From beyond the pale - Revenants, Goreblight and some characters join the fray

 The ruins of the castle, once a sad monument to a failed Order, were now a gaping wound in the fabric of life. A cold wind blew and a hoary everfrost clung to dead branches of the woodlands surrounding the tumbled walls.

Perching on a high fell, the slopes of which were of sheer, dark stone, Coldguard Keep was a fastness of a kingdom long since fallen into ruin. Here they had stood against the frozen wraiths during the Long Winter, their faith a shield against the relentless onslaught of ice and death marching down from the North year after year. The passes guarded by the unyielding edifice of Keep, manned in a ceaseless watch by the Knights of Coldguard and the Guard of the Ford, were the rock upon which the waves of Winter's onslaught broke time and again, ever to assail but never to conquer.

And so it would have been, should their vows have held true.

Here they had stood, and here they had fallen, ultimately brought low by the hardening of their hearts, and the subsequent abandoning of their post. Dearly they paid for their forgetfulness, but dearer still is the price yet to be paid, for on Pannithor death is rarely a sanctuary, and never does it settle the debt of betrayal.

The revenge visited upon the Knighs of the Kings was long in the making, and as it oft goes, also bit the avenged just as deep as those it was taken upon. The Necromancer perished at the height of his spell, but the gates to the Underworld had already been opened. Now the dead streamed forth, eager to avenge both their deaths and their unlife to the living.

The courtyard was teeming with unlife. Runed, grave-worn armor was donned, and ghastly heads were covered with mighty helms, as proudly plumed in death as they were in life. Blades, bitten by the bitter turning of the years, now glow with a deathly hunger. Ragged banners were raised, ghostly horns blared in the mountain air. The Guard of the Kings had risen again.

There is a blast of frigid air and a ghostly laughter rising from some deep place echoes through the roofless halls as the King Arisen gallops forth from the gates. Once a brother to the one who came back first, the Cold King, the one who now returns is a creature washed clean of empathy, honor or indeed any thought save to bring ruin and to bring all living things into the icy embrace of Death. Once a mighty captain, and the co-ruler of a powerful kingdom, the one who returned now bears little resemblance to the noble lord, brought low by the tides of fate.

The inner sanctum of the Keep lays in ruins, its stained glass windows shattered into blood red shards and dry, cold dust swirls in the slow drafts of air that sigh and moan through the corridors. In the centre of it all there is a gateway of massive stone slabs. Once leading down into the crypts of Kings, it now opens to sheer nothingness. Not a darkness, but a desolate deepness gapes under its massive lintel.

From the shapeless opening a shape begins to emerge, while the echoes of the necromancers unholy spell give form to yet another abomination. A faceless creature emerges, clad in bony armor and sinew crafted from the flayed souls of the dead. This creature is not something brought back, but something altogether foreign, a creature native to the sunless lands. Driven by hunger, its very presence seeps the life from all those around it. As it lays a massive, clawed foot onto the stones, an unseen miasma begings to spread and the stones of the ruined castle groan in protest to its presence.

The thing that should not be has come, a Goreblight has emerged, nerver-living, yet ever hungering.

Worst of the Undead are those that are neither forced by others nor bound into any will save their own. The Keep, once the domain of Kings, is now the seat of a deadlier power than any there has held before. A Liche Queen, once a mighty mage-queen, now guides the Dead with an iron will. With a voice devoid of the warmth of life she now commands her legions, and all are subject to her will. A single word from her ethereal lips can freeze a hearty warrior to the bone and a single motion of her hand can call the dead from their graves.

Greetings, fellow KoWsters!

After a longish break from this blog, I decided that it's time to revive it as 2021 is showing some promise when it comes to hobby opportunities. With those opportunities also my hobby mojo is coming back and with that, the graveyard that is my hobby desk is receiving more than sad glanses and forlorn moments of silent reflection. Dust has once again been driven into the small, dark spaces under the paint racks, and water once again sparkles in the cup at the paint station f.

Lately my desk has been filled with Revenants from Mantic and a repurposed Plague first gen mutant and I've also seen an unexpected return by the second Revenant King that I built more than a year ago.

Multibasing my revenants

Mutibasing is one of the coolest things about KoW. it gives me the freedom of expression rarely achieved when basing models on single bases. The small dioramaesque interactions and the ability to create different feels to different units really bring the units to life. Is this unit a ragtag mass of frenzied critters or perhaps a well-ordered, cohesive fighting force? Both can be expressed with ease, along with a multitude of other things.

