Kings of War A Veteran Wargamer’s Newbie Guide

A Veteran Wargamer’s Journey Into Kings Of War Part 5: Army Complete, Now Onto Playtesting!

Command Orders are very important in 4th Edition and can be the difference maker in any battle.  When orders are issued the unit that has received one often doesn’t use it immediately as effects tend to apply later in the turn or in the opponent’s turn.  Therefore, markers are needed to remind players that a particular unit has been given an Order.

The Abyssal Dwarf Orders are “Last Breath” and “Mutated Throwing Mastiffs”.  Tokens for the Mastiffs are easy to do as the standard Abyssal Dwarf infantry sprue set comes with two.  I therefore mounted some on 25mm round bases to use as tokens:

Pretty straightforward paint job with the black back scales and their teeth both finished with gloss varnish so they match in with the general obsidian theme for the army.

Next I had to step away from Mantic miniatures for Last Breath.  I spotted these Green Stuff World resin casts at Wayland Games online and had to have them.  They were cheap but it took a few weeks for them to arrive from Spain.  I like the idea of some Abyssal Dwarf Iron-caster training some rats to deliver explosives to the doomed slave regiment who then blow them up to inflict the 2D3 or 4D3 automatic Crushing Strength (2) hits to any enemy unit in contact.  Boom!

The sculpts are very characterful and certainly have that edge of whimsy that I’ve happily embraced in this project.  Kings of War is fun to play so the armies we use should be fun to look at.

Now on to the Ogres.  When I started this project Ogres only had the two command orders in the main rulebook.  One of these was called “Snapping Crocdogs”.  I therefore went online and found some of the OOP crocdog miniatures that Mantic used to produce.  Since the Fracture update Ogres now have four Command Orders but Crocdogs has been dropped in favour of “Protect the Tribe” which gives Vicious in combat rather than Elite.    That’s fine.  The Crocdogs are still a suitable representation of this Order so I’ve painted them and tried some new basing too for the jungle scheme I’m working on.

The Immortal Guard are the best combat unit in the Core options.  They have Me 3+ and De 5+ as well as Regenerate (5) so any damage they do take you can have a go at rolling back off again and with a Nerve of 17+ it will need to be a very focused turn to get them off the table.

The miniatures are PVC plastic and some of the oldest sculpts in the range.  They have only 2 options for each part except for heads where there are four, so there is a very limited range of poses.  I added a couple of different heads in from the Halfbreeds and changed up the weapon options by swapping in some different axes from the Blacksouls set and the Avatars of War Berserkers (with the iconography filed off).

I was doing these in a hurry so didn’t take pictures.  I did a wet blend on the shields to match the banners.  This is a 3 part blend of Vallejo acrylics with Game Color Cayman Green at the bottom, Model Air IDF Green in the middle and a 50/50 blend of Green Fluro and Duck Egg Green at the top.

I tried a new technique for the shield emblems.  I’ve used nail art stamping before and had issues with the nail varnish drying too quickly on the Goblin Gaming plates as the engraving is very shallow.  Gerry suggested going to oil paints instead so I tried it for these.  They don’t dry out so there is no problem with the pick up from the plate.  The issue is one of clarity of image as the paint doesn’t dry into the shape of the engraving so when lifted onto the stamp and again on transfer to the shield it tends to spread and blur at the edges.  Actually I quite like the effect.  It leaves a rather ghostly looking image which suits the Regeneration the unit has.  It isn’t what I had in mind but I might leave it.  We’ll see.  The other thing with oil paints is they don’t dry in the time I’m used to.  There were still fully workable after 3 days at which point I painted over them with matt varnish (cue further blurring).

The armour follows the recipe I used for Golekh.  Everything else is as per other Abyssal Dwarfs.

As you can see I went for a bit of thematic scenery on their base.  They are emerging from the hold they stole from the Free Dwarfs through some mine works.  They have mounted some trophy heads on the spar of the entrance to announce to all who now controls these mines.  The terrain piece is Scotia Grendel and the heads were spares from the Dwarf leader sprue in the army box.  As you can see we get 12 miniatures onto the regiment base with another emerging from the mine itself.

This means I’ve only used 13 miniatures.  I’m hoping to field 3 Immortal regiments in my alternative Abyssal Dwarf only list (no Golekh or Ratkin Slaves).  I’ve got 40 and have ordered a couple of 3D prints too so should be able to get 2 more units.  One has another mine door similar to this and will have 14 miniatures and the other regiment will be full troop bases of 2×8 for 16 miniatures.  There is a special list building wheeze I’m working on to turn one of them up to 11 in META terms.

The army is finished.  Woot!  I’ve painted 214 miniatures since the beginning of July and got the last of them done to a sufficient standard.  I ‘ll probably revisit a few things once the Ogres are ready.

