Kings of War Battle - 1000 points - League of Rhordia vs The Herd

As I'm currently taking a short break I've been looking through my blog and I found I've got quite a few unfinished blog posts stuck in 'drafts'. I'll dump some of them, like a birthday post marking eight years, but I think others have some interesting stuff.

Here is a 1000 point, second edition Kings of War battle between my 15mm League of Rhordia and Merlin's Herd. The reference to an ogres vs goblins battle allows me to date it to August 2019. You can read the report of the aforementioned battle here.

I never finished this report, but I think it's worth posting. I'm sure you can work out pretty much what's happening from the photos.

"After the ogres vs goblins battle, Merlin and I had a larger battle to continue our story of the conflict between the Herd and the League.  Again Merlin had come up with a scenario, this time giving me a chance to find and wipe out the Herd Shaman behind all the recent disruption.

The Shaman of the Peaks.

A  battle of 1,000pts per side between The Herd and The League of Rhordia.

          Loosely based on the Dominate scenario, p85.

Note: The Herd has 1,000pts plus a shaman, the League has just 1,000pts.

Game lasts 6 turns, then throw a d6, on a score of 4+ play one last turn.

Ogli Starberry had won the argument with Duke Errington. The League needed to follow-up their recent battle successes against the Herd and pursue them into their homelands. Recent information led the halfling to believe that the Herd were being compelled to attack League homelands by a sinister Shaman known as Oddroc who dwelt somewhere in the heavily wooded foothills of the Aven Peaks. If they struck quickly the league could seek out the foul shaman and wipe him and his followers out once and for all.

Set-up: place 3 objective markers on the battlefield-these represent the possible location of the shamans dwelling. All 3 markers should be placed on the middle line of the table, at least 12” apart. The Beastman player then notes which of the markers represents the shamans hut whilst the League will have to 'search' the markers to find the correct one-this is done simply by moving into within 3” of a marker, throw a d6, on a 5,6 they have found the shamans hut. The third and final marker will be the hut if it has not yet been found. The shaman will be placed in the doorway looking outwards. 

Players then throw a dice, the highest score chooses table edge and places their first unit.

Players then alternate deploying units until both forces are deployed.

Objective:  At the end of the game, players need to add up the points values of any of their units within 12” of the shamans hut. If the shaman has been killed the League may add his point tally to their total. If the difference in scores is more than 10%, then the player with the highest total wins the battle. 

The League can win the whole war if the slay the Oddroc the Shaman as then the Herd forces will fall apart and start bickering amongst themselves as usual.

My League army consisted of;
Duke Errington, Baron on horse (he has been demoted from Duke to Baron since he always loses the halflings under his command.  They are no longer Inspired by him)
Sgt Alefast, Halfling Master Sergeant with a bow
Ogli Starbrow, Halfling Sorcerer with the Zephyr Crown
1 Regiment of Household Knights with the Aegis of the Elohi
1 Regiment of House Guard
1 Regiment of Halfling Knights
1 Regiment of Halfling Spearlings
1 Regiment of Halfling Archers
1 Troop of Halfling Scouts

(Unfortunately I don't know what Merlin fielded and it's too long ago to find out, but it included some Centaurs and the Stampede)

The field of battle

The Herd preparing to defend Oddroc

More Herd, including Merlin's nice new Stampede on the right (nice if you're not in front of it when it charges, as I later found out)

The League prepare to seek and destroy

The two armies about to clash.

The opening moves; the League are cautiously advancing, trying to guess where the shaman will be.

The centaurs spy the halfling Scouts in the wood and charge in, wiping them out completely

The knights take the bait and charge the Stampede, but can't damage them enough to slow them down, due partly to facing them on the edge of the woods.  Likewise the House Guard are hindered against the centaurs

The Stampede crashes into the flank of the House Guard, leaving nothing but trampled mud and bodies, then they turn.

