The Wizard's Bookshelf

The Shroud of The Reaper: Kings of War Tournament Report

For me Christmas doesn’t really begin until I’ve popped down to Bexley Heath for three games of Kings of War with a special character and some unusual scenarios. This year the event seemed relatively calm scenario wise. The traditional first scenario was the hunt for the opponent’s Reaper, but after this, traditional scenarios straight from the book were the order of the day.

The Reaper is a special character, created by the organisers, Mark and Grant. This year though we got to make our own using a monster creation chart. The creature would be a titan, but pretty much everything else was up for grabs though. As someone who doesn’t over think this sort of thing I decided to create something along the lines of a Mutant Rat Fiend, with a little bit of extra healing and some mindthirst. The main drive for this was because the first scenario required that the reaper survive, and Mutant Rat Fiends do this spectacularly well.

The rest of my army selection was similarly underwhelming. I took my 2,300 Clash of Kings list and added the Brew of Sharpness to one of the forest troll hordes to bring the points up to 2,345, the event limit.

The first game I found myself playing the amiable, yet brutally brilliant, Chris Lynch and his shooty Nightstalkers. Whilst I was under no illusions that I would come anything but second in this game, I generally set myself the challenge when playing Chris of not getting tabled (and if I’m feeling especially cheeky scoring a point or two). I did think the game would go reasonably well as I’ve played against a few similar lists and have got a bit of a theory as to how to deal with them. Unfortunately, Chris’ titan was not something I was ready to deal with.

In the limited time I’d spent playing with the monster creator I hadn’t given much thought to the shooting options. I’d kind of assumed they would be limited to a bit of fireball or lightening bolt. Not the case. Chris (and a couple of the higher ranked players at the event) had created living artillery capable of delivery up to around 30 shots, with piercing 2, range 24” and the height of the titans meant they could pretty much shoot at whatever they wanted.

What followed was an absolute blood bath as the titan proceeded to dish out an average of around 9 points of damage to a different unit every turn. Add to that Chris’ aptitude for the game and a couple of unfortunate nerve checks that just feel short of taking enemy units off the table and by turn 3 the game was basically over. Not only did I lose everything, but I only managed to kill a single Mind Screech. Not the best start to the day, but an interesting game none the less.

For the next game I found myself facing the Twilight Kin, playing Stockpile. I think this is the first kin army I’ve played with actual elf infantry, and there was quite a bit. I thought this would be an interesting game as I believe it’s a bit of a glimpse into what kin lists might look like as we move into fourth edition.

I’m starting to get the hang of Stockpile. My preferred approach is to let my opponent pick up the counters and then steal them. Happily, the loot counters all ended up on my right flank, which focused my opponent’s forces around them, meaning my flyers and cavalry could make use of the relatively empty left flank to position themselves to roll up elf line.

I have to admit I had some pretty decent shooting in the first couple of rounds. Whilst the Planar Apparition stopped any of the damage sticking I did manage a useful waver on the Mutants, which made my advance on the right flank a lot less stressful.

In the first half of the game the grenadiers, muster captains and Juggers played an absolute blinder, pulling apart the handful of units that sought to hinder their progress. However, if was a stunning flank charge from the Wild Lancers into the flank of an Impaler horde that one shotted the beasts that really exposed the elves’ proverbial tender bits. Not long after this the Halflings began gathering their first loot, before stealing another lot off the beleaguered Mutants, as the void pirates started to vanish from the table leaving the Halflings with a win.

Game 3 was against the Herd and the scenario was Protect and Raze. The Herd are a pretty aggressive army, and my opponent didn’t disappoint. The wild denizens of the forests pushed forward hard, although possibly a little too recklessly on the right flank. An opportunity to get EJ grenadiers behind the Herd presented itself very early on. Unfortunately, shooting from the Troll Captain and one of the Iron Beasts wavered the troop of Gur Panthers, which were stood in front of the Stampede. This made for a bit of an awkward start and some badly damaged chariots as the grenadiers were able to take a rear charge the next turn and the troll captain a flank charge.

The right flank very quickly became a grinding melee as the Halfings sought to take advantage of their good fortune, whilst the Herd did their best to fight them off. A lot of poor charge options meant the Avatar of the Father flank charged one of the troll hordes, and whilst the trolls dissolved in the face of the mighty creature, the Avatar found himself facing an Iron Beast and the remaining trolls. His demise was quick, and despite the Chieftain’s best efforts, the rest of the flank started to flee back towards the forests.

On the left flank Greedyguts and the Juggers managed to ground the beast of nature. The beast managed to hang on for a couple of turns, allowing the earth elementals time to amble up at their own pace. The mighty constructs reached the battle lines but just weren’t able to dish out the damage quickly enough. A flank charge from the flying muster captain smashed the Greater Earth Elemental to pieces and handed the cavalry the initiative. Following their captain’s led they closed in on the central scoring zone whilst the EJ Grenadiers swept up the remaining objectives, snatching a win.

