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Hey everyone.

I've been looking at Mantics Kings of War game lately, and then looking at the small - medium sized Warhammer Skaven army sitting on my shelf all covered in cobweb and dust!

Had the idea of selling off the Skaven and getting into Kings of War, Mostly I'm in this for the modeling and painting.. but once in a while do play a game (judging by the dust and cobwebs its been an age!)
so .. whats Kings of War like as a game? am I likely to find a player out there somewhere? (I live in the midlands of the UK)

You should, it is a fantastic game, and there's plenty of players around, especially in the Midlands!

I recommend having a look through this thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/554018.page

.. for lots and lots of good posts about the game and what makes it great.

No need to sell the skaven army either, there's a rather excellent fan list for warhammer skaven here:

http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?17-Compilation-of-KoW-Army-lists-and-rules

You'll find that KoW players are generally quite accepting of fan lists too. Or you could easily use them as counts-as-goblins.

That's the brilliant thing about it, you can use whatever models you have from any company. Blow off the cobwebs and get a game in.

Thanks for the encouragement!

I pretty much don't know any other gamers in my town other than 40k players, and i dont know many of those that well

There is however a wargaming club that meets on saturdays where all maner of games could be played. I still keep meaning to get down there the night shift sucks!! I always overlseep.
We'l see if I can make it tomorrow for a meet n greet and see whats going on

I live in a town called Nuneaton if you know it? Its pretty close to Coventry, and a little further than that from Leicester being the two closest well known cities. Here in Nuneaton, we've only got a GW store, and a Co-Op department store stocking any figures and theyre all GW stuff. But ordering online is actually preferable usually so no problems getting things.

Lets see... Ive got a rough count of;

60 Clanrats with spears and shields,
20 clanrats with handeapons and sheilds
20 plague monks with dual hand weapons
4 Rat Ogres and bunch of their handlers
Screaming Bell
1 poison wind mortar
3 warpfire throwers
a couple of poison wind globadiers
1 lord
1 plague monk
1 engineer

HairySticks wrote:

Lets see... Ive got a rough count of;

60 Clanrats with spears and shields,
20 clanrats with handeapons and sheilds
20 plague monks with dual hand weapons
4 Rat Ogres and bunch of their handlers
Screaming Bell
1 poison wind mortar
3 warpfire throwers
a couple of poison wind globadiers
1 lord
1 plague monk
1 engineer

hehe sure thing

I realise its not the largest of skaven forces as many field 200+ slaves in warhammer fantasy hehe.
But I might look into what it might fetch on ebay... compare playing with them in KoW to selling them and buying some other figures.. maybe mantics undead or goblins or elves i like a bunch of their stuff.

Well before you sell your figs, I'd at least try to get a few games in to see if you like the rules

Here's a list I made for you - with points values, and what your model is, and what it 'counts as' using the Kings of War goblin list, using most of your models.

This way, you can go to the club and if there's any Kings of War players you could immediately have a list.

Beginner 800 point army (795 points) Skaven (Goblin 'counts-as' list)

75 - Goblin Sharpsticks Regiment (20 Clanrats with Spears)
75 - Goblin Sharpsticks Regiment (20 Clanrats with Spears)
75 - Goblin Sharpsticks Regiment (20 Clanrats with Spears)
60 - Goblin Rabble Regiment (20 Clanrats with Hand weapons)

120 - Troll Troop (2 rat ogres, and some handlers on a 40mm base)
120 - Troll Troop (2 rat ogres, and some handlers on a 40mm base)

50 - Big Rocks Thrower (Poison Wind Mortar)
45 - War Trombone (Warpfire Thrower)
45 - War Trombone (Warpfire Thrower)
45 - War Trombone (Warpfire Thrower)

35 - Biggit (Lord) with Blade of Slashing (+1 attack)
50 - Wiz (Engineer)

Awesome, thanks
I've also got a 9 year old nephew showing a little interest in my 40k stuff, I've got him a bunch of Chaos Marines as cheaply as I could, getting him a decent core of an army, sorting out the building and priming, setting him up with some paints and brushes, and a little showing of what to do and that theres a million youtube guides to see and let him have at it

KoW figures are plenty cheap even at r.r.p it seems so I forsee myself treating him to a small oposing force (for my own force hehehe) so we can play a bit too

Il have to talk to him about it and see if hes keen or what races he likes etc

From the looks of things its going to be far easier for him to get his head around than warhammer fantasy is in its current state

As luck would have it my nephew (and his dad; my brother), seem keen on the Good aligned armies, which suits me to be the evil guys hehe! I've been looking at goblins and undead.