For my Revenants I wanted to stick to my ruined castle theme, this time crafting the front courtyard of the castle's main hall. Mantic's plastic bases are an excellent material for building bases as polycement makes the structures very sturdy once it dries properly. I used them for the flagstones of the castle stairs, while I clipped and cleaned their sprues for the colums and masonry of the cracked doorway arch. Two Basilean horses donated their heads to make ornaments above the doorway: one still on the wall, the other fallen and cracked, to be almost buried in snow. I carved out the central circular holes to make stained glass windows, using plasticard for the glass panes themselves.

The main problem when making stuff yourself is getting enough detail into the base. With this base I tried to add detail by making cracks and chipped edges to the stonework, while also making sure enough (but not too much, mind you!) is happening on the base. These bases feature ruined walls, crumbled masonry and broken glass and also stone braziers, filled with ghostly flames from which more Revenants are rising. 

I knew I was mainly going for a Horde, so I planned the entire base before getting to work on the models themselves. I use 3mm MDF for the bases as it provides some additional resilience to warping from PVA and other water-based materials. Previously I've used warbases.co.uk, but I probably need to find another provider due to the Charlie Foxtrot known as brexit.

I usually use some pen-and-paper sessions to draw concepts and to map out materials needed, build order and possible problems. This Horde breaks down into three parts; a regiment and two troops. I don't expect to use them a whole lot, but who knows. I wanted to strive to minimize transitions from one separate base to the next when they're put together. That means "themes", or parts of bases need to continue from one to the next, which is problematic when I also decided to go for minimal overhang. Some people like to go for a dynamic feel with the miniatures hanging far over their base, but I find this to be an inconvenience during games as fitting units flush together becomes difficult.

In this base the themes carried over is for one the broken wall of the castle, which runs in a direct line on both the regiment base and the rear troop base. The two troops have a few things that "carry over", a fallen bit of masonry spans both bases and some stained glass, also. Another continuing theme is the stairs, as both the regiment base and the front troop have an identical, short stair. 

The goal is to have a unit that looks tied together without being boring. I also wanted an.. organic? look to the base, meaning I didn't want it look like a flat piece of wood that I glued a miniature ruin on and then threw in some models. Using a piece of MDF and just gluing some random ruins on it usually leaves very little reasonable interaction between the base and the models. 

What I mean by reasonable interaction is simply that models need to look like they're moving through whatever is on the base, and that means the base needs to look like there is some reasonable continuation of whatever is on the base that can be imagined to continue around it. I think you shouldn't glue a horse in full gallop so its hind legs are touching a wall (I mean, how the hell did that horse accelerate to full tilt with one stride?), nor should you just throw a random goblin on the roof of some partially ruined building that's on the base (I mean, sure, goblins are weird, but the single dude haphazardly glued to the roof rarely adds the desired effect). A horse clearing a fence is cool, an ogre crashing through a fence is cool, a dwarf fording a running stream is cool. All these require something else than just having a random ruin on the base.

Now my goal isn't to moan about other people's basing, but more to explain the thought process behind mine. I wanted my Revenants to look like they're marching through the ruined castle and that means the models must be positioned so that a person looking at the base can kind of see the motion even if it isn't there.

Ice and snow

The fun part about basing my Undead is the winter theme. Snow and ice present a challenge as they have a very recognizable look and feel to them, which is difficult to capture at this scale. One problem with creating realistic snow bases is that once there's quite a bit of snow, the snow is everywhere. It's not clumped, it's not here and there. It's everywhere. Every surface that's not vertical will be covered by it, and every nook and cranny will be filled up with it. The magical winter wonderland that's super pretty in early February in Finland looks really really boring when recreated as a base. That's why I decided that I'd rather strive for a look that looks realistic rather than is realistic.

The recipe for my icicles I stole from a long-lost youtube video, and it's simple. Using clear plastic, such as is found on the flyer base stems and sprues, I heat the plastic over a candle until it gets a sheen to it and starts to bend slightly. It's important to be patient, it takes a little while and you shouldn't try to speed the process by getting too close to the flame, otherwise you'll get soot on your icicle.

Once the plastic is malleable, I gently pull the ends away from each other. This creates the icicly narrowing shape. Be careful not to pull the ends too far apart, as this will snap the plastic and the narrow parts will curl before they cool. Once you reach the desired thinness, hold the plastic in place for roughly half a minute, as this will allow the plastic to cool down.

