Hobby Update: Smashy Skeleton Warriors

Up now are some Skeleton Warriors with two-handers, to bolster the ranks of the Undead!

My test unit.

The models are from the Oathmark line of miniatures. The idea caught my attention over the summer, and I picked up two boxes to idly hobby on, and started doing so. Overall, the box looks like a great way to start on some skeletons! You get 30 minis, with shields, hand weapons, spears, and even bows! Unlike a lot of the boxes / sprues I’ve worked with recently, you can build up the full unit with any of the available options. Huzzah!

A horde's worth.

You might have noticed that two-handed, hefty weapons is not one of the options from the sprue! I needed to do some conversion work. The spears would be good places to start. I didn’t want to use the shields at all (since the rules describe it as a weapon-swap), so ended up trimming (or trying to trim) the skeleton’s shield hands. This was difficult as the shield’s grip was sculpted into the hands themselves. I then mixed up and rolled out a thin layer of green stuff, cut that into strips, and wrapped those around the hands and spear shafts. In my mind, the wraps would be a way for aspiring necromancers to make sure the skeletons didn’t drop their weapons on big swings. It also helped hide the poor trimming job I did! Arms were then arranged and cemented together in a variety of poses.

I still have a lot of bits from my Warhammer Fantasy days, and so raided some Chaos Warrior hammers for my first test regiment. A clip near the hammer’s head and a clip along the spear shaft worked pretty well, and I only ended up with a few doofy angles. The test unit worked and looked well enough that I started in on the next horde.

One of the regiments.

For that next unit, I then clipped off a lot of Chaos Marauder flail heads to make some long maces for the smashing. That join was a little harder, so I tried filing down the round mace head and then using a hand drill to create a bit of a divot for the spear shaft to adhere to. That worked alright, but was pretty time intensive. About this time, I attended Dragonfall and got a third box of Skeletons as one of the prizes. I have about another horde’s worth assembled already, but before I got too crazy and committed all 90 of the Skeletons to this project, I resolved to finish these units up fully and try them out on the table. So here we are with the hobby update. 

The other regiment.

So, why in the world am I building so many smashy skeletons? Trevor over at Data and Dice is a frequent opponent of mine, and we have both come to respect the lowly Penitents of his Brothermark army. At just 75 points per regiment, they unlock, and with their innate CS, they can occasionally spike some dice and deal good damage. If they don’t spike, it’s still a lot of drops to play around with, extra Unit Strength for scenarios, and lots and lots of Nerve for an opponent to hew through.

For just 10 points more, my Skeletons get a bump to Nerve, gain Fearless and Lifeleech 1. Since the Penitents main drawback is unfortunate wavering and then gumming things up for your own line, this seems like a worthwhile price to pay for some more resiliency!

I’ve said a few times that I want to try some Undead MMU, and these guys will be integral to that approach. I've had a few misses over the last month for games, but we'll try to get these on the table to get some testing in soon!

Hobby: All the Things, Part 2

I have been very mercurial in my hobbying the last few months, letting my ambitions run wild and doing a little of everything. Unfortunately, that's led to things spiraling out of control. It's been a few years, but I once again have just a ridiculous amount of things in process, and needed to spend a few days cleaning and organizing and packing and planning instead of getting much actual hobbying in, since my little home office space had no desk space, no shelf space and over a dozen bits boxes and project boxes scattered around the floor. Hopefully the cleaning efforts and this post helps me prioritize a bit, and some of these units will be done soon!

Kingdoms of Men Chariots

I had actually gotten through most of a WIP post last week for them. These are actually pretty far along. I need two more drivers with spears, and then prior to officially calling them done, I wanted to sit down and figure out how I could arrange the 6ish bowmen across the models to make things modular, in order to run stuff with and without bows for testing... and in trying to do so, I came to the realization that all that is a lot of work and I just don't care to do it.

WIP Chariots, very nearly there.

The bow upgrade has a minimal points investment, and their output on the table is correspondingly meager. I'll spread the bow models around the units and call it good enough. In terms of wysiwyg, hobbying too many bows and occasionally not taking the upgrade seems better than not hobbying them and then saying "ah, yes, surprise, but this unit also has a shooting attack." Rules change (I believe they originally had bows by default) and I don't really care if that situation happens to me, especially on a unit like this with such little output, but I am trying to be respectful to my opponents since I am running so many lists and different units and being wysiwyg helps. 

Thankfully, I got the last two drivers I absolutely needed primed recently. Since these were WIP but already seeing play on the table, everything was secured with PVA glue, which is still holding. I'll hopefully get the last two drivers painted up soon and these finished off!