Here is the army in standard deployment

The whole army has a front of 51″ if I want to cover Golekh and the Ratkin Hammers with the Gargoyles.  If I need to expand I can add an extra 10″ if we don’t double up with the Gargoyles and they take up their own frontage.  That leaves a maximum of 11″ of table length uncovered so there is a good spread available and it is unlikely that many armies will be able to significantly outflank us in deployment.

Overall we have an Anvil in the centre and two different flank options.  The main Hammer is Golekh’s wing and the other side is more balanced with the Anvil/Hammer Golems.

Up close then the centre has the two Ratkin Hordes backed by the Slave Driver.  These hordes with Last Breath are nasty in the late game putting 4D3 auto Crush (2) hits onto an enemy who will already be carrying damage.  The Decimators sit on one side and force an opponent to push up and engage with the anvil.  Ideally I’m looking for a hill to park them on or a building to hang them off.  They sit by the Immortal Guard nearest to the Iron-caster’s wing who are looking for open flanks as the anvil is engaged.  It looks like this:

The main Hammer is Golekh and his speedy slaves.  They all hit hard and look scary so will attract the major hurty units the enemy have during deployment so I’ll place them where they get a free run across the table and let the opponent worry about how to respond.  The Tunnel Runners look the scariest and the Brew of Sharpness makes them even more scary but that attracts chargers and the two smaller bases of the Death Engine and Golekh get options on charges into exposed flanks as a result.  The Gore Riders love a charge into terrain with their Jesse’s Boots.  All of the Slave and Mutant units can be given Last Breath and those auto hits with Crush (2) are nasty.

Gargoyles are nasty if given free range across the board.  Enemies who lack flying will struggle with them getting in behind and forcing units to turn, possibly exposing flanks to other units.

The other wing has the Golems supported by the Iron-caster with his Surge and Bane Chant.  Playing them next to the Immortal Guard creates a very strong block of crushy combat damage output.  There is no weak defense units for the enemy to pick on,Golems are De 6+ and the Immortal Guard can regenerate as well as being De 5+.  It is therefore hard for an opponent to concentrate enough damage onto one of these units to get it to Rout and start finding open flanks.

Finally a gallery of close up pics that I’ve not shown yet.

I’m in a hurry now as the deadline for submission of the army list for Clash of Kings is looming large and I want everything finished before I submit it.

Here’s a Speedpaint method for getting Gore Riders done.  They took me three sessions over two days, so about 30 minutes per miniature.

I started on the Gores.  Two light orange-brown shades for their hide and dark brown and black for their hair.  Same colours on the orc capes.

Then the orcs.  Spear pole first.  Then skin.  I’ve not done bright green orcs ever before but I’m going full Pannithor on this project so bright green skin it is.

While that was drying I did the Gore tusks.  Cream first, then wash with Pallid Bone then re-highlight the tips with a wipe of cream.

Leather onto the wrap on the spear and then the armour.  There is a lot of armour!

That is 7 stages and the miniatures are completely covered so you absolutely could stop there.  I wanted to do a few extra bits so did the following:

• Murder Scene in the open mouths
• Extra cream on the tiny Gore tusks and the Orc teeth
• Eyes of both Gores and Orcs with Grim Black
• Skintone highlights on the snouts and ear edges
• Leather straps in a leather acrylic paint

This is how they have come out.  I like the pink snouts and ears particularly.  Cute.

Thanks to the team for the GB.  These are always much appreciated.

There is no Mantic miniature for Golekh and it seems there has never been one.  There is a picture of a Dwarf in a chariot so I guess there must have been something suitable in a previous release but no longer.  There wasn’t anything on the secondary market places either so I had to go with the closest thing I could find which was an  “Abyssal Dwarf King” in metal by Mantic.  He looks to fit the lore as Golekh was badly injured in the Ratkin revolt and this miniature looks to have a rather Darth Vader like set of additions and supportive exoskeleton armour.

I knew I needed him on a chariot and decided to scratch build one.  Then all I needed was a means of propulsion and I had some large rat creatures from Mierce and a spare Night Terror that I got as a free bonus miniature when I bought a Tangle on eBay.  I’ll have to test them against the vehicle I build to check on the fit.  I started with Golekh and his charioteer.

The charioteer is going to be made from a Dwarf command sprue that came with my 2nd Edition Abyssal Dwarf army box set.  I’ll make another Iron-caster out of the cloaked body and use the other one for the charioteer.

I have a spare metal head with a grilled helmet that will do very nicely for him.  A blob of Greenstuff to fit the head and I sculpted some extra hair and and a couple of side plats to cover the join.

Golekh needs a whip and one of the Mantic sets had this large metal one in that I’ll add to the empty hand on the king.

