Post Battlemasters Kings of war Report - Kingdom Of Men تَكْبِير

So way back last year at the 2015 battlemasters, I was chatting with some of the guys during lunch and the versatility of the kingdom of men list came up with regards to the free reign that you can do an army with.

Well one thing lead to another and before I knew it I was errily working my way though the first unit way back in Feb this year, Rather than get burnt out on painting Arab guys I decided to try and do at least a  unit a month to spread out the workload.

This approach worked really well until I hit the summer holidays and my hobby time disappeared but it was great to spend that time with Isla and the two J's and get up to my usual mayhem!

I've updated the blog over the last 8 months with snap shots of various units but today is the first time that I've got then all together in one go!

When I first started on the KOM army list 2nd Ed was on the way and I stayed away from the play test lists so that I didn't confuse myself with regards to the rules and all that jazz. But with building the army over a fairly lengthy amount of time I didn't get much chance to play with it and went into the battlemasters blind and that really showed with where I finished in the standings!

but enough of all that torney type stuff here's the last bit of the army...

so I picked up two frostgrave wizards from northstar minis and a spare Iman just "incase" I needed a extra model!

After last years torney I was pipped to the post by a great looking dwarf army only due to the fluff that the chap had done for it, So after being cheeky and tapping up Dan the Man I had a transcribed letter from my armies "sponsor" that he'd translated into Arabic!

A bit of printing, glue stick and tea bag water I had a aged document ready to go, I deployed the Isla to help me on this bit and she got stuck in!

And the finished item

So this is the whole lot in one fell swoop! a massive project that I've sailed though with no real issues and as a whole collection I've very happy with the overall look! 

 So Game one was against Dan and his undead (only because I got up late and was his lift!)

Game two, Twilight Kin it was a tough game and got my ass handed to me!

Game three was against dwarves and forgot to snap any pics! Good game tough force to play against and the steam tank thing that the dwarves can take is stupidly good!

Game four was against basilens that were sigmarines! and yep you guessed it I was rolled my left flank evaporated as my cav went stomping along the right side, 

 So gaming wise I lost three out of four games and came second from bottom! However I did manage to get best painted army and that's what I was aiming for so I was well chuffed with that and the feedback that I got from the rest of the guys was superb so thank you for all you kind comments as I was getting a kicking throughout the day!

Pikemen and horde of spearmen with some scouts in front

Penitent mob, Arquebusier unit, 2 camel cannons and the other unit of scouts in front 

Second shelf! two units of mounted sergeants

 2 units of heavy cav

General on winged beast, 2 wizards, 1 standard bearer, 2 heros

and the whole lot in all its glory!

So lets talk about the list..

The pikemen did superb and I'll be fielding these as a horde and upgrading to a heavy pike block.
The spear horde was too squishy for my liking and I'll be trying these out as foot guard.
The Arquebusiers performed fine, ranged hitting on 5+ is a bit naff but over all fairly reliable.
The knights were "ok" didn't feel like they hit hard enough, flank charges are certainly the way forward with these its just getting that off!
The mounted sargeants were fairly good and did what I expected.
The Mounted scouts were brilliant and harassed the enemy all day which was sweet.
Cannons were a complete waste of the 170 points I'd rather have a horde of bowmen or madmen on charioteers!
The various heroes were spot on and all performed lovely,

So the inital deflation of getting whupped in every game has got me thinking about the actual units within the KOM list so I'll certainly be trying to tweek these however adding more stuff will be now and then, sfor example fireforge games have got the following coming...

so perfect for a horde of bowmen for example.... and I also found these on the GW website that could be cool for berserkers...

but as the army is "finished" I shouldn't really be looking at more stuff to add to it!

So I'm going to finish off some odds and sods of projects that I've had kicking around for a while and then for the 2016 project I'll be working on one of these....

Bolt action Japanese
Lion rampart Koreans
KOW orc's

add in the fact that I've pledged onto the Macrocosm kickstarter, I should really get some of the digger corps painted!

The next faction that I've pledged to is the gremlins which look wicked!

WIP test sculpt

so if these float your boat get on over and bang some cash down to support this great looking range!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2076383099/macrocosm-the-next-races

Kings of War Kingdom of Men - تَكْبِير & the pledge!

After last years cracking Battle Masters at Loughborough Dice Devils, I was chatting to a couple of the hardcore KOW players at the torney and the usual discussion of what would you do as your next army.

I'd come across a couple of kingdom of men armies and the "boring" humans took my fancy but rather than using GW empire models or perry war of the roses that I've seen most people done I went a bit left field and decided to theme my army on the middle east.

