Starport Scum

Been looking forward to reading this for some while now, another stonking game from Ivan Sorensen and Mathew Sparkes.

KOW: Longhorns

So these are the Longhorn units I have. These are the elite of the beastmen type troops or regiments in this case. They hit on a 3+, have both crushing and thunderous charge (1), however they only get 12 attacks which can let them down. 

They really need to be working alongside another bigger hitting unit to make any impact.

My Longhorns are all converted from 90's GW Beastmen, some with added orc arms,but mostly just the originals cut and repositioned. If I remember correctly the tails are made from goblin bows. I added some shoulder pads from GS to make them a bit more bulky. There are a few metal models in there for good measure too.

I modeled the minotaur/guardian from card and GS.

The last 2 models were culled from my left over box and glued onto the base.

Last two pictures show the units with a lick of paint over the hardboard base.

Longhorns the herd elite, can take some getting the best from.

KOW: Herd V Elves 2000

This was a 2000 point game down at WWarriors between myself and Dutch, who had never played KOW before, although he was a veteran Warhammer Fantasy player.

I am not going to go into every minute detail here because it was a first time game for Dutch. Here his Stormwind cav rout the Harpies.

Here I placed the Great Totem very poorly, my excuse is I've never used one before. Forgot it was an engine so his Lord had trebble attacks and routed it immediately. Will have to think more carefully about how I place it next time.

Herd surge forwad through the trees.

The Longmanes plough into the Stormwind cav and rout them next turn.

Very cleverly Dutch looked for and found some interesting angles, managing to shoot at my rear units whittling them down. The bolt throwers were very effective.

This left the troops of Hunters alive and in the way.

End of the stormwind cav which I hoped would allow me to eventually get a flank, not to be sadly.

The dragon kindred lord did some breathing and also some side charges which I really should have held my Harpies in reserve to confound. 

Will the Longmanes get a flank?

I was feeling outgunned and outnumbered in the centre.

Love this shot, Dutch's elves although in development look smashing

Hunters get a flank, but can they hit a barn door?

The herd held in place very nicely by elven units and flanked by the Lord.

The Longmanes hit the bolt thrower, should be able to rout them, 48 attacks!!

Phew... yes they can.

But the Hunters are routed and one unit of spirit walkers are about to be charged by the Palace Guard, not good.

The kindred Dragon lordmoves into the rear of the Herd lines, is that a death knell I can hear?

The Palace Guard end the Longmanes trog down the left flank.

A Hunter troop despatch the other bolt thrower. Perhaps I should have done this earlier.

At the very last my 4 shaman and Lord all charged the Dragon Lord and bounced to a man/beast.

Epilogue

Firstly my main objective of introducing Dutch to the game was a thorough success, he loved it.

For me that was what the game was all about, we had ashaming game, very enjoyable.

I learnt some things about my new Herd army:

That all beastmen armies will take some hard thinking about and tactics developing in order to win.

Many of my units are wrongly based.

I may have too many characters. And that I should have had them right at the front at the start of the game, also that I should have marched them first turn to keep them near the troops they were supposed to support.

That I should have held the harpies back or used them to attack the bolt throwers much earlier.

The great totem was badly placed and a complete waste of time, will have to place where? Well away from flyers, not too close to the enemy lines but close enough to be actually useful.

Well done to Dutch a thoroughly well deserved win :-)

KOW: Spirit Walkers

So these are the Spirit Walkers for the Herd army. The first thing I realised when I came to looking at them afresh was that I had mounted them 20 to a base on 25 mm bases which gave them a larger than necessary footprint. They should be on 100 mm by 80 mm, I had them on 125 mm by 100 mm: which, on the new bases, does make them more manouverable and a tad smaller so they can support other units better.

Also because I needed less models on the base, now only 12, I get another unit out of the models I had left over, so now I have 3 units of Spirit Walkers looking like this.

Spirit Walkers are what you call a "glass cannon", they move 6", charge 12" and have 20 attacks as a regiment, hitting on 4+. Sounds good so far, however they have a Def of 3+, which makes them very vulnerable both to shooting and to counter charges. At the regiment level they have  a nerve of -/16 which means they can't be wavered and have a fairly high rout level compared to most infantry units.

Haven't explored the idea of having a horde of SWalkers, maybe something I do in the future.

Really you want to know that they will win the combat before it starts. So how do you achieve that? Well, never charge them into a combat alone against anything larger than a troop, and even then be wary, Secondly charge them in combo with another unit, preferably harder, Longhorns might just do it, or best, combo charge with a flank or rear attack.

I'm sure many people take SWalkers just to unlock other troop choices but at the moment I am trying to do without the big hitters, Lycans and Guardians.

I tried giving them magic items to give them an edge, like +1 to hit or crushing st 1. Hitting your enemy on 3+ with 20 dice could be nasty, but in the game I will post soon it didn't overly help.

So here are my 3 new units of Spirit Walkers, will look forward to using them in a couple of weeks.

Next Longhorns. 

KOW: Anatomy of a Herd Army

This is the army I used at the club on Monday night. I was using it to play someone who had never played before and was trying to get a lot of beast men into the army. As opposed to Minotaurs, Lycans and nasty nasty Stampedes! 

Herd 2000 Points

2 Troops Harpies

2 Regiments Spirit Walkers: Brew of Sharpnes, Brew of Strength

2 Regiments Longhorns

Regiment Centaur Longmanes:Wine of Elvenkind

4 Troops Hunters with Bows

Great Totem

Great Chieftain with Bow: Blessing of Gods

4 Shaman: Heal (5)

Will be posting more about the army and how it changes in the next few weeks along with reports on some of its games.

Frostgrave:Into the Breeding Pits

I have just pre-ordered this on Amazon, look forward to a good read later this month.

I'm hoping that this supplement will help me to both use all my 3D dungeon rooms and corridors in games of Frostgrave but also help me to create a Frostgrave/Quest Hybrid, for Serefina and myself to play. More of that later in the year when I'm not fixing houses though.

Terrain Board: Layout

Been messing about with the new board I made last week and some of the terrain I have made for Frostgrave or Mordheim. At the moment Mordheim has really caught on with players at the WWarriors club, there must be around 6 or 7 players at the moment, which is great to see.

Alternate layout.

I intend playing Frostgrave with Ian in a couple of weeks time, presently I'm trying to keep KOW up and running so I'll be playing that tomorrow.