Christmas has now commenced, and mince pies have finally been eaten, I even treated myself to a KFC stuffing burger on the way home. As always, the Crimbo reaper event was a great way to finish off a pretty packed year where I’ve managed to pull together a halfling army that’s been both a joy to play, and has delivered some great results. There’s definitely going to be some changes ahead for my little guys and girls over the next few weeks, and I’m going to miss third edition quite a lot. That being said, it looks as though there are some pretty exciting times ahead for the little dudes with some very beautiful new models coming. I’ll definitely be settling down over the holidays with the new books, and I have no doubt there’ll be at least one blog on the way. All that remains for me to do is thank my opponents for some fun and relaxing games and thank Mark and Grant for running another great event.

Merry Christmas.

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The critters return: second edition Burrows and Badgers reviewed

Burrows and Badgers is a pretty good package. It’s a great game, with a brilliant miniature collection, powered by a family company that has recently launched its second edition. So, did it need a second edition? And did it need this second edition?

The answer to the first question is simple… absolutely. Over the last few years, the game has evolved massively. Not only have successive kickstarters swollen the miniature range but the creative minds behind the game have tried to breathe life into those miniatures in the game with more factions. This manifested an ever-increasing number of warband rules published in a number of journals that, along with some really fun random event tables, spread the rules far and wide.

Bringing all the factions, with a few minor changes, into one book was definitely needed. It makes life much easier to see what’s available and choose what you want. Whilst there are a couple of different ones I really want to try, like the mage faction, or the road wardens, I’ve decided to make a start with my beloved witch hunters. I’ve already written a bit about the faction in a previous blog, and my first couple of games have led to a few changes being made. The main change to my original line up was to remove three attack grubs because of the control tests that now need to be made which always seemed to fail at the worst moments. Although that has led to the inclusion of my mousketeer though, so now regrets there.

In game terms I think the biggest changes for me, has been that fate points are now assigned to individuals rather than pooled. I really like this, and it has completely changed the dynamic of their use. With Burrows and Badgers I’ve always found myself getting more attached to each warband member than in other skirmish games, where the focus is on just one or two models with the rest of the group being made up of interchangeable retainers and hirelings. So having to think about the fate points of each shrew or mouse builds a bit more personalisation. There’s also a fun mechanic when you roll a one in a roll off that get’s the brain working as well that can increase a creature’s fate points.

The other change that I’ve found fun is the introduction of random charges. It’s still possible to reliably get into combat in a turn, but the new approach builds in a bit of risk and reward decision around getting that all important combat modifier for a charge. The roll off mechanism has always kept combat interesting, this change adds to the fun.

However, it feels that the decision to go into combat in the first place has gotten a bit harder. This is due to changes in the way long term and serious injuries are assigned to combatants at the end of the game. The campaign system is my favourite of any game, and I’m really excited by the way it’s been expanded. Whilst the injury tables feel far more brutal that they were previously, new wandering tables that allow characters to explore between games to find riches, artifacts and adventures (not always to their benefit) enrich the post-game phase. To offset the added brutality of the injury tables there is now a pension system, making additional funds available to a warband to replace injured members.

The final thing I wanted to mention are the new scenarios and secret missions. It’s great to have a few more options for scenarios and the enhanced list of secret missions is brilliant. In the last game I played the scenario was to take ownership of a building at the centre of the table, however my opponent had a secret mission to set fire to buildings, which led to some fantastic drama in the central objective building as my fearless mousketeer parried the blows of a smoke intoxicated badger, whilst a racoon with a packet of matches and a wicked grin escaped from the flames. This sort of chaos is exactly what keeps me playing the game.

I love a new edition that builds on the success of its predecessor, and this one certainly does. I’m now wondering if it’s the right time to think about releasing the moles?

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Progress is a fat dragon

Baron Nosferus, Commander of the Grand Mercenary Company of Mimos, watched the embers framing what had been the back wall of his tent burn brightly. His gaunt face gave no indication of what he was thinking, but his pin prick ruby red eyes glowing in their dark hollows made it clear that he was thinking. The demonstration had been impromptu and convincing. Whilst the acrid smell of burnt animal hides hung heavily in the air nothing of the actual wall, or the two tents that had been behind it, remained. Nosferus’ particularly well-developed sense of smell allayed him of any concerns that anyone had been in the other tents. Burnt flesh was something he had become all too familiar with over the centuries.

He sat calmly, looking through the hole, and out into the camp beyond. The silence of shock had subdued the camp. Several hundred halflings were collectively readying themselves to either give, or receive orders, just as soon as they had worked out what those orders should be. He smiled, as he tried to guess how long it would take his captains and sergeants to decide how best to deal with the accidental discharge of a swamp dragon in their commander’s tent.

Of course, none of them would be worried about his personal safety. His condition was an open secret amongst most the company. They would be weighing up how far they could believably say they were from the incident at the time and why the clean-up, and any paperwork, was best carried out by anyone other than them.

