Isle of Idin - Slow grow Campaign for KoW

It is said that when the Shining Ones had entered into Pannithor and had dwelt there for a time, they begun to long for whatever paradise they had left behind, or been cast out of. They longed for a paradise lost and in remembrance they shaped the Isle of Idin into its likeness.

Others, giving little heed to hearsay and old wives tales, say that the favourable, gentle winds and weathers of the world have shaped the land into a place most amiable.

Whatever the truth may be, it remains that the Isle is indeed a green jewel nestled in the warm bosom of the Infant Sea. In times past it has been a home to many peoples and continues to be so to this very day. Proud, ancient elven cities still persist on the Isle as well as rich Dwarven holds, dug deep under the rich mountains of Idin. On the Isle of Idin gentle farmlands and schools of wizardry have existed in peace and prosperity for a long count of years.

All this and more has existed under the mighty, gentle hand of the kings of House Bardast. Of old, Primovantorian descent, the Bardastian monarchs have been farsighted and prudent in the management of their kingdom and have seen it prosper beyond the splendour of other nations.

But all is not well in the Kingdom, for the last King, Hastius XI, died without issue, and as it is the nature of human, elf and dwarf alike, power left unclaimed is a prize most wanted. Rival claims to the throne have sprung like weeds on an untilled field, with each claimant drawing from age-old alliances and tapping into military, monetary or political strengths each house has carefully nurtured under the watchful eye of kings past. The council of Idin, convened to choose a new monarch for the Isle, sat for many moons but no claim was accepted. The throne remains vacant.

So it is that now the Isle of Idin teeters on the brink of war, all its riches ready for the taking.

Outsiders have now begun to make claims on the lands on the Isle of Idin, and the tumult and chaos have opened the door to darker powers as well. Goblins and other creatures of less-than-savoury nature have been seen sailing close to the shores. War's brewing..

Greetings!

After a work-induced hiatus from maintaining the blog, I return with a campaign!

We decided to host a slow-grow campaign with a light map element attached to it and I'll write a bit about the system we're using plus some thoughts and ideas of what a good campaign consist of. My previous campaign, a map-based campaign for Vanguard, fell to ruin and sank into the deeps of forgetfulness due to my own inactivity and a lack of thought-through system for using the map.

As I consider myself a creature capable of learning, I decided to come back better prepared, so I set myself some ground rules regarding the campaign and its mechanics. The map needs to play a role in the games. It has to incentivize the players to grab areas and interact with the map and it needs to be easy to grasp. It shouldn't break the core rules of the game, nor should it be overly elaborate. It should reward winning games, but it shouldn't hinder further progress. Thus I came up with the following outline and rules.

Our campaign will have, initially, five rounds.

As this is meant as an introductory campaign, we'll start at a surprisingly small size of 350 points. These games will be played on 3' x 3' tables and are mostly meant for teaching some new-comers the basic mechanics of the game. Another reason for starting that small is simply to provide some external support for people looking to get their armies painted. I find that small, attainable steps are better for this than more ambitious goals that tend to dismay some players more than they inspire.

The timetable is, roughly, as follows:

Round 1: 350pts in January
Round 2: 500pts in February
Round 3: 750pts in March
Round 4: 1000pts in April
Round 5: 1250pts in May
Round 6: 1500pts in June

I wanted the timetable to be loose enough to give ample time for painting up the required units, but I am also prepared to make it tighter should players want it.

Map - an overelaborate scoreboard

I've always had a thing for maps.

Whether it's in miniature war gaming or in a fantasy novel, I've always fancied pretty maps and I decided to make one for this campaign as well. I had an old frame lurking about and I decided to use it as a base for my map. I knew that I wanted to make a three dimensional representation of the area we'd be fighting over as I think that adds nicely to the immersive aspect of the game. I want the players to form rivalries and epic stories about how they defended Tor Idinor against marauding goblins or how they sacked the Tower of Fire, driving out the Druids who used the magical power in the war for supremacy of the Isle.

The main point is to be a glorified scoreboard as I don't want the map element of the campaign to overrule the basic mechanics and balance of the game too much. There are some in-game interactions between the map and the games, but they are deliberately kept relatively small.

The map is made out of cork with some wood filler for added shapes. The forests are sand mixed with PVA to make a pretty liquid paste that doesn't clump up but retains an uneven texture that can be drybrushed to give it an "deep" organic look. The water is simply PVA shaped, painted and gloss varnished to give it a sheen.

The cities and castles were a pain to make, as I wanted them to be more than just map markers. The amount detail that would've gone into it had I given into my desire to keep working on it would've been immense, but I wanted to cut it short in order to get it done and so the cities aren't quite as big as I wanted them to be, nor are there roads and bridges.

Playing the map

With some help from a fellow player I wrote a quick and simple set of rules for playing on the map. I kept them as simple as I could, because I wanted to make sure no one felt like there was some weird mini-game they had to master in order to take part in the campaign.

The map is divided into roughly hexagon-shaped counties. Each county represents one "point" in the campaign so the more you get to claim, the better you're doing. Some counties have special areas in them that can be claimed. Each player also has a war-party they can send to harass (and potentially destroy) special areas in unclaimed counties or counties controlled by other players. These aren't meant to represent the players' armies as such, as it's assumed that each invasion force has thousands of troops on the Isle. The war-party is simply an artefact on the map that can be used to create more narrative and more immersive play.

Each round begins with an initiative roll, which is 2d6. Ties are rerolled until a sequence emerges.

At the outset each player takes their turn and claims one of the landfall counties spread evenly on the coasts of the Isle. On later turns and at the end of each round the players can claim counties that are touching one or more counties they already control. If a player can't claim more counties that are adjacent to their counties, they may then claim a new landfall county.

The rolls for Initiative were 3, 5, 7, 11, 11. The elevens were rerolled and so the victor emerged. The first player decided to take Ankh-Or harbour as their starting point because they wanted to claim the desert counties as their own. Then other players chose their starting points, each carefully examining their potential and their distance from cities and castles. Questions of defending their own areas also arose. Which harbours offered the safest bonuses, which towns and Spires were the most difficult to assail?

War-parties

After claiming new counties, players take turns in placing their war-parties on the map. War-parties can move in direct lines from any county controlled by the player but they can't cross mountains, enemy-controlled counties or large bodies of water. Note that they can attack an enemy controlled county, but can't go across it to reach deeper into their territory.

Any special area attacked by a war-party can't be used until the opposing war-party is driven off or moves out on it's own. A war-party can destroy a special area so that it yields no more benefits for its controller. This happens if the attacker and the defender do not play any games during a round and if the defender does not move a war-party in to defend the county.

