At the Sharp End

Yesterday I hosted Stuart the Eldar and we played our first game of KoW:Vanguard which is Mantic's new fantasy skirmish game. The game is marketed as fantasy black-ops and features small warbands of warriors fighting it out over objectives.

The battle we played saw both sides trying to harness the power of a mystic portal, this was done by remaining in base-to-base contact with the portal, this scored you points at the end of each round but ran the risk (on a roll of 7 or 8 on a d8 per model) of being sucked off the battlefield and into the void.
My Nightstalkers consisted of three groups:
The fast : 2 * Shadowhounds, 1 * Shade all with 7 speed
The punchy : 2 * Reapers, 1 * Horror, 1 * Butcher Fleshripper
The expendable : 2 * Scarecrow, 1 * Horror

Stuart has written up an account of the fight which after a good early start where my fast troops managed to wipe out three crossbowmen took a turn for the worse for the forces of the shadows.
The Basilean special ability allows them to save all wounds in a melee rounds on a 3+ (using d8) and whilst it is pretty expensive that along with the Parry rule which some of the troops have makes them very hard to get rid of. They may not be flashy but the Basileans will be very hard to break down if they can generate enough power dice each turn.

As with all initial playthroughs of a game we spent plenty of time flicking through the rule book trying to work out if we could or couldn't perform an action. Once we got going the game flowed well and as each turn consists of players alternating activating either a single or closely spaced group of models it would work well as a multiplayer game. I could see a three or four player all against all game being lots of fun with the only change really needed being to reduce the size of the forces deployed so you could finish in a reasonable amount of time.

All that is needed now is for me to get my thinking cap on to get a campaign to tie the Vanguard and normal KoW battles together. The latest KoW supplement is set to include rules for assaulting fortifications so that would seem like a good set piece for the final battle, I just need to get the route to the battle worked out. The other thing I need to work out is how to get rid of Paladin Defenders, that may prove more tricky.

One thing we have agreed is that we will be using or Vanguard forces to represent a Regiment in the main battles. I got my custom movement trays sorted out for the Nightstalkers so they will be ready to join the Herd on the table.

My plan is to use them as a Regiment of Doppelgangers which would help to explain the variation of troops in the Regiment.

The Doppelgangers also have a very interesting special rule which could be fun if they manage to catch a expensive and powerful attacking unit with a charge.

Shades of Black

More creatures from the darkest dreams have slithered off the painting blocks this week as I completed some Phantoms and Horrors.

The Phantoms are flying warriors who boast no special abilities and aren't that fast but could be useful on boards with lots of terrain.

The Horrors are earth bound but do have the special of giving other models nearby the Vicious rule which allows them to reroll 1's to hit in melee. So they would look to be a good support model for heavier hitters.

This week I also took delivery of some custom bases from Warbases to use to mount the Vanguard troops for use in a full size KoW battle.

It took them only a week to turn my drawing into a product I had in my hand and at a very reasonable cost of less than £2 a base. I drew up two designs both of which featured five 20mm squares, one 25mm * 50mm cav hole and then either a 40 or 50 mm hole.

I have made some progress on getting them table ready but realised I needed some blank bases in order to fill the gaps if I use the Phantoms as they are on 25mm bases. The idea works pretty well with the models being a good tight fit so they should be easy to use in a proper game.

The Vanguard Kickstarter also came with some objective markers to use with the various scenarios and I have been getting some ready for use in our forthcoming practice games.

I haven't spent loads of time on these but they seem to have come together pretty well and should look good on the table once we get playing.

I have also been working away on the Giant and wondered how he compared up to the other large models I already have, well the answer is he towers over them and deserves the capital G in his name.

Since doing the comparison I have made a small amount of progress on getting him ready but have mainly concentrated on the Nightstalkers.

Back on the Nightstalker front I also received the resin models from the Kickstarter at the third attempt so now have all the models for the Warband. As a result of being sent a couple of incorrect army packs I also now have many more NS models than I anticipated. In fact I have 75 extra Scarecrow / Spectre models and five each of the Horror, Phantom, Butcher, Reaper, and Shadowhound models. This would seem to be enough to field a decent sized army if I add some hero and monster types.

Mick and I also managed to squeeze in another scenario from the Mythic Battles book which saw Ares and chums controlled by Mick descend to the underworld to take on Hades controlled by myself.

The objective was for Ares to destroy four stones ( meant to be pillars supporting the roof of Hades ) whilst Hades attempted to stop him. The scenario had a turn limit so Ares could not afford to hang around too much.

