Twilight Kin: Christmas Elf

What can be more in keeping with the festive spirit and Elves, unless of course they are power crazed, sadistic murderous Elves of course.

I've been continuing to work through the Twilight Kin and have managed to add quite a few options over the last couple of weeks. First up though are a second Regiment of Impalers to add to the other one I already have so I can  field a Horde of them. I expect that I'd only field Regiments when playing in the smaller scale battles of KoW:Ambush so having two Regiments gives me some flexibility in list building.

Here's the two Regiments together as they would appear in a normal sized KoW battle, I do like the portal I added onto the base and I have a few more to scatter throughout the force.

Next up we have the Impaler hero model, the aptly named Impaler Soulbane. As it is dual wielding axes it loses the Big Shield rule that helps the standard Impalers survive but does pick up an extra Crushing Strength and has the same number of attacks as the Impaler Regiment on a base 1/3 of the size, this beast would need some shielding from attacks but looks set to do good work into the flanks or rear of the enemy.

The TK don't have lots of ranged options but the Voidtouched Weavers give two different ranged profiles in one unit. The standard option is for Fireball which is a 12" attack that deals Shattering to the enemy unit, this lowers it's nerve in the following test by 1. The Lightning Bolt option gives an attack with double the range and some Piercing but you can only take a maximum of three units with it. I'm not sure as a TK player you really want to lean into the ranged attacks and I personally prefer to keep my chaff units cheap, but it's good to have the option to change things up without needing to paint new models.

Then we have more hero options, I painted up a couple of models from the League of Infamy set to use, the cast is La'theal Bleakheart who is a unique caster hero with a good group of spells to choose from. One of her special abilities allows her to also deal damage when cast Windblast, I've not really used Windblast in the past but it's a good tool (in the right hands) to move your opponent about and off objectives.

The other model is actually a Vampire but she looked in keeping with the others and I think could be a second Void Captain if I needed one.

I'm not planning on using many bound units but the Butcher Fleshripper came in the box so it got painted up. It's a good model with plenty of character and it does offer a rare Def 5+ unit in the army at a reasonable price so it could be another unit looking to get into flanks or perhaps as a token carrier.

Summoner Crone's have been touted as a key unit in the Twilight Kin army with many of the lists I've seen so far having two if not three included. With much of the army being Def 4+ the chance to take multiple instances of Weakness (which effectively increases your defence) which can also cause damage is seen as being key. As the TK don't pact much shooting then having spells that cause damage and an effect is very efficient.

The resin version in the army sets comes on a mount so I'll need to get a couple of foot versions as well to cover eventualities but the La'theal model could also stand in as a standard Crone. 

Lastly we have the Void Captain on foot, or in the this case the prow of a ship. There is also a version on board a Void Skiff as well but I'll model that one up later in the project.

The Twilight Kin have several units that interact with the Keywords associated with the other units in the list. The Void Captain is a fairly simple example in that she gives all Corsair units +1 nerve if they are within 6".

To help me keep track of the various interactions I knocked up a quick spreadsheet to visualize them. These interactions will also help to form battlegroups on the table, so if for instance you have several units of Void Wardens then you want a Captain close by to bump their nerve up. Once you throw a Navigator into the mix then things become more complicated, I have yet to stick mine together though. 

Here we have all the models I've painted for the army thus far, it's a good start but I still have plenty of new units to paint and of course repeats of units I've already done.

Twilight Kin: Crew of the Heartseeker

I've been working away on some more Twilight Kin with the Corsair models next in line to be painted. The kit comes with a few variants to make the different Corsair offerings and for the first two Troop's I've gone with mostly spears to represent the Fleetwardens. Most/all of the Corsair units have the relatively low defence of 5+ but come with an optional upgrade (Bloodhex) which allows you to bump it up to 5+ for a turn. The Fleetwardens also come with an option to increase their nerve by +1/+1 for a low cost. There isn't a huge amount of Crushing Strength in the list so they also supply a handy source of that and Phalanx for blunting the attacks of cavalry and flyers.

The Voidwalker variant is more focused on straight combat and has the option to change to melee 3+, but the ability to add Ensnare onto the units will also help with survivability. 