I am yet to manage a totally sharp icicle, but I am also yet to try.

Snow is a little tricky, and I ended up using Army Painters snow flow, glued with oodles of superglue layer upon layer until I achieved the thickness I wanted. What I wrote above about snow forming a uniform cover isn't necessarily true always and everywhere. Cold doesn't yet mean snow, at least not a lot of it, because snow = rain, and there are plenty of cold, dry places where there is snow, yes, but it's not a deep cover. That is a whole lot easier to manage.

A thing to keep in mind is that snow is usually soft and must be waded through. That's why it's usually a good idea to make the base, add the models and then add the snow as that allows for a move realistic interaction between the snow and the models. Patience is key, and if you're using snow flock, then multiple thin layers is the way to go.

For the Goreblight I went for a look that the monster is dragging a victim caught in its chains through the snow. which was a bit of a pickle since snow does yield under weight, but doesn't get easily brushed completely off. I went for a compromise with some stone showing under the lady-in-distress, as I think it made the movement more apparent even without me explaining what's going on.

Snow can form uneven piles, but that requires two things: constant cold temperatures that keep the snow from becoming dense, and wind. The constant cold is easy enough to imagine, but that would mean that there should be NO icicles on my base, as icicles start forming when the snow melts in sunshine, but the temperature hangs below freezing. This wouldn't do, so damned be realism! I wanted big, dramatic icicles with banks of snow, so I made big, dramatic icicles with banks of snow.

Next up: a story about hobby related vanity project.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

AoW

KoW in Finland - building a community

Greetings, KoWsters!

With 2020 behind us and the Third edition tried, tested and found worthy, I decided that it would be a good idea to write a post about my thoughts regarding building a community around a game and also giving a rundown on what the community in Finland is like today.

2015 - a slow start

The way I see it, in 2015 when GeeDubs killed their version of rank-and-flank fantasy, the fantasy wargaming scene in Finland was pretty stale.

Back then in Finland we had a bunch of people playing ETC-hammer, which was, in my view, a version of 8th edition that was patched almost beyond recognition. There was a semi-active tournament scene, with a few tournaments run every year. Then we had a lot of people like me and my friends, who never played new people and mostly kept to ourselves. It was regarded self-evident that there would always be a WHFB by GW and people would always play the game.

Well, come summer of 2015, it turns out that that self-evident fact was not very waterproof. AoS was a joke, and for many of us, it seemed in poor taste, although I hear nowadays it's an okay game if you like 40k. The uproar was deafening, and for the first time ever many people, myself included, looked beyond GW for a game.

Here's actually what I consider to be the biggest single threshold for people playing GW games: they often feel like they're being unfaithful if they take up a game that's non-GW. I felt the same, at first, but soon it started feeling like I had been a part of a weird, weird cult. Miniatures by another manufacturer? Pha! A game that's not titled Warhammer? Peasants! The weird thing, in my view, is that after playing other games for a change, I actually came to realize that WHFB 8th edition had never been a good game, even with ETC fixes. It achieved depth through randomness and complexity, neither of which are dominant in KoW. It had a cool backstory, or had had a cool backstory, but by 2015 that cow had been milked completely dry.

In 2015 we had one tryout KoW-tournament in Finland, with around ten participants. There seemed to be some enthusiasm, but the whole landscape of FB mass battle systems was still blown wide open. No one was sure which game to pick up.

Me and my friends stuck with Kings of War, since it seemed a lot more balanced than WHFB had beem

2016-2017 Participating in everything

I quickly realized that the community I had once taken for granted was anything but, and that behind the seemingly endless flow of tournaments and game days was a handful of people who were working their butts off to make things happen.

The first step I was willing to take was to start attending tournaments. The first few tournaments were only four players, but soon we had a regular six to eight people playing. That's not many, but taking into account that Finland, despite it's area, is only 5 million people, it was a start.

During these two years I spent maybe ten weekends driving to which ever rundown warren of miniature wargaming geeks I could cram myself into for a few hours of gaming. I met a bunch of people and slowly got to know them some, despite being a semi-introverted sluggard when it comes to making new friends.

2018-2019 Pulling my weight

2018 was the year when I really started to put time and effort into making things happen. I organized my first own tournament while still continuing to drive obscene amounts (shut up, Americans, we know you drove longer) in order to participate to tournaments held elsewhere. A weekend here, another there.

