The Ruined Temple and other Occurrences

With the rest of the week I've been busy on the hobby and playing front completing some models and also getting a couple of games in.

The completed terrain is a ruined temple from Scotia Grendel which is a reasonably large resin kit. I gave it a quick clean and then assembled it on a MDF base to keep it all in place. This did make painting a little more tricky but looks better once on the table.

I'd also picked up a Mantic terrain crate which contained some temple scenery parts in hard plastic to add a dais and altar. The dais is set into the Polyfilla on the base whilst the altar is loose. The base itself is large enough to use as an area of rough terrain in a skirmish game, something the open nature of the ruins helps to facilitate. 

I also picked up a Talos model from Mierce Miniatures when they had them on half price sale. Even at half price these aren't the cheapest of models so I put him on a 75mm square so he can be used as a Titan in Kings of War. I had planned to weather him up with some Verdigris but liked the way he looked after the initial coats and wash went on so I've not done that yet, I can always come back and do that in the future if I change my mind. Again this is a resin model, I judged that a metal model that large would be a pain to assemble and handle. The model itself went together without too much issue, I did need to straighten the spear in some hot water but that was easily done.

We also had the second of our KoW v3 practice games, with the Undead and KoM playing the Fools Gold scenario. This uses five bluff tokens per side with victory point values of: 2 * 0VP, 2 * 1VP & 1 * 2VP. The tokens are placed value down on the opponents half of the table and then all revealed at the end of turn 3. 

Having the slower force I opted for a much tighter deployment have placed my 2VP token to the left of the house and my 1VP tokens on the hill to the houses right and in the wood behind the house. 

The Undead force was unchanged from last week with the KoM opting to run 3 Regiments of Knights rather than 1 Horde & 1 Regiment, this meant a change around in the Sergeants and Scouts:

1 * Foot Guard Regiment

3 * Knight Regiment

1 * Mounted Sergeant Regiment

1 * Mounted Sergeant Troop

1 * Mounted Scout Regiment

2 * Mounted Scout Troop

2 * General of Winged Beast

2 * Wizard, one with Heal

1 * The Captain

The KoM put their 1VP tokens on the far right of the Undead line but in what was an error the 2VP token was put in the Undead's bottom left corner. Whilst I didn't realise this until the end of turn 3 this meant I had 4 points in the corner I had deployed in, which was lucky. 

On my left the Zombie Legion managed to chew it's way through 2 troops of cavalry and a Regiment of Knights in three turns of combat. This secured the left flank whilst the Undead centre and right was taken apart by the men.

Had the KoM 2VP token been placed anywhere but the bottom left corner then I wouldn't have had enough troops left to contest any other tokens.

During the melee in the middle I had a couple of surge attacks that came up 1inch short of completion so things may have been a little better if I'd been able to commit an extra caster to surge those units into combat.

In the end I managed to hold on to a win with the KoM failing to rout my Revenant Infantry, a charge which could have seen them over-run into a winning position.

I also managed to get a second game of Clash of Spears in with the Romans and Carthaginians once again going into combat.

As with the last time the Iberian allies of the Carthaginians got killed early on but they did manage to take out the Roman Velites before they expired.

With this game we introduced a unit of cavalry on each side with the Romans having four Equites melee cavalry and the Carthaginians having six Numidian light cavalry. The Romans probably needed more models to make the unit work properly as with only 4 attacks the dice can swing rather heavily one way or the other. The Numidians seemed a decent unit with a decent shot but also the capability to charge in when required.

The Roman heavy infantry found it tough to punch through the Carthaginian Hoplites so I think a bit more work on how to get the Hoplites out of close order to make them more vulnerable to the Romans is required. The Roman pilum throwing is most likely not going to be enough in a 1 unit vs 1 unit situation.