Fantasy warbands for skirmish gaming [Latest: Barbarians, April 12!]

[Little Odo]

Nice batreps and I especially like those dwarfs on their movement trays.

[PatrickWR]

Thanks for the comments, guys! Unfortunately I've determined that my chosen movement bases are a little bit too big for Kings of War (our preferred system for large-scale fantasy). They're like 120mm wide by KOW calls for 100mm frontage. I'm now trying to decide if I should hack off a column or just use 'em as-is and see if the game can handle it.

In the meantime, I wrote a blog post about my dwarven warband for our fantasy campaign. Check it out here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/07/expedition-to-hearthspire-dwarven.html There's some fluff, too!

Here's a pic showing Brynwulf, the Fallen King, flanked by Hurskegr, Thane of Vildeburg, and Rykker, journeyman wizard.

[PatrickWR]

We played another campaign game last week and had a great time! My dwarves faced off against a band of orcs that were assaulting the dwarven encampment. Only the timely arrival of two knights of Vildeburg (the main city in our campaign world) turned the tide of the battle. Here's a link to the blog post: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/07/dark-days-of-qaarra-session-2.html

And here are a few pics from the game.





The bear is on my team, don't worry!

And here are the saviors -- two knights of Vildeburg, riding to the rescue of their dwarven allies.

[PatrickWR]

More pics from last week's game night, which featured a 4-player fortress siege scenario! My dwarves hit the field, along with Karl's chaos knights, Tim's kobolds and Josh's assorted anthropomorphic adventurers. The game featured prominently in our ongoing fantasy campaign. You can read the full blog post (and view tons of pics) here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/07/dark-days-of-qaarra-session-3-defense.html

And here are a few pics of the tabletop action!

[DeafNala]

The actions scenes in both posts are TERRIFIC! The LOVELY terrain shows off the minis WONDERFULLY...& vice versa. GREAT WORK!

[PatrickWR]

Thanks for the compliment!

Next week we are going to try out Kings of War, so expect some photos to come in this thread. It's not necessarily skirmish gaming, but it is a dead simple ruleset that allows you to play with any generic miniatures you might have in your collection. Thus, it makes the cut!

[DeafNala]

COOL! Enjoy the game...I'll keep my eye open for the Battle Report.

[eilif]

Just wanted to chime in. I was the Chaos (mostly red guys) attackers in this scenario.  It was a great game with lots of action. Made the club very happy to have recently purchased the Mage Knight Castle seen in the report. 

I was wiped out nearly to the man, but afterwards the members graciously agreed that the scenario really necessitated that I stay in the game and not retreat (as I normally would have done) so I was allowed to skip the rolling for casualty phase and simply escape with almost no experience points.

[PatrickWR]

Alright, here's a big update about a big game! Last week we played Kings of War, a mass combat game that necessitated just about every single undead miniature I own (plus some allies!) to play. I was playing against fellow LAF member eilif, who fielded an army of chaos warriors. Both of our armies were full to the brim with old-school miniatures from Ral Partha, Grenadier, RAFM and many other vintage companies, as well as a few Reaper Bones from Karl's kickstarter haul.

This was my first time playing large-scale fantasy with ranked troops and movement trays and unit facing and all that jazz. Very exciting, and a big change from our typical Song of Blades & Heroes skirmish games!

Here's a link to the battle report. See below for a few photos from the game.

[Diakon]

Looks like fun. Been thinking of trying out Kings Of War. All yr lovely skellies look ace all ranked up too.  

[Vermis]

Nice report and excellent pics.

Hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of questions, 'cos this is something I'm constantly dithering about. What tipped the balance in favour of KoW for mass battles, compared to say, HoTT, or other options? After the wee bit of disappointment  with manoeuvres in the game, do you think other rulesets would better handle this; or do you think bulking out the troops to the recommended 2K points would help the matter?

Looking forward to further reports that'd answer the last question, anyway.

[PatrickWR]

Hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of questions, 'cos this is something I'm constantly dithering about. What tipped the balance in favour of KoW for mass battles, compared to say, HoTT, or other options? After the wee bit of disappointment  with manoeuvres in the game, do you think other rulesets would better handle this; or do you think bulking out the troops to the recommended 2K points would help the matter?

For us at least, the game had to be generic, without too many compulsory troop choices and easy to create allied armies. We have tons and tons of old-school miniatures and we don't like games that require specific miniatures to represent units. That ruled out Warhammer. Another guy in our club had played around with HOTT and described it as rather "chess-like," if that makes any sense. We liked the Kings of War damage mechanic, where you never remove individual figures, since that makes the battlefield (and the photos!) look more attractive. We also liked how quick and simple KOW was, because we don't typically have more than 2.5 or 3 hours to play in a given game night. With KOW I've heard it's quite possible to play two 2000-point games in a single evening -- something I really look forward to.

