Basing Kings of War Orcs 2

I showed the first two of my new Orc army finally based here. The Trolls and Gore Riders require a slightly different technique because they don't have any bases attached.  These two units are some of the ones I had great basing plans for, but in the end I've gone for the same method as the Goblins I did way back in 2015.

Regiments of Gore Riders and Trolls

Essentially I textured and decorated the bases before adding the magnetic sheet, then pinned and glued the minis in place. I used the same style of ruined stonework and the same gloop as the Skulks and Ax units.  I wasn't sure what to add to the bases, but I found a nice bit of cornicing in my collection of ex fish tank ornaments which looked just right for a troll to stand on.  The pavement on the Gore Riders base was inspired by some of the ruins dotted around Hyrule in Breath of the Wild.

Bases textured and decorated ready for the minis

If you're pinning minis on bases it's good practice to drill straight through the base from the top. Sand the bottom flat again, then countersink the underside.  Simply use a much bigger drill bit, the end should be good enough for countersinking.  You don't want to go too deep here, just about 1mm (ish).  I find that the drill bit can be twisted just using my fingers - all you are doing is slightly enlarging the hole. This allows you to trim the wire off neatly flush with the base and avoid nasty sharp ends sticking out. It also means you can drop a bit of superglue into the hole to help keep the pins secure.  You'll probably have to sand it lightly again before adding the magnetic sheet to bring any superglue level with the base. 

Underside of trolls' base showing countersunk holes filled with superglue

I added the static grass after the minis were glued in place, partly so I could cover any messy areas with vegetation. I used the same colours as the two previous units here, and again tried to show the grass becoming less healthy as the army tramples over it.

If you missed me painting these units you can find the trolls here, and the Gore Riders here.

Tame the Beast - MESBG Battle Companies Game 3

We just finished our third game, and it was great fun, if short. We rolled Tame The Beast, where both Battle Companies are trying to slay a rampaging Cave Troll*. There are some nice benefits for the Troll slayer and their warband.

We both have heroes suffering from Old Battle Wounds, but both were well enough to fight.

Both Battle Companies face off, warily eyeing the Troll

A Dol Amroth pike block advances while the Haradrim form a loose line to contain it. The Troll has already taken wounds from both sides' archery, and Sayaad has shot the Blackroot Vale sergeant

The Troll charges Qayid. One of the spearmen is too scared to help, but another one joins sergeant Shawish in melee.

The Troll is victorious, taking out the bold spearman (Tise in his first engagement) and nearly killing Qayid (a lucky Fate roll saved him)

Both sides pile in against the Troll, but before the melee begins a lucky shot from Sayaad fells the beast

This was an amazingly fun game, and proof that good scenarios really make a difference.  I was certainly lucky with my dice rolling, even losing Priority for all but the last turn helped, as I was able to move the Troll towards my Battle Company (though it is an absolute beast in melee, costing me a warrior and nearly my Leader, but for a Fate roll). The best rolling had to be the sergeant's shot against the Troll, needing to hit (a 6), then avoid hitting any friends (another 6!) and finally needing a 6 to cause the final wound on the Troll.

Post battle neither of us lost any troops, though my son very unluckily rolled an arm wound for his Blackroot Vale sergeant. He did gain some abilities, but these are of limited use to a one armed archer.  Adding insult to injury, his one reinforcement roll turned up nothing.

My leader Qayid is now a Master of Poisons, Sayaad has both Point Blank Shot (which merely replicates his poisoned arrows) and is a Master Shot, allowing him to shoot twice in the Shooting Phase. Very nice. I did have one warrior who rolled for promotion, but didn't get anything, never mind.  I ended up with 6 Influence Dice, which I spent to roll two warriors with bows. My Battle Company is now ten strong, five bowmen and five spearmen, and both and are a bit better.

I'm looking forward to the next game, but I must get some more minis painted.

The Fiefdoms have to decide if they should retire the one armed sergeant. On the one hand, he gained an extra point of Might, and still has some use, especially calling Heroic Actions, on the other hand, he can't shoot any more, and is a lot of points. Retiring him would certainly give the Fiefdoms an underdog bonus, which could be very helpful.

*I couldn't find my Cave Trolls, so an undercoated Mordor Troll stood in for it. We kept the Cave Troll stats.

Secure the Gauntlet - MESBG Battle Companies Game 2

We played the second game in our Battle Companies campaign recently.

There was a chance that my leader, Qayid, would be absent due to his old battle wound, but fortunately he was ok to fight.

We rolled Secure the Area and used a treasure token depicting a magical gauntlet (hence the name we gave the game).

