look under WWI or the Interwar/Spanish Civil War for some weird rolling stock.)

All in all not a bad way to spend a "social distance" Sunday afternoon!