Undead Ghouls

I knew I wanted to make a bigger pivot towards the Undead, and have been trying to bulk out the army's less-flashy options the last few months, with stuff like the multi-system Undead and such. I had some spare "muddy" bases from a wrong turn in that project, and wanted to try out mass Ghouls, so picked up some bundles on ebay.

A bunch of Ghouls to reinforce my two completed troops.

The models were previously assembled, and with 30+ minis attached to bases, this endeavor has been a little daunting, as I keep discovering bad clips and mold lines that I've missed on previous passes, which really messes with the quicker paint job that I was trying to give these. You really need to clean  the mold lines of your minis if you want to lean on washes or contrast / speed paints. I've chipped away at these, but these still need a lot of work.

Undead Smashy Skeletons

As part of the Undead pivot, I picked up some boxes of Oathmark Skeleton Warriors back in the early summer, and then won another box from Dragonfall, for a crazy 90 skeleton minis total. The intent was to hobby up some Skeletons with two-handers, for reasons that I'll get into on their Hobby Update post.

Oathmark Skeletons, plus bits.

I have a few units ready, but the conversions and weapon swaps are taking a lot time, and it'll be a lot of effort to get the others ready for the table. Thankfully, I finished up all the grip conversions work last week, so it's just weapon swaps on the remaining units, plus priming and painting. I think I'll need to split these into a first and second batch though, just in case the weather turns and really gets the better of me. Being better organized now though, we should have the first batch ready very soon.

Forces of the Abyss Nagarri & Abyssal Berserkers

Going into November here, I picked up two boxes of the new Abyssal Ambush kit, and I think this is what officially broke me with regards to hobbying. Very little of the Abyssal refresh really excited me, but I did want to try the new, shiny units.

Very chonky Nagarri with a lot of dumb-looking glaives.

I decided to build up two regiments of Nagarri and at least one horde of the Berserkers (who look to have a keyword / naming issue... sheesh), and so I started snipping and assembling about half the minis, but then just got overwhelmed. I don’t really like the weapon options on either kit, and felt like I should be doing some conversion work, which was going to take space and effort and planning. 

Great minis, abysmal weapons.

Running something brand new and sharing it in a battle report really appealed to me, and the new formation looks fun, but both parts of the kit is just too much work to tackle without wrapping other things up first.

Forces of the Abyss Lower Abyssals and Abyssal Ghouls

I hobbied up a neat Abyssal Ghoul regiment over the summer, and had plans to do up a second regiment. I had a lot of Ghoul torsos, but not legs, so the plan was to sit down and try a lot of green stuff and armature sculpting over the winter. I’m not quite sure about that plan now. 

Ghouls, per the label. I need like, 8 sets of legs (plus heads)

The new Abyssal refresh combined the Ghouls and Lower Abyssals, removing the former unit entirely and dropping the latter to Melee 5+. I had come to appreciate my two-handers, so am a little gutted. The shielded, more tar-pitty version of the unit might be the better pick on the table now, since it’s just around to hold ground, but it’s a lot of minis to work on at once.

24ish loose Lower Abyssals.

I had actually started on the shielded unit over the summer, and the got a good pink base coat, but motivation left me the closer we got to the refresh, as I had other things I wanted to hobby up and run sooner. I’ve got a good start on these, but they are looking like a winter project now. 

Varangur Draugr

I haven't played the Varangur much this year. It's a neat army, but other things kept taking priority. I scrapped all my old lists, and got in a pair of games recently, but was struggling with what to run with them next, as the army is just so darn elite.

New sprues to recreate the previous kit bashes.

I have three regiments of Draugr, hobbied up back in January 2023. The regiments are great units, but I decided I need at least one more regiment, so that I could get two cheap hordes for the numerous unlocks, which should hopefully let me run some more-interesting and less-elite builds to help me find  my footing with the army again. 

Along with the Abyssal Ambush boxes, I think this new project broke me as I really want to do it, but just don't have the capacity for all the conversion work needed without finishing up some other stuff first and creating the space to spread out all these bits. 

Herd Flaxhoof & Great Chieftain with Horn of the Great Migration

I ran the Herd a lot this year, and have just a few more “weird” lists to explore and triple down on an idea before I put them into a more normal rotation. A few of those weird lists are Centaur-focused, so I wanted to do up a Flaxhoof character for the full experience.

I had concepts of a plan for conversions for both a Flaxhoof mini and a Great Chieftain with the Horn by sawing a Gor body in half, but the conversion bits have been sitting in a little project box for months and months.

The Chieftain might need to wait while I figure out if I want to hobby up wings for him or not (the Herd is not popular, but the older go-to was taking Wings of Honeymaze with the horn to provide a mobile bobble of both Inspiring and Dread), but I think I can get Flaxhoof ready soon. We'll see.