It looks like we misinterpreted one of the special rules that would have restricted maneuvering and brought it more in line with my expectations. So hopefully we'll play it correctly next time.

And yes, playing closer to 2,000 points (which could easily mean 60 additional skeletons for me) seems to be the way to go. 

[eilif]

I was

Nice report and excellent pics.

Hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of questions, 'cos this is something I'm constantly dithering about. What tipped the balance in favour of KoW for mass battles, compared to say, HoTT, or other options? After the wee bit of disappointment  with manoeuvres in the game, do you think other rulesets would better handle this; or do you think bulking out the troops to the recommended 2K points would help the matter?

Looking forward to further reports that'd answer the last question, anyway.

I was the one on the other side of the table and it was my first time with KoW also.  I was looking for a game that was going to be streamlined and fun, yet still have a fair amount of flavor.  I have the HoTT 2.0 rules and have read them and spoke to the same guy who described them as "chess-like".  For me though it came down to a few things.
1) HoTT was too abstract, even for me.  KoW is fairly abstract, but there's still quite a bit of variation in units.
2) Base sizing and # of figures required. Though KoW can be played as an elment game since there is no casualty removal, I wanted to stick with a more WHFB'ish basing convention.  The group had already kind of shot down my efforts to play Mighty Armies in 28mm.
3) Presentation.   It's kind of shallow, but the HoTT rulebook never inspired me much. I found the rules explainations less than clear (though our friend could have taught us) and the presentation values were poor. KoW on the other hand was glossy, incredibly easy to understand, and very clear in explanation and presentation.
4) I had already played Warpath 1.0 (which is pretty much KoW in space) and really enjoyed it so I knew what I was getting into.

As for the future, I plan to bring my army up to 2000 points and see what happens. In the blog post I also laid out a potential way to make smaller games more competitive by limiting unit sizes.

I don't think I'll be going to Mighty Armies or HoTT.  I tell myself that I might try WHFB some day, but the though of having to buy an army book (that costs more than the KoW rulebook) and then a big expensive rulebook, makes the whole process very unpalatable.

[Vermis]

Thanks Patrick and Eilif.

2) Base sizing and # of figures required. Though KoW can be played as an elment game since there is no casualty removal, I wanted to stick with a more WHFB'ish basing convention.  The group had already kind of shot down my efforts to play Mighty Armies in 28mm.

I'd decided on KoW with Impetus-style unit bases, but I thought it'd take me a while to build up the necessary troops. (I'd previously read about KoW working better with larger armies, and I'm glacially slow with these things) Wondered about HoTT for smaller games in the meantime (that or God of Battles), but the element conventions aren't exactly compatible, are they?

Still, having a second look at the report, 1,300 points doesn't look insurmountable. Do the dragons and wolves suck up many points?

I found the rules explainations less than clear

I hear that! I'm trying to have a proper read of them: I figure the likes of '200p'  might mean '200 paces', but I'm struggling to find out how many dice you use for combat.

I tell myself that I might try WHFB some day, but the though of having to buy an army book (that costs more than the KoW rulebook) and then a big expensive rulebook, makes the whole process very unpalatable.

I hear that too.

Anyways, I've taken up enough space here. Thanks again!

[eilif]

Thanks Patrick and Eilif.

I'd decided on KoW with Impetus-style unit bases, but I thought it'd take me a while to build up the necessary troops. (I'd previously read about KoW working better with larger armies, and I'm glacially slow with these things) Wondered about HoTT for smaller games in the meantime (that or God of Battles), but the element conventions aren't exactly compatible, are they?

Still, having a second look at the report, 1,300 points doesn't look insurmountable. Do the dragons and wolves suck up many points?

I hear that! I'm trying to have a proper read of them: I figure the likes of '200p'  might mean '200 paces', but I'm struggling to find out how many dice you use for combat.

I hear that too.

Anyways, I've taken up enough space here. Thanks again!

The Conforntation Wolfen suck up a ton of points, and since they are available for less than a buck each from Miniatures market and are prepainted (I did a few touchups, repositions, a rebase to squares and dip) you can bulk up your forces quickly.  6 Werewolves are 285 points and are counted as infantry so they can ally with any "Evil" force!

As for element compatibility. probably not, but KoW is pretty flexible and is more concerned with the size of the base than # of figures. You could build elements for a smaller game and then put them on larger movement trays for KoW.  Or just base individually and buy-or-make appropriately sized unit trays for whatever game you want.