“So that’s progress is it?” He said quietly to himself, reflecting on the rather surreal experience. As a celebrated sell sword, he was regularly approached by inventors and engineers claiming to have developed the latest kill-o-bot or corpse mangling machine for the battlefield. Frankly, on many occasions the contraptions’ names were more fascinating, and more effective on the battlefield, than the actual machinery. In spite of this he would always make time for them to see him, it was important to know what you might be facing the next morning. Especially if it worked.

He had sat through a number of demonstrations and presentations that had started out strongly, with impressive machines quite beyond anything he could ever have come up with. They were generally covered in spikes, blades and steam canons, and many demonstrations ended abruptly as it became apparent the machines were ill thought out and would never live up to the boasts of their creators, especially not in the face of an angry giant that was upset that its next meal was trying to kill it. Today’s demonstration had gone quite the other way. It had not started well, even the apprentice Sauceror with the vegetable grenades had started better than this one.

When the chefs had wheeled in the bloated dragon Nosferus had wondered if it was a practical joke. He wondered if some new recruit had not believed just how little of a sense of humour he had these days, but then the incident had happened. The older of the two chefs had been mumbling away, all but inaudibly, when suddenly the reptile had gagged, then choked a little before releasing a massive burp. Clearly the chefs knew exactly what that meant as all the Baron could really say for sure of the next few seconds was that the dragon, or rather his attendants, or maybe the chair the obese lizard was nestled in just a little too comfortably, was remarkably manoeuvrable.

In the blink of an eye, the beast had been turned to face the tent’s back wall, which subsequently disappeared, evaporated by a great gout of super-heated flame. Then a rapid retreat was beaten accompanied by a flurry of fearful apologies.

Nosferus’ thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Anya, the company’s mistress of gastromancy, staring into the tent through its absent wall. Her bright red robe with its broad golden yellow hem made her instantly recognisable around the camp. Her eyes traced around the frame of fast fading embers before meeting the Baron’s gaze.

“Progress.” He explained.

“Aaaah.” She hummed quietly, “been a lot of that recently.”

The words caught Nosferus, and for the briefest moment his gaze broke from her intelligent eyes. They still burnt with the same flames of excitement and optimism that he had seen in them on the first day she had appeared at the camp in her thread bare, dirt covered dress, selling potions that could barely get a brave out of bed before midday. It was hard to believe there had ever been a time when she hadn’t been with the company. He tried to stop the thought before it took him to a time when she would no longer be there but wasn’t quick enough. He swore age had crept up on her. How had he not noticed those bright eyes were now surrounded by the scars and shadows of age, that more than the odd thread of silver ran through her once vibrant purple hair?

“Indeed.” He replied, realisation dawning on him. In the distance a guttural cry could be heard. The comrades continued their silent exchange, both acutely conscious of the pained exclamations of the Greedyguts as it shook its cage. They both remembered Gaston before he had stolen that bottle of Anya’s, the one no-one was meant to know about, the one she swore no one would ever consume. The mischievous wild runner had been popular throughout the camp, and was a natural with a rifle, yet no one had spoken his name since that day.

“I’m sure it will be for the best.” She paused, before adding, “in the grand scheme of things.”

Change, Nosferus had realised centuries ago, was inevitable, and yet despite his acceptance of this it still managed to catch him off guard. Long ago he’d gotten over what he called the small changes; days turning into weeks, weeks to months, that sort of stuff. He’d come to terms with his condition, his death and his rebirth. He’d even navigated the introspective navel gazing that led the more conscientious of his kind (and by that he meant vampires rather than halflings) to confessional conversations with bards where they compared their tales of woe to the great Dwarven epic Dagrid Copperfeld. He’d fought a thousand wars and razed a thousand cities to the ground, only to watch them grow back, making him question whether what he did really changed anything. Time, he often considered, was a bit like a goblin mincer, a relentless whirring machine that pulled you towards an inevitable, and invariably messy, demise. That had certainly been the case for the brave, yet reckless, Muster Captain Stryder. The formidable cavalryman had led the Juggers on many a cavalier charge, somehow managing to navigate challenging terrain and delivering hammer blows that few enemies could stand up to. But all things came to an end, and in Shamus Stryder’s case it had been his luck.

It hadn’t been that long ago, a few days at most since the funeral. Nosferus forced his brooding thoughts away. Now was not the time, after all it was not every day that someone wheeled an overweight dragon into your place of work, with breath that could melt the walls of the inner circles of the Abyss. He stood up and walked purposefully towards Anya.

“You know, I have a feeling things are about to get quite interesting.” He said with a smile, “but right now, we have a couple of chefs and a rather large reptile to track down.”

This is an unofficial short story based in the Kings of War setting and is a narrative account inspired by my Mantic Halfling Army.

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The Hinckley Heist (number 2): a Kings of War tournament report

After a couple of months of playing Halflings, I decided to go back to Rats for the second Hinckley Heist event. Three games at 2,300 were the order of the day. With fourth edition looming I’ve found myself at a bit of a hobby loose end. So, with no real inspiration to try out new lists I decided to give the list I took to Gloucester earlier in the year another go.