So using a box of the gripping beast plastic arab spearmen I set to work on my first horde of spearmen,

I managed to get the models painted and sorted quite quickly but I was waiting on the base from warbases, as I'd pledged to get these guys done for the Mantic Madness facebook page,  however the post office let me down and nothing turned up...

 A quick email to warbases and they sent out another parcel and hey ho one day late but done and dusted!

the bulk of the models are the gripping beast plastics with perry command type guys, 

I decided to base the unit in a ragtag type look rather than super neat ranks, my only challenge was how to base the unit and paint in between the models, So I did the base first with the basic highlight, clipped the model off the plastic tab that would normally be used and got some green stuff and super glued the infantry model direct to the base.

 I did the above technique row by row so stuck the guys down, banged on the clumps and PVA'd the static grass, then rinse and repeat for the next 3 rows. My only concern is the models staying put on the unit tray, however time will tell on this one!

Overall I'm really liking these guys and the official start of the Kingdom of Men is well underway with the Battlemasters booked in for the 12th September I plan on taking these guys to Sharad's torney, however the spearman horde costs 180 points!

So I've a fair bit of painting to do for these guys, next on my list might be...

a 20 man unit of these guys, I'll more than likely use them as penitents mob and have a Imam/preacher getting them all frothy!

Or get a couple of these beasts throw in some cav and these will serve me well as cav units

I've also got a couple of these on the way via kickstarter, so camel cannons are go! 

So onto the pledge for the new year...

Bought - 61
Painted - 72

I took full advantage of the relics sale and that package rocked up earlier in the month hence the significant "bought" figure, as for painting I've done a large chunk of zombies for deadzone for the last mission that I've got planned in at the Leicester phat cats and these will be showcased on the blog at some point, I've basically been lazy at home and busy at work hence the lack of updates.

As for Feb I've finished the arabs, gonna make a start on my Survivor series pledge which is martian front infantry as well as my mantic madness pledge which will be some of the new plastic enforcers.

Battlemasters 2014 Rise of the Wicked

So the dust has settled and another successful kings of war torney was ran by Sharad over at Loughbough Dice Devils,

I participated in last years torney and had a good time so was more than willing to sign up for this years, sharad had a few issued with the original date being hijacked by the mantic torney and this forced Sharad to move the torney, wasn't a bad thing for me meant I had more time to get my bits done,

so due to various drop outs and other real life situations the torney went from 10 players down to 4, I played all of the guys once with the "final" between me and Richard.

the armies and players involved this year were,

Richard with his heavily converted nature army

Jonathon with his gorerider heavy orcs

xx with his massive blocks of undead zombies

and tucked away in the corner was Sharad and Alessio play testing v2 kings of war!

So game one was against Jonathon the mighty orcs and a frigging huge dragon!!

I was expecting a bit of a kicking to be honest mainly due to the amount of cav and the dragon that was sitting there, but much to my surprise the heavy mortars and rocket launchers rolled well throughout the game and the stubbornness of the golums made a big difference and I wiped out the orcs to a man!

Games two was against a chap who's name escapes me! and the masses of zombies,

After a sound kicking from Dan earlier in the week I was expecting flash backs and dead naughty dwarves everywhere, but this wasn't to be as the heavy mortars and the rocket launchers were blasting the be-jesus out of the horde units and in one case two heavy mortar shots took one out by turn two! the unit that I was really impressed with was the undead cav with a magic item that could charge though terrain and not be disrupted!

the game ended up as a draw with a unit of wraiths capturing an objective and sealing the deal!

Game three was against Richard and the forces of nature,

The last time that I faced a nature list was against Nick and that was a tough one to play against, I expected much of the same from Richard and as I wasn't sure on what did what I picked on the "cool looking shit" and worked my way though the army, again the mortars and rocket launchers were on fire blasting huge holes in the army and generally causing mayhem when the hit,

Again I managed a draw against Richard, for the final game it would be decided on the classic swiss system and I was up against richard once more, so a rinse and repeat and again we finished up having yet another draw!

So after breathing a sigh of relief Sharad did some sums and it turned out that I won on attrition points much to my surprise!

Best painted army, a well deserved winner, 

The golden handshake!

The much sought after wooden spoon!

Richard gets third

Jonathon rocks in with second

The mighty Anton with first!

the overall day was ran very smoothly and all the games that I played were excellent,

and finally the man who can! 

One thing that did keep me smiling though out the day was the title of the torney, for some reason this was going though my head for most of the day....