Kings of War on a Day Off

 I hadn't played Kings of War in quite a while. Then my friend, Mark, invited Beth and I up to his place for a game, some lunch, and time for Beth to talk with Carrie. So we went and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

I have a Kings of Men army based on a real mixed bag of troops I've collected over the years. Mark has a very nice Dwarven army. Since we didn't have much room (Kitchen table), we set our armies to 1500 points. (2500 to 3000+ points is more the usual size.)

So off we went. We finished before lunch (baked Quesadillas... Yum!) and before Carrie had to go to her place of employment for the afternoon/evening shift.

The table as the battle progressed. Mark's Dwarf rangers hit my Black Company which was
guarding my right flank. We both got hurt. You can see the cannon on both sides.
Cannon in KoW are often quite useless. This day, they were deadly.
The huge tree trunks were for Mark's forest world of Endor in a Star Wars game.

Mark's rangers led a flank attack.
My musketmen and the artillery sent one unit packing.

My cavalry flank
Mounted scouts with pistols led and were smashed quickly.
Knights followed and fought a melee war badgers and the Dwarf General.
Didn't do so well. The Mounted Sergeants didn't last long either.

Mark's main force on a nicely detailed multi-figure base.

The pride and spine of my army - a horde of pikes.
Mostly Old Glory Italian Wars pikes with a few Warlord Landsknechts added.

Pikes close up.
The dice peaking into the bottom the photo indicate casualties.

The Pikes from the front

Mark's main force from the front.

My muskets hold off the Dwarf archers while
the Black Company have a dust-up with the rangers.

My knights fight against the Dwarf general and the war badgers.
The badgers would get thrown back while the general held her ground.
(Yes, the general was female.)
Because of that maneuver, my knights were pinned and got slapped around.

Well, I lost the game. Dwarves are hard to crack. I should have taken more shoot-y units to do damage at a distance. Live and learn.

I enjoyed the day and my time with Mark and Carrie... and with Beth. 

From the Painting Table

 I enjoy painting the figures I use in games. There was a time when I couldn't game much and I did painting for some friends. It was satisfying and fun. Still I enjoy both the painting and the playing. So here are some of my latest projects.

The Old Western Gunfight Skirmish Project

US Infantry in frontier/plains kit
(North Star Figures)

US Cavalry dismounted
(North Star Figures)

Wild West Seraphim
(North Star Figures - Dracula's America)
Beth like this figure so I needed to paint it up.
It really was a lot of fun to paint!

The here-to-for unannounced Dune Skirmish project

Frank Herbert's "Dune" fascinates me and I saw an opportunity for a small unit skirmish game. I'd hope to use the "5-Core" rules since most of the troops would be armed with blade weapons and slow projectile stunners rather than lasers or such. I wanted to find figures in hoods and robes (of a sort) as the Freman. Ninjas seemed to fill the bill for most of it.

Ninja from Iron Wind Miniatures serving as "Fremen" on Arrakis/Dune.
I wanted fighters with bladed weapons and hoods with face coverings.
Capes would have served me more and had I the patience and skill, I'd have added them.
I like the dust/sand colour with a heavy ink wash that picked out the details.

These guys should be armed with knives rather than spears and Katana-style swords.
Still, as a whole, I rather like how they turned out.

The Sardukar soldier-fanatics of the Padishaw Emperor, Shaddam IV proved to be a challenge. I wanted a sci-fi feel with bladed weapons but found that was too much to ask. So I ordered some Sci-fi troopers from Iron Wind Metals who look bulky, arrogant, and heavily armed. I can pretend they have knives.

These troops should be in black but I chose a more easily detailed uniform.
Big guns in hand... I like how they turned out. They may end up being used in some of my
Traveller campaign games.

I liked the rocket launcher on the left.
The unit officer is on the right, with the slight silver touches for insignia.

SteamPunk/Sci-fi/Fantasy Mixed Bag project

The Royal Family from West Wind's Gothic Horror range
They'd been sitting in the To-Be-Painted box for years and I got the urge to paint them up.
Probably Traveller fodder.

Various SteamPunk/Pulp figures
I don't know all the sources since some were bought at KEGSCON convention over the past
few years. On the far left is a Sergeant from Pulp Miniatures Gunga Din-ish offering.
Doctor sorta-Who is on the far right. The women are living dangerously in their arsenic-green dresses. 

Traders! Cultists! Musicians!
Bad Squido... Pulp Miniatures... Reaper... from left to right.
The Musician showed up in my recent Traveller game as DJ PB Smooth, the Scrunge-Rock 
guitarist. (Listening to Scrunge-Rock could lead to seizures or collapse... if it's heard wrong.)