Sgt Alefast and the halfling knights charge in and the halfling spearlings face the centaurs.

The victorious Herd celebrate.  

Only Duke Errington and the Halfling Archers survived to bring the sorry tale back to the League.  Doubtless they had different versions of events; the Duke told how he bravely rode into enemy territory to try and seek out the shaman, only to be let down by the *ehem* 'short'comings of some of his troops.  The archers complained that the Duke treated his army as disposable and took little care about their deployment or tactics.

Merlin played very well, and used the terrain very much to his advantage.  Hindered charges make a big difference to a League army, and Merlin was able to put me in the position of either having to make a Hindered charge, or face a charging enemy.  Of course, the fact that most of the Herd don't suffer hindered charges only made things worse for me.  Well played.  

(We'll be back)"

Kings of War - 15mm League of Rhordia - More Halflings

I've been working on reinforcements to my League of Rhordia army, this time I've got some more halflings done.

Searching through one of my many boxes of unpainted minis I found several bags of Essex Miniatures halflings.  There were enough for another troop of the scouts, another regiment of archers, and a couple of regiments of halflings with various weapons.  I put the archers on one side and concentrated on the scouts and a regiment of the others.

The Scouts are pretty much the same as the previous troop, though I chose a different mini for the leader, simply gluing some copper wire on his back for a bow.

I didn't have enough spear armed minis for a regiment of spearlings, but I had a start.  Looking at the spears I thought they were a bit short, even for a halfling.  When you're that small you want as long a spear as possible to keep the foe away.  I'd already replaced the pikes on the Dogs of War here, so I used the same process to re equip not just the models with spears, but also to convert some of the others into spearlings.  To make them look more like a unified fighting force I added shields made simply from card circles cut using a hole punch and the card from the back of a notebook.  When I checked the stats for halfling spearlings I found they had Defence of 3, suggesting the minimum of armour, so I suppose I could have managed without shields, but I like the look.
I also gave them a standard (clip art) and replaced the Warhammer Empire standard on the archers with a similar standard.

  

I'm pleased with the end result, next time I do halflings I have a plan for some more cavalry, but I'd also like to build up a regiment (or two) of halfling Braves.  Essex do some nice halflings with farm weapons and mining tools, and I think they'd look good in an irregular unit of militia.

Kings of War League of Rhordia - Further Reinforcements

At the beginning of March I blogged about my League army and how it needed some remedial work.  I also showed a regiment of crossbows that were part finished and teased about something dog related (but not Dogs of War).
Well I've got a fair bit done throughout March, in and among my other projects.  That's the beauty of the five box system; you can put a project down without feeling you are abandoning it.

Anyway, here's some pictures of the completed League stuff.

Here are those crossbows, finished and based.

The rear troop when deployed as a regiment,

and the front troop.

Those dogs I mentioned.  Halfling knights on warhounds.

The command troop, the command figures are simple conversions of the existing poses.

Rear troop

Some genuine Dogs of War.  That's two regiments (or one horde if placed side by side).

This is what one of the regiments looks like from above.

I have to say I'm pleased with my 15mm progress throughout March.  I've flags to add, but that that's all.  

The crossbows are Essex miniatures.  There are four different poses in the regiment, I have used a different one in each rank.  As is normal for my missile units I haven't added any command figures.

The halfling cavalry are Splintered Light,(I mentioned here about receiving them and the good service provided).  The banner is just a single colour to match the cloaks, I felt it was too fiddly to add any more detail.  The cross design on the shield is supposed to be a crossed knife and fork; they are halflings after all.  I have another troop of these painted with red cloaks, but I'm waiting to finish the final four to make another regiment (the minis had gone missing when I was prepping them).

The pikemen are from a variety of different manufacturers.  I had already painted up a number of the gambeson wearing pikemen years ago for my Empire army.  These were some of the unpainted minis left over, plus some others culled from one of my boxes of old lead.  The minis aren't great for detail, but en masse I think they look fine.  I replaced all the pikes on the minis, which entailed a fair bit of trimming, drilling, straightening wire, cutting and filling points.  