If im honest, I like GW's night goblins a lot more than mantics goblins and would probably build a goblin force out of GW figures instead; theyve actually got a catapault and spear throwers and a giant too hehe.. its just the little problem of getting a couple of hundred GW goblins on the cheap Its kind of a shame as mantic offer a great deal, just something (I cant put my finger on it) about them I dont like :/

For the undead, mantics figures seem great the big army deals defo look the way to go. For the sake of avoiding GW I might go with undead... hehe nothing against GW per say (I still collect Dark Angels and 40k Orks) just never really had a lot of experience with other miniature producers, heck dont often look at non-GW models and think hey yeah id like some of those so now feel kinda obliged to atelast get a small box and give them a go.

One question I've got, is it cool to do regiment basing; say I want a Horde(40) sized block of anything armed with whatever,
Could I just make a base the same size as the block would be made of 40 models on individual bases, then mount figures directly to that? And then to skimp out on the numbers ; for example putting 15 models onto a 20 model base? thus stretching 60 models into 2 hordes(40) or 4 regiments(20)

Yes, regiment basing is completely fine.
Many players (I've seen mainly undead armies) make mini-scenes on their movement bases.

I, for example, use 7 elven archers on a 20-man movement tray. The models are in a herringbone 'v' and make it look like they're an elite archer unit.

As to gobbos, Mantic's attempt are generally not counted as their best models.

Great tip on the V formation
I hadn't though about going as low as 7 counts as 20 lol!

I figured however that being as you dont remove any casualties untill its the whole unit, then individual models are mostly obsolete for this game and that them being in unit blocks will just make handling them so much easier. - I can recall (non too fondly) the age that it used to take to rank up my Dark Elves for a game (had those waaay back when the DE got their first propper plastic regiment box with all the options in)

Edit; As much as I really like the GW Night Goblins, Fielding 100 of them is going to cost me approx £100 for 5 boxes from GW directly,

While £100 at mantic on undead would net me an army deal containing 20 ghouls, 30 zombies, 40 skeletons, 20 revenants, 10 revenant knights, 10 mummies, 6 were wolves and the lady vampire lord. (143 models total) Am just kinda toying with building an army myself out of seperate kits and seeing if I'd pick similar enough things tot he army deals.

Edit 2;
Had another thought
What about points levels? I don't want a game that takes hours and hours to play, but I do want enough to have some army to work with.
I suppose what I'm after is how long does it take to play through a game of 1000points, 1500points 2000 points?
I'm leaning towards pointing up two armies of x points designed for 1-2hour games buying both forces to build and paint; this gives me some scope to get people to try the game

I'm just starting up in KoW myself, using my WFB models with some Mantic etc for some units. I've just finished my second game, and we used 600pt forces for the first two games. I think it worked out well for first games - not too many units, not too many special rules, and a good way to get our heads around the rules of what they could and couldn't do.

Unit basing is fine. I'm personally going to be rebasing all of my WFB figures onto round 25mm bases (which I like much more than 20/25mm squares) and then plonking them down on unit bases. As I just found out the other day, this means I'm going to be using 12 Elves/Humans for a block of 20.

At this point my wife is keen to expand the armies or swap one of them out for a different race, which is fine, but I want to get these two painted up to scratch before getting too radically different. I'm going to inventory my painted LotR SBG figures shortly and work out some allied forces to go with the ones we're working with, so we can expand the game with more painted models without me needing to expand the painting queue...

Hairy..

to stretch your funds.. check out the Swap Shop here on Dakka or browse over on bartertown.com

Every once in a while, you can find GREAT deals on GW or on Mantic figures..

-P

Good shouts all around

Payday is this week hurrahh! So fingers crossed I feel like I can afford to get started after the boring things get paid for hehe.