Herd Lycans

The Lycans were, almost to a model, all casualties of metal minis and a flipped storage box over the summer in the Great Stampede of 2024. Most were knocked off of their respective unit bases, and many have broken bits here and there. The unit has great speed, but with just CS1, will struggle to be an effective hammer for the Herd, and so I have struggled to find the motivation to get them rebased.

Still broken. The old Brutox / Beast of Nature is here too.

As long as I needed to redo most of the bases, I want to reorganize the units to be able to run a second regiment. Thankfully, the basing work doesn’t depend on the weather, nothing needs to be primed, and the repair work should all be easy work to do. This seems like a winter project.

…So that’s the gist of all the big things I had spread around my little room. Instead of being spread across shelves and desks, everything now has its own little project box. We'll try to knock a few of these out in the coming weeks, but I should have a good amount of stuff to keep my busy for a while!

Command Orders for Clash of Kings 2025

I’ve been reading through the new Clash of Kings 2025 book. I was put off a bit by the Command Order announcement, and now that I've been able to read through stuff, I am not jazzed about the Command Orders at all. Still, I will say that the implementation of this is probably about the best I think we could have hoped for. It’s admittedly a weird position.

First, I like that there is a list of “Universal” Command Orders. And similar to how armies already all get a Special Rule found elsewhere in the game to help define them (Herd and Pathfinder; Elves and Elite, etc), I also like that the majority of these allegedly army-specific Command Orders are actually spread across multiple armies (Hellfire in both the Forces of the Abyss and Salamanders; Silent Feet in both Goblins and Halfings). I think this is clever game design.

Second, I like that units can only receive an Order once per turn, and that many of the orders have caveats built in, such as Unshakeable Will, which grants Regeneration (5+) for a turn, but cannot be used on units that have Defense 6+, or Precise Thrust which only targets only Cavalry, Infantry or Heavy Infantry. Having these limitations built in already avoids the “Death Star” potential that I think most players were dreading, where an already powerful unit would get these Command buffs and be nearly impossible to deal with. There will be some powerful interactions, sure, but I think many of the obvious things have been dealt with and headed off.

So, all this to say, that I think these are implemented with some foresight, and about as well as they could be. However, nice words behind us now, that brings me back to my original dislike of the addition. The Orders are trying to be flashy, but balanced, but they just come off messy to me.

I’ll save looking at and discussing the particulars of each of my army’s Orders for their next games, where I can give them more thought and a fair shake, but take for example the Kingdoms of Men, who get “Run Them Down” as one of their “unique” Command Orders. “Run Them Down” is incredibly messy. To use it, the unit cannot be disordered. The unit cannot be hindered. The Order cannot target hordes or legions. The Order can only target Large Infantry (40mm), large Cavalry (50mm), Chariots, Swarms, Infantry (20mm) or Heavy Infantry (25mm). Notably, this excludes normal cavalry… It’s a mess of conditionality, and at best, the KoM don’t have access to half of these unit types, never mind if the few we have are run at the requisite sizes to work with the Order. I’ve just started to play around with Chariots for the Kingdoms of Men, but this Order would have no targets in most of my lists, and frequent readers will know that I run some odd stuff. I don’t think it will be worth adjusting a list to just try and make use of a niche order, and underperforming armies getting mediocre Orders are just going to lead to worse game balance. 

Is all this complexity and extra effort worthwhile, just to, for example, at best boost the hit stat of maybe a dozen attacks on one unit for a turn? I don’t think so. A selling point of Kings of War (to me at least) is its simplicity and distinct lack of gimmicks and interference from things outside of the situation on the table: “easy to learn, hard to master,” as the old saying goes. "Hard to learn, harder to master" doesn't sound like a winning approach when pitching a game and trying to grow it.

As with everything, I will give the Orders a try, and attempt to report on things, but on the initial reading, I do not like these Orders, or the direction they take the game.

Kings of War 3rd Edition: #094 Kingdoms of Men vs Basileans in Invade

Intro and Lists

We had a bit of an ad hoc meetup recently, mostly to line up some learner games and make some introductions for a new player. Being an old Eagle Scout, I overprepared, bringing 3 armies and multiple lists, including multiple larger Undead lists... just in case someone was down for something that wasn't a demo game. I am glad I reigned it in wen it came to pack up and left the other two armies I had sketched out lists for back at home!

The newer player ended up borrowing a Basilean army list from out local Mantic Pathfinder, and then tabling said Pathfinder and his poor Abyssals. With an odd number of attendees, I ended up sitting out the first game, but got the second game in against the newcomer, again running the Basileans. The Pathfinder had built lists at 1100 points, I guess to just firmly get us out of an Ambush-level game. The Basilean list was the following:

I don't know the Basilean army very well, but at a glance, this is a nice, straight-forward list, and looks just great for introductory games. It's going to hit pretty hard, and with Iron Resolve on everything, as well as decent defense, it should be able to grind things down as well, all while avoiding some of the trickier / meaner things the army can run like Elohi hordes, which would be pretty oppressive at this points level.