Not only did the list perform pretty well, it includes a couple of my favourite units, the Death Engine Spewer and a troop of Scurriers. I have to admit that the Scurriers didn’t perform massively well at Gloucester in every game, but they had a couple of moments, and I wondered if a few more games might give me an opportunity to work out how they should be best employed.

My first game was against the organiser’s Forces of Nature. Nature is a naturally grindy faction, and Martin’s list had a healthy helping of fliers with two beasts of nature and two Greater Air Elementals. I kept a keen eye out for surge shenanigans from the outset, but fortunately none materialised. Because of some aggressive scout moves with the Hunters of the Wild I found myself making turn one charges with my Mutant Rat Fiend, spear warriors and vermintide. The gamble paid off, with one of the Hunter of the Wild being routed and the others blocked up. In the following turn the rats struck another decisive blow, with the war engine teams removing a Fire Elemental horde. Then a Greater Air Element went down.

Despite their best efforts, and several double one’s in their favour, the Forces of Nature just didn’t seem to be able to make a decisive impact on the vermin. Fire and Water Elements did manage to combine forces to wipe out both hordes of Shock Troops, but as the elite rats died, their comrades circled the elementals and finished them off and ending the game on a strong win.

Next up the rats faced off against the Order of the Brothermark, another grindy list, although with some very killy bits hanging around. The game started cautiously, with ratkin shooting removing two of the villain penitent regiments. The armies circled, creeping closer on the flanks, until the Brothermark made the first contact in turn four, charging an ogre captain into the mutant rat fiend and the Palace Guard into Mother Cryza. The fiend survived, but Cryza was smashed to a pulp. This meant the ogres were now free to start rampaging through the rat lines, taking out the fiend with a flank charge in the next turn.

On the other flank, at the bottom of the table, the humans were held in place by swarms of vermin fighters, whilst in the centre the ratkin weapons teams went to work. Bursts of flame cut through the foot paladins, making them easy pickings for the shock troops to run down.

With the Brothermark centre collapsed the shock troops prepared to overrun the scenario scoring zone in the centre (we were playing Hold the Line). Unfortunately for the rats they needed a seventh turn for that, which sadly never came, giving the Brothermark the win.

The final game was against the Orcs. I was really interested in this match up as I’ve had a lot of games against the green menace over the years where the rats have really struggled to break through. Since playing my horde heavy army, I feel like I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough, and I seem to have found an army that works well for me. This game felt like a good litmus test.

The scenario was Fools Gold, and I took no chances, positioning all my scoring tokens within easy reach of my troops. The rats don’t want to move much, and I wasn’t going to force them to. I was quite surprised by the orc’s set up as it meant it would take a couple of turns for the cavalry to reach my lines. That gave me time to break down their troops on my right flank in relative peace.

Orcs always seem to take longer that you’d expect to kill, but slowly and surely, they were rolled back. The weapons teams made an absolute menace out of themselves wavering infantry, removing already damaged units and shutting down orc movement. Much to my joy Gak got distracted by the Death Engine Spewer and the orc cavalry charge never materialised in the storm of hoof and tusk I had feared.

As the dust settled very few of the orcs still stood, although in a final act of defiance Gak smashed up a weapons engine team, causing twenty points of damage. Despite this the rats carried the day.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable day. The rats performed admirably, taking sixth spot, and three highly enjoyable games were played. The best thing is that I think I have finally worked out what to do with scurriers. They are a bit counter intuitive to play, although I find that with a few rat units, but the troop has been absolutely legendary at this event. The vermin scouts took a Greater Air Elemental off with a sneaky flank charge, contributed massively to shooting off the penitents and holding up a phoenix in the second game and then smashed orc face with more flank action in the final game. Those melee three attacks hit hard, especially with some bane chant from the Tangle to complement their vicious. Now I’m getting used to them I’m looking forward to playing them at the next tournament.

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Thanquol’s Raiders: return of the snappy dressers

The hiatus in hobby as a result of the countdown from third edition Kings of War to fourth has given me too much time to overthink other projects. For a while I’ve been trying to work out what to do with a growing collection of metal rats from way back in fourth edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

I’ve been cycling through some many different ideas and systematically finding reasons not to do them. I’ve done my best to try and be positive, and rather than dwell on reasons not to paint them a certain way or base them another way, I’ve tried to string together my thoughts about what I want the project to become. Truth be told though, that kind of made things worse as I complied a contradictory wish list which was only going to be solved by collecting the same miniatures several time over.

Then, a couple of months ago I stumbled over a picture from a White Dwarf battle report. The image hit me between the eyes. It was a riot of colour and ratty weirdness. In short, all the reasons I first got interested in Skaven, and dare I say rank and flank wargaming. This has now become my north star and the first staging post on my adventures with these thirty-year-young works of art.