I've noticed that matic have some pre order army deals said to ship for christmas... does anyone know if we can buy those now? or are they gone? late? etc?

HairySticks wrote:
Good shouts all around

Payday is this week hurrahh! So fingers crossed I feel like I can afford to get started after the boring things get paid for hehe.

I've noticed that matic have some pre order army deals said to ship for christmas... does anyone know if we can buy those now? or are they gone? late? etc?

They are still available from what I understand

This is your best Mantic army deal
http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/kings-of-war/army-deals/product/the-bloodmire-legion-179-figures.html
Lady Ilona
Mhorgoth the Faceless
Limited Edition Mounted Army Standard Bearer
20 Revenants
40 Skeletons
20 Ghouls
60 Zombies
10 Wraiths
10 Mummies
6 Werewolves
10 Revenant Cavalry
2 Balefire Catapults
Kings of War Mini Rulebook
Bases for all miniatures
Mantic Points

179 miniatures for only £99.99!

Thats the exact one I was hoping is still available hehe

Although I pointed it up to be over 2000 points
From a little read of the mantic fourms last night it sounds like I'm looking at 1000-1500 points for the game length .
No harm in spare figures though; especially when you struggle to price up a better deal

What about the dwarf ones, with the cavalry thats not available seperate?

Edit;
Just been thinking about incorparating a marker system into unit bases to keep track of damage and maybe add a wavering indicator.
Seen a nice idea on the mantic forum of a base with a little peg, and colour rings to go on it, the guy used a seperate base, but I might build this directly into the regiments base just need something to indicate wavering too now

I play at 2000 points, usually finish a game in under 2 hours. I prefer 2000 points as your army will usually be deployed in two or more lines so you have your screening troops, main troops, and reserves. Been looking at expanding to 2500 and 3000 point games!

The Dwarf deal is great too - THORGERSON’S STORM OF STEEL, right? I'd add the Dwarf war council set to it though so you have a couple heroes, standard bearer, and warsmith. I'm cheap so in my Dwarf army I use the plastic Ironclad Dwarves with hammers as Ironguard and the plastic Ironclad with axes as normal Ironclad. Also you can easily expand to the Dwarf army by getting the plastic Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers. The 40 Ironwatch you get can be made into three 10-man troops and use the other ten, along with the extra 2-handed hammers you'll have from the other sprues (the crew sprues for the cannons have extra double handed hammers), to make a troop of Rangers.

So from buying the 99 gbp set and the 18 gbp heroes you'll have a huge army.
Dwarf King, Berserker Lord, Warsmith, Standard Bearer
Ironguard Regiment
Ironclad Horde
Shieldbreaker Regiment
Berserker Brock Rider Regiment
3 x Ironwatch troops
1 x Ranger troop
4 x Ironbelcher Cannons

For nerve tracking, I use the Mantic tokens but for my Elves and Dwarves (that I'm still assembling/painting) I bought Warbases dials

http://war-bases.co.uk/ACCESSORIES/GAMING-AIDS?product_id=159

works well for dwarves, elves, and undead, as the plastic sprues come with dead dwarves and elves and the undead sprues come with extra zombie bodies and skeleton bits, so you put a dead dude on the dial and have it 'match' the unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way I also use Warbases "Kings of War" trays. They are unit-sized and have 15mm plug holes where you plug the Mantic figure in once you're done painting it.

http://war-bases.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=68_75&product_id=125

(or for orcs use these http://war-bases.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=68_75&product_id=126)


Use them for my orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's an example of how the Warbases Kings of War trays work



Automatically Appended Next Post:
and the Warbases casualty dials

i cant get over how friendly the KoW crowd is when it comes to how you base and use your minis.
even mantic themselves dont seem to mind when you base things irregularly or use other miniatures.

if youre an ex GW fantasy player then it takes some getting used to. instead of whittling down a unit over 3 or 4 turns now they just go poof.
i always hated that 1 last man in a unit holding up your deathstar unit.

KoW is a blast.