Two Femme-Fatales from different eras.
On the left is Guinevere for Beth's Kings of War army. 

Space Dwarves from Wargames Atlantic
Fun to put together, even if you add heads and arms from other kits!

15mm Spanish Civil War project

These were originally done for Command Decision and were later rebased for Disposable Heroes. Now they're being resettled for Battlefront.

In the Nationalist service, an older model French "fast-firing" 75mm field gun.
For some reason, Spanish Regular Army artillerymen wore white belting.

Again in the Nationalist army, a later model 75mm field piece.
The difference? Rubber tires!

A Republican anti-tank gun.
International brigade crew? Maybe. The French "Adrian" helmets are a give-away.

US Troops in 15mm for Battlefront

The M1919 Browning medium machine gun with a competent crew.

An 81mm mortar ready to ruin my opponent's day

54mm (1/32) Spanish soldiers

Willed to me by my friend, Martin when he moved out of London, ON
3d-printed Spanish Napoleonic troops - a Spanish regiment and an Irish regiment.
The photo isn't too good and I haven't finished too many of these, so it's an on-going project.
Another on-going project.

Look who came to visit at Church this month!

A large cut-out from a past Vacation Bible School.
This was set up in a pew two weeks ago to surprise us all. 
Yesterday he/she had a surgical mask added.
Smart critter!

Father's Day Slaughter

the Phoenix of my wife's Basalian Army

My son came to visit this past Sunday for a Father's Day gathering. I was happy to see him. He also brought his newest Kings of War army --- Ogres. So after my usual morning's work and lunch, we set up a game... 3000 points on a side, my Kings of Men vs. Robb's Ogres and Katie's Sylvan Elves. I haven't done well against Robb since our first outing, but we all wanted to play and off we went.

6 turns and the scenario had to do with the unit values who were close to the centre of the board at the end of turn #6. It was messy to say the least.

The living room filled with figures, family... and cats.

Like I said... "and cats."
Mab makes herself comfortable... usually on top of a regiment or two.

Finally! A decent photo of my pike block! (Mostly Old Glory 25mm Italian Wars range)

I discovered that Ogres are tough... discovered "the hard way."

I was charged with moving first and I was hampered by the area I had to deploy in. My two hordes of pike-armed infantry were stuck behind a stream and a small house. I had placed mounted scouts on the far flanks and had two regiment of knights on the field, on to each flank. Katie's Elves took the right flank and Robb's small but mighty Ogres took the left of the allied army. My cannon were not able to do much which makes we wonder about the wisdom of taking them at all. I'll speak of the lessons and ideas further on in this writing.

Katie's "River Guard" fighting a regiment of bowmen. A strange match-up!

My mounted scouts face off against some Elvish horse archers.
My second unit of knights moves up in support.
The small dice show casualties; the yellow bead shows the unit to be shaken by losses.

Same outfits... view from the other side.

My view of the pikes.

Galoglaich serving as foot guards follow a unit of fanatics and provide support for some archers.

The centre of the board as we start to mix it up.
The black card is a unit stand that the figures kept falling off of.

Elvish bow and Silverbreeze heavy cavalry.

The River Guard and the bowmen continue to fight.
My son show his colours, declaring his allegiance to Gotham City.

My other horde of pikes (GW Empire figures painted as Stirland levies and as the Black Company)
A rifle regiment and a cluster of RPG launchers (serving as a ballista) precede them.

A circus cannon? I used this as a siege gun.

Believe it or not. this is the bulk of Robb's Ogre army.

The Circus Gun prepares to fire again. (GW Crew & D&D pre-primed gun)

Katie's Elven Magic User (GW Warhammer figure)

Robb's Ogre general/champion "Grok M'Grok" (or something like that) goes into single combat
with Tiny the Giant assisted by my wizard, Dermot the Inevitable.

The Clash of the Titans continues!

Surprisingly, everybody survived this combat. Tiny often loses quickly.
This time he gave as good as he got.
Dermot helped with a Bane Chant spell once.

In the end, I lost. I couldn't do much damage to the Ogres and they carry a lot of points. I lost a number of units because human units in KoW are very lightly armoured and drop like flies in a cold snap. Still it was fun.

I think I'll try more and smaller pike units interspersed with missile troops, Pike-and-shot style. Using the Captain figure and rule, I can still move some units after the set up and before movement.

So how was your weekend?