My opponent didn't have a preference on what he played against. The Undead were still out in the car in a separate bin, and can be a bit tricky to grok, so I unpacked the Kingdoms of Men, figuring they would be the most easy to play against. Up to loosely test is:

• Foot Guard Lifeleech. Between the ASB and the Item, I effectively have Lifeleech 2, which is hopefully significant enough that I will actually remember it. With Clash 2025, my ASBs now grant LL2, so we'll see sneak a peak at what that feels like.
• Knights with Mead. Originally I had Crossbowmen, but felt like all that shooting might be too oppressive to a new player, even it it's all 5+ to hit. We'll see how my shooting feels without the Crossbowmen, and how the knights do in their stead.
• Chariot Troops. The Regiments did not have good luck, but I wasn't as-keen on them given their wider frontage. For distracting and instigating units, Troops seemed more interesting, so we'll lean into that and try it out. The units are still WIP while I figure out the driver arrangements, but got a little more paint and everything got PVA glued into place, so things should be a little more sturdy, and hopefully the extra paint improves their performance!
• Outlaw formation. I'm coming around on them and think that the formation has promise in some instances. That said, I was too static with them last time, and sitting still is for the Crossbow horde, so the goal this game is to move them more, and see if I can make all this more mobile pressure work.

Table and Terrain

We were back at Oddwillows, our usual haunt.  We were using our typical terrain rules, running the building and bones as Height 9 blocking terrain, the forests as Height 6 Difficult Terrain, stone fences as Height 2 Obstacles, and Hills as Height 3, and the ponds as Height 0. 

I like to play easy scenarios in these learner games, as it provides more avenues to win, and always seems to be more engaging for new players. We went with Invade for this game, and will just need to get more Unit Strength over onto the center line onto the other side of the table. 

It was a learner game, but my opponent had already played a few games so the rules weren't brand new, and he was familiar with trading deployments as well from other games, and had done that in his first game of the day, so that's what we did here as well. 

We were playing on a full board, and the Basileans ended up very spread out. From left-to-right we had Knights, Ogre Palace Guard, Ur-Elohi back a bit, more Knights, and then the Men-at-Arms screening for the Priest.

Deployment. The building and forest are about in the middle of the field.

Left-to-right for the Kingdoms of Men we have a Chariot troop, some angled Knights to play around with the building, more Chariots, the Foot Guard ready to make use of the forest, the entirety of the Outlaw formation, and then a final chariot out on the far right.

Seeing the board, I had an inclination to favor the right. Seeing the Paladin Knights come down on the left as his first drop, I decided that I wanted to avoid them as much as I could. I tried to be cognizant of charge lanes, and deployed all my chariots early. I'm starting off regarding the troops as chaff and instigators, so I wanted to lean into that. I wasn't thrilled with the Outlaws all being together, but I don't have a ton of things for them to chaff for, and moving and shooting through the woods ahead of the Foot Guard didn't seem like a great idea.

In a demo game I'd usually give the honors to my opponent, but since he had a few games under his belt and those were "real" games, we rolled here as well. I won the roll for turn order, and was mean and took the initiative for my band of humans. 

Top of Round 1: Kingdoms of Men

I want to try and leverage my shooting. On the left, the Chariots move up to get shots, but won't land anything into the Ogres. The angled Knights hold back, prioritizing another unit of Chariots hopping up, though then the distances are rough and I can't focus-fire into the Ogres. These instead shoot into the Knights, rolling well and getting in 1 damage through the armor... which gets Iron-Resolved down to 0.

Moving up! Cautiously.

The Foot Guard are able to get the leader point into the woods, which was great, but completely unplanned by me. The entirety of Outlaw formation hops up 5" and looses into the into the Men-at-Arms, landing 5 damage, which gets Iron-Resolved down to 4. My notes say nothing about hot dice. While it is true that I have Steady Aim, after working through the report, I'm positive that I donked the Outlaw's special rules up in the opposite direction this time. Volley Fire is conditional, and should not be in effect since I am moving.

Out on the far right, the last Chariot Troop is against infantry, so it moves 9" up with a pivot, to start threatening it. They can see some of the unit around the hill, but not a majority of the facing, and with cover penalties, they will shoot and miss as well. 

Bottom of Round 1: Basileans

The Men-at-Arms move to try and conceal themselves from the Chariot, and I will concur that the hill is effectively blocking my line of sight to them. Unable to see then, these Chariots will need to move next turn.

The isolated Basileans hunker down in the corner.

