Happy new year peeps.
2025 has arrived and I’m feeling unusually ready for it. Last year I had a great time playing Ratkin, and now I’m looking forward to my next Kings of War chapter. This year I’m planning on finally getting my head and heart around halflings. I’ve had the models kicking around for a couple of years and even manged to play a couple of events with them back in 2023, but wasn’t able to find an army list I could really get excited about.
Halflings are a bit of weird one for me. It’s a faction I’ve never really been that excited about, in any IP. I think it’s because I’ve always seen them as a bit of a one note joke, without that much depth. That changed a little when Mantic released their first version of the army list, but not for the reasons that would usually get me into an army. Unusually I was drawn to the army because of their rules. Normally I pick up an army because of some models I particularly like, or because there is a narrative spark I want to explore. However, in the case of the halflings it was simply because they had loads of nimble cavalry and auras, which are the rules mechanics I really love playing with.
As a result, my relationship with the little people has been a little bit rocky. I’ve been trying to build armies around certain units that just didn’t seem to work well enough for my liking. Just as I have with the rats, I managed to build lists that seemed to both under perform in terms of survivability and killiness. This really came home to roost in the lists I took to a couple of events in 2023 (but unlike with rats I wasn’t excited enough about the faction narrative or models at the time for me to really want to continue playing with them), so whilst I have occasionally revisited the army it’s been in a pretty lacklustre way. That was until a few months ago when I was playing around with some concepts and wrote a short story delving into the relationship between halflings and forest trolls (you can read it here).
Whilst Mantic’s halflings still have a bit of an appetite, it’s no longer their defining feature (second breakfast can be a necessity, but it’s not a personality) and has been tempered considerably compared to other versions of the little folk. Not only that but the introduction of the Greedyguts casts a much welcomed shadow over their world. What’s more their relationship with food, agriculture, animal husbandry and technology has been considered far more deeply, and the result is an interestingly pragmatic and down to earth race. I feel Mantic have made a real effort to create a believable faction that can hold its own in a violent world, and the more I’ve reflected on that the more I’ve found myself getting excited about putting together a force for 2025. What I’m hoping is that my experiences with rats from last year, where I did my best to think more about the structure of my lists from a more competitive point of view, will pay off. In theory what I’m taking to the New Moon tournament in Bristol on 4th Jan will be both a little more resilient and stabby than previous incarnations.
Whilst I technically have everything painted and based there has been quite a bit of rushing to get it done. It’s definitely not my best work, however I have a bit of a plan. Over the next year I intend to continue working on the army to improve on what is already there by tidying paint jobs up, adding highlights, overhauling the basing and… maybe even upping it to full model count (although even I feel this last one is a bit of a stretch). So, for now I’ll leave you with a family photo of what is the starting place for an exciting new year.
Best wishes one and all.
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