If a county has two war-parties, the players are encouraged to play a game and see which one wins! If the defender wins, the attacking war-party has to retreat and the defender can again use the bonuses from that county. If the attacker wins, the defender has to retreat and the bonuses are denied for the round. Due to the disturbance of defending forces, the attackers will be unable to focus on the siege and so the special area (castle, town etc) is still held, albeit under siege!

Counties can't be taken once claimed, so they can be burned to the ground, but their ownership doesn't change hands. This is to keep better track of the score and how each players games are going and to keep "win more"-mechanics from forming.

War-parties have a few additional functionalities depending the player's army's alignment:

- War-parties of good armies can protect an unclaimed county they can reach. This way the player can claim the county's special area bonuses even though they can't claim the county. This is, of course, unless the county is attacked by some other war-party.

- Evil war-parties can sack unclaimed counties, destroying their special area bonuses the same way they would in an enemy-held county, unless the war-party is harassed by another war-party.

- Neutral armies can do both Protect or Sack unclaimed counties, but once they sack an unclaimed county, they can't claim bonuses from protecting a county. The good people of the Isle simply wont aid butchers and brigands!

Special areas

Some counties give bonuses, although only one of these can be used when building an army. There are four different bonuses from four different areas:

Villages

There are eight villages on the map. They are also the closest bonus areas to the landing counties. An uncontested village allows one non-hero unit to be given a free magic artifact worth no more than 10 points.

Cities

There are four cities on the map. Each city allows a 10 point deductions to a non-spell upgrade of a non-hero unit. So a 25 point upgrade could be purchased for only 15 points.

Spires

There are four wizard's spires on the map. Each spire allows a 10 point deduction of a spell upgrade. This way a 20 point Banechant could be purchased for only 10 points.

Castles

There are four castles. An uncontested castle allows a player to use an additional war-party. A player can have a maximum of two war-parties. If a castle is attacked by an opponent, the war-party immediately retreats back to the castle to defend it. It can't be used to relieve the castle of the siege, so the bonus is lost the same way other bonuses are lost if the county is attacked.


This way there is some small benefit from playing the map, but the game itself isn't overly affected by the area bonuses. The point here is to encourage narrative games and to create flavorful rivalries between players and to avoid the usual "well, these two armies just kill each other for no apparent reason".

The initiative is used also during the next phase, as the players send out their war-parties. The first player, playing Empire of Dust, decided to send heir war-party North from the Southern desert to sack Trade Town, the fair city that has grown fat and rich under the shadow of Mount Idin. First they checked whether their war-party had a clear path and then they counted the hexagon-shaped counties between their own landing zone and those of others to ensure they were attacking a bonus area they themselves had little enough chance or need to claim.

The player going second played Forces of Nature, and being careful to claim a bonus for the round, to protect the ancient Spire of Fire even if they can't claim the focus of magical energy yet. Basileans sent their forces Northward, to lay claim to the Spire of Frost to claim the same bonus.

Finishing the round

After the games of the round have been played and players are ready to move on the next round, it's time for some cleaning up before moving on.

Players can play any number of games during a round from a single game to as many as they can squeeze in. The games played affect the map campaign and translate into "score" as follows:

- If the player won more games than lost this round, they claim two additional counties following the normal rules for claiming areas.

- If the player played an even number of wins and losses, they claim one additional county. They also gain +2 initiative next round.

- If the player lost more than won, they gain +4 initiative on the following round.

This means that those with fewer areas are likelier to get the areas they want next round, so winning wouldn't become more of a "win more"-thing.

Smoke rises in a thick column towards the steel-grey skies and heads driven into spikes adorn the brunt ruins. The towering cliffs of Mount Idin seem to weep at the loss of the fair city as the restless dead move away, retreating to their domains in the desert.. The fair city of Trade Town is no more. For years to come, the name will be an ill omen, a symbol of wanton destruction.

Meanwhile, to the east the rising sun graces the Spire of Fire, its proud head crowned with the colors of the Wild. With the druids and their forest-folk allies guarding it, it's wizards have promised and delivered their vast knowledge to the aid of the Forces of Nature.

Basilean flags hang limp from their poles on a windless morning. Driven back on all fronts, the Hegemon's Finest must fight on doggedly, if they hope to claim the Isle of Idin for the Hegemon.

The Wyrm-call: Creating an abomination

The ruined castle was quiet.

Gone were the ghostly visions that they had been prepared to expect.

It was quiet, so quiet.

High Paladin Antonin's heavy footfalls echoed in the desolate corridors as they, he and his company of Paladins, made their way through the ruins. The madman had spoken true enough when he raved about the horrors that had been woken, for he could feel his skin crawl with the rippling energies of the place: something dark dwelt here, barely held in check by some balancing force.

Whatever it was, Antonin was determined to be the one to lay it to a final rest.

"High Paladin, this way, the sanctum is here", the familiar voice of his apprentice seemed a hushed thing in the surrounding dark as she beckoned them to follow.

The inner courtyard was as empty as the rest of the castle, with tumbled piles of fallen masonry, sprinked with snow, laying strewn about the paved open space.

And in the middle of the ruins of the mighty castle rose the Sanctum of the Rose, a high domed chapel, whose stained glass windows had withstood both enemy and time alike.

"Let us enter. I have a feeling that whatever waits us inside is the key to this blasphemy."

--

Greetings, fellow Kowsters!

As it happens, the 3rd Edition crept up on me before I managed to build up my Undead to its full extent, and now I'll be revising the list I had planned. Not that I mind, mind you, as all I've seen so far of the Third has seemed very promising indeed.

In order to take a break from painting up the core of the army, I decided to have a go at the Undead Wyrm. It was a pretty interesting task, both exciting as I like the model and a little daunting as I knew I wanted to change the posture of the Wyrm: the original pose looks too static and not tall enough to warrant the Heigh 6 that Third Edition apparently assigned it.

The base was a mix of cork and wood filler. I like to glue the cork pieces from the center and leave the edges without glue so that I can break the even lines between the layers easily. They really stand out if you stack many tiers of cork one on top of the other and it stops looking natural. I glue the cork, let it set and then use pliers to rip small bits off it at the even seams before sealing it with glue. That way I can get a more continuous look to the stone effect.

I wanted to give the snowy ground some wawiness to make it look more like it was wind-swept and deep. I did that with wood filler, using a sculpting tool to shape the mass into mounds. Wood filler tends to form sharp edges and spikes, which don't look snow-like at all, so I got rid of these by rubbing the wood filler, once set, with a wet finger. The water softens the top layer enough for it to lay down into a smooth layer.

I cut through the connection were the tail connected to the chest from two sides with a hobby saw. Resin is nice to work with in that it's pretty soft to cut through and heat bendable. Which was exactly what I did once I had cut the tail loose.

