Armada: The Vortex

This week's Armada was The Vortex which sees both sides score VP's by positioning their ships near a swirling vortex of energy. You have to get in close (<4") to score big points and the vortex drags you in D3" at the end of this turn. Coming into contact with the Vortex means instant destruction so you need to be very careful (or lucky) with your positioning.

The fact that all the ships are going to be concentrated around the Vortex and that you can reduce the enemies scoring units by destroying them suited the boarding focused Twilight Kin fleet. You can build a shooting TK list by including loads of Needlefang Squadrons which increase ranges damage by 1 for close ships, but fielding 10-15 of the same unit doesn't really float my boat.

The Abyssal Dwarf's went for a more shooty list which was a mistake, they can deploy some serious indirect fire but this wasn't the best list for getting in close or for scoring which rewarded medium ships and above the most.

The Dwarfs gained an early advantage by scoring in the first turn with their small fast ships charging in at full speed. The Abyssal Dwarf engines which mean you can turn at the start of a movement step (it's normally at the end) makes them really manoeuvrable so they can charge in a bit more and not have to worry about the consequences as much.

After that first turn however things went downhill for the Dwarf's as I managed to pick off all their small ships and grapple their Angkor. The Angkor was left within 3" of the Vortex and Admiral T rolled high meaning it got sucked into the Vortex and was smashed to pieces.

This meant that after only 3(could have been 4) turns the Dwarf's only had the Arbiter of Pain left and whilst she's a mighty ship and took out my Impaler she couldn't score VP's as quickly as my remaining four ships.

We have a couple of games left before we head over to Oxford for an event so we both need to finalise our lists for the day.

Twilight Kin: Lord of Nightmares

Mikayel, Lord of Nightmares is the second of the Twilight Kin named heroes and whilst La'theal likes to take care of the casting Mikayel likes to get stuck in. In the lore he starts out as a Elf Inquisitor but gets turned to the dark-side and becomes a powerful Soulbane. Mounted on an actual Nightmare he wields the Sword of Umbra.

Looking at his stats he basically has all the special rules with Iron Resolve with a fearless 17 nerve meaning he will be good at grinding and his Dread aura spreading the pain once stuck into melee. 

He isn't that cheap at 235 points but you do get a lot for the price and he has all the TK keywords so benefits from all the auras that the list can bring.

Alternatively he can be used as a Soulbane on Nightmare for 80 points less at the cost of quite a few of his special rules and a nerve drop. Having a fast nimble hero who can carry tokens and take objectives is often very useful in Kings of War so I can myself including one these versions in most lists.

I've also completed my third and final horde of Impalers giving me the potential to have a wall of fearless 17, defence 6+ to operate around on the battlefield.

I've not got that many more models left to paint for this army so it should be completed just in time for the building works to start and make playing a large scale game impossible for several months.

We are currently playing Armada so as that fits on a smaller table we won't need to stop gaming night hopefully.

Twilight Kin: Tickle Monster

This week I've dug into the 3d prints I had done last month to add some more units to the Twilight Kin.

First up with have one of the Nameless Goliaths that I've repurposed to use in army as a Bound Terror. It's big, red and looks like Mr Tickle's more aggressive cousin and if you happen to be an infantry or cavalry unit not something you want to meet down a dark alley. 

It's big pluses are the 18/19 nerve, regen 4+ and 12 CS(1) attacks hitting on 3+, it's main drawback is the speed of only 6, so this will need some shielding to get it into combat. It also has the Rampage (8) special rule which means it goes up to 20 attacks against infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry and swarms. Given a couple of turns it should be able to grind through most infantry hordes and come out the other side in pretty healthy shape.

The Twilight Assassin is a Vault only release and they've done a really nice model for her. The unit comes with a bucket load of specials rules but the stand-outs are probably Dread (-1 nerve aura) and Fel Blades which acts like the Weakness spell to reduce the enemies chances of wounding. Speed 7 is pretty good and you could add flying with the Wings of Honeymaze, but that's another 40 points on top of the existing cost. It would give you a highly mobile unit with a Dread bubble though.

I also got some Summoner Crone's on foot (again only avaliable in the Vault at present) and a resin La'theal which is a big improvement in quality over the PVC one from League of Infamy. I've been through the stats of these around Christmas so won't go through them again.

All in all some more great casts from the Vault printed out by Jim at Bristol Independent Gaming.