Kings of War and Battletech Alpha Strike

The dwarven convoy crosses the bridge as the goblin forces close in

We managed to get five players around the table on Sunday, with an old friend whom I haven't met or gamed with in the last 20 years joining the group. Once again it would be a double-bill afternoon.

We played a game of Kings of War using a scenario from Battlegames' Tabletop Teaser. The scenario involved the dwarves having to get a couple of cannons off the table, while three separate goblin forces came at them.

Another goblin force approaches from the other side of the river

The dwarves had the option of keeping their cannons limbered, which would allow them to move faster, or unlimbering the guns, which would give them much-needed firepower, but means much slower progress.

In our game the dwarven players decided to move most of their force to counter the larger goblin force to their left. This allowed me, commanding a goblin force to the right, to ford the river uncontested and threaten the guns.

The dwarves hold off the goblins approaching from the far bank...

The dwarves deployed their miner unit to try to fend off my goblins, but the poor dice-rolls meant the goblins were able to fight them off and continue to move towards the cannons.

(For the record the dwarven side had spectacularly poor combat dice-rolls, while the goblins had excellent morale dice-rolls.)

The dwarves were finally forced to unlimber their guns to unleash grapeshot at the approaching goblin unit, which gave them ten dice, hitting on 6s - they scored 1 hit.

but the goblins from the near bank forded the river and cut the guns off!

I feel the game gave interesting tactical choices to the dwarven players, and to a lesser extent the goblin players too. It's certainly something I will want to run again in the future.

For the second game Adrian took us through Battletech Alpha, the third version of Battletech we have tried since we started our monthly sessions.

The game was fast enough, but lacks a lot of the granularity of the "original" Battletech. Thinking of it now I feel the game was designed the way it was not because it was a good way to design a mecha game, but because it was a cut-down version of the "full-size" game, and if one didn't imagine oneself as playing a mass-combat version of Battletech, the game would be less attractive.

Me running a Mad Cat again

After playing three versions of the game, my current favourite is Destiny. But given how many models the gang have bought and will (hopefully) paint, I guess we will need to come back to Alpha Strike to make sure everyone's models have a chance to get bloodied.

Mid-week Kings of War 3rd Edition Game

Adrian, FG, and I managed to get a weekday evening game of KOW 3 in.

We played a 1750-points game: Adrian's dwarves versus my night goblins.

My army consists of mainly spears and archers, and no monsters or warmachines, and so I had 14 units versus Adrian's 7 units and 3 cannons; the goblins battleline stretched from one end of the table to the other.

Despite their numerical advantage, the goblins were no match against the dwarves once in melee, and at the end of Turn 6 every single unit had been routed.

I had a lot of fun nonetheless. I understand the list is basically a dud list, but I think I will continue with it and improve my goblin-wave strategy until I can beat the dwarves one day. Someday.

Kromlech Giant Mushrooms and GW Night Goblin Fanatics

I got a few packs of giant mushrooms from Kromlech a while back to decorate the bases of my Night Goblin army, but have not done anything with the larger mushrooms until now; Adrian had finished painting his Dwarven army during the lockdown period, and was keen to play a game of Kings of War 3rd edition, so I decided to make some objective markers.

I pinned the mushrooms onto some resin bases I have, slopped some paint on the mushroom caps, and dry-brushed the bases green - the end result looks like aquarium decoration. 

Next, I decided to refurbish a couple of Night Goblin Fanatics figures I bought on eBay. Night Goblin Fanatics are one of the things that made me fall in love with GW (the other thing was when I first found out that in Blood Bowl, you could make a Treeman throw a Halfling - that just blew my teenage mind), but the problem with the older, metal figures was that the chains had a tendency to snap - and that was what happened with these two figures.

The little fellow on the left started life being almost vertical, with his feet pointed straight up to the sky - this was of course an accident waiting to happen, and it did. I glued the chain back onto the ball, but I was certain that if I tried to restore the figure in its original configuration, it would break again. Looking at the shape of its hood, I decided to position it in a more horizontal position and make it look like the ball had pulled him forward in a headlong dive. To achieve a two-point contact, I inserted a pin onto the base, and attached the end of the chain to the pin, and then hid the pin with some tuft. I like how the goblin's right hand just hovers a few millimetres above the ground, giving it a dynamic look.