The model soaked in near-boiling water for many minutes as, even at the thinnest parts, the tail is very thick. I didn't achieve a perfect fit with my base and i decided that it's easier to add more cork to fit the Wyrm's position than to reheat the Wyrm itself.

I then glued the Wyrm in place, adding the tail part after fitting the wyrm on the rock. I used greenstuff to hide the cut between the two parts as well as the cut from disconnecting the tail from the chest. I'm definitely not in my comfort zone when I'm working with greenstuff, especially if the work is anything more complex than a simple gap to fill. This time the gap between the two parts was the minor issue that would solve itself along with the more pressing matter of a clearly deformed and thinner part where the tail had been separated rom the chest. Luckily, it turned out okay with one try and the "undead" part of the model gave me some leeway in that it was easy to give the greenstuffing some detail by copying the rent look of the original parts of the model.

--

"High Paladin. Welcome."

The voice was little more than a whisper, but the bare stone of the chapel walls carried it clearly. Antonin lowered his gaze from the faded murals that covered the walls and focused his attention to the huddled shape near the middle of the chapel. A dark, ragged cloak obscured whatever true shape the creature wore, but the voice was that of an aged man. Antonin stepped forward and slowly strode down, drawing his heavy blade as he descended the broad stairs that ringed the central depression of the derelict sanctum. Quietly, his Guard spread along the walls having trailed their commander into the sanctum, circling the space.

"Thank you, though I do question the sincerity of your welcome."
"Do you? There's no need, for I have, truly, been waiting for you."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Well, not you specifically, perhaps. But one as like you as to make no difference."
"Oh? In that case I surmise that this former servant of yours did no so much escape, as was let loose on purpose, to draw one like me here."
"You do me an undeserved courtesy, High Paladin, for I did not harbor such plans. I am not the evil mastermind that you would make of me."
"Simply an evil commoner, then?"

Rising, the creature cast off the torn cloth that it had huddled under, and the near-dark of the chapel was pushed aside, for the creature's form was wreathed in ghostly fire, pale and pallid green. A shade, a memory of a living man it was, its form held together by the will of the man who should have been dead, but still lingered on, now fully turned to evil. A chill, dry laugh rattled forth from the shade as the two came face to face. The dead are not without mirth, even if theirs always stems from malice. 

"Perhaps not that, either."
"Perhaps."
"So what comes next, High Paladin? Shall you strike me down?"
"Yes, these things usually go that way sooner or later."
"Believe me, High Paladin, I truly wish it would not have to go this way, but I feel that our two creeds are very much inconsolably opposed."
"Creed? Which creed might that be? I know mine, Justice, Faith and Salvation of the Innocent. Yours is more of a mystery, I'm afraid."
"I am of the dead, High Paladin, we who are dead have only one creed. Vengeance."
"Vengeance for what?"
"For oath-breaking, for thievery and for the audacity to still draw breath under the warmth day. Vengeance upon those who are yet to drink from the dried-out chalices of the afterlife, and upon those who would steal our final rest and finally upon all those, who would forsake all bonds of fellowship and cast away their duty. And for what? A few cursed breaths of life more?"
"You despise those who called you back, yet you yourself are a Necromancer, are you not?"
"Yes, I am, and as such I myself will pay, too! One ill turn deserves another, and we who have now risen, albeit through abominable means and into this abhorrent existence shall not rest until all have paid what they are due."


The creature's rasping voice had grown in strength, from ghostly whispers to a thunderous boom that seemed to reverberate from the stone of the chapel itself. Then all grew quiet and a brooding silence settled over the sanctum. 

"I see", Antonin said sharply, "I, for one, have heard enough, but I do agree with you on one account: those who call back the dead shall pay their due, and I shall begin the tally with you!" 

His voice rose to a shout and then the High Paladin struck, the holy symbol upon his chestplate suddenly leaping with divine light. His sword drew a mighty arc through the air and then it struck the shade with a flash of light, followed by a thunderous crack.

As the light faded, the High Paladin saw the shade no more, but the roiling energies of the cursed place still loomed all around them, as a black stormcloud, waiting to be released. Then, a ghostly whisper came, seeming to emanate from the very air of the sanctum and as it spoke, maledictive runes began to glow on the walls. A sickly green un-light that hid more than it revealed.

"I am sorry, Paladins, for you did not deserve this, but for the dead, the means are always justified by the ends, and I need that which I lack but you posses: life.

Only life can pay for death, and what must be borne back from the deeps of death is a heavy burden indeed.

I did not meet you here to fight you, I met you here because I needed your life to pay for the passage of one greater than us all. I would ask you to forgive me, but I hold no such wish and do not wish to lie to you.

Perhaps we shall one day meet in the dry darkness beyond."

The glow of the runes grew as the voice died down.

High Paladin Antonin ran for the doors, shaking them and trying to make them budge, but the accursed runes had seeped across their ancient woodwork and they would not be opened. Antonin's paladins had spread around the hall while the two, the holy man and the shade of evil, had faced each other, now began hacking at the windows and the doors in a frenzy, seeking a way out of the chapel. They didn't scream or beg, they fought to spring themselves from the trap

There was a flash of darkness and a sense of having forgotten something, something more valuable than anything else in the world. The runes glowed. High Paladin Antonin felt himself plunged throught the world and out of it, into a place both under and beyond the confines of Pannithor itself. Then he was gone.

The stones of the chapel shook.

Something had been woken.

Something was coming.

--

So there is my Revenant on Great Burrowing Undead Wyrm! I spent quite a bit of time on figuring out how to make it blend in with the rest of my army (who are all bronze armor and the rest is ghostly green) before finally settling on having the Wyrm's purple hide having the color it bore in life and the innards of the beast glowing with an unearthly green. I wanted the beast to look like it possessed a body that had been nigh-impervious to the ravages of time.

The base looked a little bare, being all snow, ice and stone, so as an afterthought I chugged in a banner showing the sigil of the army and a grave of a man-at-arms. I half-buried a shield in snow and replicated the "helmet on rifle stock"-look of modern war graves with a "sword and helm"-configuration.

Next up: Third Edition thoughts and transition from 2nd Edition!

The Growing Dark: expanding my Undead

Greetings, KoWsters!

With 3rd edition fast approaching, my Undead project, which had been on the backburner as work and other "real life stuff" has taken a ton of my time, came back into vogue.

I finally managed to paint up the last of my remaining Revenant Cavalry, bringing me up to two regiments that might be combined into a horde in some future edition that might permit such foolishness.

This project has definitely been the weirdest one of my armies so far, as it is one in which I have scarce played a game as my forces grow ever closer to 2k! I honestly have no idea whether the army I'm building is or will be good now, let alone after Third hits us.