Having debated with myself for some time now on what colours to use I now realise the answer is, of course, all of them. Whilst I know there are some people who love the more realistic (an utterly relative concept when dealing with fantasy races and their fashion choices) 50 shades of brown rats of more recent times I want my vermin big, bold and brassy. To that end I’ve made a start on the plague censor bearers. Exact replicas they won’t be, but they were never going to be.

The one model I’m most interested in doing is the Doomwheel. As a rule I don’t use a lot of black, so it should be a bit of a learning experience (I also need to get me hands on a Doomwheel, and if anyone could point me in the direction of the original White Dwarf I’d love to know how Thanquol’s raider actually did, and who they were up against).

I’ve tried to suppress practical gaming questions, like what are the chances of me getting a game in with these? Although I have had a cheeky look at The Old World legacy factions and worked out that by splitting the warriors into two separate regiments I’m well on my way to a couple of thousand points, so there’s always that. At the moment though I’m very much trying to getting the basics done.

That’s all for now. Have a great week.

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Finishing the narrative: reflections following the Field of Kings

I’ve been running tournaments for about three years but last weekend I felt like I was doing my first event all over again. It’s been a bit of a journey to launch the Field of Kings so finally getting people onto the tables and playing felt amazing. Although I was not without a twinge of nervousness that at least one person wouldn’t have read the pack (super important for this event – you read it, and the army lists, here).

I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to play, as I wanted to see how people reacted to the scenarios and spend my time looking at what people had brought along to demonstrate the theme in their armies. Interestingly, of the eight players who attended half of the armies were human and three were drawn from the former order of the Brotherhood. I think the theme, in and of itself, might have nudged one or two people in a particular direction when it came to choosing factions.

The Kingdoms of Men army that attended was composed of undead, which I thought played with the theme nicely and made me think of those scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean that cut between the pirates being human and skeletons as the moon reveals their cursed forms. It was an interpretation that landed Andy Marshall in second place overall, not to mention his beautiful king model and some lovely banner work, along side some strong gaming skills.

Andy was pipped to the post by Simon T’s Order of the Green Lady army, that he had pulled together for the event. Some busy bases framed the army marching to war over the corpses of fallen warriors and a well developed back story put Simon over the edge and into first place. What made my day was that Simon and Andy weren’t the only ones who had leant into the theme in some way or another. Both the Brothermark armies had great King and Bodyguard combos that showed clear connections to one another, and the ogres had been scavenging Basilean battlefields to craft a nice-looking Bodyguard. All in all, I was really impressed with the engagement on the hobby front.

The homebrew scenarios seemed to be well received. I’m please with that because I wanted to build scenarios that both rewarded playing out the story but also didn’t break the natural balance of Kings of War. I like to think I achieved that balance in the second themed scenario (confusingly the third game of the day) but not quite so much in the first themed scenario. There was still balance, but one of the key thematic objectives, capturing the enemy standard, was too easy to avoid doing, so only one person did it! With the benefit of hindsight I probably should have realised this might happen and find a way to disincentivise it – a future me issue.

What was really interesting was that most of the players were experienced players, I had thought this event would appeal to less experienced players which is why I set the points level quite low. The unusual points limit of 1,600 turned out to be an interesting challenge in itself. Combining that with the scenarios made the whole package feel a bit different and brought a new challenge, which I felt was reflected in players’ choices in their army lists.

I decided to take my Halflings for the spare list and give an engineer a try. Trying out a new model and some new synergies in my army was really enjoyable, and although the games might not have gone my way with a loss and two draws, I certainly had a lot of fun, which I believe was shared by other attendees.

So far, I’ve had some really positive feedback, and there’s definitely some lessons to be learned. I can’t thank the players enough for engaging with the spirit of the day and providing some constructive thoughts on how the event could be improved. Those comments have mainly been around the hobby scoring. On the day, as I feverishly tried to judge the relatively small number of entries for that component, I knew that having only a few more players would have made that part a much bigger ask. So, there is definitely something I need to have more of a think around.

I’ve already decided I will be running another one of these events next year, but the edition change means I’m going to take a bit of time before announcing times as the pack will need some work. That being said, a theme is already starting to call to me like demon screaming in a fiery fridge, and I can’t help but ask myself who am I gonna’ call.

That’s all for now. Have a great week.

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“Excitement” update as the Field of Kings approaches

This year I’m running one event in Bristol for Kings of War. It’s a bit of an experimental day that rejects the traditional approach to UK tournaments and embraces soft scores for painting, themed scenarios and themed units.

It’s intended to be something different, and I think in just about every way it’s turning into that for me. Since starting to run tournaments I’ve been seeing how other people have adapted their events and really wanted to depart from the standard one-day event approach. After a lot of thought I finally put together a pack which I decided was either going to be loved or hated and booked a small number of tables at Bristol Independent Gaming.

The day has a competitive element, in that there is scoring and a prize for the winner, but it’s primarily about having fun. Three gentle games at 1,600 points, no masters scoring and some fun scenarios based around a themed piece of text in the opening of the pack (you can read it here – there are also a couple of places still available if you’re interested).