This scenario has an interesting set up, each model rolls to turn up on a random table edge.  This leads to battle companies being spread out and separated, though you have choice where on a table edge they deploy.

My Haradrim deploy along the centre of the near table edge and in the top right corner.  The Fiefdoms are high-ish up the right table edge and in the top left corner (off the photo)

Qayid leads a spearman through the woods to try and ambush the Fiefdoms troops, having lost Sayaad (one of the sergeants) to a lucky shot early in the game.

Haradrim attempt to hold a strongpoint in the ruins, hopefully close enough to the objective for a last minute dash.

The fight near the wood hots up, and the Blackroot Vale archer behind the wall picks of Haradrim.  the Knight, safe in his amour, takes on the Haradrim in the ruins.

Shawish, the other Harad sergeant tries to make it to the fight in time

One Pikeman and one Spearman down

The Knight calmly finishes off the archer

At this point my battle company was broken, and Qayid, sensing the way things were going, fled.  The game ended after this turn

One of the Blackroot Vale archers had moved up close enough to the gauntlet to claim victory.

This was another fun game.  The random nature of deployment meant that it was harder for me to bring my superior numbers to bear, and I completely failed to either play the scenario (I was worried that superior Fiefdoms archery would have stopped me claiming the prize) or coordinate any concerted attack.  This is something I'm going to have to work at.

The Knight is now even better at fighting, and one of the Archers can shoot better.  I gained one reinforcement (a spear armed warrior), but lost one of my bowmen, so I'm still at eight minis, and I'd better get another spearman painted.

So far the campaign is great fun, I'm looking forward to the next game.  I'm pretty much guaranteed some advancement after the next game, and I might even gain an 'underdog bonus' so I may get another reinforcement roll.

I have another spearman to paint, actually, I've got four more minis in the process of being painted.  I'm also assembling a terrain box for our Middle Earth games, though the tower has slipped through a rift from Hyrule.  I aim to add some more trees to the collection, and some ruins and areas of broken ground.

Basing Kings of War Orcs

A long time ago (2020) I painted up 750 points of Mantic Orcs with the intention of putting together a starter set. It was also a project that gave me targets when I was struggling with motivation during lockdown.

I never got more than the Brock Riders painted for the opposing Dwarf force, and none of the Orcs got based as I was keen to try a couple of ideas for this, none of which worked.  You can see the Skulks here and the Ax here .

Recent work on my Kingdoms of Men Ambush force persuaded me to dig them out and finish them off. Back then I promised that basing would get it's own post (partly because I wanted to astound you all with my cleverness). So here it finally is. Me basing up a  troop of Orc Skulks and a regiment of Orc Ax.

The Bases

I try to have a few Kings of War unit bases ready. I cut them to size out of 4mm MDF, sand the edges (I like to chamfer them slightly round the top edge). Remember, the dust from MDF is a health risk, so wear a mask, work outside etc. Then I seal the MDF with sealant to both protect the cut edges and reduce the chance of moisture warping the material. I then apply magnetic sheeting to the base and paint the whole lot with Burnt Umber craft paint.

Theme for Decoration

My original Orc army had a ruined city theme. I used various bits of broken fish tank ornaments for pillars and walls, with the rest of the ground cover being mostly bare earth with a few grassy patches. Although I plan to revisit this army and repair and rebase it, I still like the theme. 

This time I'm going to create most of my own ruins with XPS foam. So I mocked up each base using blutac to fix the minis in place temporarily.  I'm using less than Full Model Count, usually sixteen for a regiment, so I should have some space for extra decoration.

Planning

I used some random foam blocks to delineate areas of ruins and came up with a set-up I liked. I then pencilled around the bases sufficiently to show where each mini would go. Then using some of the smaller blocks of foam I cut for the ruined walls here, I built little wall sections.  The foam was stuck down with Mod-Podge, simply because it was close to hand.

I then removed the minis individually, numbering each on the base.  This gave me access to the ruins for painting.

Ax regiment mocked up with some XPS blocks. Too big, but it shows me where ruins will look good 

The Skulks squeezing between their 'ruins'

Ready for painting. I found a bit of a column from my earlier army to replace the blocks on one side, and added some 'stones' along the front

Painting the Ruins

The first stage was a coat of thinned Mod-Podge and paint, in this case Vallejo Extra Opaque Charcoal Grey. Once dry it was simply a case of drybrushing with and. I resisted the temptation to do too much, such as staining; the minis are the focus here.