At any rate, the unit which had daunted me for months seemed to paint itself in less than two weeks! Without further ado, I give you the Pale Knights:

Ice, snow and the ruined remains of a more civilized time many years past are the themes for my army's bases, and with this unit I went for a ruined bridgre over a stream. I mounted my undead knights half on the bridge, and half on a ghostly memory of the self-same bridge, summoned from some nightmarish memory long cherished in the dry lands of Death.

I wanted the regiment to look crammed, a surging mass of ghostly knights, packed far tighter than any living riders could be. While I feel like I succeeded relatively well in my goal, I also feel like I created a unit that is almost impossible to photograph in a way that looks something else than a jumbled mess.

I changed the way I paint the armor of my Revenants, replacing the earlier method with a faster one that requires thinner layers and as such dries faster. I rely very much on washes with this army as I went for a theme quick to achieve that looks both uniform and more than meets my "tabletop" standard.

The sigil for my army, the Yr-rune, symbolizes death and ending and on my army it's drawn bright, piercing white on a field of deep, time-worn purple.

The base had two halves, with one half being a half-ruined plank bridge over an icy stream, and the other painted a ghostly green. The ruined half is half covered in snow and besprinkled with icicles, while the ghostly side is far more elaborate, with ghastly braziers hanging suspended mid-air, lit aflame with some malign magic, held in place by heavy chains, while a pale banner flies in an unearthly gale. Everything about the ghostly bridge was intended to be far grander than their living counterparts had ever been.

Yesterday I got a nice little parcel from Mantic that contains what I miss from my 2k, and soon I shall field a grand army of Vengeful Dead!

If I can find an opponent, at any rate.

AoW

Dark Knights: working with water and ice.

It is cold, so cold.

The shaft of your spear feels icy in your hand, even through the padding of your gauntlet. The night air is still and silent, a deathly chill slithers its slow fingers everywhere and a cold mist rises from the stream's slow waters. 

"That's it, lads, form up now! Joston, a few steps right! Make it straight and tight!"

The sergeant's shouts are muffled by the still air and the snow, and the burly man's deep voice sounds small in the pressing dark, devoid of an echo. Dry, cold snow crunches under your boots as you sidestep and take your place in the line, to the back and somewhat to the right from the center. The breath of your comrades smokes in the midnight air and you can feel your toes going numb with the cold, a persistent, dull ache. Lanterns held high cast uneven shadows over the snow, shadows that dance and sway in front of you. The firelight pierces the dark for some thirty paces before racing back, reflected off the smooth bark of the alders at the forest's edge, but making the darkness between the boles even more impenetrable.

From the edge of the shallow stream to the steep bank on the right your line stretches, some fifteen paces, and three men deep. You hear the thudding hooves of your sergeant's horse behind you as he paces back and forth, restless. "Where are they...", you hear him mutter, sword in hand, and then you hear it.

From the darkness of the forest a low keening rises. A lonely horn blowing in the darkness, rising, rising, and then falling. 

The silence afterwards is a tangible thing, an unnatural stillness made worse by the cold seeping into your bones. You feel alone, as though the fur-clad shapes around you were no living comrades, but mere figments of some bygone dream from a life long past, and you feel a growing sense of being trapped. Trapped by the dark and trapped in it, as though the trees around you are but pillars of some endless cavern far beneath the world, and the cold you feel is the chill of Death.

The keening rises again, and this time it is carried by a sudden, cold gust that flutters your cloak, stealing what warmth it had kept underneath. The gust grows into a sudden gale and a lantern goes out and the other. In the last, failing light you see the eyes of the man next to you widen in terror, and then you are in the dark. The weight on you grows and grows, a formless terror that draws near from some distant place, the mere unshaped thought of which stifles your breath.

Time becomes a trickle, and as though from a distant overlook you see yourself from afar. You feel the thunder of hooves before you hear it, and then you hear the order shouted and see yourself lower your spear and brace. Slow it seems, this ghostly charge and measureless time passes between a hoof thudding down into icy ground and it rising from the cold snow. Pale streamers on aged lances hang suspended, unseen but illuminated by some ghostly gleaming. 

They come.

--

Greetings!

This time I'll take a look at working on some Revenant Cavalry and working with Vallejo water effects that I tried while working on this unit.

First off, I have to say that water effects on bases are sometimes the coolest things ever, but having worked on one, which wasn't one of the easiest I could think of, I have to say that it takes so much effort to get it half-way right that I'd really recommend that you use them when you know you want them on the base.

I used both Vallejo Water Effects, which you use for making white water and splashing effects, and Still Water, which, unsurprisingly, is used for making pools of still water. Both seem like good products, and I can honestly recommend both products.

The whole process begins with making the base. Multibases offer some of the best opportunities for creating some very impressive water effects, and the Revenant Cavalry are very well suited for this due to their 125mm by 100mm base. There's a lot of room to play around with!

If you use still water, or any self-leveling liquid, you're going to need a depression to fill. I used woodfiller to make the banks on an MDF base (I can strongly recommend warbases.co.uk, they are awesome, at least unless this brexit thing messes that up).

Then I glued some sand on the whole base. As the product I will use will be transparent once dry, I have to make sure the bottom of the stream is textured as well. After a quick spray undercoat, I went for a brown sandy look that I mixed up with some green washes for the bottom of the stream. This was a realization I had when working on it: there is no reason why the algae in the river would be dead and gone even if the base is a snowy winter base, so some green went on the bed. Having no previous experience with water effects, I decided to paint in some depth differences in the base, so that there are clearly lighter and darker areas in the stream.

The thing I didn't take into account was that if I want a two to three millimeter thick coat of water on the stream bed, and the product is a liquid for a better part of a day once poured in, I had chosen very poorly with three-open-sides approach. Granted, it would look good if I could pull it off, but it is no easy task to seal a base watertight from three sides.

As the material would be solid once dry, I painted and glued the horses in place before adding the still water. So this time I couldn't complete the whole base before painting the miniatures, but instead I had to paint the horses first and move on with the base after that. After spending a week painting horses,  I was ready to pour in the goo.

Having no previous experience, I did just as well as you could guess: not well at all. After mopping up a lot of goo from my painting table and spending a few hours scraping it off the underside of the base, I made a really shoddy and barely functioning thingy that kept most of the goo in place while it dried.

The easy way to do it is to make a puddle, so that the whole body of water is on the base and crosses no edges. The next step is having sides open without needing to block corners, as this can be done with relative ease, with either plasticard or other non-porous plastics glued (temporarily) over the gap. The difficulties begin when your water effect goes over the base's edge at a corner. That is very difficult to seal properly, and I'm currently looking for ideas to making that happen in a relatively non-time-consuming manner.