The Priest heals the Men-at-Arms for 2, bringing them down to 2 damage. The Knights change facing, wary of my central Chariot. I check distances for my opponent, and the Knights are just out of charge range of my Chariots on the far right, which is lucky because I can see a chunk of the unit from around the intervening hill.

Brave Paladin Knights and clever Ogres. The Ur-Elohi will move up in a moment.

The Ogres run up, wanting to use the building to prevent a charge. We go over the charge steps, and explain that I can indeed charge them, I just can't shuffle down as far. My opponent still likes this as he gets out of arc of both the central Chariot and Knights though, so good on him for seeing that.

Capitalizing on that area, the Ur-Elohi will soon run up as well, also nestling into a spot safe from my Knights.

The Paladin Knights on the left bravely run up their full 16 inches getting onto my side of the board.

Top of Round 2: Kingdoms of Men

I can't do anything about the Knights, but it's Round 2, and there is plenty of game yet. 

The positioning of the Ogres so close to the building means that they will need to pivot right away to do anything. Their only potential charge this turn is into the Chariots, so I back the Chariots up to avoid this. The Chariots shoot, but land no damage against the Ogres again.

Pressing in against the Basilean corner.

The central Chariot troop should have a charge into the Knights but it would be hindered. I opt to move them up to block for my knights. These Chariots are faced such that their 100mm wide frontage is just out of the woods, but the 125mm Knight frontage will clip the woods for a hindered charge. The Chariot troop on the right will move up, threatening a charge into the knights as well. These two Chariot troops will shoot into the knights, landing 2 damage which then gets Iron-Resolved down to just 1. 

The Foot Guard move up. They are a charge option for the Knights as well, but are out of range of the Men-at-Arms.

I look to land 3 damage into the Men-at-Arms to bring them to 5 (Iron-Resolved down to 4), but I also look to have moved the formation up a few inches. Three damage is in the realm of possibilities, but again, I should be shooting with cover penalties if I am moving. 

Bottom of Round 2: Basileans

My opponent opts to play the waiting game. Instead of charging, the threatened Paladin Knights will sidestep to get into the woods and force a hindered charge from me. The sidestep also gets the Paladin Knights out out range of my Chariot on the right, which is great for them.

The Basileans hunker down to wait for the Ogres.

The Men-at-Arms are equally cagey, again adjusting their position to use the hill to block out the line of sight from my Chariot on the far right.

The Ur-Elohi doesn't have good landing spots within 10 inches, so she choses to pivot and then fly 20 inches, over the building and towards my deployment zone. She won't have any charges next turn though, which I am happy about.

The brave Paladin Knights continue to swing around.

The Ogres realize they aren't going to catch my left Chariots without a lot of effort, and so they spin around to focus on the real fights. I think this is a great decision on the part of my opponent. 

The brave Knights move 8 inches, getting caught up on terrain. The forest thankfully blocks line of sight, so I still have some time before they join the game.

Top of Round 3: Kingdoms of Men

On the left, I could have gone just 9 inches and pivot to sort-of threaten the rear of the Ogres, but I didn't think that charge would be there next turn with the angles in play. So the Chariots opt to zip 18 inches up. They don't have a charge next turn, but I'm ok with that. This gets them well away from the brave Paladin knights, keeping them out of the game a while longer.

Positioning for the Kingdoms of Men.

The Knights are able to back up to juuuust get out of charge arc of the Ogres, again playing around with the building and punishing them for getting so close originally.

It's a hindered charge, but I send some Chariots into the Knight regiment. I deal 2 to disorder them, and then the Knights Iron Resolve from 3 damage back down to 2 damage.

The Foot Guard change facing to get the Ogres into front arc. The Ogres have a hindered charge, but will end up exposed. The Men-at-Arms are in the flank, but don't have the inches to get in against my horde. Given the angled horde, the Brigand should be in range, but he should be just behind the hill for line of sight.

The Chariot on the right moves up and shoots with a penalty into the Men-at-Arms. The Outlaw formation moves and shoots as well. I think even the skewed unit on the right has a line of sight into the the corner, and if I played this wrong the first few turns, I quite likely continued that trend, so again, apologies to my opponent. The troop of Outlaws on the right should be shooting with cover penalties; but the unit on the left should be fine. I do have a hot dice note as the quartet of bow fire takes the horde from 3 to 10 damage. The little Chariot troop landed a hot 3; the Brigand Hero a strong 2, with the other 2 damage being from the Bowmen troops. Still, Iron-Resolve kicks in again, and the Men-At-Arms end the turn fine, but at 9 damage.

Bottom of Round 3: Basileans

The Men-At-Arms move and pivot, looking to keep avoiding the Chariots on my right. I was spying them from around the right of the hill, and this move hides them again. As it is, their leader point should also just be in the flank of my Foot Guard, for a potential charge next turn.