The soft score element comes from adapting two specific units to align with the theme, if you can be bothered, if not, just enjoy the games. This approach is intended to move the creative element away from soft skills being scored purely on how good a painter you are and make it more about how enthusiastically you embrace the theme through your models.

I was really encouraged when I put the pack out by a few people who contacted me to say they loved the concept of the event but wouldn’t be able to attend. I’m really grateful to everyone who did that as it gave me a bit more confidence that someone might want to come and have the time. The slots have filled up and I’m excited to say that at this moment we have ten players signed up.

What’s been really exciting so far has been seeing some of the things people have been working on. I’ve even had a great piece of background sent to me this weekend, which means one player has already picked up some points before their army has set foot on a table! The biggest surprise though is my son has decided he’d like to join us. He’s been on the fence about tournaments for a while and when I mentioned the size of the games and the lack of masters scoring I was surprised when he said it was something he would come along to. The only downside is that I’m now trying to paint up a nightstalker list (thank god for contrast paints and that he plays nightstalkers), whilst finishing up a model for the spare army and painting the trophy.

All in all, things have got a little hectic in the final few days, but on the whole, I couldn’t be more excited.

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Back to Burrows and Badgers: selecting a warband for second edition

I’m looking forward to getting the creatures and critters back on the table. Since I last played a small campaign we’ve had the new edition land. I was really happy to see it arrive given the number of new rules that had been added through Journals, if only to get more of them in one place.

An initial read through found me feeling comfortable that the game hadn’t strayed from anything I enjoyed about the first edition. The main differences, that I can see so far, are some refinements to non-combat activity, changes to the way the all-important fate points work and a rationalisation of the additional warbands that were added.

I’m certain there will be more things I discover as I get through my first couple of games, and I’m intrigued to see just how the fate point changes work in real life, but for now my focus is on the toys I want to take.

Some of the new warbands look really interesting. I’m particularly intrigued by the Arcane Conclave, but after all this time there is only one set of miniatures I want to get back on the table, my Witch Hunters. This has to be my favourite collection from the range, and my only complaint is that they don’t have a mole, another source of change as tunnelling is now a bit different. At the end of the first edition, I was messing around with a mole warband and will probably want to give them a try again in the not too distant future, but for now I thought it would be easiest to get to grips with something a little more traditional.

Looking through the new faction guide my first reaction was that things hadn’t seemed to have changed too much. Previously, if I remember correctly, I think the faction had access to a few more skills for warband members from the outset and more restricted access to magic. I did ask the facebook group for advice and got a response from Mr. Lovejoy himself, as some of the new warbands are meant to be harder to get to grips with. His thoughts were largely related to magic, take some dispel scrolls and take advantage of Divine magic because casters don’t suffer the weak and delicate penalties. They do still suffer penalties for armour, so consider the Paladin skill.

Taking me back to when Mercenaries were the order of the day… happy times

The Paladin skill allows casters to wear armour without a penalty for magic use. I’d been considering it, although I was also considering Critter Boss since I really wanted some attack grubs. At this point I started to remember how I used to approach playing the Witch Hunters. In the previous edition I would use the grubs to pin down opponents and Divine magic to empower my larger individuals to smash face. It wasn’t subtle, but it seemed pretty characterful, and I saw no reason not to take the same approach (time may, of course, prove me wrong on this).

To that end I went all in with three grubs, the fox and the otter. In previous incarnations the otter had always been the boss, but I had also been able to take the Critter Boss skill to keep the grubs in order on a completely different model. That’s not possible in the same way as it was, so as a result I decided I needed a warband leader who wouldn’t also be my primary combat character, I also wanted them to have a bit of magic, suddenly the fox just seemed to have the better aesthetic for that, which relegated the otter to the number two spot. Despite that I decided he needed to have a Malleus Maleficarum.

With the first five characters in place, all that remained was to spend the rest of the loot. Those coins bought me the weasel, a super fun sculpt, the hedgehog and the mouse. My list ended up as:

Fox Leader with a double handed weapon, dispel scroll, light armour, Paladin, Healing Hands and Blessing

Otter Second with Malleus Maleficarum, buckler and Killing Blow

3 Attack Grubs

Hedgehog with a hand weapon and torch

Weasel with a double handed weapon and Holy Zeal

Mouse with a spear

I have yet to get the beaver bishop on the table, one day I’m going to have to make a point of writing a list around him. That being said though this list means I get to play my favourite models and mess around with magic. Not a bad starting place.

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Halflings go to Clash: general Kings of War excitement

Saturday and Sunday were a busy couple of days! I’m currently on a train towards London, three days from the weekend, and there’s a general buzz of excitement still lingering. It’s hard to work out which part of the weekend brought the most joy, which makes it hard to know where to start with this post.

