Late August down the club, more 40K, Mordheim, Kings of War and my little Infinity table.

'Twas a good turn up at the end of August for the club night and though a few had the remnants of a flu like cold most brought out their toys and chucked a few dice. I did not, the dreaded lurgy got me and my energy was to low. But sitting in on a game of 40K made me appreciate that the games has some very good strong points to it now. I love the whole object element and the use of tactical objective cards. Reminds me a lot of another Sci-Fi game that uses less minis. 40K does seem to play fast and furious and some elements looked very different from the versions I have played and loved but I will be giving it a go sometime soon. So on with the show.

Mordheim board, I think two games happened sequentially.

I have no idea who built it but this Tavern, gatehouse looks the part, just a little undamaged for the ruins of the once great city of Mordheim.

40K, loved the mat for this game evokes a real sense of impending doom.

Nice Buildings too, must ask who makes them.

OK so this was a bit of inspiration for a fellow gamer. Gold airbrushed on, (or silver for the middle miniature), Minitaire Ghost tint magenta again airbrushed and here is the real bonus, a gold sharpie pen to redo the gold outlining of all the armour panels. Clever, and idea stolen. Really like the red too.

40K game I watched, nasty Chaos Tzeench vs nastier Tyrannids. Close combat is huge now and rather brutal. the nids seem to go down in droves and had very little left but the objectives and tactical objective cards gathered throughout the match meant that the nids won.

Once upon a time I would never leave so many expensive models in an enclosed space like this but the game plays differently now.

Tau vs Tau Civil War!!!!!!!!11

Chaos tainted Primarch taking a hit or 13.

KOW

Battle of the beasts in the Kings of War match, treeman alas was turned to kindling.

The look of despondence as you realise that 30+ Tau face you with shotguns and they work very differently now for the Tau!

Khorne demons

My little board for Infinity. This was played at home with a great friend that popped over. Infinity looks so good when the board has lots of buildings even if most of mine are the paper/card ones from all the different sets.

Looking forward to next club night but not sure what to play should I go for a game of 40K, continue with Mordheim and progress my warband or bring out the Infinity toys again. Who knows.

August Club night Mordheim, Kill Team and Kings of War, what a nice mix of games.

Our usual crowd of 40K gamers and Barry's Wings of Glory game did not make a show tonight. But Games Workshop was still represented with the new version of Kill Team making its debut and the old favourite that has been given the breath of life. Unfortunately the images for these are only at the beginning of the games as I was all consumed with my Kings of War game to take later shots.

Kill Team re imagined

One of the kill teams in the process of building I guess. Always liked this version of Games Workshops skirmish games. I still have some fancy Cadians from when the Kill Team rules were in White Dwarf.

Mordheim board complete with donated Jungle houses..............hmmm, Wyrdstone again

The BLU TAK GANG, the most heinous of all Orcish gangs found in the destroyed city.

Brand New Ostlanders that have seen a ghost....or a can of primer at least. These are built from the bitz box, from Fireforge bodies and old GW/Citadel arms, heads and weapons. 

The Kings of War games was a nice 4 X 1500point battle royal. With the Abyssal Dwarfs and Undead allying against Dwarf and Forces of Nature. I have to admit to liking some of the new Forces of Nature models by Mantic. The joy of Kings of War is the ability to sneak all sorts of models into your forces. See if you can name the DnD monster prominent in white in a couple of the images.

Forces of Nature (Boo Hiss)

3000 points a side

More forces of nature with dwarfs.

Skeletons and nasty Centaurs that are known as....?

Right hand side of the Forces of death and destruction

After a couple of turns the damage is mounting up.

My favourite moment of the battle when the Werewolf horde moves over the rocky ground and eats a unit of dwarfs due to hitting it in the flank. Double the attacks!

Soul Reaver Cavalry this unit hits so hard.

Vampire at the back with a heal spell to take a bit of the damage from the cavalry. They can run away easily enough when the damage builds up.

Notice the DnD beasty yet?

Kings of War fantasy style this time

Well it had to happen, the old fantasy minis had to make it onto the table. Even though we have talked about playing Warhammer 8th most of the club has lost heart and well to be honest new games have captured our imagination. Thus KOW fantasy has at last made it to the club in the 2nd edition form. Also one of the regulars with a now defunct tomb kings army is about to bring the out of the sand again as well. Oh and another one is buying into dwarves. Mantic should be happy.

Some sort of Slasher flick board game, looked cool actually

Kings of War with Kingdoms of Men vs nasty Chaos horde things with HUGE units of beastmen, 200 points a side.