The need for a two-point contact meant that I had to use a base that was larger than the 25mm round base. (There are no rules for Fanatics in the KOW goblin list, but the goblins do have an "extra attacks on first melee attack of the game" mechanic in the form of Mawpups, which I thought could be proxied by the Fanatics.) A 40mm round base was just a tad too small for the figure, and a 50mm base would have had too big a footprint; a standard rectangular cavalry base would do the trick, but I felt that the right angles did not look right for a figure that was supposed to be in motion. Fortunately, I had a few oval bases from the Fireforge skeleton cavalry box, which was just the right size.

For the other figure, I had to replace the broken chain with a piece of plastic chain I had from my bits box. To secure the figure to the base, I trimmed the tab on its bottom, and cut a rectangular slot on the base to receive the tab. To achieve a two-point contact, I glued the ball to the base. The figure now looked like it was trying to launch the ball off from the ground. To add to that effect, I thinned the PVA in the area of the arc which I imagined the ball would trace before I added the basing material, and painted the area a darker brown to simulate the wet earth that was exposed by the movement of the ball. The oval shape of the base added to the look of the whole thing. In retrospect I should have actually scraped a groove into the base itself, adding more depth to the groove.

I had a lot of fun working on these two figures. Maybe I should look for more old Fanatic figures on eBay to restore...

Getting Ready for Kings of War

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my group is planning to play some Kings of War Third Edition.

There are a total of 12 different scenarios in Third Edition, and many of them require the use of special markers or tokens, namely Objective Markers, Loot Counters, and Bluff Counters.

I plan to use the Kromlech giant mushrooms pieces as the themed Objective Markers for my Night Goblin army, and for Loot Counters I will be using the reproduction ancient coins which we use in our other games; but the Bluff Counters are something which I needed to get my hands on.

Mantic does sell a tokens set, but it is a little pricey, and Litko surprisingly does not make a set. I therefore decided to make a set of my own, using the Renedra 25mm round bases, and some Dark Angels decals I had lying around.

I sprayed both sides of the bases with a dark green spray paint I had. Then I applied the decals onto the smooth side of the bases, and sealed them with a semi-gloss varnish; the rough side of the base was sealed with a matt varnish. Unfortunately, I did not have any decals for zero, so I left the 'zero' counters blank - since these are removed as soon as they are revealed, it was not a real issue.

I also made a few pieces of scatter terrain using the Renedra bases to help break up the flatness of the gaming surface. These are made by just gluing some sand and gravel and some bits of cork on them. The pieces are then sprayed brown and dry-brushed a lighter brown, while the cork pieces are painted black and then dry-brushed grey. The edges of the bases are then stippled with dark and light green paint to help them blend with my wargaming mat. Then bits of foam foliage are hot-glued onto the bases.

Finally, I also decided to texture and paint up the six Renedra movement trays I still have lying around. Again, these are painted to help the trays blend into the pattern on the mat.

Gaming in the time of Lockdown

Since the pandemic has made face-to-face gaming nonviable, I have been forced to look into other ways to play with my friends.

I managed to borrow a laptop from FG and got a zoom session going with the gang yesterday (more of that in the future), but I've also managed a couple of other virtual games since this whole things started.

The first is The Somme Campaign 1916, which my friend Steve and I set up. Since we live in different time zones, a game that required a quick response was not possible. Fortunately, by trawling through Wargames Vault, we found an operational level game that had a theme we enjoyed (as much as anyone can enjoy trench warfare), and which played at a pace that suited the limitations we faced.

I downloaded the game, printed out the board and chart (which you can see below), and instead of using counters I used the coloured pins I had and made counters out of them using a sharpie. I set everything up on a cork board, which made it easier to keep all the pieces in place, and to take photos of the board. I originally planned to play out all the moves and send them to Steve by email, but he was so inspired by my set-up he went ahead and built something similar on his end, so we traded photos each turn, with me playing out the orders and rolling all the dice. 

