First Blood : Rats vs Kin

Today I played my first Kings of War game against my brother who came over from Cirencester with his Rat-Pack. The army composition was primarily decided by the figures that we had available and the forces came in at 1400pts per side. This still gave a nice mix of units but perhaps not the optimal forces that  competitive players would field.

My Kin fielded :
1 * Crossbow Regiment
1 * Shadows Regiment
1 * Reaper Guard Regiment
1 * Blade Dancers Regiment with Caterpillar pot
1 * Blade Dancers Troop
2 * Gargoyles Troop
1 * Hydra
1 * Priestess with Bane Chant & Inspiring Talisman
1 * Dark Lord on Pegasus

The Ratkin fielded :
1 * Warrior Horde
2 * Shock Troop Regiment
2 * Shock Troop Troop
2 * Clawshot Troops
1 * Vermintide Horde
1 * Weapon Team
1 * Mutant Rat-fiend
1 * War Chief
1 * Warlock with Inspiring Talisman

The scenario was Loot, in which 3 loot tokens are arranged along the center line and the aim is to pick them up and move them back to your table edge. Both sides start 12" from the center and take it in turns to deploy units.
In the deployment phase the evil Rats tried to sneak an extra Mutant Rat-fiend onto the table but I manged to spot this mix-up on understanding the army list that I had sent through. Having just read the list again I have now noticed that they did manage to field a second Weapon Team rather than just the one.

Having read that KoW battles are better with more terrain I set the terrain up last night and the Rats got to choose sides.

Mushroom forest and altar

The three tokens prior to them being deployed

It was much sunnier last night

The Rats chose the side away from the window and deployment was made, I went first and then as the Rats had more units they had a few free placements without me being able to respond.

A solid wall of Rats

The main Kin deployment

Out of focus Rats, sorry.

The Rats with a superiority in unit numbers deployed a strong force to contest each loot counter whilst I concentrated on the center and left hand tokens with only a single unit of Gargoyles on the right to try and cause some mischief. 

During the first pair of moves the Gargoyles on the left flew forwards and claimed the loot and the flying lord and Blade Regiment pushed up to take the cover of the wall. The Rat Shock Regiment then charged and wiped out the Gargoyles with the Weapon team doing a little shooting into the Lord.

End of Rats first turn

In the center I missed my first special rule by not doing the Vanguard move on the Shadows so they and the Crossbow Regiment moved and shot into the Rat Horde. The melee troops moved up into charge range of the token and waited for the horde to claim it which they did supported by the other Shock Regiment. The Ratkin Longshots opted to stay in place and shoot rather than lose a move by getting into cover. They took some long range shots into the Crossbows but without much effect.

The rats have control of a second token

On the right my Hydra shuffled to hide behind the building and also to get an angle to charge but I left him out of range for the central horde. The Gargoyles move forwards a bit but did not go for the token. The Rats rolled up with 2 Shock Troops and the Mutant and took control of the third token.

At this point I managed to forget to take photos after each pair of moves but on the left flank the flying Lord charged and manged to hold up the Shock Regiment with the token whilst the Blade Regiment wiped out the Vermintide and then a Weapon Team on consecutive moves. 

In the center the Blade Troop and Reapers charged and did massive casualties to the Horde but only managed to waver it. Concentrated fire from the Shadows and Crossbows also managed to waver the Shock Regiment so it could not intervene.
On the right flank the Gargoyles flew over the Rats who realizing that they had wasted troops on that flank started to move some towards the center.

In the final moves the Kin managed to wipe out the units in the center and take control of the token and position themselves on the left to deliver a rear charge with the Blade Regiment ( 75 attacks ! ). It was agreed that the Rats would not be able to stop the Kin from getting both these tokens off the board.

Poised for slaughter

The Mutant finally gets involved

Gargoyles block the exit

All in all an enjoyable first game ( of course winning always helps ) and as the rules are pretty simple the game moved along pretty well for a first go. I have since realized that the Rat Warlock manged to get both his bane-chant and lightening spells off in the same turn a couple of times rather than just casting the one spell each turn but other than that I don't think we got anything wrong.

