Various Vanguard Minis

I'm finding it difficult to settle on one project at the moment, can you tell?  At least I am tending to finish minis or units and the five box system is helping keep me on track.  Or on five tracks rather.

Anyway, I've been doing Vanguard things recently as well.  I suppose I could think of my handgunners as potential recruits for a Kingdoms of Men Vanguard force, but I have others on the go as well.  Way back when the game was beta tested I collected three of the four sample warbands.  I finished my goblins ages ago, and have been adding some of the KoW goblin metal heros to it; they are are part way through base coating now.
I also put together undead and dwarves, though until recently I hadn't got much beyond the basecoat stage of those.  A few weeks ago I dug out the dwarves to show a friend how to play, and more recently T'Other One (he of the awesome undead) came round and I ran him through a small game.
I have found that for a first game its easier to go for half size warbands.  There's a lot less going on, so the new concepts, such as Fatigue and Forced Fatigue seem more straight-forward.

As I suspected, T'Other One prefered to use undead, but alas, didn't have any ready singly based.  So I got a quick job done to get the undead sample warband table ready.

The game itself was fun, though the undead fared badly (partly due to me erroneously advising T'other One on the best tactics for undead.  Oops, sorry).  I suspect I'll see some of his undead shambling towards me in the near future.
I liked using the dwarves.  As a player who usually chooses orcs, goblins etc, it was nice to have troops that can take a bit of punishment.  While the dwarves took a lot of wounds between them, none of them fell.

I have since put some more work in on some of the Undead, and the dwarves need a bit of extra work too (I'm particularly unhappy with the yellow).  Here are the finished Undead, just a few more to go now, and I need to decide on what to use as a second necromancer for a full sized warband.

Skeletons and Revenants.  All Mantic models, and, I think, really nice.  

I need a shield design for the Revenants at least.  I'm tempted by a red rose in answer to T'Other One's white rose undead, but I can't quite bring myself to do that.

Wraith and Zombies.  Again mantic models.

Actually, this isn't the wraith we used in the above game.  I'll explain more about that in another post.  

Once again I look at my scenery and think it could do with improvement.  I have had some thoughts in that direction (as soon as a box becomes free) so I should be scenery building (and consolidating what I already have) in the near future.

Teaching Vanguard

The other night we were short of roleplayers so I showed one of the group how to play Vanguard.
He has game from the kickstarter, but hads't yet had the chance to try it out.

To get things moving, and to avoid too much to think about in a first game, we used smaller, 100 point warbands (as recommended on page 45); goblins vs dwarves.
I had enough goblins ready from my earlier painting (see here) and began a dwarf force a while ago that never quite got finished (I know, hard to believe isn't it).  Altogether we had a dwarf sergeant accompanied by three Ironclads, a Shieldbreaker and an Ironwatch facing off against a Biggit with his pet Mawbeast, two Rabble with spears, a Luggit and a couple of Spitters.
We played the first scenario, so it was all about seizing objectives and keeping hold of them at the end of the game.

Goblins swarm out of the woods

While dwarves advance from the village (probably been kicked out of the pub)

The Mawbeast attacks

The Biggit catches my Shieldbreaker in the rear..

...and rolls this (exploded results included). 

The game ended in a narrow victory for the dwarves.  Just about every model had been killed or had fled, but one plucky dwarf Ironclad remained by the central objective.  Even a last minute shot from a Spitter who rallied in the final turn wasn't enough to dislodge him.

We both had fun, and the smaller sized warbands helped teach the game.  The goblins seemed a bit underpowered against the dwarves, especially given the tough dwarven armour, and the fact that most of the goblins were grunts, so died easily. Perhaps dropping the Mawbeast for more Rabble or similar would have given the numbers.  Also the goblins didn't manage to gang up on the dwarves often enough.  But for a teaching game, it went very well.

Discussing the game afterwards we thought it generally went pretty well.  As with my previous games, difficulties only arose with the fatigue/forced fatigue and spending power bits. We felt that perhaps a more distinct name for Forced Fatigue would have helped in the explanations.  Also Easy Army does nice stat cards, but the Army special rules would be good as well, given that otherwise you have everything in front of you on the print out (it might be that if you get the warband sets with the cards the special rules are included).

Now to get other people interested.

Kings of War/Vanguard Naiads 1

I've got some paint on the Naiads I showed here.  They are currently mostly basecoated.
As I mentioned, I am using these four as test models for paint schemes; they will also be part of a Trident Realms Vanguard force (or Forces of Nature, I suppose).  I had some ideas for colours before I started.  I wanted very light coloured armour (the official Mantic Naiads have this, and I think it works).  I didn't want the same skin colour though, something more alien perhaps?
Also, given that I have loads of these to paint if I am going to have a decent sized army, I was looking for a colour scheme that would be quick to paint; that means something that will look good with just a wash on top of a base coat, with possibly one highlight for heroes (I can always go to town on single minis later).

