Close ups.

Hi everyone! i wanted to post some of my better painting skills of singular models! i am getting the beastmen/Herd itch and so you will be seeing this blog mold into a duality between the two armies!

First off is just my regular soldiers that fill the
ranks of my army !

Secondly Comes the man himself! Crells close up.

not being the best painter in the world i tried sticking to the few techniques  that i know of and tried to use a combination of colours to try and make the model pop.

Now comes some more interesting models, here is what ive been working on for my Herd interaction with my kingdoms of men army, 2 of the models i did years ago but the bestigor model i did today in about 80 mins.

Please let me know what you think! and if you have any tips for painting then please share them i am eager to improve !

Post Blockers-gate Field

Light glimmered off a bead of sweat dripping from Crell's helmet, in its reflection there was carnage all around and as suddenly as it came into life the bead was flung as Crells jerked his head back as a Dwarven axe swiped by his face, the blade was so close Crell could hear a faint whistling sound, his response was sudden and precise as soon as the axe passed him out thrusted his sword arm driving it deep into the neck of his combatant putting down yet another dwarf.

"Cap, CAP! you a-right sir?" came the all to familiar sound of Finch Crell's right hand man.

"I saw that 10 of those bastards rushing for you and ignoring the rest of us like lame horses !, such villans!"  in a calm voice Crells replied "Im fine finch, but how are the men? i saw Betsy had  turn back after they tried bombarding her with rocket and rocket after rocket, i am pretty sure i also saw them throwing some kind of demonic dogs at her too!!"  " oh she is fine,i made sure she got out of danger before she took a serious hit, and aye i was on top of her when they "fed her" those dogs, not a scratch on her from those little muts and then she opened her mouth and they were gone, as fer the rest o the army, we lost our mounted scouts sir, brave souls, but we seem to be winning, the Dwarf lines seem to be breaking, we will send them back to the abyss in no time at tall sir!" Finch also sounded full of glee when talking to Crells.

Looking over the battlefield he saw a rest mist on the horizon as the sun was struggling to stay up, wisps of smoke leading from those infernal Rocket launchers, A charm of finches were flying in unison overheard, under the horizon he could see a sea of bodies, horses and dwarves culminate into a swirling mass of endless bloodshed, walking running and dancing on downtrodden soil, mud being flung in every direction, the sound was no better, cries of pain, anguish, pride, hate, anger, every emotion was being voiced unbder the constant Thud of the artillary in this maddening sprawl of grass and mud they called Blockers-gate field and then in stopped.

"we did it cap! we did it! under your generalship we beat those good fer nothin Abyss loving dwarfs!" finch came running up all the soilders under Crell's banner were cheering.

A little later while the wounded were being cared for, the dead being laid to rest and over came Finch with some of the other regimental leaders, they were carrying something with them. 

"here ya go Cap, we found this among the Dwarfs command tent, the scallywags left it when they fled with there tails tween there legs!" came Finch's voice, the other 3 gentlemen all voiced there approval and so Crell's took the Cape, shoulder guard, helmet and dwarven crafted longsword.

"Thank you all, this is a big victory for us, one of many i'm sure, but now we must face our enemy at home, we must finish our business with The Herd or we will never be safe" Crells said with as much authority he could muster.

"HERE HERE" came the reply  

With new Armour and weaponry Crells is starting took the part of a truly heroic General of Men.

2000 point battle, KoM vs Abyssal dwarfs

This is a battle report between KoM and abyssal dwarfs, it was against a good friend of mine and we both had a blast,

 KoM Turn 1 went to the kingdoms of men! on my left flank i moved up my mounted scouts to force a reaction from his flying lord to either charge or retreat both of which i was ok with, to support the scouts i positioned my war beast to counter charge his lord, the rest of my army moved up. Shooting saw 4 wounds on his heavy mortar from my ballista nothing else was in range or missed.