The only real mistakes came from not being used to the rules enough to make proper tactical decisions so for instance the Rat left flank got too tied up with the Gargoyle unit and missed most of the battle when it could have been deployed to the center much earlier and helped things there. Though having said that even though the Mutant should hit like a truck once it got into combat is failed miserably to put enough damage out to justify 200 points.

There should I hope be some close-up shots and a Rats opinion of the fight over on the Cirencester Wargames blog once my brother has written it up.

Painting Progress

The story of this week has been lots of progress without actually completing anything. I seem to have been managing about one unit a week so far but this week has seen nothing finished.
I do have 11 more Shadows almost complete with half ready to be based and the other half waiting for the Quickshade to dry so they can highlighted and varnished.

Dull ones ready to Rock

Shiny ones almost ready to Roll

I also have the Hero on flying mount at the waiting for Quickshade stage so he will be ready to fly out by the weekend.

His base is also ready and once the highlights, varnish and shield have gone on he can swoop forth.

I have also assembled the first of the dino-riders who I will be using as a mounted Hero variant. I have enough models so I can make two troops of cavalry and one each Hero, Standard Bearer & Mage. I doubt I will ever use all of them at once but its good to have a choice.

Early Stages

This one looks like it may actually be pretty easy to get a good effect without much time input so he could be done by next week.

Gee Up the Troops

Keeping your troops motivated is a battle that all commanders have to fight so this week I gave a little thought to how this would be done by the Twilight Kin. I have already painted some heroes to lead from the front and inspire the troops so perhaps some encouragement from behind is also required.

It Could be You

As an evil faction I don't think the Kin would be above making a blood sacrifice and what greater way to motivate the troops than picking one of your own.
The altar is an old stone I think I picked up whilst at University 20 odd years ago and the icon came from the Deamonette box.

Are you paying attention at the back ?

I think the altar along with the mushroom forest should add a nice little bit of flavor to the battlefield and remind me that I should get some of the background story I have in my head about the army written down. As creative writing is not really my thing that will be a more laborious task.

I have also made some progress on the hero mounted on an Eagle to take the place of hero on Pegasus.

It is coming together reasonably well and after some faffing around I have decided to complete the rear end first so I can hold it more easily to finish the front end.

Winged Horrors

Quick update as I have pretty much finished my two Gargoyle troops having got them glued onto the bases this evening.

I am rather pleased with the way they have turned out and just need to tidy up the areas around the glue. This means they will be ready to face off against my brothers Ratkin in a couple of weeks.
I used GW Daemonettes of Slaanesh and Tyranid Gargoyles to make the models.

Horde of Dancers

This week I completed the last of my four Troops of Blade Dancers and all together they form an impressive block.

Gargoyles look on from the rear

A Horde of Hurt

I have also made some good progress on the Gargoyles which is handy as I am expecting my brother over in the near future for an inaugural game and a cheap unit of fast troops should be useful. He will be basing up some old Warhammer Skaven and we have enough for 1250 points each.

Purple Fury

Multi-base behind

Once again I am not entirely satisfied with how the washes have worked out but I think with some shading and then highlighting they should look OK.

With the upcoming battle in mind I also completed the Hydra and it is mounted on a base that can be used either for KoW or Hordes.

Ready to kill some rats

Bases Seperated

With the upcoming game in mind I have also painted up some of the spare mushrooms I had to use as 'counts-as-trees' to give a little flavor to the battlefield, I may also try and make up a sacrificial alter with statues.

Dragon's Horn Shrooms

I also glued together my final hero ( for the moment ), he will need some green stuff to fill a few gaps but otherwise he went together very easily when compared to the Hordes monsters.

Flying Hero

Tomorrow I will be visiting a table top sale held by a local wargames group so I am sure I will be picking up even more figures to add to my pile of painting unless a miracle happens and my wallet stays shut.