I think it’s only fair to start with a massive thanks to the team behind the event. Each year this event gets bigger, and each year the team delivers a brilliant weekend. Something I really enjoyed this year was the quality of the army painting. That’s not to say it wasn’t as good last year, it was more just a case of me not really taking time to have a look around as I was too busy trying to dodge Twilight Kin and failing.

Having started to put a bit more effort into the painting and hobby side of things, I’ve gained quite a bit of inspiration for my next project, which is likely to be another halfling army for fourth edition, whenever it launches. So, does that mean things went well? As it happens they did turn out a little better than expected.

The games over the course of the weekend were absolutely fantastic. All incredibly close, with the last couple of turns generally being the earliest point at which I could tell whether I was winning or losing. What was also great was to get to play against people I’d never played before. I’ve put some pictures from most of the games below, nothing from game 2 though as it was on the livestream so I was busy trying to look like I knew what I was doing (although my reforms gave the game away and based on what the commentary team had to say I have some homework to do).

Playing on the livestream was a new experience, and honestly it was pretty relaxed. I had a great opponent and being able to watch it back on Monday gave me a bit of a brief renewal of Clash based excitement.

I’m always interested in what other players who are playing the same faction as me are taking. With almost 200 players and no easy way of identifying lists by faction I didn’t even attempt to dig them out of the folder shared before the event, but I did have a nose around at the event and was really pleased there seemed to be a full range of units represented. It didn’t look like there was a template army, which was great given that there were 12 halfling armies in attendance. Balloons ranged from many to none, Iron Beasts were a must, but other than that there were some really nicely painted models on display.

My first game was the only game where the halflings really caused serious problems for my opponent really early on. A nimble Jugger charge into woods managed to take out a key horde of Ogre hunters that then gave my cavalry access to the flanks of the enemy, resulting in a rather rapid crumbling of the Ogre lines. This was further accelerated by a lucky flank charge by the flying dog into Nomogarok that took the warlock off the table in one round. Beleaguered on all sides the ogres ran from the field leaving a lot of happy halflings wondering what was next.

The answer came, in the form of the Trident Realms. It was a beautifully cagey game, made all the more cagey by the scenario, Fool’s Gold. Trident Realms is an army I have so many problems playing against as their ensnaring and speed gives them great board control. I would say we probably had similar amounts of fast units, but they had a lot of Thuul.

I did manage to get my flying dog behind their lines, but he was not the distraction I had hoped, failing to rout a giga horde and getting eaten by angry Thuul who took the opportunity to punch him in the rear. Unfortunately, the Trident Realms just held up that bit better in the grinding combats, giving them the opportunities to grab objectives, which they duly did.

My final game on Saturday was against someone I’d wanted to play for a while. Anyone following this blog knows that first and foremost I’m a Ratkin player. There’s been a beautiful Nightmare based list hanging around the top of the faction rankings for several years now and I was excited to get a chance to play it. The list really capitalises on key synergies in the army, and I knew it was going to be a hard grind. Happily, for me, an opportunity came up early on for my flying dog and grenadiers to start gnawing on an Impaler at the end of the rat lines. A swift application of pressure by Juggers and some brutal from the gastromancy soon resulted in the rats looking for opportunities to get their captured tokens away from me. However, despite the rat rout there still looked like a good chance that the vermin would hold onto their precious points for long enough to win the game. That was until Greedyguts stepped up and managed, together with an Iron Beast, to tear apart token carrying tunnel runners which resulted in the Halflings carrying the game, ending the first day on 2 wins, and a loss.

The next morning, I awoke to another opportunity to have fish for breakfast. The Trident Realms were up again (different player and very different list). Having had a really enjoyable game 2, I went into this one with a little bit more confidence, and a bit of a plan, which rapidly deserted me as I saw a large collection of gribblies surrounding a kraken pointed in my general direction. It turned out to be such a close game, although the result made it look like a Trident Realms landslide. An extra pip on a couple of nerve checks throughout the game might have changed the outcome, but I couldn’t have been happier with the result, because whilst it might have been a loss it was certainly entertaining. It was also at this point I remembered that my historical performances at Clash of Kings has been limited to two wins per year (both being on the first day), so I decided my work here was done.

Next up was my first game against one of the highly regarded Spanish cohort. I’ve heard a lot about these players, and I believe I’m correct in saying 2 of them featured in the top 5 places this year. My opponent had a beautiful Northern Alliance army with a fair amount of shooting and some real heavy hitters. I relaxed into the game and was very happy for my opponent to pick up the stockpile loot counters (I’m starting to realise that this is very much my preferred way to play these sorts of scenarios, wait patiently for my opponent to pick them up and then go and grab them). Waiting patiently maybe isn’t the best description of what was going on as he collected the counters. There was a pretty solid stream of nasties thrown my way which the Juggers and trolls did their best to manage, and slowly, as the frozen beasties were worn down counters begun to be won. There was an unfortunate moment where (although not for the halflings) the Pride of the Shire managed to execute a near perfect flank charge on a unit carrying three tokens thanks to gastromancy, but then had to redistribute them as I realised a frost troll prime had appeared in it’s rear at the end of turn 6. Fortunately turn 7 was not to be, the halflings took their third win, and the troll’s charge did not materialise.