 AD Turn 2 - the dwarf lord charged my mounted scouts and routed them in one swift go leaving himself open to a counter charge by my war beast. the rest of his army moved up, his grotesques moved into charge range on my knights on the right flank and his shooting all missed.

KoM turn 3 - The war beast sensing easy pray charged forth into his lord dealing a total of 6 wounds (from 7 attacks) and wavering him! My knights charged into the grotesques and the dice gods were with me as i was able to dish out 11 wounds from 16 attacks and routed them dishing a massive blow to the dwarfs after which the Knights reformed for better charges line. during the shooting phase the heavy rifles in combination with my ballista and lightning bolts put on a ton on wounds on the obsidian golems and was able to rout them aswell! Turn 3 dealt a massive blow to the dwarfs but they were far from defeated.

AD Turn 4 - the wavered dwarf lord back up and had his infernal guard move infont of him to block a charge from my warbeast, The decimaters moved around the building to shoot at my knights point blank, both his infernal guard regiments move up and throw there mutated puppies, both the war beast and a regiment of foot guard had to fight off these crazed hounds, the war beast took no damage as he just opened his mouth and got a little snack( woof ) while the foot guard took a single wound.
The mighty heavy mortar missed again, the decimaters and a wizard were able to put 4 wounds onto the knights while another lightning bolt his the same foot guard regiment that fought off the puppies and took 4 more wounds, to add to that one of his rocket launchers hit my heavy rifles and did 3 wounds to them while his 2nd rocket launcher put 2 wounds on the, untill now, unhamred footguard regiment. The Kingdoms of men held fast and not 1 unit wavered.

KoM Turn 5 A very bad turn for the KoM i charge my warbeast into a regiment of infernal guard and regiment of footguard into the other infernal guard unleash all my artillary into his lord. my Knights into his decimaters, A shield wall regiment charges his Orc slaves, end result is nothing i do 2 or 3 wounds to each of the infernal guard/orc slaves units and the knights failed to break the decimators but did disorder so they were looking down a crap ton of shooting or a counter charge and worst of all the lord took all my shooting and i did not managed to wound him! 

AD turn 6 - His lord flies over my army to land next to a wizard and fireballs him to death,the decimaters choose to stand back and not counter charge my knights but instead let his rockets and mortar fire at them instead dealing a few wounds but not breaking them! Infernal guard regiments both counter charged the same units again this time however they got results, they managed to waver the warbeast who had taken a total of 11 wounds now and routed the footguard regiment, the slave orcs counter charged my shield wall regiment did 6 wounds and rolled a rout on the nerve roll which was saved on the inspiring.

KoM turn 7 - The knights charged into the decimaters and decimated them! the wwarbeast backs up while a shield wall regiment and footguard troop charge the infernal guard regiment that dispacthed there brohters and manged a few wounds and bounce off.all shooting directed at his lord managed 1 wound which he passed his nerve test for. Shield wall regiment + footguard regiment + footguard troop all charge the slave orcs and managed to put 11 wounds on them but did not waver them.

AD turn 8 - the slave orcs rolled yellow belly for there charge and instead stood there dumbfounded, 1 infernalguard regiment charged the warbeast and finished it off the other Infernal guard regiment charged the footguard troop and routed it in one round of combat, 2 dwarf rockets and mortar turned to the knights and wiped them off the face of the planet while the 3rd rocket hit the other footguard troop and wavered them Dwarf lord fireballs another wizard. Hope is fading as the knigdoms of men seemed to have lost the ability to damage the dwarf units while taking sever damage in return.

KoM turn 9 - instead of charging the lone shield wall regiment back into the infernal guard regiment that i had been trying to kill all game they instead marched past it allowing my heavy rifles and ballista to open fire dishing out 10 wounds and routing them! 1 of the ballista however shot at the heavy mortar routing it, the shield wall regiment with the footguard regiment charged the orcs again and routed them.