The reason I started with two Troop's worth is so I could field the Crew of the Heartseeker formation which adds Regiment of Impalers add well to complete the formation. The formation makes the Fleetwardens Fearless and the Rally on the Impalers can take them up to -/14 nerve, which is pretty good for a Troop. This would give you three hardy pieces of chaff with which to hold up the enemy.

I have painted up the Heartseeker for Armada as well so if she makes it onto the table then it feels like her crew should be on the table for Kings.

Next up I'm painting some heroes to go with the army and then a couple of Troops of ranged units.

Twilight Kin: The First Wave

I've now had a chance to read up on the Twilight Kin expanded lore and also apply some more paint to models. The new lore ties the TK very much to the Void which they navigate in search of lost treasure (and in some respects glory) which was cast into the Void during the cataclysm caused by an evil god and a magic mirror. This brings them into contact with the beings known as the Nightstalkers who inhabit the Void, it also alters them physically and mentally as time spent in the Void takes it toll. 

First up are a couple more troops of Bound Phantoms to be used as fast, fearless, flying chaff, perfect for the role and well priced at only 100points.

Next up are some new models, the Impalers. This is a new hard plastic kit released by Mantic using their new supplier and the casting is top notch. You get three different bodies each with a choice of heads and weapons. The shields are assigned to a body but I will see if they can be swapped around between them or not. 

The Impalers are male Twilight Kin who have been changed by exposure to the Void to become hulking monstrosities. It seems the males are more susceptible to the corruption so change more quickly and radically. 

The chaps are on monstrous infantry bases (50mm square per model) so occupy a decent frontage but come with big shield so have defence 6+ from the front and a decent fearless nerve. This means they should be able to take  decent punch from the front and then unleash their melee attacks back. With wild charge (d3) they could also potentially charge 13" which could catch the odd unit out.

I'm not sure I'm a massive fan of the 'big stride' pose on these models but the detailing is excellent and they do make for interesting models and a few hordes of these should make a solid centre to any Twilight Kin list.

I've opted to work through all the units types one unit at a time rather than doing all of the models I have for that unit type at once to keep the variety going so up next we have a rather unique unit. The Void-Skiffs are the vessels that the Twilight Kin built to navigate the Void, it seems they also work just fine outside the Void as well. I have of course painted up an Armada fleet for the TK so had a scheme to work from but it was still very unusual to be painting a couple of boats to use in a mass fantasy battle.

Coming only in regiment size the Skiff is a handy melee unit that can be upgraded to have an unusual shooting ability (it fires out of the side arcs rather than front) which will need to be tested to see if it's useful or not.

Flying units are always useful and even with the larger base possibly restricting some charge options they should be getting into some flanks and causing people issues, having brutal is a nice bonus.

Again the kit for this goes together well with the boat being designed to self-balance on it's flying stand. I did have a little bit of a faff getting the crew into position but a bit of patience and lots of plastic glue did the job. I also ordered a few bits of 3d printed portals to add onto the bases to show the Skiffs entering the battle direct from the Void, which I think work rather well.

Next on the table will be some Twilight Kin infantry, I've got enough for three regiments so will be starting with a couple of troops worth to give me options for Ambush.

Playing at Northern King Kon 2023

Over the weekend Mr T. and myself travelled north to the town of Ossett just south of Leeds to attend his first (and my second) wargames event/competition. It was to be 2 1/2 days of gaming and meeting fellow hobbyists under the care of the Northern Kings wargames group. 

I did an extremely poor job of taking pictures over the weekend, I'm hopeful Mr T did a better job and managed to snag many more than I did and that he will post them up.

Friday evening was a relaxed affair with three quick 500 point Firefight games between 6ish and 9is. For us it was mainly a chance to find the venue and meet some of people we would be playing with over the weekend. Whilst it was rather chilly outside the hall the played in was lovely and warm and our hosts made us very welcome. I should give a big shout-out to our hosts Nick, Elliott, and Tom who laid on a great weekend for us. They had to battle against a few issues with people dropping out and even melting trophies. 

The only picture I got from Friday was against Nick's Asterians, an army he'd stuck together and painted all in one week. An impressive feat given how nice it looked and I think I may have been his first opponent with them. I also played Richard with his GCPS and Mr T in the last game. That meant I had played two new opponents with new armies I'd not played against before. 