Speaking of, the Foot Guard take a hindered charge from the Ogre Palace Guard, who land 8 damage onto my horde. I hold.

Movement and charges from the Basileans.

The Paladin Knights countercharge the Chariot, landing 4 damage. I am uninspired, and the check is good enough to see them off the battlefield! Getting the disorder, I was hoping to hold on for a turn, or even just be wavering, but the opposing Knights are free sooner than expected!

Behind my line, the Ur-Elohi wheels around to see the rear of many of my units.

The brave Paladin Knights look to join the battle.

The brave Knights pivot in the pond and move out, entering the woods. From here, they can spy the rear of my own knightly regiment.

Top of Round 4: Kingdoms of Men

Out on the left, the Chariots move and pivot to threaten the knights, and will shoot ineffectually into them. Nothing hits.

I appear to have finally and accidentally played the Formation correctly. One unit moves up, and shoots without penalties into the Men-at-Arms. The other troop holds and shoots into the Men-at-Arms without penalties. The Chariots move up and shoot into the Men-at-Arms without penalties... and altogether, just two damage is done. Still, their Nerve values aren't great, and bringing them to 10 damage I am able to get a very hot Waver against them.

Opposing flanking maneuvers.

I pointed out and demonstrated several times on my opponent's turn that my Knights could draw line of sight to the flank of the Men-at-Arms and easily had the distance. Using a spare cavalry base, I push up, but it seems that I will just barely catch the corner of the Ogres with my own corner, and so I cannot get around them to pivot and complete the charge. This wasn't something my opponent knew, they just kinda lucked into it. 

So the Knights join in the countercharge against the Ogre Palace Guard, contributing an underwhelming 6 damage in total. The ASB will Bane chant the Foot Guard. They do an underwhelming 8 damage, but the grand total is still enough to pick up the uninspired horde. The brave knights are still outriding, and don't have the inches to reach these units next turn, so my Knights turn to face the hesitant Paladin Knights still in my opponent's deployment zone, and the Foot Guard turn to do the same. I am scoring for the scenario with everything, and it's looking pretty good.

I should mention that I remembered Lifeleech! But not Hann's Scripture. My Foot Guard go from 8 to just 7 damage.

The elite Basilean force faces some big setbacks.

The Brigand hero charged in against the Ur-Elohi, but with even chances to disorder the angel, does not, and she will have a free hand. I rolled the Elohi combat last, which is probably a bit of a procedural mistake, though I don't think the outcome would have changed the way they are facing. The wavering Men-at-Arms can change facing to let the knights through, and it's better for my horde to be rear-charged by the Elohi model than the regiment of Paladin Knights.

Bottom of Round 4: Basileans

On 10 damage and wavering, the Men-at-Arms do change facing to get the Chariot on my right into front-arc. There was some indecision here though, and we didn't do a good job of marking the corner, so the horde looks to have moved pretty far back with that pivot.. The Priest steps back, but in an ill omen, the healing magics fails to materialize this turn.

Hindered charges from the Basileans.

Unbothered by the Brigand's attempts to ground her, the Ur-Elohi makes a hindered rear charge into the Foot Guard. I did not know the Elohi had Dread, but in effect, the second damage I did not Lifeleech back has me making the same effective test. She deals 9 damage, and brining them to 16, but she fails to rout or waver my Inspired horde, and I still have Indomitable Will on them, just in case.

The Paladin Knights charge my wimpy knights, and Hindered, land just 2 damage against me, securing the disorder.

Top of Round 5: Kingdoms of Men

It's time for the Chariots to try and shine! On the left, one unit makes a hindered rear-charge into the Paladin Knights, with my knights occupying them in the front. Both of units are again on the low end of a performance spectrum, with the Knights dealing 2 and the Chariots 4, and the Paladin Knights are at just 8 damage. Still, the unit is uninspired, and a good check picks the Paladins up.

Charges from the Kingdoms of Men.

Out on the right, only one of the Outlaw Bowmen troops has the inches to charge the Men-at-Arms, and will do so, joined in a clear charge by the Chariot. Each unit does 3 damage, bringing the horde to 16. The Chariots have Brutal, which I do remember, and I am now able to pick up this wounded unit as well for a big turn.

The remaining Paladin Knights can only just reach the edge of the Foot Guard currently. The ASB hoofs it out of the woods, hoping to free up some space for victorious reforms, while landing a Bane Chant onto the Foot Guard as they counter-charge, and the Brigand rear-charges the Ur-Elohi. The Brigand lands nothing, but the Foot Guard roll amazingly hot to bring the angel to 15 damage. She's Fearless, but I don't snake-eyes it, and we do pick her up and reform.