With my Clash win record smashed I moved onto the final game, and I had an absolute cracker of a match up. I found myself facing a fantastic Kingdom’s of Men force, which I believe is a first for me at any Clash of Kings. The army was built around hordes. A horde of knights, a horde of foot knights, a horde of pikes and 2 hordes of beast cavalry. Playing control against such a mass of nerve felt like it was going to be a bit of an uphill struggle at this stage in the event. I popped my halflings down and hoped for the best. As it turned out the little guys and gals performed brilliantly. Every part of the army delivered, especially the chip shooting which really wore down the beast cavalry making them relatively easy to take off the table when they finally made it into combat. The crowning achievement of the event was pulled off by the Ej Grenadiers who, after 5 games of flying into things, failing to do anything and dying, not only pulled off a decent flank charge that took a beast cavalry horde out, but also used their unit strength 2 to grab a scoring section away from a troop of mounted scouts. Despite early misgivings the game turned out to be a great way to finish the weekend.

In amongst catching up with friends it was also great to exchange a quick hello with the lovely Page Neo, who was playing on the table alongside me for game 6, and of course, see what’s on the horizon for 4^th edition. By now I think there’s a fair few rumours hitting Kings of War Fanatics on Facebook, so I’m not going to get into that, this is already a fairly long post. What I would say though, is that I’m certainly intrigued by what I’ve heard so far, and I’m thinking halflings will be the faction I make my first outing with. I quite fancy trying out a force more based around the Tinker synergies, or whatever that might translate to, so to that end I’m currently working my way through the halflings Champion’s boxset, so at the very least I’ll have a shiny new character to use.

I’m going to sign off now, but just want to wish a final, massive thanks to Steve and his team for making Clash happen and to all my opponents for some great games. I’m already looking forward to next year.

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Another step closer to Clash

Things are going better than expected! With the exception of the trolls, I’ve now decided to go full model count on all my bases. Admittedly the Iron Beasts were already there, and I’ve now managed to complete the Braves (and there’s still enough space for one more plucky little dude), Wild Lancers and one regiment of Juggers. I’ve just got four Jugger models left to finish for a second regiment.

Ambition has been spurred, and I have even bigger dreams for what I can achieve in my dwindling time. I’m hoping to put together an alternative command crew for the Pride of the Shires that will make the army 100% Mantic, but that’s really dependent on when the models get printed and it won’t be the end of the world if they don’t arrive in time. A random visit to a charity shop also turned up a very cheap and appropriately sized picture frame, which means I’m suddenly trying to squeeze in a basic display board as well. This project has definitely grown wings, and I’m quite excited about it.

Whilst things are going pretty well on the hobby table, I’ve also been able to fit in a couple of practice games. On Sunday I faced off against a particularly punchy Trident Realms force with loads of toads, a couple of frogs and some absolutely beautiful titans. We played the Raze scenario, which was a great change of pace as I’ve played it for ages.

There were plenty of standout moments. In particular the Troll Gunnery Captain played a pretty pivotal role. His shooting contributed to a turn one waiver of the Coral Giant, the giant shrimp thing in the pictures below, and he managed to keep a toad mounted champion grounded for a couple of turns. All in all, he proved useful, but I’m not sure I’m quite getting the most out of him at the moment (six games on the trot next weekend should fix that though).

I think it’s fair to say the poor coral giant certainly didn’t have the best game, following up the first round waiver with a round of combat that would have been worthy of a sleeping regiment of goblins. Given the opportunity of stomping all over an injured Greedyguts and then being able to trash a regiment of grenadiers, all in the same turn the poor creature manged to roll a double one for extra attacks and then proceed to miss with all of them except one. Greedyguts shrugged off the damage and held the giant in place giving the troll captain, Juggers and The Pride of the Shires a flank charge which polished off the hapless creature.

Not everything went the Halflings way. A horde of trolls got devoured by a Kraken in the process of securing an objective. Meanwhile the units deployed on the right-hand side of the table got tied up in an extended combat that saw most of them leave the table, denying them the chance to grab an objective carefully guarded by some Gigas.

Whilst the Halflings managed to sweep away many of the creatures of the sea the game still came down to a tense final couple of turns as Dambuster toad riders and Gigas valiantly held onto two objectives in the centre. By this stage the Trident Realms had collected three objectives, and the Halflings held two. When the coral giant fractured and collapsed the momentum of the victory crashed into the toad riders sending them running, securing a third objective, but could they take a fourth to win the day.

It would all come down to the roll for turn seven… alas there was to be no victory for the halflings that day and the game ended at the end of turn six, denying the halflings a win and making them share a well fought draw with their opponents. An absolutely great outcome.

With two test games under my belt and a final one this Sunday, I’m rapidly reacquainting myself with the little people and thoroughly enjoying it.

Have a great week.

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