I cut some clear plastic flyer bases into pieces, rounded their corners over a candle flame and glued them onto the water effect with more of the same stuff. That's a neat trick with Still Water; you can glue stuff on the existing layers with more of the goo. A few coats of Still Water more, and this time I mixed in some Water Effects to get some white water on the stream, and voilá, I was ready to move onto the riders.

I assembled the riders before painting, sans shield arms, as those would block too much surface for my taste. While it's mostly true that where the brush can't reach, the eye rarely sees, I still prefer to paint my models entirely. I used a white undercoat because that way I could move straight to washing on the non-metallic parts. I went for the same scheme as with the Revenant King (who can be seen here), as I want to make the Revenants look like ancient ghosts called back into their ancient suits of armor. Armor would be dull brass, while most of the rest would be ghostly green. Some weapon bits, like the shafts of the lances would not be ghostly, but the blades of most weapons would. Shields would be wooden, with worn purple fronts and the yr-rune (which stands for death, or an ending) freehanded onto them. The same shade of purple would be used for helm plumes and streamers on the lances, to give the army some color and a unifying theme.

I wasn't completely sure as to what extent I want my Undead to be mindless automatons or would I actually prefer them to have some level of sentience. For a story-driven player like me, the backstories of my armies matter a lot, because that determines the look I go for when positioning the models. So would my Revenants have an inhuman accuracy and a contemporarity to their movement or perhaps a game-of-thronesian wighty ferocity? I eventually decided against both, and decided to go for feel of long-dead knights reliving some faded memory of a charge. There's some unity and a sense of an ordered unit, like there would be with living knights charging, but I wanted to keep from adding too much individuality to the Revenants: they are dead, after all, and serve under some dark will other than their own.

--

The snow is cold against your cheek.

You know this, but cannot feel it, not anymore. Around you dark lumps under a thin veil of powdery snow mark the places where your brothers-in-arms gave their lives, felled by an enemy whose deadlines their resolve could not match.

You know there is a place for you to go, a deep place, a place somewhere else than here. There is a gate, and you should go thither, now that you have bled enough to still your heart.

Yet you cannot depart your now-cold flesh.

Something sets its will against you and bars your way. It tells you to rise, and you must obey. There is no choice, as there was in life, but there is a consciousness, a you, and there is pain.

It is so cold, and there is no way out.

--

Scratch-building miniatures - The Engines of Death

Greetings, fellow KoWsters!

In this post I will go through the basics of scratch-building miniatures for war gaming and go through a step-by-step guide of how I built two Bale-fire Catapults for the Undead army I am currently working on.

Scratch-building is a nice way of adding a bit of uniqueness to an army and of, dare I say it, cutting costs if those are an issue. However, as is the case with every non-standard unit choice in Kings of War, Rule of Cool should be adhered to. You really want the unit to fit in with the rest of the army, and thus you should make sure you only scratch-build things that won't look out of place or unintentionally comical next to the manufacturer-made models in your army.

That means that there are certain armies that are easy to scratch-build units for and others that require a lot of skill and patience (and some that I really would not even attempt. I think the armies fall into categories something along these lines:

Easy:

Greenskins
Undead

Medium:

Human armies
Demons & otherworldly creatures

Difficult:

Elves
Dwarves

Easy armies are those that naturally have a worn, rough-shod look to them. Goblin war engines are easy enough to craft and Orcish chariots are also relatively easy. Nothing looks out of place and asymmetries are a naturally occurring phenomenon. Chariots can look ramshackle, and catapults can have strange contraptions for producing the energy for propelling their shots.

Medium armies require a more refined look to the models that you create, and should be approached with more planning and forethought, as lack of eye-catching detail is often a dead giveaway with scratch-built models, as is softness in detail on greenstuffed parts. That's why demons and other unnatural creatures are sometimes a bit tricky to craft, even though they don't have easily recognizable gear such as boots or belts that might be tricky to craft in a manner that looks convincing.

Bottom line is, scratch-building is a method of substituting money with time. Sometimes you might save some time due to delivery times, but usually you'll be spending oodles of time on a unit, instead of spending oodles of money on it. Sometimes you end up getting the best of both worlds, and spend both oodles of money and oodles of time on it.

Creating my own Balefire Catapults

My project grew out of desperation: the model's available for Balefire Catapults were not up to my standards in epicness or scale. The GeeDubs version from their TK army is long out of production, not to mention how costly it would be, and the Mantic one is... slightly small. I want my engines to be menacing machines of destruction and so I decided to build some myself.

I spent a few hours doodling and gathering ideas of what might work and what I might be able to pull off, and before long I had a working concept. I decided to build the typical throwing arm-and-twined-roped-for-torsion version of a catapult, as I felt that a counterweight using trebuchety thing would look too heavy for what the Balefire Catapult does.

Scavenging was quickly done, as all I needed was some matchstick wood for craft projects, some 1mm thread, plasticard, greenstuff, cork for the base, glue, and time. Lots of time.

I started by gluing the sticks together into clumps of four in order to get sturdier beams for the machines. At this point one shouldn't be too concerned with anything else than making the pieces lined up properly, which is mainly achieved by making sure your cuts are even and straight. That means I had to wait until the PVA was properly set and the pieces could withstand the hobby saw without breaking apart.

I started constructing the bases at the same time to make sure my machines fit the base properly. Sometimes, as was the case with these machines, one can build the unit directly onto the base, which makes assembly easier and also makes the unit look more natural on the base. this is very difficult with units like chariots that tend to have a lot of area that needs to be done under them on the base.

I managed to put the base structure of my machines together relative fast, in just a few hours, as I had a good idea of what I was doing from thorough planning. Planning stages saves one the trouble of going back to make more beams or cutting and crafting more of the basic parts needed for moving on with the construction.



My Catapults would be relatively sturdy and unlike the rest of my Undead force, they would be real, physical objects in stead of being ghosts or memories of ancient weapons. I broke the cork apart some and angled it in order to get a little more dynamic look for the base, as putting everything in right angles will look boring and a little bit off once it's done.

When working with matchsticks, a trick you can use is to first place the pieces together with PVA and then drop some super glue on them (I use the Army Painter glue) to get the pieces to hold a little faster so you can get stuff constructed quicker. I'd advice against using just super glue for gluing matchsticks as the wood is relatively porous and the liquid glue tends to get sucked into the wood, leaving very little glue between the parts and making the connections brittle.

For the engines "machiney" parts I decided to use the 1mm twine that I glued over some round sprue bits to create a winch for arming the Catapults. Twine is a little tricky to work with, but it can be used to create some very realistic looking ropes which is handy because, in my view, greenstuffed ropes tend to be way out of proportion and very difficult to work with to create the kind of contraptions that I want.