Thus the batlte ends with the Abyssal dwarfs conceding, at the end of the game the dwarf player had 3 rocket launchers left his lord on 9 wounds 1 infernal guard regiment with around 13 wounds on it and his wizard! while the KoM still had, albeit damaged, a horde of heavy rifles 1 wizard 2 standard bearers 2 regiements of shield walls 1 regiment of footguard  2 ballista.


Resounding victory to the KoM!!! HUUZZAH

P.S. my apologise for the bad pics and not filtering them within the battle rep intself, i am still trying to get use to this and it turns out hte pics i took were pretty bad and did not really represent the  battle as a whole but i deicded to put them in anyway for a bit of context.

Onwards to Victory.

2 battle in since i started this blog with my kingdoms of men and things are going well, i will not spoil my first battle as i am writing up a much more detailed report soon, however the secound one i will talk about now.

This was agaisnt a new player, his very first game of Kings of war, however he seemed quite experianced in wargamming in general.

The army i faced with forces of nature mixed with dwarfs (a lovely combination i found). a horde of ironbreakers a special character of some kind and some snipers and a cannon (forgive me memory for not remembering the names of the units)  allied with an elf spell caster, elf scouts, elf cavalry, elf infantry with 2 hander,  some montrous infantry, a horde of archers, a standard bearer and a very large tree man. and an elkf character with a bow

we rolled up kill and pillage where we had 9 tokens scatered around the battlefield and also gained points for killing units.

the game kicked off with the elfs getting first turn and him moving 4 units with vanguard, turn 1 saw him do pretty much nothing to the mighty kingdoms of men but when the KoM had there chance to fire back we saw both his dwarf snipers and the elf scouts get shot of the table.

turn 2 saw him moving up his army and scoring some wounds here and there with his shooting his elf with a bow just sat on one flank shooting my units the whole game doing very little, my retaliation saw me charge his treeman with my bast of war and moving some chaff into position readying up for the next turn and putting more wounds on his units.

turn 3 the elfs charge his montrous infantry into a regiment of foot guard which held, the treeman countercharged my beast of war and slap him about but not break.  to answer this i counter charged his montrous infantry with my knights(flank charge) and the footguard unit, my beast of war and footguard regiment counter charged his treeman and slapped him but not much damage shooting claimed more wounds and might have killed off a unit or 2 aswell as my secound scout unit flank charge his archer horde.

turn 4 saw the archer horde charge the flank of my footguard unit which previously charged the treeman, this unit took the archers shooting for the first 3 turns but were holding there own, the archers did some wounds but only wavered the footguard, the treeman charged the beast of war but failed to rout it, his left flank saw him charging a shield wall unit with his cavalry and wiping them out.
The humans uin kind saw a troop of footguard charge the cavalry in the front managed a few wounds just to disorder the cavalry and stoop there thunderous charge and i also moved up units for counter charging the enemy knights next turn, the beast of war did not charge back into the slapping contest but instead fired its ballista with my other siege engines and managed to waver his treeman, shooting claimed his dwarf horde and my standard bearers just moved around dancing between units. a shield wall unit with bane chant and a foot guard troop with 2 handers charged his elf infantry with 2 handers and wavered them by doing 11 points of damage total that round.

turn 5 saw his archers charge my severly wound footguard regiment (9 wounds or something) but they failed to do any damage thankfully, his cannon managed to hit one of my ballista and wavered it. his disordered knights charged the footguard troop but failed to do much. his archers counter charge the mounted scouts who had been flank charging them every turn(theuy did 1 or 2 wounds a turn nothing to cry home about) and killed them

now the Men of the kingdoms brought the pain, the knights flanked his knights unit and the troop of footguard front charged it, they brought total damage taken on the knights to over 20(routed!!) the footguard regiment on my left flank charged the rear of the archers and wiped them out, shooting saw his army standard die, shield wall and foor guard troop on the right flank re charged the wavered elf infantry and finished the job. shooting saw the cannon get blown away.

