Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: eilif on August 11, 2022, 01:55:39 AM
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Chicago Skirmish Wargames is gearing up for a Fall Kings of War Campaign (more on that coming) and I realized I should take my nose out of "Future Wars" and start a thread over here.
In the meantime, I've been playing a bit of Song of Blades and Heroes with my kids.
Most recently, an off-the-cuff cenario developed into quite a cool game.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/08/aar-the-imprudent-kidnappers-a-song-of-blades-and-heroes-battle-report/
A Band of Chaos attempt to enter the enchanted forest and kidnap an elf...
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_20220717_190103227-1140x946.jpg)
The scenario itself is fully written up here:
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/07/the-imprudent-kidnappers-a-song-of-blades-and-heroes-scenario/
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/IMG_20220717_175320329-768x847.jpg)
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Nice to see your blog still rolling after so many years. Must check it out more often.
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Thanks!
We had some slow times, but I'm back and updating regularly!
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I'll have a proper battle report up at some point, but here's the table I setup for a KOW game using a modified version of the WHFB Battle of La Maisontaal Abbey.
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Pure oldhammer goodness, even if it’s in KoW form.
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Pure oldhammer goodness, even if it’s in KoW form.
That pretty well describes my ideal game.
If you like that you'll love the BatRep.
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In the meantime, a teaser...
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Just wanted to see if there were Building or Seige rules for third edition Kings of War or of I should continue to pull those from 1st edition. Luckily the books are still sold. As a PDF set.
I was comparing the two editions and as much as I like 3rd edition, I'd sacrifice any amount of Panithor fluff for updated versions of the building, seige and Campaign rules from first edition.
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There are a couple of different takes on updating sieges that I have seen at the Kings of War forum, several are linked through the below post, with a test battle report as well.
https://www.kowforum.com/t/how-to-do-sieges/3527
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There are a couple of different takes on updating sieges that I have seen at the Kings of War forum, several are linked through the below post, with a test battle report as well.
https://www.kowforum.com/t/how-to-do-sieges/3527
Thanks for that! I've downloaded those pages and will give it a read.
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Working on another batch of Daqan figures for my Kings of War Good Human army.
Basically another set of the figures I already finished here ...
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2017/05/runewars-daqan-army-finished/
...except that for variety I've swapped every figure's weapon with replacements, mostly from Essex and GW.
Progress on the 12 knight who will be fielded in ranks of four to fit the 125mm frontage required.
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Got distracted by a sprue of WGF hobbits I bought from McDougall who sells them separately. With allot of fiddly cutting, converting and gluing of hands and weapons (check out the axe) and the addition of Eccentric Minis bits and a few others, I've managed to build a mix of adventureres with mostly hand weapons from the sprue that normally favors pole arms, slings and archers.
I don't think I'd recommend this sprue for building hand weapon adventurers unless you already have extra bits on hand. If you have to order conversion bits there are cheap metal halflings you can buy instead. However, my bits box is deep so I've now got 5 charming Hobbits to add to my random fantasy skirmish collection. Not bad for 5 bucks.
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The Fantasy train chugs along.
Monday was the kickoff of our Kings of War Campaign. Haven't got a blog post put together, but it was 6 guys on 3 games. Two KoW battles with the main factions.
The small table is a side skirmish game using a member's homebrew rulest. In an effort to involve members who don't have a massive KoW army in the campaign, we've made space for skirmishes fought in the name of larger factions. Usually a roll off before the game determines which main factions are able to hire the smaller warbands and the outcome of the skirmish game gives some minor boon to the larger sponsoring faction.
Also a picture of the campaign map we're using showing the territory occupied by the 5 main factions. The setting for our Campaign is the Border Princes area of the Warhammer Old World. After a few different attempts for mounting, we settled on holding it and the various markers to a metal folding table with magnets so it can easily be modified, stored and displayed upright when desired.
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Some nice games; thanks for sharing.
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Six players sounds like a great start to your campaign, congratulations!
Have you checked out the Kings of War 2022 compendium coming out next month? They have new balancing designed for smaller point levels that is still tied into the standard rules (unlike Vanguard), along with siege and larger scale battles (past 3K) as well...
https://www.manticgames.com/news/ambush-a-great-new-way-to-play-kings-of-war/
https://www.manticgames.com/news/siege-the-day-its-going-to-be-legendary-kings-of-war/
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Thanks folks! It's great to have a good sized group involved in the campaign. I think we're at 5 players with KoW size armies and 2 or 3 who may dabble in the skirmish side of things.
We're definitely looking to the release of the rules compendium especially in includes siege rules. Thanks for that link, I'd not seen the teaser of the siege stuff. I was looking at adapting the first edition siege rules, but we'll probably wait til the new book arrives. We've got two castle options.
First, a number of Mage Knight Castle sections which haven't seen the table for quite a few years.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2014/09/quake-mourn-campaign-report-session-5_26/
(https://chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/20140911_183652-1024x576.jpg)
Also, one of our most artistic members is working on an enormous completely hand drawn/painted nesting castle made of mounting board. Picture of just two small sections below.
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Finally got the battle report up for our refight of the Battle Of La Maisontaal Abbey "now with 33% more evil".
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/09/aar-la-maisontaal-now-with-33-more-evil/
Really was a great game, though I learned a few things I should have done differently as far as adapting the scenario for KoW. I think it was also a nice last low-stakes KoW game before the campaign that started last week.
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IMG_20220808_190720788-570x257.jpg)
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Finally got the first of my WGA Sprue Reviews up. The first one is Halfling Milita. Basic review, suitability for conversion and scale comparisons.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/09/cheap-sprue-review-wga-halfling-militia-and-a-classic-hobbits-roundup/
Teaser pic...
