Playing Kings of War with my son

Well playing might not be the right word. But I did have a muck around game with my undead and humans with my son Zac which he enjoyed - especially when he got to roll a lot of dice. And f you have played KoW before you will know that it is a dice fest - a very enjoyable one at that. Anyway I took a few pics of the game which was interesting to run. Here they are with some brief comments re what I learnt at the end:

Humans with ogre and giant allies

Undead

Zac overseeing the undead line (he wanted to play the werewolves!)

undead first moves

Zac look on as the forces clash in the centre 

The ogres hit the Revenant King in the flank - he routed

The soul reavers (chaos warrior figures) and undead cavalry destroy the human centre

Giants rout a unit of skelly spearmen that held them up for a couple of turns

After dispatching the foot and mounted knights the reavers turn on the ogres who have been held up by a horde of skellies

Mounted liche charges the human cannon battery

Wraiths and undead trolls finish off the other unit of ogres

The pitiful remnants of the human army prepare for the final onslaught

Where it finished when I called it

So what did I learn? Well from the perspective of the undead the reavers are well worth it and I need to add a unit of mounted reavers to my undead army. I have sufficient mounted chaos warriors for this so all I need to do is paint them. The horde of skeletons did their job too holding up the best foot troops the human army had. The wyvern rider wasn't well handled as I attacked too quickly with him and as a result he got hit in the flank. In hindsight he is better hitting units that have already been engaged on their flank. The catapults were pretty useless too - the more games of KoW I play the more I think artillery isn't worth it.

As for the humans? Well for starters I need to upgrade the troop of cavalry to a regiment. I need to add some better units too which I do have undercoated ready for painting - another unit of foot knights and mounted sergeants. I could add a horde of retainers with double handed weapons (pole arms in the KoW lists) which might be handy too. Bowmen are crap and I only field them to add numbers. The problem I had with the army was that it contained a lot of average troops but not enough heavy hitters that are capable of destroying enemy units reasonably quickly. And ultimately that was the difference - once the undead breached the line in a couple of places they could simply roll it up with flank attacks. The humans couldn't breach the line in the first place. Mind you I used humans and ogre allies against goblins down at my local wargame club about a month ago and the result was the opposite - indeed I was somewhat surprised how one sided it was. So it might simply be an issue with not having enough of the better troops which I can fix easily.

Photos from my Kings of War game

Played a game of KoW on Saturday with Tom down at the local wargames club (western suburbs wargames club BTW). Tom took some pics of the game which I thought I would share with you. Both of us played undead although I also used some ogre allies (650 points worth) so I could field a 3000 point army as without them I would struggle to field 3000 points of painted figures. In the end I managed to win a game which involved capturing objectives - it was pretty close though and really a tale of two sides of the board as on one side Tom did well whilst I did well on the other. Anyway here  are the pics:

Tom's forces march on my werewolves and ogres

Ghouls and werewolves prepare to attack 

Tom's centre

My wraiths about to attack the vampire cavalry (they got slaughtered BTW!)

The killing field

Wraiths and skellies battle it out whilst the other units move in

stand off

Zombies and ogres clash

My giant makes short work of a unit of ghouls

Undead trolls and mummies clash

Vampire general leads his troops

My cavalry and ogres swept away Tom's right flank

Where the fight was when we called it

The ogres and zombies fought out a draw

So what did I learn? Well regiments are much better than troops (a regiment is 20 infantry, 10 cavalry; troops 10 and 5 respectively) as the latter's lower resolve means they rout easier. So next time I'll use a full regiment of wraiths rather than two troops. Undead are also tricky due to the shambling rule and it was interesting getting my head around that. In that regard I would play around with my list to make better use of units that don't suffer from shambling as well as concentrating those that do so one can make better use of necromancers that can cast surge on units that suffer from the shambling rule to help them move faster.

Zaragoz

If you read the Realm of Chaos 80s blog you will know James has put up a post about Zaragoz which poses a number of questions for anyone who has read it. Well I did so earlier this year so here goes:

1) Did the book engage you immediately or did it take time to draw you in?

I was engaged pretty much up front as the topic interests me and it was well written.

2) What was your overall 'feeling' about the novel once it was complete? Amused, sad, confused, disturbed etc?

I just thought it was a well written book on a topic I like - so I guess I was simply happy I enjoyed reading it.

3) Pick a character - are their actions justified?

Got to be Orfeo doesn't it? His actions are pretty justified really. I guess the character who is conflicted is Arcangelo - he uses the powers of chaos as an act of justice against the villains of the story. Not sure that justifies selling one's soul but it is a cool plot device/topic.

4) Do you feel your character 'changes' during the course of the story? If so, in what ways?

Not really although the story of Arcangelo makes you think. 

5) Is the overall plot engaging?

Very much so. One could really use the plot in a non-warhammer setting pretty easily enough. Ultimately it is a story of the corruption and power just placed in a fantasy setting. 

6) How did the book's structure affect you as you read? Did you appreciate the 'interludes'? 

I liked the interludes as it reminds you of the overall story - fits in with the trilogy too

7) Which passage in the book strikes you as being the most poignant or memorable? 

It has been a few months since I read this and no particular passage stands out. Scene wise the duel between Orfeo and Estevan and what follows is for me the most interesting part of the book.

Would I read it again? Yes at some stage in the years to come I could see myself re-reading this. So I'll keep it (heck as the wife can attest I rarely throw/donate books I read and I know I wont ever get rid of this).

two trolls

I finally finished a couple of trolls that were laying around on my painting table for some time (well over a year at least). Inspiration to finish these being the need to include them (as undead trolls) in my Kings of War undead army. These two gets me to a regiment of 6 which is pretty nasty. And I can use them for a gobbo army when I get around to painting my gobbos up. Anyway here they are:

ex citadel foundry knights

In an earlier post I talked about the haul of figures I came back to Australia with after my trip to Foundry UK. Well I've painted up most of the knights I purchased which I've been using as foot guard in a couple of Kings of War games I've played in the last month. They are lovely figures to paint although they weren't easy to clean up beforehand because of excess flash and some slippage in the molds. Seems to be a common problem with Foundry stuff as the other figures I've got and have cleaned had the same issue. Having said that they are nice figures though and over the coming months (probably years!) I'll work my way through them. Anyway here is what I've finished:

At some stage I'll go back and do the whites of the eyes of the three figures above.