As you can see from the side to side view the King is huge in comparison to a regular Dwarf, as befits the main character model.

I had a look at the Mierce monster twin headed rat.  I like the two heads.  Once I had it built I decided it might be a bit too tall – the connection point for the chariot would be very high.

I built the chariot from bits I have in the bits box.  You can see some of the selection I chose from.

The main body is from an Airfix sci-fi walker kit, as are the cable connections to the beast.  I tried out a few wheel solutions.  Smaller side wheels and a larger mono-wheel to go behind.  The smooth wheel was an option but I settled on a couple taken from a toy truck that were stuck together.

Plasticard for the floor and I stuck a piece of fishnet fabric onto that to form the floor grate pattern. I tried to cover the blank side panels with smaller detail pieces and then layered the chained trophies over those. I put a Perry Agincort English Men at Arms diadem on a North Star Cultist head to make the trophy of an unfortunate king Golekh has defeated in the past.  The trident spike on the front is from a LotR plastic troll kit spare.  The flagpoles were from SM bike kits and reminded me of the flags that the old Raleigh Chopper bikes used to have on them.  Perhaps Golekh had a Chopper when he was a nipper and had it in mind when he designed his chariot?

It will be painted with the charioteer glued in place and Golekh separate.  I went for a dynamic pose for the charioteer, yanking on the reins to try to get some semblance of direction control from the beast.  His hands were in good position for this pose as they were holding something, perhaps artillery ammunition? I drilled his hands out and made reins out of thin strips of tomato paste tube.  I presume the only way to stop would be to crash into something large and immobile.

I painted in the same way as I have for all of the Abyssal Dwarfs.  Armour for Golekh was Hoard Gold Speedpaint with some layers of Dark Star Golds over that and a top highlight of Vallejo Metal Gold.  I’m hoping the purple cloth and some details in the turquoise colour will help tie him in to the wider colour scheme.

I like the whiff of whimsy that Mantic sculpting often has so decided to paint the small abyssal hound creature on the top of the charioteer’s helmet as a flesh and blood animal rather than metal ornamentation.  She’s definitely got the best view from up there and I imagine her putting her tiny front paws over her owner’s eyes if it’s all getting a bit much.

The final touch for the basing was adding some Ratkin Wretches, painted in the same way as previous Ratkin.  These are Vanguard miniatures in metal from Mantic although they are now available from the Mantic Vault for 3D printing.  They fit the lore perfectly.  Golekh has earned the moniker Skinflayer because he enjoys having his prisoners flayed.  He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty so has Ratkin slaves with flaying knives accompany him on the battlefield to finish off his victims.

Overall I’m really pleased with how he turned out.  I enjoy the challenge of a kitbash and it isn’t often I get to build something completely from scratch.  Because I wanted to stick to Mantic miniatures that stopped me from swapping in something obvious like a Chaos Warrior chariot and made me think a bit harder.

He is a suitably impressive centre piece and the model invokes the way he’ll get used on the tabletop – all speed and evil intent.

I’ve got both Lesser and Greater Obsidian Golems in my army and the scenery items I’ve chosen I also want to paint with an obsidian theme.  This is because black volcanic glass is cool being the sharpest thing on any world.  My Abyssal Dwarfs are luck enough to have taken a hold where there were deposits of obsidian and they make use of it in many ways – not the least being to make Golems.

I’m not a fan of the Mantic house paint scheme.  They have the glowing, still molten inside which isn’t interesting enough for me.  They are also matt which is better for photography but fails to capture the essential glassiness of obsidian for me.  Mine will be super glossy.  This is a risk – gloss finishes can make miniatures look toy soldier like.  We’ll see how it turns out.

First it is a zenital highlight and then Grim Black and Talos Bronze Speedpaint for the base layer.

Next the whole miniature gets a coat of Dark Tone dip.  This has the darkest pigment of this range and won’t tint the miniature brown.

The “skin” is now finished.  Back to the metal parts to kill the shine a bit and add some depth of tone.  Very similar process to that already described for the Abyssal Dwarfs armour.  I added an extra top highlight to the very top tips and upper edges with a 1 part Vallejo Pale Burnt Metal to 2 Parts Vallejo Metal Copper blend.

That’s them done.  These guys are the rear row of the regiment and the space in the middle gets filled with a terrain piece with a formation of obsidian columns.

Here are all of the Obsidian Golems.  The Greater Golem is a Runewars Runic Golem.  I liked his twin swords and dynamic pose which I tried to enhance by giving him foot on rock, well not so much rock as lump of scrap iron.  He was also very cheap, less than a tenner as compared to over £40 for the Mantic one.  The scenery item is another one from Scotia Grendel.