Three reforms for the Kingdoms of Men.

I look to have reformed a little off-center with the Foot Guard, but am several inches out of range from the Paladin Knights, so it's not determinative.

Bottom of Round 5: Basileans

The scenario is all but lost, but just for fun, my opponent embarks on a bit of revenge. Unable to reach the Foot Guard, he makes a hindered charge into the Knights, landing 4 damage to bring them to 6, but my unit holds.

The Priest attempts to disorder some Chariots, but the single attack fails to connect.

The final charge of the brave Paladin Knights.

And that's it. I've lost a troop of Charioteers, but I have 11 Unit Strength scoring, or nearly scoring. The Paladin Knights are worth 3, but they aren't going to be able to do it alone, and might not even be scoring due to the vengeful charge. My opponent concedes. 

Victory to the Kingdoms of Men!

Game Conclusions

I’m not thrilled with my performance. I opted to run the Kingdoms of Men for this because it was the most familiar of the armies and lists that I brought, and I not only donked up rules with the Outlaws, but unfortunately the errors were to my benefit, unlike my rules goofs in the previous game. It happens, but since I bounce from army to army, goofs happen a little more often for me. My sincere apologies to my opponent.

We chatted throughout and afterwards. As we were packing up, he asked what he could have done differently to get the win. I don't think nitpicking anything at this stage is truly helpful. Scenario play is also hard to grok until you've played each a few times. It's a small points level, and he's only a few games in. He already has strong instincts and was a quick learner, and will develop his own playstyle and priorities for games.  So, I advised playing more games, and playing the same list multiple times, just like he had done today. Playing the same lists eventually irons out your own rules goofs (oof, prophetic advice it seems!), and gives you a better feel for what you lists and units can and cannot do in a situation. I was heartened to overhear others give basically the same advice on how to approach the game; play it, enjoy it, and don't take it too seriously. Kings of War Wisconsin has come a long way in just under a year, and I'm glad to have found such wonderful like-minded people.

Testing Conclusions

• Foot Guard and Lifeleech 2. I think I used the horde well, and I did much better at remembering Lifeleech this game, though that still wasn’t 100%. I still don’t like this rule on ASB at all, but LL2 is twice as good as LL1, so we’ll see how impactful it is as we get into 2025.
• Chariot Troops. I think three troops was too many, but overinvesting is how I try to test out units, and I think I learned a lot. The Chariots don’t have nimble, so their ability to pressure and outride is a little lessoned. With just 8 attacks on 4’s, Hindered Charges really hurt them, and the bow upgrade, while cheap, seems very ineffectual, since you get just 4 bow shows with bad stats. Still, I liked the unit at this size. The bows could be useful for interdicting for something like Crossbowmen, and the smaller units seemed good for instigating, like I had theorized. We’ll try them out in a larger game sometime.
• Bow Shooting. I brought some 32 bow shots, but the range on the Chariots is 18", making a little hard to focus fire. The more elite Basileans, with their high defense and their Iron Resolve, largely shut down my shooting.
• Mobile Outlaws. I am obviously not pleased with how I ran these. I donked up the rule, and so some of those volleys would have had cover. There were only a few rounds where I actually needed to move though, so these could still have some play in future games, and now that I’ve donked up in both directions I’m more likely to play these correctly going forward. I did not like running them all together though. The blog has shown time and time again how Kings of War gives pricing discounts larger units, and how ineffective it is to run smaller units alongside one another. I think these need to be spread around the battlefield doing odd jobs.

My opponent played a great, amazingly cagey game and had strong instincts. He’s even less local than I am, being from the beautiful La Crosse area but hopefully we’ll see him across the table with his own fearsome army soon!

Hobby Update: Undead Zombie Trolls

Up now, from the Mantic Vault, are some rather gross Zombie Trolls for the Undead, and we have a double thank you to Trevor from Data and Dice for the unit. Firstly, because he 3d printed them for me alongside a batch for his son. And second because my own interest in the unit was largely fed by his Undead Army Review, which had marked these as a cost effective unit for the army. So, multiple thank yous go out to him here for these units specifically, as well as for helping me up my undead numbers more recently with the movement trays for the multi-system Revenant units too!

A horde.

As mentioned, these were 3d prints, and were presented an assortment of pieces, much like a typical unit. Sifting through, I had a few extra heads, but lacked 2 arms, but raiding a bits box secured two old WHFB Ogre arms plus weapons, and green stuff bulked them out while still leaving some negative space for adding muscles. Overall, the models are ok? Things come as arms, heads, and then a big singular torso/leg piece. While everything seems interchangeable, there are definitely a few bits that look and fit and work better together. 

A second Horde.