On Saturday we played three games of Firefight at 1500 points, one in the morning and two in the afternoon after a good lunch. Lunch was provided on both days (and jolly nice it was too), tea and coffee was on permanent offer and the community centre's bar as open as well. On top of that Nick often passed amongst us to ply us with sweet treats. I'd heard the Northern Kings events described as 'premium' online and all things considered we absolutely got value (and more) for our ticket price.

First up I had a game against Adam with his Veer-myn playing the Scourge (kill) scenario. This was one scenario I hoped to avoid as it's not a good one for armies with lots of cheap, easy to kill units. Playing it against another army with cheap, easy to kill units was probably a best case scenario. Adam had gone leader heavy compared to my list so I could only envy the number of command dice he rolled. In the end the game hinged on a small mistake he made in moving a unit of cheap rats he could sacrifice for wounds away from his Brood Mother leader who I'd managed to charge on turn 1 but who just survived. You can see her in the back of the photo I remembered to take just before a Tunneller shot her off and as she was his most expensive unit bagged 10 valuable VP's. Otherwise it was a close game with not much in it. 

Next up was Elliott with his Forge Fathers, I don't think he'd planned to play but because of a number imbalance caused by drop outs he joined us. This Scenario was Manpower and used 4 objective markers which needed to be controlled. Things well reasonably well at the start with my Creepers taking out an Iron Ancestor and a APC in turn 1 and then my lead from the first couple of turns was slowly eroded by Elliott and he saw out the win, I think that was in the last turn, possibly two. 

My last game was against David and his Mazon Labs, I can't believe I didn't get any pictures of his army as they took my best painted vote. The scenario was Lockdown which features two area that need to be controlled. Again I got off to a fast start with the Creepers rushing up and my units scoring on both objectives. Again I slowly got reeled back in with my number of scoring units being eroded and Richard managed to take the win. Not having played Mazon I was surprised by what they could do with respect to healing units back up and also giving units extra move distance.

So the day ended after three games against three new thoroughly nice opponents and one new army. Richard with his GCPS who I played against the night before won the tournament with Elliott coming in second. Mr T played against Richard in one of his games and it seems the GCPS have some units which are rather good (something about missile launchers and other blast weapons) which makes them a challenge to play against. I'm glad with my low armour army I didn't have to face them. 
One win from three left me in the middle part of the table with Mr T one place below me, but only by 30 odd kills points. I was also voted Best Sport by my opponents so it seems they had as much fun as I did.

By the end of the day both Mr T and myself where suffering from some mental (and back based) exhaustion so rather than stay for drinks and more games we headed back to the accommodation for a bite to eat and bed.

Peter's GCPS

On Sunday we had four games of Deadzone to play with one before lunch and then three after we'd filled up. I did manage to get some pictures of the armies on parade but sadly none of the actual games.

Playing at 180 points the game's moved along nice and quickly and given the numbers of players we had (six) we did more of a round robin event than a Swiss matching style. This meant we each got to play someone different each round.

First up I played Richard with his Marauders in Breakthrough where you have to get off the other side of the table. In general I pushed on and Richard tried to make use of his shooting a bit more and he whittled me away enough to then make his melee's decisive.

Richard's Marauders

Second up Ian D and myself continued the Ian-off (it was one all from Nottingham) to see who would take the lead. The scenario was Strength in Depth and the Veer-myn got off to a quick start and then it all went rather wrong. One of the joys of Deadzone is how it creates cinematic moments like when a cheap as chips Plague Ghoul shooting on 6+ boards the eight-train and one shots your Nightmare saving on 4+. All you can do at that point is have a laugh and silently curse your opponents luck! Not for nothing is Ian D (probably) the best Deadzone player in the UK and he quickly reeled my lead back in and took the game. So I'm currently trailing 2-1 and have some work to do if I don't want that first win to look like a fluke.

Ian's Plague

Next up was Sharad who was also sitting on two defeats from two but as this was essentially the first time he'd played he at least had an excuse :-) Sharad had won Best Sports in the Kings of War tournament the day before so in many ways it was a clash of the two nicest people in the hall! Chem Chase isn't really the scenario you want to see if you are playing a low model count Strike Team against a faster and more numerous opponent. This time the luck swung in my favour, for instance Sharad's first move was with his sniper who moved a square, picked up an item, turned over the booby-trap and was knocked back down again. Unfortunately that rather set the tone for him and again I took the early lead but this time managed to keep extending it.