Both bases with painted ruins

Adding Texture (and Minis) - The Gloop*

Once the ruins were finished it's on with adding the texture.  This needs to be a thick enough layer to hide the circular bases on the minis, and provide some texture.  I make this 'gloop' with filler (spackle in the U.S.) mixed with some PVA glue and burnt umber paint.  The proportions are about two thirds the amount of glue to filler, measured by eye, and enough paint to colour the gloop.  I also add a bit of sand and fine grit to give a grainier texture to the finish.  

The fiddly bit is applying this when the minis themselves get in the way.  The answer is to glue a few minis in place, then texture round them, then some more, and so on.

Using the Skulks as an example, I painted a bit of the gloop on each mini base before gluing, this makes it easier to avoid covering the mini itself.  I glued two minis down at once; superglue is ideal for this.  Then I applied  small dollops of gloop around the mini bases with a modelling tool and used an old brush to smoosh it into place.

First two Skulks glued in place and 'glooped'

The gloop smooshed around the pillar

With the first rank done I started the back rank

Finished - front view

and back view

Before it dries, I like to sprinkle a bit more sand and grit onto the gloop to add a bit more texture.

Finishing Touches

The textured surface can be drybrushed, but if you're going to add a lot of static grass or similar there's not much point.  For these units I lightly drybrushed VGC Khaki in patches.  I also painted the bits of grit in VEO Charcoal, then drybrushed it to match the stonework.

Once any painting is dry I added static grass.  My first Orc army had very little grass on the bases, they are marching through a ruined cityscape after all.  My recent Kingdoms of Men army has a lot as I want to emphasise the richness of their lands.  For these I went a bit heavier on the static grass, but since I'm pocking a glue laden brush in between my nicely painted minis, less is often more.  I tried to have more greener grass at the front of the unit, getting sparser and darker towards the rear.  The mere presence of these evil creatures harms the natural world.

The finished Skulks

And here's the regiment of Ax.

It's good to finally get these based and ready for play.  I'm going to have to do the Gore Riders and Trolls slightly differently as their minis don't have integral bases.  I'll make the bases up then pin the minis in place.

*Mel the Terrain Tutor uses the term Gloop for his various pastes and mixes and it seems appropriate.  I suppose it derives from gloopy.   I'm sure it has nothing to do with The Gloop, a coastal feature in Orkney, though that is worth a visit if you are in the area.

MESBG Haradrim Battle Company

I've finished the initial eight Haradrim warriors for my Battle Company.  You can see my test model here, and I've already used the company before completion here.

Still, they are fully painted now, though I may go back and add a few little details at some point.  I kept pretty close to the test colour scheme.  Dark red jacket, off white trousers and shirt and turban, and details in lighter red and purple.  I'm using purple as an indicator of importance, so each of the two 'sergeants' has a purple keffiyeh.  The captain is the rather fancy Mumak herder from the plastic kit, I must have got him in a random eBay lot, so he certainly stands out.

I chose to give them all dark skin, starting with a base coat of Vallejo Game Extra Opaque Heavy Siena, then added Vallejo Model Color Orange Brown and finally VMC Sunny Skin Tone to highlight.  It's not the best result, but there is so little skin showing that it works.

Once painted and varnished I used Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Fields of New Zealand.  Given where the films were shot, this seemed to be a good choice.  I did think about a more desert base, but it made sense for us both to use the dame basing method.  My reasoning is that the games take place along the edges of the Fiefdoms.  They'll work well for games set in Gondor as well.  A few tufts to fancy the base up and they are done.

I'm very pleased with how these came out.  They are perhaps a bit more regimented than I initially set out to do, but I think I'll paint up the remaining five warriors from the sprue in the same sort of colour scheme.  I'll experiment with different schemes if I need any more beyond this*

I'm hoping that after the next game I'll gain enough experience to promote some of the warriors (to Raiders/cavalry I think) or even some Influence Dice to recruit some more warriors, so that will mean more painting.  Meanwhile I'm looking at my terrain collection and putting together some Middle Earth themed scenery.  

*Technically, since the maximum size of the Battle Company is twelve, I shouldn't, but I'd like to paint up new models for any replacements rather than reuse existing minis, at least up to a maximum of twenty four.

ERA Medieval

The old Monday evening RPG group has become a board games group. We found that as our schedules became busier it was harder to guarantee the time required for an RPG campaign, but a series of 'pick up and play' games is just right.  A while back we worked our way through Mantic Games' Star Saga (and we may go back to do the expansions at some point), but for now, we are trying a variety of different games.