36 times!

It'll be a long while before I do that again, though I do have enough for another couple of regiments.

I've also got a character figure almost finished, and I have rashly started on a new 15mm project, inspired by some old minis I have (more on that later).

So sticking to a structured painting schedule and approaching it methodically has worked really well here.  I'm tempted to say it takes the fun out of it, but actually knowing that I would actually manage to finish a unit I could use on the battlefield gave me a goal to aim for and helped a lot.

I'm due for a game of Kings of War tomorrow against Merlin, and I'll finally get to use my League army.  Of course I'll let you know how it went.  And Merlin, if you're reading this pre battle, don't worry; not all of this will be playing tomorrow.

Small Scale Kings of War

I mentioned a short while ago that I was looking at my old collection of 15mm figures.  Way back last century I used to play Warhammer in 15mm, and it was a fun challenge to match the troop types with available figures.  I took the easy route for my first army; Empire, as there are lots of historical figures out there.  One of my friends/opponents did some excellent work with Tomb Kings and Lizardmen, and I also did Skaven, Dark Elves and Chaos Dwarves.  Alas, most of mine went the way of eBay, and I have gradually reduced my 15mm collection.  I have gone back to the scale for some projects, such as Dragon Rampant, but I decided to see if I could use my old Empire collection in Kings of War.
I've already talked through the process and the decision to base at 3/5ths the scale, so here's the current progress.

A troop of House Guard, mounted hero, regiment of City Militia (though a bit over armoured for De 3+), wizard and a troop of Muskets.

These are some of my old Empire troops just rebased into Troops (as opposed to troops) for KoW.  The paint scheme is straight out of the old Empire army books (Altdorf I think) and could do with some attention in some places.  The wizard, for instance, is losing some of his paint, and looks dull, and the gold armour on the general could do with brightening up, it looks like a kids plastic toy armour.

All the humans except the wizard are from Essex' various late medieval and early renaissance ranges.
I have still to find the tin that holds the cavalry section of the army, and there are a lot more minis in there that don't fit quite so well into the League.  But I also had a unit of 12 halfling archers.

Two troops (or one regiment) of Halfling Archers and a troop of Halfling Scouts.  A Halfling master Sergeant is lurking at the back, but he does have the Stealthy special rule.

I had some extra unpainted halflings, enough to make a regiment of archers and a troop of scouts.  Initially I thought I could get away with just painting the new minis, but the paint jobs were so different that in the end I repainted the original halflings.  I kept the halflings wearing the 'Robin Hood' hat as the scouts, and the other two poses as normal archers, led by a scout.  The scout leader is a minor conversion of a halfling originally wielding a pickaxe and they have only 8 on the base, cos they are just that good.

The halflings are all Essex fantasy halflings.  I really like the style, it rather reminds me of Peter Jackson's film Hobbits, though Essex got there before him.

I've also painted up five strips of wicker fencing as useful scenery, and am currently working on a troop of City Militia and bulking up the Guard to a full regiment.

So where does that put us now?  Counting the 15mm as 1/3 of a mini (random, but anyway);

Current totals for November

Bought 1 (the survivor)
Painted 32 (Frostgrave and Vanguard warbands, including a troll, which must be good for bonus points and 30 15mm halflings)
Sold/traded 92 (5 dwarf berserkers and 3 lesser obsidian golems, 18 Napoleonics, 26 Gothic Horror, approx 40 GW orcs, plus some WH40K scenery)

Very respectable this month (as long as Star Saga doesn't turn up today).

And a quick reminder, Recon, the Wakefield and District Wargamers annual show is on on Saturday at Pudsey Civic hall.  Its always a friendly show, with lots to look at, including the bizarre sauces on the bar.