Sharad's Enforcers

My last game up was against Mr T in Deep Strike. Again my luck stayed with me and after a good tussle against his very fighty Forge Fathers I managed to come out on top. Unfortunately the way things played out I didn't get to play against Peter and his GCPS so I'll need to issue a challenge against him if we meet up again at another event.

With two wins from four I again ended up in the middle of the pack and was again voted Best Sport. I hope that means the people I played with enjoyed themselves as much as I did. Playing four games of Deadzone on the Sunday was much less draining than the three of Firefight on the Saturday and really the perfect way to complete an enjoyable weekend. I had four more enjoyable games against two new opponents and got to meet even more members of the community who I'd love to play again.

On the bright side I think Mr T enjoyed the Deadzone enough to want to go and play that again in the future, both agreed that competition Firefight (even the way we play :-) was probably not the best fit for ourselves. 

Return of the Twilight Kin

Way back in March 2017 I did second post on this blog about building an army for game called Kings of War. Whilst it's not been the Mantic game of choice recently my interest was once again  piqued when a new line of Mantic Twilight Kin where announced. These are still the evil / mis-understood Elves of that year but now their lore is rooted in the Void, home of the Nightstalkers. 

Mantic released the Armada fleet for the Twilight Kin before the the KoW army so I've built up the navy already and did some Abyssal Dwarf ships for Mr T so we can have a campaign based on land and the high seas.

For the land force I decided to go all Mantic and ordered up  pretty much a couple of everything from the new range. I also got a few bits printed from the Mantic Vault to add in with the July bundle offering Soulflayer Cavalry and a Mind Screech to add to the Elves themselves.

I want the bulk of the army to be actual Twilight Kin so I've not gone mad with the Nightstalker elements but have rather invested in the proper Elven units, as you can see.

With KoW offering ample chances to do something interesting with your unit bases I decided to base this army up to match the new mat I got with the latest Terrain Crate Kickstarter by Mantic. The mat itself is pretty funky so I don't think I need to go too mad with the models.

On other Nightstalker unit I've opted to include are the Phantoms, these are fast, fearless flying chaff, always a good unit to have. As these are existing models I bought these before the release of the new TK and have been working through them.

I have enough models for three troops of these which I think should be sufficient.

At the moment I'm waiting for the latest Clash of Kings book from Mantic which includes all the new and updated lore for the Twilight Kin, so it will be interesting to read up on what's been happening with them since ver 2.

Northern King Kon 2023

Having enjoyed myself last year at the UK Deadzone Championship I was on the lookout for another 2 day event to attend this year. When the Northern King-Con was announced it seemed like just the thing, 2 1/2 days of Mantic based gaming being run by an extremely experienced group of players. I immediately purchased a ticket and even managed to persuade Mr T to make the journey northwards as well.

Over the last few months we've been working our way through the Firefight scenarios to familiarise ourselves with them and honing our lists. We've not done much in the way of Deadzone preparation but having played a lot in the past I think we should be ok with that.

The Deadzone event consists of four games on Sunday at 180 points. I've essentially taken the same list as I ran at the UK Championship last year but dropped a Troop & Specialist choice to take me down from the 200 points of that event. As with that list the idea is to get onto objectives early and try to build a points lead before my opponent can get going. 

Deadzone 180 points

MASTER CREEPER * 1

[Leader / +20 / 2VP] Master Creeper

- - Ray Pistol

- - Det Bombs

- - Det Packs

NIGHTMARE * 2

[Troop / +20 / 2VP] Nightmare

- - Twin Combat Drills

STALKER * 3

[Troop / +9 / 1VP] Stalker

- - Ray Pistol

MALIGNUS * 2

[Specialist / +16 / 1VP] Malignus

- - Chem Spitter

- - [+2] Ammo [one-use]

CREEPER * 2

[Specialist / +14 / 1VP] Creeper

- - Ray Pistol

- - Det Bombs

- - Det Packs

TUNNEL RUNNER * 1

[Support / +33 / 3VP] Tunnel Runner

- - Twin Chem Spitters

- - Scythes

With the release of the Command Protocols book for Firefight the rules got a few tweaks to make charging from vehicles less devastating and also all the scenarios changed to progressive scoring. I'll probably do another blog on the scenarios as my previous one is now out of date after I've played at the event. My initial reaction has been that (as with Deadzone) getting early points on the board is crucial and being able to score from turn 1 puts you in the driving seat and pressure on your opponent to move quicker than they may want to do.

