Ostrogoth: Almost Done

After an enforced posting break caused by my PC going pop I'm back with the last of the Ostrogoth's that I currently have the models for. Over the last 2 weeks I've completed the last regiments of cavalry and the several of the characters.

On the cavalry front I now have 4 Regiments of Knights, 6 Troops of Sergeants, and 5 Troops of Mounted Scouts along with 2 Wizards and 3 Mounted Heroes. 

I still need to paint up the Generals on Winged Beasts but the models I plan to use for them are currently still in production so they aren't expected out until November.

This means that I have completed around 3000 points worth and I have some flying beasts I can proxy in for the Generals in the meantime.

For the mounted wizards I've used two Gripping Beast models to represent a court wizard and a hedge wizard. I also had a Gripping Beast priest on foot to use as a wizard in Vanguard if I ever need to field one.

The KoM wizards are pretty flexible and come with a good range of spells to choose from, probably Lightning Bolt and Bane Chant are the most commonly taken.

I also painted up a knight with banner to represent The Captain. He is the unique KoM hero who comes with some nice stats and rules for the price. The most interesting rule is Master Tactician which allows you to redeploy D3 units after setup is completed but before Scout moves. In an army that has the potential to field Knight Hordes the chance to move one or more units across the table after your opponent has committed looks like a real boon.

I've also painted up the spare infantry I had left over from the kits with enough models to make a nice little Vanguard force.

KoW Vanguard: Capture the Giant

For our second game of Vanguard we played the ever unpredictable Capture the Giant. This sees both sides trying to score Victory Points by causing the most wounds on the Giant that round with bonus VP's available for killing key enemy models. The Giant moves 9-16" at the start of each turn in a random direction attacking everything along it's path.

We both setup facing the Giant with the knowledge that the only safe place to be was outside it's movement range but then you'd not be able to cause any damage, the second safest place was to be in contact with the Giant as he could then do a maximum of 1 damage rather than the 5 powerful attacks he made if he ran over your model.

During the first turn we both tried to get into contact with the Giant and my Werewolf was fast enough to also be able to attack and score some wounds, the  Kingdoms of Men could make contact but not attack. This meant the Undead had a 3-0 lead at the end of turn 1.

At the start of the second turn the Giant moved directly onto my two Soul Reaver infantry causing two wounds to each and knocking them down, not a great start. The KoM also triple charged my Werewolf and killed him off, so I'd lost my most powerful attacker and the 2nd & 3rd most powerful where heavily damaged. The rest of the second turn saw the combatants close together in the centre of the table apart from one lone Revenant who managed to put a wound onto the Giant so I lead 6-1 at the end of turn 2.

The Giant in turn 3 then helped out the Undead massively by moving back in the only direction that would do maximum carnage to the KoM and ending up back in the middle of the table. As you can see from the before (above) and after (below) pictures he cleaned up multiple KoM units for me including the Knight and Ogre Warrior, both of whom are serious damage dealers.

The KoM managed to put plenty of wounds on the Giant so by the end of the turn the scores where 6-4 to the Undead.

Once again the Giant helped out the Undead by running over the KoM leader and also knocking down the Wizard and one of the Warriors. This allowed the Undead to kill the knocked down Warrior and the remaining Soul Reaver killed off a KoM long bowmen with the other bowman falling to the skeleton archers.

The Wizard also was killed by a Revenant and suddenly things looked grim for the Men who had passed their break-point. The return of the Giant back over the remains of the KoM force left them with no options to cause a wound so we ended the game at that point.

Only the leader from the KoM survived with the rest of the force no doubt destined to be raised by a Necromancer and forced into battle against their old comrades.
Capture the Giant can be a deeply 'unfair' scenario sometimes if it happens to run over a bunched up group of your models, so perhaps the KoM will be luckier next time.

I've also completed the 2nd Regiment of infantry for the Ostrogoths which takes them up to a full Horde's worth if required.

I also have some spares so I can make up some men for a Vanguard force if required.