The second game was a game of Kings of War 3rd Edition with FG. I had spent a bit of time doing the movement trays for the two armies I own, and was really looking forward to some play with them this year... so why not now?

We played the game over a weekend afternoon. I prepared the army lists, set up the board, and sent FG a photo of the battlefield and my deployment via Whatsapp. He relayed his deployment, and once I sent him a photo of that too, he gave his orders by drawing arrows on the photos I sent him and returning them to me.

Granted the game lacked the social element of face-to-face gaming, but it was a good way to try the rules out at a leisurely pace, and give the figures some sunlight.

In the coming weeks my friend Dave will be GMing a Warhammer Fantasy Role-playing Game campaign for us via zoom, which I am really looking forward to.

I hope you are getting some gaming done in this difficult time too. Stay safe.

Kings of War 2 first game

Fg and I played two games of KoW this afternoon. This was the first time we played the rules, but they are easy to learn and remember, and with just a few special rules for each of the armies we used. we think we got most of the rules right.

In the first game my goblins spread themselves too thin and did not bring their numerical advantage to bear, and were rolled up on one flank and the whole army destroyed quickly.

In my second game I decided to deploy on a smaller frontage and keep a small reserve. This was a better strategy as it allowed the goblins to execute a number of flank charges on the humans, although with their weak attack and the human's high defence, it took a few rounds to rout a human unit.

The goblins repulsed the attack to their front, and I had just manoeuvred the war haggises (maw beasts in KoW) to charge the human unit that has breached my left flank when they failed their test to charge (due to being Yellow-Bellied), costing me the game.

The hit marker dice holders in action

It has literally been years since we last played a mass-battle game, and both the armies we used today had taken years to be ready, so I am happy that we enjoyed the game. It really does play as fast as people say it does, and the simple movement rules mean that units can and do manoeuvre.

My war haggises!

We played 1000-point games, but I do have enough figures for 2000-point games. The goblins are really quite weak, but I think at higher point games their numbers will be more telling.

I look forward to playing another game soon.

Black Tree Design Nightlings

After a long hiatus, I am proud to announce that I have completed the nine BTD Nightlings I have bought for the purpose of creating another unit of squig herders, which will serve as Maw Beasts under the Kings of War rules.

I really love the facial expressions and the animation in these figures, as well as the little details like earrings and bangles the goblins are wearing.

As you can see in the picture above, a similar colour scheme allows them to blend in with the GW figures. The Maw Beasts are supposed to be on cavalry-sized bases, but in KOW, it is only the unit footprint that is important, so I am using a 6 x 5 20mm figures, which have the same footprint.

The GW goblins have different skin tones because they came from different lots I bought on ebay. But we don't discriminate in this army.

In this picture you can see the dice holders which I have added to the movement tray, as well as the green dice I bought especially for this army, which will be used as casualty trackers.

Next on the painting list are 12 War Haggises followed by a unit of 21 BTD dwarf warriors.

Kings of War Hits Tracker

One of the nice things about Kings of War is that you do not remove figures from a unit to represent casualty, but at the same time this obliges you to track hits on a unit somehow. I looked at the many ways other gamers have used, and decided I wanted a system that kept the markers within the footprint of the unit. As my figures are all currently mostly singly-based and used with movement trays, I figured it was simply a matter of replacing one or two figures with Hits Tracker base occupying the same area.

As I had several dice holders left over from a purchase from Warbases, I decided to make use of them for this little project. It was simply a matter of gluing one of these dice cells onto a cavalry base and adding some battlefield litter and scenic tufts to blend the base to the unit.

The 3-cell frame is a little too large for one or even two infantry bases though, so I had to remove the the divisions between the outline and also one end of the frame.

The result is a precise fit for three dice, although in retrospect having two cells would actually be sufficient for most infantry units, and would have allowed me to add stuff on the base for decoration.

I made enough bases for my WOTR army, so the next question is whether I should do the same for my Night Goblin army, which I am planning to expand (just by 90 or so figures, nothing much...) to make up a 2000 points KOW army. And whether I should get fancy coloured dice for each of my two armies...