Two weeks back I found myself at Ropecon, demoing KoW for an evening and then hosting an event the next day. The tournament at this venue has become the tournament in Finland, despite being only a one day event and the games being of a relatively few points at 1750. Two eventful days full of people coming and going and even getting a surprise game in myself as the backup player!

Round one under way, seven tables means a small tournament, but enough to make it interesting.

After working to build a community for a few years, I notice a thing starting to happen. A new face here, another there. Not everyone comes always, nor does every new face become a regular attendee, but a few do. Slowly but surely we have started to gain some traction, and though it's been a long four years and we're still far from a big game in Finland, I think we're starting to get this thing moving.

The year 2020 didn't happen, as we all know, so nothing to report on that blank space of time.

KoW in Finland - what's going on today?

Previously we've been hosting four to five tournaments per year in different towns and cities in Finland, mainly in Jyväskylä, Turku and in the capital region. Turku hosts a tournament in autumn and late spring, while Jyväskylä usually has a winter tournament, while the capital region is still picking up it's game. The main event has thus far been the Kings of War tournament at Ropecon I mentioned earlier. Tournaments are small, usually 8-12 players, with Ropecon attracting around 14-16 players every year. Small tournaments, but tournaments none the less.

One off games are happening every now and then, but I think we're not reaching the level of communal activity I'd like to see. That goes to say that people tend to play in their basements rather than at clubs, which is fine unless you want to attract more people. The people playing KoW seem to be from their late twenties to their early fourties, so family life and jobs take a toll on people's ability to get those games going. What surprises me is that it seems that some people in Finland are still looking for the right game to scratch that fantasy itch, even after many years of WHFB-refugeeism.

Currently I think we have around 20 active players, maybe more, and I think there's some genuine interest with quite a few others as well. I'm pretty thrilled at 3rd Edition and the coming tournaments of 2021!

What's required to build a community?

In Finland, I'd say KoW is, right now, a second-rate game. 40k is king with a ton of players, and on the second tier we have a bunch of games from T9A to Warmahordes to AoS to KoW, with many games regularly hosting tournaments. So all in all, the miniature wargaming community in Finland is actually pretty active. My goal has, for the past five years, been to get more people interested in playing Kings of War. Community, e.g. the people playing the game and sharing the passion for their hobby, is at the heart of the hobby, and that means that in order to have a community, you have to get players.

A community is built, I feel, mainly, through relenteless work, a lot of time for the game to gain ground and some shameless advertising.

My tips for getting a community going, although I'm far from being good at this stuff myself:

1. Always attend everything you can

Whether it's a day for one off games in the next town over or a two day tournament, go if you can. Your presence will be noted, and the worst publicity a game can get are events getting cancelled due to lack of attendance. That sends a very discouraging message to anyone that could potentially be interested in the dame.

People want to pick up a game that has players and that's why it's important to help making these events happen.

2. Get in touch with local gaming clubs

Even if they don't actively play Kings of War, or even if they don't show a lot of enthusiasm for it at first, being an active member in the club will draw people's attention and maybe give you a few casual opponents to play against once you get them introduced to the game. People who already play miniature games are, in my opinion, the likeliest people to pick up Kings of War as they know how to start a game.

Interact, mingle, and if you have a friend you usually play, take your games to the local gaming den instead of your basement. That'll give you some visibility.

3. Demo the game

Running demo games is the best way to show the game off.

People are likelier to pick up a game they've tried and found interesting, so I recommend you actively demo the game. Pack two armies with you, small ones preferably, hoist your butt to the local wargaming cave and host a demoing event or a day for one off games. Even if you attract just one Joe Random, who happened by accidentally, remember that the community consists of individual players. Every player counts, especially in the beginning.

4. It takes time

People who are potentially interested in the game need time to get going, and will be more likely to turn from potential players to active ones if you keep the game visible for enough time for them to first feel like they'd not be wasting their time by picking the game up and second for them to have enough time to actually get a force assembled.

5. Ask for help and offer to help

Local wargaming clubs will, most likely, be happy to help you organize stuff and to make things happen so that they could add another game into the bulk of games they as a community represent. If someone is thinking about organizing an event in their area, go a

6. Remember that it's just a hobby

Take time off, let your miniatures sit in the corner and go drink some cold beer or whatever you do when you want to just relax. It's easy to burnout the joy of the hobby if you take it too seriously or don't have enough other stuff to keep you busy, because it can take a long while for the game to gain some players.