Barry pointing out the delicate art of flying in the skys above London, all he needs is a pipe.

Yep Horde of marauders or beastmen as it were and flank protected by regiments of warriors

My gallant knights looking into the horror that could be.

Looks good doesn't it?

After charging the huge horde and using a big chunk of my army I came to realise that you can get rid of the bigger units but you have to hit them with two units at least. I still lost one of the knight units  in this combat.

Nasty winged demon mounted general about to eat bowmen or catapult or both!!!

Hold up the warriors with spear and charge in the knights. This will hurt.

At the end of the game the Chaos force had lost but with the generals and wizards still on the table and most of my units with decent damage another turn or two and the Chaos may have made a come back. 

Kings of War is a fast and furious game and to be honest a lot of fun. Tactical depth is there even if there are not a lot of rules and as a club game it does seem to play well in a couple of hours for around 2000 points. Plus Mantic games is about to release some historical rules based on the same system. Looking forward to this. Mind you Neldoreth's historical supplements are very good.

Kings of War: is it possible to use a fantasy combat game with historical armies?

The Punic Wars trial run 1

I have wanted to game the Punic Wars for a long time and a few years back stupidly sold my 15mm armies as no one locally was all that keen on the smaller scale historical miniatures I preferred to play with.

28mm was out of the question initially as I had to buy, build, paint and base 2 whole armies. I just did not have the cash or time. Well skip a couple of years and some astute purchases (some not so astute) and a couple of school holidays to knock over the bulk of the painting and lo and behold I am the proud owner of a small Republican Roman Army and its counterpart a small Carthaginian army in 28mm. 

Carthaginian Right Wing

Carthaginian Centre and Left Wing

Republican Romans

Would anyone at the club want to give it a go? Hmmm the rules, what to use? With the demise of Warhammer Fantasy I felt that the Historical version, WAB, was not going to work. Many rules like Impetus (have not played this one yet myself) and FOG are just a little hard to introduce to club members on a normal games night. But we have discussed swapping the Warhammer armies over to Kings of War (KOW). Thus a plan hatched. Could I get 2 equal points armies up and get someone into it?

The Hours Of Wolves website by Neldoreth (see link on the side of this blog) has some great historical army lists for utilising KOW rules with historical armies. He has even kindly updated them to the 2^nd edition of KOW. A Punic War list exists. You can of course use the KOW army lists as they are and build two forces using the Kingdoms of Men lists but I really like what Neldoreth has done with the “special rules”.  These additions lend a more historical feel to the forces than the original Kings of War rules allow.

So on with the game. I was just going to turn up with two matched forces and hope one of the regulars would see shiny new toys set up on a table and say “Gee that looks fun, can I have a game?”

A little over a thousand points a side, which is small by Kings of War standard but it should still give us an hour long game or so, I hoped.

Ready to roll

Que images of elephants and triarii and cavalry and spearmen marching to certain victory or doom which ever your prefer.

First couple of turns sees the forces move rapidly towards one another with march moves of anywhere between 10 inches and 18 inches. My, light horse move fast!

Elephants and Cavalry attempt to outflank the Romans

Roman Ally troops intercept the elephant and the Triarii turn to face the cavalry

Carthaginian left flank sees the Celtic allies heading through bad terrain to attack the Roman Hastati and Principes

Italian Allies take a pasting from the elephant but not before dishing out a couple of wounds in return

Centre combat, Spanish allies and Lights move in on the Numidian Light horse of the Romans

Roman general faces off alone against the veteran spear men. This is a nice heroic quirk of the KOW rules even if not very historical

Grinding combat of warband and spear men

Centre combat goes badly for the Romans

Ouch, flank attack by an elephant has got to hurt

Shortly after this a lone Numidian Light horse hits the veterans in the rear and "pop" no more spear

By now the Carthaginians have the best of the Romans but they have still been hit hard

The final combats between the heroes of the ancient world, Carthage is victorious this time.

Overall my opponent and I gamed for an hour and a half. With only 3 other KOW games under my belt I was no great expert but it all felt rather fun. To the purest there are elements of the system that may not suit, like the heroes actually being able to take on a unit on their own. The movement seems more flexible than what I feel ancient armies could move like. Yet  it was a lot of fun and was the first time for these minis to see service at the games club. Will I use the system again, definitely and I will give the historical armies another run too, as well as a few fantasy battles. But the paint brush calls. At least another 500 points per side I am after. Lets hope that another two years does not pass until they see the table again.