After taking an early lead by using ranged attacks to destroy three of the stones Hades turtled up on the last one and managed to hold off Ares to run the clock down, in fact I did manage to kill Ares on the very last turn of the game.

I didn't take many photos of this one but it was good to get some units we hadn't used before out onto the board.

Nightmares made Flesh

This week I completed the a good chunk of the Nightstalker models for KoW:Vanguard that I got in the kickstarter. Due to a couple of packaging mistakes I am still waiting for the final resin models to arrive so I cannot complete the warband yet. The Nightstalkers are called forth from a shadow realm and mostly consist of nightmares and the spirits of various beings lost into that realm.

Vanguard splits the models into several troops types and the Nightstalkers are primarily a melee faction. The large model is a Bruiser and he/it is joined by some Shadowhounds, Spectres, and Scarecrows. I've gone for a toned down paint scheme apart from the green energy / tentacles which I used as a light source to try and pick out some details. Having black grass for the base I've also added a few blue and red bushes to the bases which are also casting a glow in order to pick out the surface of the grass.

Shadowhounds are the fast attack specialists in the NS warband and they have a handy regenerate ability so should be able to last longer without direct support.

The Spectres are the long ranged warriors of the warband but only have a range of 9" so need to get closer than most ranged weapons to attack.

The Scarecrows are the cheapest unit in the warband and offer an inexpensive way to fill out the minimum requirements to unlock the better units, they can however be dangerous if they charge on-mass.

Mick and I also got a couple of games of Mythic Battles in on Friday as we started to work  our way through the scenarios released with the base game.

The first scenario sees Ares & Hades trying to kill Zeus who is supported by Leonidas and the Spartans. Ares & Hades start the game with 2 vitality lost each and they cannot raise above that level. Zeus wins if he kills both the opposing Gods or absorbing the two omphalos and Ares & Hades win by killing Zeus.

The first game saw Mick control Zeus and he got off to a flier by zapping both opposing Gods with one lightning bolt as I made the mistake of deploying them together.

Ares got the worst of the attack and despite Ares pressing on and doing some damage he soon fell and then team Zeus managed to incapacitate Hades so I could not stop him from claiming the omphalos.

The second game followed a similar course with me controlling Zeus but it was closer as Ares and then Hades managed to do some good damage to Zeus. In the end I was able to reduce Ares to zero move through damage and then run away from Hades to claim the second omphalos.

Also this week I have started putting together the Giant that was launched with Vanguard. He comes with 4 arms and 2 heads so has lots of options out of the box and for only £25 is a real bargain.
In order to make mine a little more unusual I decided to use the head from a GW minotaur giant model and add some hair/fur onto his back.

I attached the head initially with white Milliput and then used some borrowed Greenstuff ( thanks Mick!) to make up a thin layer which was then marked to hopefully give a fur effect. As I've not done this before I was pretty happy with the results so far, just need to get him based and painted now.

Prison Break

This week's Mythic Battles clash saw two Goddesses fighting on the Tartarus battlefield. This is largely open with a few bits of terrain representing the cages which are impassable to Gods & Monsters on most sides on the area.
Mick went with Persephone as his deity and backed her up with some trusty heroes and the monstrous Campe. Bellerophon would be required to do most of the leg work and hard fighting with the others offering support.

I opted for Hecate and backed her up with Arachne for her ability to gather omphalos in surrounding areas. The aim was to occupy a central location and go for a win by absorbing four omphalos rather than killing the opposing deity. Stheno the Gorgon was taken for her Petrify ability and speed in the hope she could lock down Bellerophon, Arachne also offered some crowd control with her Web ability.

We actually managed to get three games in on one evening with the play moving pretty quickly now we have a good grasp of the rules.

The first two games went to team Hecate with my plan to occupy and absorb the omphalos working both times.

With the way the map was laid out I was able to reach four omphalos by occupying one area and team Persephone could not stop me absorbing them.

 During these games I was not able to stop Bellerophon from flying around and killing my troops but crucially he was not able to stop me from claiming and absorbing.

In the third game with Mick won Bellerophon concentrated on collecting omphalos and delivering them back. He managed to deliver several before Stheno got a Petrify off and stopped him flying about. Campe had also gotten in on the action and managed to disrupt my gathering plans long enough for Persephone to claim four omphalos and win.

Another interesting set of games with little actual bloodshed compared to previous clashes. We next plan to play some of the scenario's from the book so will not be doing any drafts again for a little while.