Yeah, I mean, both games are abstract. Warhammer regiments aren't really 20 men (they're more like 200 men) so the individual casualty removal doesn't make sense to me...
I prefer the abstract Nerve in KoW representing a combination of casualties and morale/breaking (or in the case of undead, who cannot waver, absolute destruction of the unit)

thats such an awesome idea on the wound dials judgedoug.
i have some of those that i intended on using for bolt action pin markers but they may have to get redirected

 judgedoug wrote:

and the Warbases casualty dials

I've just been using my Dakka D10s so far. Do you have a bigger pic of those? I'm considering buying some Warbases to modify for my round-based figures.

these twistable bases look great.

I had a similar idea; I cant put a name on it... but as a youngster I had a board game, kinda similar to hero quest I guess, but it was definatly not hero quest, The figures had round bases, about 1cm tall, with a little cutout ont he top showing a card dial below, the top piece rotated with a click to show the next number. I just don't for the life of me know what to call this mechanism, or what that game was called! :(

Edit; google for the win, the game was Dark World

Stolen an image from elsewhere on dakka found by google theres two of them there in the middle with red and green dials showing through the black base, and a yellow on in the upper right area. They were the bases for the player characters I think.

I had that game as a kid, but never played it properly. I ended up cannibalising it for models, and then the bits of game got scattered to the winds over the years.. I can't even remember those bases!

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

and the Warbases casualty dials

I've just been using my Dakka D10s so far. Do you have a bigger pic of those? I'm considering buying some Warbases to modify for my round-based figures.

So those bases and counters are great! I've been looking for something like that for a while now.

its payday soon hehehe (Friday) So I might well be dropping some cash onto two Mantic armies; really looking like undead and dwarfs right now, but still time for me to change my mind yet hehehe.
I'l probably do a blog of the build, paint and hopefully first game with the mini's.... I've got so much 40k stuff to get on with lol but seem to have caught the fantasy bug lately.

For the dwarfs I don't think I can pass up on the army deal with the Brock riders in, if I can afford it I'l probably go for the £150 one with slightly more stuff in

The undead, I cant decide I could get a hold of 'Malaks Endless Hordes' for £80 from Darksphere, but The Bloodmire Legion Might still be worth paying £20 more for direct from Mantic.... some maths needs doing (after work methinks) - Or I could custom tailor a force out of separate boxes -would handily provide me with some of those mantic carry cases, but theyre cheap so no biggie. - I'm sure the army deals represent much better value than collecting the same models separately.

HairySticks -
the Bloodmire Legion contains an extra 30 zombies, 10 wraiths, 10 mummies, balefire catapult, 6 werewolves, necromancer, vampire, and standard bearer versus Malak's Endless Horde

Malak's Endless Horde only has the vampire as a bonus.

The Bloodmire Legion is definitely worth the only £20 more

Figure I'll ask this here since it's mentioned above: What are people using for movement trays for KoW? Making their own from plasticard/card stock? Using the GW ones (yecch...)? Those trays up there with the circular holes look interesting; you don't have to glue the figures to them, do they just drop in, and then the tray can be painted/flocked whatever?

That Bloodmire Legion looks good, might have to point my brother to it (he's going to rock Undead, I will be punishing his wicked ways with the Basileans)

I use the GW ones. They're actually very useful since you can cut them to the required unit size.

I'll have to look at them; usually I'm leery of anything from GW because they are generally 2x as much as everybody else. I did find some really nice trays from a company called Battlezone Miniatures that can also be gotten prepainted/flocked, but they're in the UK so I'm guessing that shipping will get a bit pricy to the USA.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Figure I'll ask this here since it's mentioned above: What are people using for movement trays for KoW? Making their own from plasticard/card stock? Using the GW ones (yecch...)? Those trays up there with the circular holes look interesting; you don't have to glue the figures to them, do they just drop in, and then the tray can be painted/flocked whatever?

That Bloodmire Legion looks good, might have to point my brother to it (he's going to rock Undead, I will be punishing his wicked ways with the Basileans)

I made some for my ogres out of plasticard (sheet styrene). I made temporary ones for the elves and other ogres out of cardboard from a box. I'll be getting some MDF ones when I have spare money, and using the rest of the styrene for the other ogres. I'd use the GW ones, but they're really quite expensive, and the closest GW store isn't close.