In order to test this without painting loads of minis I used the remains of the sprue. I undercoated  several arms and tried combinations of various pale colours such as bone for the armour, and varieties of greens and blues for the flesh.  In the end I chose the colour scheme shown below.  It's VGC Glacier Blue for the armour and Army painter Turquoise for the flesh.  With a coat of AP Soft Tone wash it gives a result I am happy with.  The blue tint to the armour, when washed, takes it away from the bone look that a lot of my trails gave, and I like the turquoise skin, with the wash it has a greyish tone which reminds me of sea creatures.  If I want a bit more definition I can always give it a highlight before washing.

Here are the four test minis, with the base coats pretty much done.  All that's left are the quivers on the Heartpiercers and various bits of belt and strapping.  I've painted the 'hair' and the nets the same colour at the moment.  I imagine the nets to be made of a tough seaweed, and I'll give them a browner tint with washes and lighten the green with a highlight.  the 'hair' will be washed to move it more to a bluer tone.  Metal is bronze or gold, steel would be useless for sea dwelling creatures.  I may go over some of the shell decorations on the armour in silver though, to give a difference between minis and eventually units.

I have to decide if I give the armour and flesh a highlight before washing.  Given that these are for Vanguard, and are likely to be looked at more closely, I probably will.  I may well skip this step when I am painting full units though.

The flash emphasises the blue-ness of the colours, it's not quite that extreme in real life.

And talking of full units, here are nine Ensnarers, built and undercoated.  This will make a troop.  I will do them in troops, its easy to put two together for a regiment (and I'll miss the command off troops intended for the backs of regiments), and easier for assembling on the base as well, though since I am building the base separately, that's not quite as big an issue as it was  with my orcs.

Empty Box!

I've just realised that I have an empty box!  The square box actually got emptied a while ago when I finished the mine and cave tiles.  I'd used it to clear stuff away into prior to the Christmas season, but it is for my purposes empty.

This means Trident Realms have a box.  I'm going to get a handful of the Naiads assembled, both as Heartpiercers and the Ensnarers.  I'll use them as experiments for colour scheme prior to starting my Kings of War regiments.  The single minis will do for Vanguard.  I'll need a Centurian as well, but I'll wait until I have a colour scheme I like first.
At the moment I am thinking of an off white for the armour, as I picture it as enchanted shell, and a turquoise for the flesh.  Metals should be bronze or copper or gold, so as not to rust in the water, some verdigris might look good though (and give a green for spot colours, though this might be too close to the flesh tones I will experiment with)
But first, assembly.

Four Naiads, assembled with wire pegs added so they can be pinned to bases, adn to make them easier to handle.  This is more important when I'm doing a unit with a separately built base.

Vanguard Again

Another game of Vanguard, again against Merlin. This time he travelled down to mine and the intention was to play a couple of games of Vanguard, and use the results to inform a Kings of War battle in spring.  Since we had played the first scenario last time we opted for 2 and 3, 'light the beacon' and 'rescue the princess'.  In fact we spent so long chatting and took so long to play, that that princess never got on the table, let alone rescued.

Elves lurk in the woods, eyes peeled for returning orcs.

The elves 'volunteered' to guard the beacon.  Clearly everyone else took a step back.

The bulk of the orc force.

Orcs sneaking through the bizarre foliage.

The orcs attempting to surprise the elves by swinging wide behind the huts.

The elven spears are joined by their prince, ready to take on the troll, hopefully just out of charge range.

The Gore Rider scrap, the fence hindered me here, but ultimately the addition of two Greataxes and an Ax equalled the subtraction of two elves.  (Who says Orcs can't do maths?)

In the end, despite the orcs trouncing most of the elves, they were unable to light the beacon in time.  At the end of turn five, with only a couple of elves left we rolled for a further turn.  Sadly the game was over, and the elf wizard had positioned herself next to the beacon, preventing the orcs lighting it.

The up and coming battle would be that much harder as some of the orc forces would be delayed.

A highlight for me was the elf prince shooting with his longbow from just outside the troll's charge range, only for the Godspeaker to use Green Rage to move the troll forward into range, who was then activated and charged the poor prince.  The small party of Ax and Skulk on my right flank kept several elves occupied for the first half of the battle.  Merlin, however, showed a greater focus on the objective and kept at least one elf in contact with the beacon at all times so I never got the opportunity to even try and light it.  

Another fun game, though we are still getting to grips with the fine details.  Last game Merlin had much better dice luck than me, this time I more than made up for it, at one point getting seven hits from an initial roll of 3D8!

I'm looking forward to playing the KoW battle after this, Merlin can delay some of my units as they didn't get the message in time.

New Vanguard Warbands

In case you don't follow the Mantic Blog (link below), today they released the stats for the previously missing factions.  The new stuff is at the end of the Warband Creation Guide in the free rules.