On Friday evening we have three quick and furious games of Firefight at 500 points, this isn't meant to be (overly) competitive but more of a way to meet up with people and make their acquaintance. I've put together a list that uses some of the models I'm already taking to ease with transport and rules learning.

Firefight 500 points

PROGENITOR (Command) [60]

PROGENITOR [+10] Chemical Grenade Launcher - - Chemical Shells** / Smoke Shells** / Claws

CREEPERS (Troop) [89]

CREEPERS x 6 - - Ray Pistol / Det Pack

CREEPER PACK LEADER - - Ray Pistol / Det Pack

CRAWLERS (Troop) [120]

CRAWLERS x 18 - - Ray Gun / Crawler Assault Weaponry

MALIGNUS LEADER - - Heavy Ray Gun / Assault Weaponry

STALKERS (Troop) [82]

MALIGNUS LEADER - - Chem Thrower / Assault Weaponry

STALKERS x 9 - - Ray Pistol / Stalker Assault Weaponry

TUNNELLER (Support) [145]

TUNNELLER [+25] - - Super Heavy Ray Gun / Tunneller Ramming

DEFENSIVE SHILEDING - - Defensive Shielding

The main event on Saturday is three games at 1500 points with the Scouting Pack Leader and Creeper squads being the main early scorers and pressure builders. They also give an option of charging on turn 1 and knocking out a high value unit or two which could catch a few people unaware. For the Tunnellers I've gone with the shielded version which start on the table rather than coming on via Subterranean Deployment on turn 2/3. Again, this choice is driven by the incremental scoring, I don't want to waste a good chunk of points off table when they could be scoring VP's. Three small units of Stalkers are included for sitting on objectives and the big Creeper unit is the perfect target for the one shooting Faction Order the Veer-myn have.

Firefight 1500 points

PROGENITOR (Command) [72]

PROGENITOR [+10] Chemical Grenade Launcher - - Chemical Shells** / Smoke Shells** / Claws 

CRAWLERS x 2 - - Ray Gun / Crawler Assault Weaponry 

PROGENITOR (Command) [66]

PROGENITOR [+10] Chemical Grenade Launcher - - Chemical Shells** / Smoke Shells** / Claws 

CRAWLERS - - Ray Gun / Crawler Assault Weaponry 

PACK LEADER (Command) [124]

PACK LEADER - - Pack Leader Razor Claws 

NIGHTMARES [+27] Default Loadout - - Twin Combat Drills 

NIGHTMARES [+27] Default Loadout - - Twin Combat Drills 

CREEPERS (Troop) [125] * 2

CREEPERS x 9 - - Ray Pistol / Det Pack 

CREEPER PACK LEADER - - Ray Pistol / Det Pack 

CRAWLERS (Troop) [125]

CRAWLERS x 19 - - Ray Gun / Crawler Assault Weaponry 

MALIGNUS LEADER - - Heavy Ray Gun / Assault Weaponry 

STALKERS (Troop) [70] * 3

MALIGNUS LEADER - - Chem Thrower / Assault Weaponry 

STALKERS x 7 - - Ray Pistol / Stalker Assault Weaponry 

TUNNEL RUNNER (Specialist) [170]

TUNNEL RUNNER x 3 - - Twin Chem Spitter / Tunnel Runner Scythes 

CLAWSHOTS (Specialist) [130]

CLAWSHOTS x 4 - - Long Rifle / Assault Weaponry 

CLAWSHOT LEADER - - Heavy Long Rifle / Assault Weaponry 

RUMBLER (Support) [60]

RUMBLER - - Rumbler Super Heavy Ray Gun 

TUNNELLER (Support) [145] * 2

TUNNELLER [+25] - - Super Heavy Ray Gun / Tunneller Ramming 

DEFENSIVE SHILEDING - - Defensive Shielding 

Whether this works or not will very much depend on the armies (and generals) I end up facing, there are plenty of factions I've not played against and I think my toughest match-up could be a good melee army, only time will tell!