To be honest, we gather to chat and enjoy each other's company, but it helps to have a good game; recently we've been playing some great games.  Here's a few you might want to look out for.

We played the old GW Judge Dredd board game (long out of print).  Fun and it does a good job of capturing the feel of the old Judge Dredd comics.

Ravensburger's Alien game is another IP based board game. In this co-op game the players are the crew of the Nostromo, trying to fulfil various missions and avoid the Alien. The use of randomly drawn objectives (with the final one being hidden until the others are achieved), means that each game is different, and there's a Fear track to beat as well. Perhaps the only oddity is that the Alien never kills (unless the Fear track reaches zero, in which case Game Over Man*), it just ticks that Fear track down and forces the crew to run away.

My current favourite is ERA Medieval Age; two games in and I'm hooked.  The aim of the game is to build the most successful Medieval style city.  Each player has a peg board on which to build, and a small number of buildings (1 farm, 3 longhouses, 1 keep and 3 wall sections.  Certain buildings grant resource dice (peasant, burgher, clergy or noble), others give bonuses, e.g. a farm grants one extra food resource each turn.  Rolling the dice means you're never sure quite what resources you have to build with, and you can lose resources to other players in the Extortion phase.

The game has a built in limit, either two full rounds or when five building types have been used up, so games last around one to two hours.  Points are then calculated for different buildings (with a nice bonus if they are enclosed by a city wall) to determine the winner.

We are still finding our way with the various strategies, and we now have access to the expansion which introduces more new buildings and roads and rivers.  I suspect we'll be playing more of this over the weeks.

My winning city from our second game

As an indicator to how popular the game is, I'm the only one of the four of us who hasn't got their own copy.  There is a solo option, and I suspect that some of the others are practicing strategies.

The game was published by Plan B Games, but they seem to be merging with Asmodee.  You can find details of where to buy the game here.

*Yes, I know.  Wrong film, but I couldn't resist.

Battle Companies First Campaign Game

Following the success of our trial game we got on with the campaign, here's a quick write up of the first game.

Pre Battle

After setting up a (slightly better) bit of terrain we rolled the Stop the Messenger scenario.  We already had a wood in the centre deployment areas, so we set up in around that.

The Opening Moves

The initial stages of the engagement saw both sides cautiously feeling their way through the wood, while a contingent of Haradrim made a break for the hills in the hopes that the higher ground would give them and advantage.  One of the Blackroot Vale Archers swung round the wood, as did a Haradrim bowman.

The initial moves before any casualties

Contact is made in the woods and the Harad Captain is downed.  In exchange, one of his bowmen takes out a Blackroot Vale Archer

Middle Phases

In the woods things get worse for Harad, though they do manage to take down one of the Men-at-Arms.  Even the bowman charging in fails to swing the melee, and soon only the contingent over by the hill is left. 

The Harad spearman looks on at his approaching doom

The remaining Harad forces

The Final Phase

The Haradrim retreat to the top of the hill.  They loose another man to remarkably accurate archery, and prepare for the Fiefdoms attack.  Fortunately the Dol Amroth knight falls at the cliff foot, but one of his Men-at-Arms makes the climb and pushes back the defender.  

The bow armed sergeant has had enough and flees, bringing an end to the engagement. The Blackroot Vale archer managed to carry his message back, but the Harad sergeant must have dropped his as he fled at the end.

The action on the hill

Aftermath

My captain picked up a lingering battle scar, meaning I'll have to roll before each game to see if he turns up.  The downed Man-at-Arms will have to miss a game, but my son gained another Man-at-Arms as a reinforcement.  The Dol Amroth Knight has got another point of Might, so that makes him even better in a fight.

This was great fun, and played very quickly.  In our trial game I managed to make the most of my superior numbers, in this game the need to keep my messenger out of the action, and provide him with some sort of guard, meant I split my force, so I lost the numerical advantage.

A Note on Minis

If you know the MESBG minis ranges you'll realise that we aren't always using the actual minis.  Since there's just the two of us it doesn't really matter, we are just using what we have, but to clarify, the Minas Tirith Citadel Guard are standing in for the Dol Amroth Men-at-Arms (much nicer minis, and metal rather than the resin official minis which reviews say have bendy pikes).  I'm using a plastic mini for my captain which I think is from the Mumak kit (alas I have no Mumak).  I think he looks suitably impressive.  I'll use an old assassin model for a Watcher of Kana, if I ever get one, and I'm looking around for something to use as the Abrakhan Guard.  He looks to be a stereotypical Hollywood eunuch guard, so if anyone has any suggestions,  please leave a comment.