Twine reacts well to super glue and the easiest way to work with is to glue one end to wherever you want it to be first, then getting the twine into its intended position and then run some super glue all over the twine to harden it. It will retain some flexibility so it won't be brittle, but be careful with bending it, as it won't be really elastic like plastics so you can break it and fixing that is a bitch.

Then I added the throwing arms to my Catapults, and for the "baskets" I used thin strips of plasticard that I glued into a grate and then I glued sharpened pieces of plasticard upwards to create a mixture between a huge brazier some kind of a brazen claw. I wanted the machine look practical but also evil, intended not only to do it's job in battering down castle walls, but also to sow fear and despair as it did so.

I first used a thin metal pin as an axle to pin down the throwing arm (I use metal sticks with one looped end that are intended for crafting jewels). Then I threaded a lot of twine back and forth over the throwing arm and the axle to create a twisting look, like the twined ropes used in real ballistas and catapults and once again used super glue to make the twine set.

I didn't want two identical machines so I made one that was just being armed and the other so that it had just been fired, with its throwing arm in the middle of its motion. At this point I also inspected  the machines and my plans for how I intended to finish each machine in order to avoid making mistakes or overlooking something that would make the project a lot more difficult later on.

At this point I also asked for some outside feedback from my better half, as getting another person's opinion is really valuable in getting things right. When I have a project I really like, I tend to overlook its shortcomings in terms of how it is actually turning out and getting that negative feedback is really important for successful scratch building.

An important point here is the willingness to listen to feedback: if you are not prepared to hear that your idea sucks and then having the reasons why spelled out to you, you probably will end up crafting some silly looking stuff. Of course, there are people who always see the negative in everything, but for the most part, people point out misgivings for a reason. Accept and analyse what feedback you get, and improve the end result.

Then it was time for greenstuff and some more twine. I used twine for ropes securing the machines to the stakes driven into the ground and for the rope connecting the throwing arm to the arming machinery. I used quite a bit of greenstuff in the baskets, along with some skulls, in order to make a flaming mass of skulls. I also added a few shields to the tops of the engines so that I could later paint the army heraldry on them, to tie them into the host.

The two materials that require time, and thus planning the construction stages are PVA and greenstuff. They take roughly a day to harden enough to withstand further construction and one should plan stages so that one can do most of the greenstuff work in a single go. That way the time-consuming wait for the materials to settle wont become a repetitive thing that further delays the already lenghty process of scratch-building something.

Painting the machines was relatively easy, as they are mostly just wood, twine and relatively few details. That's a double edged blade, however, as even though the machines were quicker to paint, I had to make sure there was enough going on on the bases to make the units looks finished. Luckily, the snowy winter bases of my Undead helped a long way, as adding snow drifts and icicles added some nice detail quick and easy.

At first I ran into the problem that I couldn't quite get the machine to look natural on the base. It sat there nice enough, and everything seemed to be in order, but somehow it just looked off. It took me a while to realize that the problem was that the machines needed to look weathered, like they'd been out there in the cold for some time. If you leave stuff out in subzero temperatures, it will accumulate a thin layer of frost on every surface that hasn't been touched in a while, so I went for an overall, intentionally uneven white drybrush. That way I could make the machine look like it had those tiny ice crystals that make everything look silvery grey in the cold on it.

Overall I ended up being pretty satisfied with my Balefires. They have a unique look to them that still doesn't mean people won't know what they are supposed to be. I'm also relatively happy with the level of detail I managed to put on the machines without making them either too cluttered or leaving them too bare.

Cheers for reading and, as always, feel free to comment!

AoW

Next up: Revenant Cavalry and my experience using Vallejo water products.

Where hope and daylight die

In holy books of the priests of the City of the Golden Horn it is said that those who die a righteous death, without guilt or remorse to stain their souls, pass out of the circles of Creation and ascend to a brilliance no strength of magic can mar.

Yet no word is uttered in those books of what may befall those, whose hearts are heavy with their own darkness or filled with torment. However, in the forbidden tomes held in sealed vaults under the very cathedrals of that holiest of cities it is said that with powerful incantations the dead that rest not can be called back.

In those unholy volumes, often writ on flayed skins of mortals with distilled blood of demon-kind, the words and runes required for such unholy magics is worked out in abhorrent detail. Where most evils lessen and become laughable when explained and examined thoroughly, such is not the case with these ruinous magics. Word by word, detail by detail, the knowledge of them grows more horrifying as it deepens. To read these words is to mar one's very soul, for the shadows of death trapped in fell ink cling to the mind of the reader, never to be washed away unless it be by the might of the Green Lady herself. But such a cleansing she has yet to attempt, and thus the healing power of the world is but a rumor and a futile dream for those whose eyes have fallen on these pages.

It is rare that one of these volumes should be found in the wider world, for the Paladins of Basilea have long sought after them and brought many back, to be held under lock, key and thrice blessed chains.

How it came to pass that one of their number was found missing, the unbreakable chains holding the tomes cut, and a wayward disciple gone missing, none can say. But come to pass it did and even as, a long count of years later,  Tomlin galloped out of the ruined castle to face the blizzard rather than the turmoil that was called to rise again, the Word of Summoning was uttered in the small chapel in the middle of the ruins. Forth came not skeletons, nor zombies. Instead, the first to pass the stony gates of Death that groaned open, were pale, fluttering shades who wore no human face to cover their death.

It is said that the petty are the easiest to call back and bind into their decayed bodies, and the cowards only a little harder. The sapped souls of warriors who failed in their quests to better the world or already in life sought to spread ruin are also within reach of many a Necromancer, as are the fallen knights whose proud banners have been blasted to grey tatters in the merciless wind of the land of the dead.

The most difficult spirits to call, even as they are the most difficult to banish are the Wraiths; souls that have been held in the timeless dark so long that they have lost the last vestiges of the shapes they wore in life and have taken on hideous, emaciated forms of creatures that have ever dwelt in that lightless land. These it was that came streaming from the gates of death

--

Greetings, KoWsters!

I finally managed to paint some more Undead and managed to add some Wraiths to my growing force. Originally I didn't much care for Mantic's wraiths, as the models looked a little, well, corny. After fiddling with the models a bit, I realized that I didn't have a problem with the models themselves, just the way most people paint and base them.

Looking at the unit's stats (bear in mind that I have yet to play a single game with Undead), the unit seems like a veeeery interesting one, albeit somewhat expensive. Excellent for pulling off some crazy charges with their Fly and Speed 10, rock hard with their De 6+ and okay in melee, they seem like a solid choice. I look forward to testing out some Surge shenanigans on the field!

