It's been over seven months since I last updated this blog, and to be honest I've spent hardly any time on the hobby I so enthusiastically re-embraced last year. The first part of this year has been spent on a martial arts binge. I love martial arts, and this year I've been doing boxing and aikido simultaneously. This has left little time for miniatures, which is not a bad thing. Breaks are good. I passed my last aikido grading on 15 July, and on the very next day I was back playing miniature games. I've also quit boxing after two years. I'm too old to fight in amateur bouts, and even if I were I lack the discipline required to make weight, not to mention the skill or the prerequisite toughness. I've been sparring at half to three quarter intensity, but that's not the same as full contact competition where someone is really trying to take your head off. The upside is that I have more time for minis!
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| My proposed 1000 point Kings of War army. |
On to updates. The Fantasy skirmish league proposed by Erik at PubCon has died an ignominious death. Steve and I played one game and that was that. I've decided not to spend any more time trying to ingratiate myself with the Bolt Action crew. They're a nice enough bunch, but I'm not a big enough fan of the game to put in the time and money to enter the club, so to speak. If I have to stop playing with miniatures for lack of players, then so be it. I've made contact with a very small circle of four players who play Warhammer. I've already played one game with a Russian-Finnish chap named Rodian, and had a pleasant game with his High Elves in Koganei on 16 July. We used The Ninth Age (T9A) rules, a rule set made by a couple of Swedish chaps to fill the hole left when Games Workshop destroyed Warhammer 8th edition. We ended up drawing, thanks to a lucky shot by my cannon which killed Rodian's dragon.
I've been thinking that it would not necessarily be a bad thing if a fire consumed my apartment and destroyed all my miniatures. It would put a definitive end to the hobby. But barring such a catastrophic event, I'm still committed to putting the O&G on the table for at least one game before the year is out. My plan is to take the army to Nerima on 2 September, and my painting goals have been aligned with this in mind. I don't expect to be able to field a fully painted force. But at the very least it will have green bases, and three colors per miniature, just enough to make it legal under Australian tournament rules. I'm assembling the army under Kings of War (KoW) rules, because hopefully I'll be able to organize a game with Omata-San or Takatori-San on the day.
For this army I'm using two Horde units as the base of the army, augmented by a battle standard bearer (a.k.a. Flagger) and a musician (a.k.a. War Drum). The Horde units have a high Nerve score which is further increased by the War Drum, and the Flagger will allow them to re-roll failed Nerve tests, further increasing their durability. The weakness of this army is that it lacks artillery or strong ranged options. I plan on just marching forward until I make contact with the enemy, and see what happens. This is my first version of an all foot army, and it will be interesting to see how it fares on the battle top. It is a hodgepodge army comprised of very old plastic models from the 4th, 5th, and 6th editions of Warhammer, as well as Warhammer Quest. The older models look like crap compared to the more modern sculpts, but thankfully they get lost in the horde and don't stand out unless closely scrutinized. There are also some old metal models in the mix, dating back to the 1990s, and there are even some models from the original Milton Bradley HeroQuest game, the game that started it all for me. The War Drum and the Flagger are ogre models from the HeroQuest expansion "Against the Ogre Horde". Sadly I threw away most of the other models thanks to a lack of foresight and an inability to appreciate the conversion opportunities afforded to me by Mantic's rule set. As it stands, though, the army is a time capsule of sorts dating back to my childhood.
For my army general I've chosen a shaman (a.k.a. Godspeaker) because he gets a boost to his spellpower when lurking near the Horde units (of which I will have two). Sadly his ranged attack is limited to 12', but to increase his utility I've also purchased the Heal spell for him, which will allow him to heal nearby units when he can't zap anyone useful. This will also mark the first occasion that I've fielded a character in my KoW armies (with the exception of Tomb Kings/Empire of Dust, which need characters to function properly). My Empire/League of Rhordia and Dark Elves/Twilight Kin functioned fine without any characters in 1000 point games. I haven't really used magic at all in KoW, so that will also be a first.
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| Second iteration of my 1000 point army. The Boar Boyz have been removed and Trolls added. I bought four more Boar Boyz from Ebay, but didn't end up using them. I also added a Flagger, otherwise known as a Battle Standard Bearer under Warhammer rules. |
Thematically, my Godspeaker/Shaman shares a similar history to GW's Wurrzag. Kicked out of his tribe by a jealous older shaman and left to die, the young orc manifested his powers and learned to survive in the wild. He amassed a coterie of monstrous followers - Grogg (the Flagger) and Trogg (the War Drummer), along with a few trolls and the odd minotaur or two. He returned to the tribe, killed and ate the shaman who kicked him out, and became leader of his clan. Now he's making his mark, leading his clan to bigger and better things, using his connection to the Greater Green to keep his rowdy boyz in line and lead them on a great WAAAAAAAGGGHHHH of his own.
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