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At any rate, I for one can't wait to see CoVid-vaccines rollout and we can get back to the really important stuff, wargaming.

Keep safe and roll lots of sixes,

AoW

Kings of War movement tricks I - "Shadow of the Wyrm"

 Greetings!

I decided to end my blogging hiatus with a somewhat different post, by trying to invade an area that is difficult to write about; tactics.

The difference between tactic and strategy has been oft debated and rarely explained in a satisfactory manner, but in this post I will use tactic to refer to a set of positions, unit movements and measures one uses to achieve a limited goal. While my strategy might be to concentrate my forces and take three out of five counters, tactics are the smaller steps I use to achieve those larger goals.

In this post I will explore one tactic for creating opportunity to advance regardless of the threat of faster opponents. Most of us have been at the receiving end of fast units and pinned down with very limited movement options due to the simple fact that the enemy is so much faster. It can often be difficult to find avenues of approach without taking near suicidal risks or the advance getting bogged down to a snail's pace.

Fast units, such as flyers, are often used for just such a purpose: threaten the opponent, force them to either accept unfavourable charges or back down and win the game by pressuring the opponent to yielding more and more ground.

The key to solving the issue lies partially in the fact that flyers, like Dragons, Elohi, and so on are expensive. That means they are often outnumbered and thus are under pressure to achieve local superiority in a fight of their own choosing. Keeping that in mind is important, as it means it's easier to see flyers and other fast striker units for what they are and what they need to achieve. They're not all-powerful super units, but rather very expensive units that need to be able to achieve board control in order to function. If that is denied, they become relatively easy to manage. 

In this blog post I will go through and explain one tactic for wresting initiative from a more mobile force without accepting extremely poor odds.

Note that the examples given aren't neutral points-wise, and should be viewed as illustrations of a concept rather than as a match-up of specific units.

Initial situation: Basilean threat

In this situation the Basilean flyers have moved up to threaten the Wights on the left. They are safely outside the charge ranges of all Undead units and the Elohi are positioned so that the Wights can't escape their field of view, while the Dragon is lined up to threaten all three Undead units.

This puts the Undead in a precarious situation. They can't strike at the Basileans this turn, and moving up against them seems very dangerous; a combined charge from those units is enough to knock out any one of the Undead units with even a modicum of luck. They can't stay as they are, nor can they effectively withdraw.

However, the Undead can adopt a relatively simple tactic to overcome this type of a situation, one that I call "the Shadow of the Wyrm" and it revolves around the very simple mechanic of unit Height. By advancing very aggressively with the Wyrm, which is Speed 7 and height 6, directly towards the Dragon, the Undead can create a "shadow" on the field in which it is safe for the Revenant Cavalry to advance and close the distance between themselves and the Basilean units. Meanwhile the Wights pivot slightly and move up, escaping the Dragon's Line of Sight.

Undead follow-up: Throwing shade

The initial problem with flyers and units that outdistance one's own is simple: you can strike at me, but I can't strike at you. This move doesn't seek to change that in itself, but rather forces the Basileans to either accept very, very risky charges or to reposition themselves, changing the situation to something more like "you can strike at me, but do you really want to?"

The Basilean units are still the ones to get the first blow, but the risks involved make other options seem more inviting.

* There's a slight movement error in the Wights' position, they should be 0.1" to the left in order to escape the Dragon's LoS. The move is possible, so the situation remains unchanged.

The Basileans are far from trapped, but their powerful combined charges have been denied for this turn and the Undead have managed to signicantly advance on the board. Is the game over? Not by a long shot, the Basileans have plenty of options open, but their strongest move has been blocked. Did the Undead conduct a winning move? Maybe, depends on what's going on elsewhere on the board. That's why this is a tactic, not a strategy. 

This move will not, on it's own, win the game. It's one way to scale the obstacle of being threatened by units with superior movement. I find this move particularly good on the flanks where flyers often tend to congregate in order to dislodge their opponent's centre, as when confronted on the flanks, the flyers have far less options for escaping an unfavourable frontal assault.

There are a few key things to look for when trying to set up a LoS shadow on the field:

- You must be able to move up sufficiently close to the unit you want to block, because you want a wide shadow that results from proximity to the enemy

- Make sure you have retaliating units ready to pounce on any frontal charges the flyers may make

- Only advance if it benefits you, don't go forward for no reason!

- Advancing against flyers is dicey, make sure you can deal with them trying to sneak over your lines