The problem I had with the models, as they were, was that they didn't look like they were flying. Not afraid of some knife-work, I decided to cut the models from their round basing discs with a pair of pliers and then clean up the rest with a hobby knife. It was less of a bother than cutting restic bases of the Basilean horses, but one should make sure that when cutting restic, one's hobby knife should be sharp, and I mean really sharp. That material is tough!

I decided to go for a mass grave for the base, the idea being that the Wraiths are hovering/soaring above the base. I wanted to make sure they look like they fly. I used some home-made thigh bones and bits from the Revenant sprues to make a grave filled with all sorts of ghastly stuff, after making a trench out of wood filler. I tried to go for an exhumed look, but that didn't work out as well as I hoped. I should have made the slopes more dramatic. The pic also reminds that I really need to clean my paint station...

--

As the Wraiths pass the door, they were followed by a near-formless shade whose form radiated loss and sorrow and tragedy. A shield he bore, with a pale sigil on it, and a suit of ancient armor, once noble but now ruined by timeless aeons of death. In his hand was a great blade, or the memory of a mighty sword given shape in the shadows. It gleamed with unholy deadliness and it whispered its name readily to all those who, at their life's peril, would listen: Remorse.

As the being that Tomlin had called his Master mouthed his incantations, the King Arisen crossed the threshold, being called back from death into an unlife that was worse than the dry land where he had waited. He cared not for the mumblings of the Necromancer whose words had but shown him the door, the fool held no power over him. Still, the King came forth once more to do battle. From death to life, to lose what hope of salvation remained, for in the cold realm of death, hope becomes the enemy.

Frankly, I don't much care whether he's an optimal choice or not, the Revenant King is just so frickin' cool as a character. Medium combat, medium Surge and a very high Nerve. What's not to like? I did a bit of conversion and a bit of kit-bashing to get the model to look the way I wanted him to look. While with my Wights (more of them here) I wanted to go for a look of active deadliness, but for this guy I wanted to go for a more relaxed look; blade down, hunched and definitely not in a hurry. Like he's so far beyond caring, so sure of the endlessness of his death that, while he fights with some skill, he does so with no passion. 

For his base I went for a rocky outcropping thrusting out through snow, while ghostly undead are rising from under their icy graves at his coming. I found this necessary both because the model I used (just a slightly converted Revenant Cavalry) was relatively plain and because the paint scheme I'm using isn't flashy at all. There needs to be something happening on the base to make up for lack of complexity elsewhere.

--

The spell ran out suddenly and the shape of the Master fell to the cold floor of the chapel.

The doors of grey stone leading down to the crypts under the keep, sealed all these many years, now stood open and the great marble slabs over the mighty warriors buried under the floor of the chapel had been ground to blowing dust, as if countless years had passed and worn them away. Now the graves underneath gaped open, like great toothless maws leading down to a darkness not of the world of the living.

He had called them back, the fallen warriors, the kings and the knights. Their unearned rest had now come to an end and whatever misfortunes would now be visited upon the living was their punishment. Had they stood and died, had they not faltered in their watch, then the spell could never have reached them, for into that brilliance no avenger could reach.

But they had faltered, they had cowered behind their high walls while the nightmares came and so they had fallen. Like barbed hooks, the spell had caught them in the deeps of death and pulled them back.

Some time later the Master rose from the floor, only to find his form beneath him, still laying on the stones. He had called them back, but had paid for it with the warmth of his life.

This guy, my necromancer, is another kit bash, this time from Wraiths and Revenants. I wanted to go for a totally ghostly look and the faceless hood from the Revenant sprue fit the bill spot on. The undead have a tragedy to them and so I wanted to go for a model more sad than sinister for this guy.

Next up, some tournament stuff if I manage to write a battle report!

Cheers,

AoW

Multibasing a unit: Of Wolves, who were men

The blizzard showed no sign of slackening as Tomlin spurred his steed up the slope to the crest of the hill. The weather had been a constant curse on him ever since he had abandoned his former master at the ruined castle and the ghostly visions tormented his dreams to such an extent that Tomlin had given up sleeping as much as he was able. His decision was aided by the howls of a pack of wolves that had seemed to take to following him after he stopped to fill his bags from one of their kills; a half-eaten wild boar the size of a small bear. The marks on the carcass gave Tomlin every reason to believe this was a pack he did not wish to see any closer.

Three days he had now traveled, South and West, towards the warmer lands and away from that cursed ruin of a keep, and now before him loomed the Halpi Mountains and more importantly, in the Southern wall of the valley that lay below Tomlin,  was Bazur'Ubam, the Pass Under Stone, an old dwarven tunnel under the first row of jagged peaks. It was many years abandoned, but Tomlin knew the hardiness of Dwarven stonework. Besides, he had passed through it without incident with a caravan some years prior to his current calamity.

Somewhere behind him, thin against the wind at first but growing came the howling of wolves.

Tomlin spat and cursed and then he kicked his horse and went down the slope. Just a little more, and he would be in warmer and safer climes, even if said climes were not exactly warm and safe in any absolute terms.

--

Greetings!

In this post I will go through the process off making a multibased unit, namely a regiment of Werewolves for my upcoming Undead army.

For me the process of making a new unit always starts with searching for a feel of the unit I am building. As I'm big for fluff and stories, I always try to answer questions like who are these warriors? Why do they fight? What do the rumors say about them?

Those are key elements in making a cool army, because units with stories behind them tend to gather more reputation than units without them. I mean, it is pretty cool to have that one unit your opponent absolutely hates because they've done some pretty amazing things.

With my Werewolves I wanted to go for a properly feral feel, a pack on the hunt. I may have over indulged on Metallica's Of Wolf and Man...

The models are Mantic's Werewolves with no additions. The material of the miniatures is restic, which, while difficult to clean up prior to painting, is excellent for posing by heat bending.

I wanted my wolves to look like they're speeding through craggy, snowy terrain. I wanted to give them a thoroughly feral feel and I went for it by posing them so that they're hunched over and using their powerful arms as they run.

I began the process by seeing how the models go together, what kind of modifications can be easily achieved and how many points of contact the models need on a base. Those are key points when you are going for a more complicated unit.

These models are built so that, originally, only their feet touch the base, but I quickly saw that their hands were well suited for additional contact and I decided to capitalize on that to get that canine running pose.

When making rocky terrain like cliffs, thick cork is your best friend. Why thick? Because even though one can add multiple layers of cork, as I've done with this base, thin layers will have many flat-on-flat surfaces. Those will stick out even after painting, and even if layered rock formations are a very common phenomenon in real world, thin cork does not yield itself well for that slate look. For that you should use pine bark.

When gluing cork into a rock formation, I'd suggest not applying glue to the edges of layers. While it would make it initially more stable, it would also make it more difficult to pry off bits of cork to hide the seams. I reach the same stability and durability through a layer of thinned down PVA glue applied over the whole formation once it's in sculpted to my satisfaction.