My wife is a bit of an artist, and paints up her D&D minis and such. Seeing these, she had expressed interest in wanting paint these up for me. These were primed up within a week or so of getting them, but they weren't touched until in August, when I got impatient and went to sit down with them. My wife saw me sit down, took over, and then lost motivation, and then I finished with the blood effect a few months later. Being zombies, I had suggested a variety of colors and washes, and like the disheveled look these ended up with.

Two regiments, which could be run as a third new horde.

On the table, the points are the same, but transition to undeath has stripped the Regeneration rule from these arisen Trolls, replacing it with Fearless, Lifeleech 1 and Shambling. Regeneration is more fun, I think, and really turns the unit into an anchor, but Fearless is nice to have, so we'll see what we can do with these. So far, I have run them just once I think, back in March with some old counts-as units when I tried my first real game with running the Undead. They were not used well, but that's typical for a unit debut for me, and despite the lack of Regeneration, I would agree with Trevor's analytics, and do think there is some good grinding potential here given their price point. We'll just have to get them on the table sometime and try them out again!

Hobby Basics: Spooky Fog Effect

Being some of the first “real” multibased units I hobbied on, the basing for my Undead for years has been passable, but just rocks and mud looked a bit sparse, and I could never quite figure out what to add to it to make the units look more complete. 

I talked a little bit about this at the time, but inspiration struck in late 2023 while watching some battle reports from Lazy Pirate Painting, where one of the regular armies used what looked like cotton balls to create a fog or mist for their Undead. I liked that general idea, and started working on my own version of the concept. While the bulk of this was published about a year ago, I wanted to expand a bit on it, and have a Hobby Basics post for it.

Don't try to color it.

The cotton balls were just a little too recognizable for me. They also seemed too fluffy and too bright and too white relative to the darker colors of my army. Instead I opted for Poly-Fil, a synthetic fiber fill for pillows and stuffed animals and and other stuffed stuff. Poly-Fil can come in different colors, but my bag is slightly darker white. For fun I tried getting more of a gradient going with some diluted paint, but just made a mess. The fil isn’t very absorbent! Don't do this! Fortunately, after doing up a test unit, my Fil color looks just fine on the table.

Poly-fil comes in a large bag. I picked one up years ago for a few dollars, intending to upcycle some old clothes into pillows. That never happened. I also didn’t really put a dent in my bag with this project either. Over the pandemic I picked up some 3d printed minis on etsy, and the seller used Poly-fil in a sandwich bag as padding for shipment. I’m not quite done with the army, but I didn’t even make a dent in the sandwich bag… since I am stretching it out for the visual effect instead of smushing it down for extra bounce and padding, a little goes a long way.

The Fog is the last step. To get going, you'll want your otherwise finished miniature or unit on hand, a clump of Poly-Fil to pull from, and an adhesive.

For my adhesive, I actually went with Winsor and Newton's Acrylic Glazing Medium, the same medium used to get the shiny effect on the mud for the Undead and the water/ice for the Herd. I knew the medium dried clear, and figured that could be a good way to hide things. Super glue works as well, though creates some stiffness around the join. PVA glue (white glue, Elmer's glue) did not work well as the dry time is long and the grip isn't strong. 

So, Step 1 is to do everything else you want to on your miniature or unit, including the rest of the basing.

Otherwise finished, so we're ready for the fog!

Step 2 is to apply small globs of your adhesive to the base. You can use a stir stick, nozzle if it's got one, or something like an old brush, if you aren't using super glue. 

Step 3 is to tease out bits of Poly Fil from your larger cloud, and then apply it to the base, placing it on top of your adhesive globs. Being fibrous, tearing the Fil off leads to a lot of wispy ends. This is solved by rolling the fil around in your hands and shaping it into a more uniform blob. 

A few globs of medium for the adhesive, and some tufts of Poly-Fil.

For individually-based miniatures, that was about a thumb-nail’s worth of fil. For multibased units, I tore off a few clumps and just played with it until I liked the look. You can then use your fingers or a tweezer or other tool to tease out the fill again into the general wispy shape you actually want. 

All done.

Putting down lots of smaller clumps of Fil is better, as it gives a more flowy look, and gives you more points of contact to tease the Fil around to get the shape you want, whether that's curling around a leg or expanding the clumps to decrease its density. Close-up, you'll see the fibers, but on the table, this looks wispy and more diffused. 

...and that's that. With the clumps secured, you can tease it and work with it until you are happy.

And that's the simple fog effect I stumbled upon, about 10 months late! It adds much more visual interest to my otherwise very bland basing, and while I am over-analyzing things, I think it also kinda sells the unexpected Shambling moves the Undead can pull off. The Undead have gotten a few games in since they got the basing upgrade, and are looking really nice on the table, if I do say so myself. 

We'll see them on the table again soon!