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_20220910_111521301_HDR-768x346.jpg)
Eccentric Miniatures parts are used in the review. Just ordered a few more sprues and they'll get a separate review shortly.
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Finally got the battle report up for our refight of the Battle Of La Maisontaal Abbey "now with 33% more evil".
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/09/aar-la-maisontaal-now-with-33-more-evil/
Really enjoyed reading the report, and looking forward to more!
Finally got the first of my WGA Sprue Reviews up. The first one is Halfling Milita. Basic review, suitability for conversion and scale comparisons.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/09/cheap-sprue-review-wga-halfling-militia-and-a-classic-hobbits-roundup/
The side by side comparisons are great, not just the height of miniatures but their differences in width was surprising.
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Really enjoyed reading the report, and looking forward to more!
The side by side comparisons are great, not just the height of miniatures but their differences in width was surprising.
So glad you enjoyed the posts! There will definitely be more BatReps and more reviews in the same format.
I agree that differences in bulk between subs of the different Halflings was a surprise. Quite a variety.
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Thanks for putting together the review of the halflings, that’s some very useful info. You saved me some money and frustration, too. I was considering buying some Mantic halflings, but those are way too large for my taste! I really don’t understand what Mantic did there - did their digital sculptor leave the settings at the wrong size when the files were sent to the mould maker?
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Thanks for putting together the review of the halflings, that’s some very useful info. You saved me some money and frustration, too. I was considering buying some Mantic halflings, but those are way too large for my taste! I really don’t understand what Mantic did there - did their digital sculptor leave the settings at the wrong size when the files were sent to the mould maker?
You're very welcome. They really are quite huge. There aren't alot of scale comparison pictures out there. Here's one I found on Dakka with other Mantic figures
(https://www.kowforum.com/uploads/db3647/optimized/2X/3/3b94cb51cf91fe8923cf3dc5b1b7bd062d79d81b_2_1380x534.jpeg)
Given the size and the bulk, I think they might be bigger than Mantic Dwarves (interesting that dwarves arent' present...) which seems wrong. A shame, because I generally like the style and the dog riders and was considering picking a few up, maybe for a warband or an allied unit for another army. Seems like Mantic seems to regularly have these sorts of unforced errors (Remember the men-at-arms...), but to come up with hulking halflings that are bigger than dwarves seems a bit silly.
One more bit of irony, this fellow shows that WGF halflings look better with Mantic figures than their compatriots.
https://blog.untilsomebodylosesaneye.net/2019/12/sometimes-half-is-enough.html
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I posted about this over in the "Favorite Minotaur" thread, but I wanted to put it here too for completeness.
Finally got my Journey" Wrath of Demons mostly-minotaur figures from Tritex reviewed. Lots of pics, rambling commentary and scale shots and measurements for each miniature.
https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2022/10/journey-wrath-of-demons-cheap-beastly-chaos/
EDIT The plastic is interesting. I was able to cleanly scrape away mold lines easily but it DOES NOT glue with Solvent based glue. Some kind of hard PVC? Note that I had earlier stated that the figures were probably hard plastic because I glued the base to a slotta with MEK and it sticks. The bases appear to be Styrene. I just found out the figures themselves are NOT.
Just a sample...
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG_20221004_091635369-570x488.jpg)
(https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/IMG_20221004_092845287-768x1041.jpg)
I'm definitely going to get use out of at least the basic Minotaurs, Centaur Bulls and the Minotaur Lord. Possibly others too. Just last night a friend in the club brought me a bunch of old plastic Chaos Warrior 2-handed weapons to use in customizing these. Will get a pic of that soon.
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I second that disappointment about the mantic halflings... no idea how and why they would end up this big. it is a shame really.
I am wondering though - since it is mainly the head that is oversized, maybe they would look fine with some wga halfling heads or even perry heads? maybe I should try and pick up one sprue..
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Unfortunately, I really think the whole thing is pretty big. There's a pic in the blog post I linked to showing that the Mantic figure is considerably larger in every dimension. A WGA head would probably look tiny on a Mantic .
I actually don't mind the head and body proportions on the Mantic figures. It's slightly cartoony, but not an uncommon representation. They're just too big overall to be Halflings in my opinion.
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Lovely minotaurs!
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Lovely minotaurs!
Thanks!
Started working on the Centaurs. A friend hooked me up with some old plastic Chaos Warrior 2-handed weapons. After removing the cast-on hands I think they look pretty good with the Centaur Bulls.
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That looks great!
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Continuing the Beastman/Minotaur theme, these 32 figures just arrived today.
They are between 28 and 30mm to the eye and when I heard on the Minotaur thread that you could get 32 Minotaurs for $9 bucks I had to try it out. Technically they are 20mm Minotaurs, but they look like 28mm Beastmen to me.
The sprue attachments are HUGE, so once I get them cleaned up (there is a good deal of flash) my plan is to try and speed paint them on the sprue. Not sure yet whether I'll try to rank them up on 20mm bases or group base them, but the goal is to put together a unit for Kings of War.
If they work out, it could be that between Tritex and Dark Alliance one could build a sizable Beastman army with a shockingly low investment. Wouldn't be hard to quickly get herds of beastmen to the table. Though these are made of the inferior soft plastic, I didn't think I'd see 28mm minis that were as cheap as EM4 Orcs and Dwarves and in more poses.
Will report back as the project goes along. Next step is to start the clean up and then give them a nice bath in purple power to get rid of whatever chemicals and such may be on them.