I wanted to increase the bestial look of my Werewolves by giving them a base that certainly does not look like the kind of terrain any normal troops would prefer to move through. I also wanted to get that leader of the pack up there on that miniature Pride Rock, showing those pesky kitties who it is that rules the Night's Hunt.

Heat bending can be done repeatedly and that is exactly what I did to achieve the level of interaction between a model and the base that I wanted. Superglue withstands hot water well, so you don't have to worry about dunking the model in even after putting it together. Here I repositioned the model's feet and fingers so that they lay against the surface of they touch. I attempted to make it look like the Werewolf is dragging itself forward as much with its hands as it with its feet.

As the next step, I worked more on the base. I dislike painting models and making them wait, as that increases the chances of them taking hits and chipping while in storage. I decided to widen the gap between the rock formations on the left to form a narrow, frozen-over creek that the Wolf is skipping over. Then I glued sand on the surfaces that I wanted to give a gravelly look. I use fine grain construction sand, the same stuff they put into concrete, because it has small enough grains to look pretty natural with miniatures.

Then I used wood filler paste to form snow drifts (more on that here) and undercoated the rest of the base black. I really think everything should be painted, natural materials stick out in a weird manner, like a photograph in a cartoon.

The rock got a three-layer drybrush from dark grey to white while the sand got first a flat muddy brown and later a wash. The snow drifts were painted light blue that I later painted mostly white again. I'm starting to change my opinion on the light blue color under the snow flock. While it does give a cooler shade to the white, it's a bit too obvious sometimes.

I like stripy rock and the way to make it happen the way I want it is with a much lighter color than the base and one directional strokes so that the brush touches the surface only when it's passing, not when it's brought back. That gives the systematic decrease in the how strong the effect at the start of the brush stroke compared to where it ends. Painters who actually know what they're doing can probably give you better advice on making rock look cool.

Then it's time to add snow and icicles. On this base I used bits of sprue that I heated over a candle flame and stretched and later painted, but I wasn't entirely happy with the result and so I'll be working with clear plastic in the future. This is, however, a readily available alternative as well.

Creating deep snow that interacts with the models will require multiple layers of flock. I added the first layer with PVA to give the underlying wood filler more resistance to impacts as it is fairly brittle once dry and PVA gives it more strength in that regard.

I painted my wolves to have a mixture of brown skin and grey fur, with a lighter skin on the abdomen. This was because I felt like the models themselves are relatively low-key in terms of what goes on in them, and thus they benefit from a bit of shift in color here and there.

Once I had each Werewolf glued down initially, I went through the points of contact with the base and added more snow flock with superglue. One should be careful with that, as extra flock sticking on the models doesn't look like snow clinging to the them, as the grain size is a bit off. However, that way I could make the fingers on the wolfie look like they're pressed into the snow bank on top of the rock.
--

Tomlin ran.

The tunnel was rising, which was a good sign, but the roars of the cave troll behind him were not.

The damned thing had taken the head off his horse before he had even realized that what had seemed a particularly reeking part of the passage under the mountain was particularly foul for a reason. The broken left stirrup on Tomlin's saddle had proven his savior, as he managed to pull himself atop of the headless beast before its limp form could pin him down.

There was a cold gleam of moonlight on snow ahead, the only sign of the tunnel coming to an end. If the full moon wouldn't be enough to persuade the troll to give up chasing him, at least Tomlin would have some light to see how he'd meet his end.

Then he felt cold night air fill his lungs, burning in his throat as he sprung out of the tunnel, coming into the valley beyond between two scored and battered statues of dwarves, many times their normal height. Behind him the troll roared and came on, its massive feet pounding the frozen earth as it came. So much for the help of moonlight.

The road was, luckily enough, blown clear of snow by the strong winds, but Tomlin could only run so far. Feeling the burn in his thighs and calves grow into a raging inferno, he knew he could not keep ahead of the troll much longer. Cursing under his ragged breath, Tomlin drew his blade and swerved to face the cave troll.

The beast was at least twelve feet tall, a misshapen mass of muscle and claws, taken by surprise by Tomlin's sudden move. It brought a clawed hand down on where Tomlin had been, swiping wide, while the man dived under the beast's stroke and struck out with his blade. Cold steel bit, piercing the beast's grey hide in a long gash across a meaty thigh.

The troll roared, turned and swung again as Tomlin sprang aside, dodging the fist and then dashed in, grabbing the dull part near the middle of his blade with one hand while adjusting his grip on the hilt and drove it upwards, under the beast's ribs with all his strength. Deep he struck, stopping only when his hand on the blade of his sword slammed into the beast's filthy hide.

The black spray of blood smoked as it streamed out of the wound, half a bucket at least, when Tomlin pulled his blade free, springing past the cave troll once again. The troll roared and clamped its massive hand over the gushing wound. No blow chased Tomlin as he danced away from the troll, breathing hard.

Tomlin and the troll stared at each other, some ten yards apart basked in bright moonlight. A slow grin bloomed on Tomlin's face as he watched the blood gushing down the trolls flank.

"That's right you you ugly horse-killing piece of shit. Bleed!"

He stared for a long moment, before realizing that the troll was bleeding less and less, but not because of loss of blood. Slowly, the creature drew itself up and rolled its shoulders, shaking off the pain of the now-staunched wound. Tomlin could see the gash on its thigh knit itself together before his very eyes.

He sighed in resignation and hefted his blade, dropping into a fighter's stance.

"Come on, then!", Tomlin shouted, his voice echoing from the cliffs, "You fucking rot-breath, come on!"

The troll roared and came.

Then came a deep snarl and a grey shadow passed Tomlin, so close that he could feel the heat coming off the massive form of the leaping creature. It bounded high into air and slammed into the cave troll, almost toppling it, snapping jaws sinking into the troll's forearm as it tried to push the creature off itself. A piercing howl rose and two more beasts came dashing out of the shadows, masses of ebony muscle topped with thick hackles of white fur. The troll pushed the grey one off with a blow from a massive fist and scampered on its feet just as the two others came upon it.

Tomlin stared, slack-jawed, as he watched the pack of werewolves circled their prey. Closer and closer,  eyes burning with the joy of the hunt. He was still staring when they felled the troll, rending jaws ripping out tendons and finally canines like daggers closing on its throat. Wet sounds of carnivores feasting on fresh flesh filled the air.

He came to when he found the grey one, more massive than the rest of his pack, staring him, its grey face covered in the troll's black blood. The werewolf turned back its pointed ears, a sign of aggression, and growled.

"Our kill. Run, thief, run, and live to see another day."

Tomlin obliged.

Thanks for reading!

Next up, first few characters.

Cheers,

AoW