As always these are somewhat abbreviated, as they plan to eventually release full ranges for all faction with extra models, rather as they have already done in the game's launch with the Northern Alliance, Abyss, Nightstalkers and Basileans.

I might start looking at building 15mm warbands for my Varangur, and the Kingdoms of Men should inspire myself and Merlin to do some historical variants to go with our Greeks etc.

The Mantic blog also mentions some of the future plans for expanding the miniatures range, there's some exciting looking developments there.

Vanguard Orcs Complete

A while ago I showed the orcs I was painting ready for Mantic Games' Vanguard.  If you saw my last post you will have seen them in action.  Regardless of how well they perform on the battlefield, I am still very pleased with how they turned out.

The 'brains' behind the warband.  Both the Krudger and the Godspeaker are metal Mantic models.  The godspeaker comes with alternate heads and left arms, allowing different variants. 

The Krudger is a much older model; it still looks good (I've always felt he looks a bit mournful) but the axe haft is a bit flimsy.  I know its going to break at some point, I wish now I had used brass rod or similar in place of the shaft. 

Sigh

Plastic Dungeon Saga troll on loan from the goblins.  This is a lovely model (if that's the right word for a troll), in the style of the Kings of War trolls, but a touch bigger.  I might convert some more with weapon swaps to make a regiment for Kings of War, or maybe use him as a Troll Bruiser.

Two Greataxes.  Not much to say about these, they are made from the plastic orc greataxe sprue.

Moreaxes made from ordinary ax orcs with additional weapons added.  Mantic do make an add-on to provide the extra axes, but I had enough lying around.

The Grunts.  Axe orcs built from the orc sprue.

More Grunts, ax and skulk.  The skulk uses a standard orc body, but the bow arm is taken from the restic gore riders.  I cut the spear shaft to length, shaped the ends a bit and then bent it into a bow shape in hot water.  I meant to add a quiver from the goblin archer sprue, but they were hiding, perhaps feeling that they had already given a troll to their large cousins.  When I can track one down I will add it to the belt.

Gore Rider.  I took this from a box of four that I had painted up ready to be based, but never got around to finishing the regiment.  He had suffered some damage, but careful pinning and using superglue and baking powder makes the repair strong.

I enjoyed painting these, I had forgotten how much fun the Mantic orcs can be to paint.  I've tried to use similar methods to my orc army, but that was done many years ago, and I've forgotten some of how I did them, and I've changed some of my techniques.

In brief, I used a light brown undercoat, then base colours using different shades of green for the orc skin tones as I started doing with my Dragon Rampant orcs.  I then gave the main colours one highlight (I don't normally bother with orcs I paint for an army) before washing the metals with black wash and then everything an Army Painter Strongtone wash.  Once everything was dry I dotted in the eyes in crimson, then a coat of gloss yacht varnish and Rowney matt varnish.  With the exception of the strongtone wash, all paints were Vallejo Game Colour.  

Basing was pretty standard, sand and small stones painted accordingly, then I added a lot of tufts.  I like tufts.

All the bases have magnets to allow them to be transported in a Really Useful Box lined with thin steel.

Vanguard Trial

I finally got to try Vanguard today against good friend, longtime opponent and blog contributor Merlin.  He had already set out the table, so after a good long chat and 'show and tell' session we got down to playing the game. Merlin, of course, used his beloved elves, and I used the orcs I started here.

A lovely lot of terrain, just right for a skirmish game.

Some of the elves along with their Forest Shambler buddy.

Some of the orcs, including the troll from the goblin band I painted ages ago.

The Gore Rider has just trampled the Elf princling under his hooves, the Shambler soon exacted revenge.

The rest of the orc 'big guns' get drawn piecemeal into the Forest Shambler grinder.

By the end only my troll was left, Knocked down and with an angry Forest Shambler and a spear elf looking down.  Fortunately for him the game ended, but the elves had possession of two of the supply dumps, so had a clear victory.  I let myself get distracted by the elves, and chased them rather than victory points; if I'd surrendered the objective guarded by the shambler, the prince and the wizard I might have done much better, but I suppose orcs will be orcs.  Merlin was also very lucky with his exploding 8s, usually getting at least one each time he rolled, or that's what it seemed like from the orc side of the table.*

I liked a lot of the game.  There were some points we were unsure of, and as it was our first game it took ages to play.  We got a few things wrong as well, but I suspect their effect evened out over the course of the game.

I'll definitely play more Vanguard.  I have plenty of orcs for it now, but there are a couple of troop types I don't have, one of which is important for an alternate warband build I have come up with.  I'll do some better pictures of the orcs soon, and show what else I have for them.  I've also got some dwarves almost finished, so I have the useful opposing force, and of course the goblins I did a while ago, though they are short of their troll now.  "Please mister Krudger, can we have our troll back?".

Meanwhile, play Vanguard!  The rules are free on the Mantic website here.

*They say history is written by the victor, in this case its written by the blog owner.