At this point the elf player had his very wounded treeman, a wizard a dwarf character and... nothing else slo he decided to concede as i had only lost 2 troops of mounted scouts and had controll over 7 of the 9 objective makers which itseklf gave me 1400 victory points in a 2k game.


VICTORY TO CRELL'S ARMY!

2000 pts army list

Hi everyone!

I recently played a game and will be writing up a battle report soon but before i do that i wanted to put out my Army list that i used and explain some of the components to it.

foot guard regiment	sword and board CS	165
foot guard regiment	sword and board chant of hate	160
shield wall regiment	sword and board	100
shield wall regiment	sword and board	100
Knights regiment	lance Caterpillar pot	215
mounted scouts	carbines (pierce 1 18inc) brew of haste	130
foot guard troop	2 hander	95
foot guard troop	2 hander	95
beast of war	mounted ballista	220
ballista		60
ballista		60
wizard	lighting bolt +2 to LB	75
wizard	lightning bolt scrying gem	80
wizard	lighting bolt bane chant	65
army standard	war bow of kaba	55
army standard	flying hammer	55
arquebusiers horde	brew of keen eye	270

Total points came to 2000 exactly.

My idea behind the list was to create a well balanced list which had at least 1 unit strong in each key component to Kings of war game play and i like to think to general tabletop strategy  as a whole.

Anvil and hammer - this is a very old and effective stratagem, the basic idea is to have 1 unit hold an enemy unit in place so you hammer and hit it hard and kill / rout the enemy unit, this kind of tactic offers more control but can be spotted by your opponent early on. To use this tactic i included 2 regiments (20 men strong) of shield wall infantry, 

these are to any non KoM lovers basic defensive infantry with mediocre stats but a high defense relative to there low cost they will not do much damage nor can they take a huge amount of it either but they can take more than other basic infantry holding out for 2 turns against most foes, the shield walls act as, as the name suggests, my anvil to hold infantry in place. 

Foot Guard troop with 2 handed weapons - these guys are still somewhat cheap in the grand scheme of things and pack a good punch though they lack surviability which is why they match very well with the shield wall allowing a counter charge alongside the shield wall unit (assuming it survives) to batter its foe into submission.

chaff  Chaff units are units that specialize in disruption and high mobility, being able to run around flanks and get into the enemy back line  to kill off weak units like warmachines or to use as a sacrificial unit to set up a juicy counter charge.

For this tactic i took 1 unit of mounted scouts with carbines, the reason i took this upgrade on what people call a "throw away unit" is simple, the unit does more ranged damage with carbines and becomes a bigger threat making it much more tempting a target to charge and get rid of before they get behind enemy lines and as long as i have a counter charge waiting the point cost/gain ratio normally lands in my favor.

Come to me - this tactic works off the premise of having good enough ranged firepower that your opponent will have to advance towards you or be shot to death, very simple take units with ranged attacks and i took them in spades making the list a little gun heavy i admit.

3 warmachines with an additional 1 on the warbeast and a horde of heavy rifles with +1 to hit dish out a considerable amount of damage and then you add in 3 wizard with a 24 inch lightning bolt for added ranged death goody-ness. This tactic comes with a major drawback and 1 you will need to address or have some kind of backup plan, simple put, they suck in combat, the warmachines just die instantly the heavy rifles being a horde makes them last longer but not much and with the disorder rule they cannot fire back against there attackers after 1 round of combat(if wounded ofc).

My defense agasint this was a general all purpose unit that was above average in stats so they could stand toe to toe with most foes long enough and do enough damage that the fragile back line had enough time to earn there large points invest back, these "hold the line units" for me come in the form of Footguard regiments with sword and board, with a good defense good damage output against medium armored units meant they could tackle most things that got to my back line(excluding fliers).

Pincer - This tactic works off the premise of forming a pincer like movement around an enemy unit and hitting its exposed sides, in KoW you get double attack to the side and triple to the rear making this a very worthwhile tactic to try and employ. To fulfill this role i took 1 unit of Knights with the potion  that gives pathfinder(ignore terrain and its penalties) which gives much greater mobility on a unit that needs to get the first charge. Knights hit very hard and can break a lot of units that have suffered minor damage from your shooting and even units that are fresh, with a high movement they can also enable the pincer tactic with much greater ease than infantry and other slow moving targets.

Drawbacks of this tactic is that it is hard to pull off, your enemy will try to cover there flanks as best they can and even if you make it into contact with the enemy you need to pick the right target, hitting a tarpit unit dealing a lot of damage but not breaking it will result in counter charges into your own pincer units flanks which is bad news!

Brute force - Hit them as hard as you can and hope! a very obvious tactic i agree but it can work and sometimes you opponent does not expect it, you charging in guns blazing leaving you open to counter charges and the like. To make this tactic work you will need a very hard hitting unit, My knights or my warbeast suit this role well but this alone will result in failure most of the time as cunning generals will do the math as to how much a unit can take and allow them to be charged by such brute force units, to answer this you need a wave of alerting there damage output so they become less predictable, bane chant works wonders here allowing the unit it is cast upon to wound easier.

1 more important part to this tactic which unless you are desperate is to only charge headlong in when you can cover your flanks hitting them in the face over and over is not a bad idea unless your unit gets counter charged in the flank and killed off much quicker than it should of been,

Drawback - you are relying on solely on damage output and not on positioning or reinforcements, choose wisely when you bash there face in or you may find your own head is the real target.

Support not so much a tactic but part of list building, army standards give re-rolls on rout tests making them critical in keeping your army in together when they bring the hurt, being KoM we gain 3 extra inchs of range allowing us to reduce the number of inspiring units we need, i find 2 to be on the border and i am considering taking a 3rd.

I hope this was informative and fun to read and please let me know what you think, if you agree disagree !

Battle report comming soon i promise!

Leader of the herd!

I know this is not Kingdoms of men related but i wish to weave in an underlying story and explore possibilities with "the herd" army within kings of war and as such i painted up an old metal model of mine for fun and tried out some new techniques the model is not quite finished but i am happy with the sword effect.

East Applebeach

Crells decided after his recent acquisition of "Betsy" that he wanted to be a beacon of hope and change in this dreadfully perilous world and to do that he needed an army.

After talking with his new counselor previously known as the drunkard with the mud stained beard and forthwith known as Finch they decided to head towards the nearest human settlement they knew of, East Applebeach.


3 weeks march through hostile territory but not a single engagement or skirmish, Crells thought this most likely due to the house sized Spider that was following them,
they finally made it to Applebeach, from there Crells set about recruitment and to his surprise they became overwhelmed by the applications, it seems that the news of Crells adventure had spread far and wide and had been distorted a little on the way, "13 abyss infused goat monsters he slew with ONE swing!!!" he over heard and that was not even the worst one!!

By the end of the day his army had exploded from a handful of men to over 500 souls pledging themselves to his service, though Crells insisted this was not necessary or even welcome but was ignored.

This was good news indeed and it seemed like his newly formed army was about to be tested in the field as they heard news of an army of dwarfs rampaging and pillaging through villages somewhere to the north, this is unlike regular dwarfs who are normally quite honorable, "this must be abyssal dwarfs" thought Crells and so he set off to combat this threat and show his men, the town of East Applebeach and most importantly himself just how competent he was at leading an army.


"psst Crells" whispered Finch, "what is it freind?" came Crell's answer, "look at Betsy" as Crells look over to his enormous morale booster he saw finch had somehow attached some kind of artillery piece to its abdomen. "woah... now THAT will be fun to watch!!" Crells stated.



Pics of Crell's Kingdoms of men army getting ready for war!

Pics

Some more pics of my progress!