Stane of Blood! Jan 2020

STANE OF BLOOD!!!

It can always be a dangerous journey getting into a new wargame. You see the lovely toys and try to resist. Sometimes it even works. Other times you blow loads of your tax return cash on the new Lord of the Rings box set and the extra toys and books and then your local games shop closes down and now it’s a swine to get a game and so you’re left with a pile of expensive toys you promise you’ll paint one day. 

I will. Promise.

Kings of War was a similar prospect but far less scary. The 2nd edition gamers rulebook was less than £15 and I already had an old Warhammer army I could finally use again. The problem was people. A community to play with. And it seems very few people locally were interested. The aforementioned local shop took a chance and ran a tournament. I’d only had a demo game and there was less than 10 of us but it was a great day, everyone seemed nice and I won my first two games and lost against Jude in the final. Looking around there wasn’t much in the way of other tournaments in the area. Not a problem for me, years of touring with both guitar and sword have made me somewhat of an adventurer and that meant I had to go adventuring…… So I picked a new army, threw together and painted what I could and painted what I could and off I went to Clash of Kings! But then slowly but surely the Beautiful South rose in all it’s glory. In the last couple of years we’ve gone from one or two tournaments a year to The King of Herts tournaments, The Bexley reaper tournaments, Tournaments at Entoyment games in Poole, Angry Grot Events, Tabletop republic in High Wycombe and of course the mighty Franticon. In fact we’re so heavily loaded with events I don’t even have to travel out to Rushden, Bristol, Loughborough or Black Dragon. In short, I’m sorted!

One of the best things I love about how this has happened has been the community that’s come along with it, a core of gamers and hobbyists who genuinely love the game and have put a lot of effort into making these tournaments ultra welcoming, fun and also constantly changing formats to keep it fresh and try new things. It’s been great to watch and be part of. 

So, fresh from his win in the King of Herts Winter painting competition, steps Matt Gee (that’s not his real name. He had to shorten it like the Mel’s in the Spice Girls) with ANOTHER tournament. Well, you can never have too much of a good thing so I painted myself a new undead army and headed off down to South London to take part in 4 games of 1495pts Kings of War.

But before I fill your heads with a florid tale of my exploits, I ushered Matt into a secluded corner and asked him some questions……

Firstly Matt, what possessed you to run a tournament?

I’d been to Paul and Mat’s events at Kings of Herts and thought the way they had started things up was amazing. I had a shed full of scenery odds and sods collected over the years and figured I’d try and put them to good use. The main aim was to have something the KoH and Shroud TOs could attend in return for their efforts and chance to get more of a KoW scene in South London. 

Everyone seemed to have great time, I certainly did….but how do YOU think it went? 

I am in two minds. On the whole I think it was good but there are things that I think I missed that I’d wanted to get done. Daft little things but the main issue I had was with time keeping. Remembering that the day is a social event and not just a mechanical necessity to play games was something I completely overlooked. This meant the schedule was shot full of holes and timings were tight to say the least!

Well, I didn’t notice any major cock ups to say it was your first time organising a tournament. What went wrong and what would you do differently next time? Is there going to be another one? 

I think timings was the big issue, I have also had a bit of feedback on the terrain and the table numbers that I’d like to tweak. There will definitely be another one, maybe later in this year if there is availability but I am aiming to make Jan a regular fixture for the event. 

I’ve seen on Facebook you’ve been instrumental in setting up a small community for Kings of War in central London. How has that been and did many of the new guys come down to the tournament?

I just kind of stumbled on players from a variety of sources and we congregated for regular games. One guy I got to know because he bought some old GW greenskins from me, another couple saw my SoB event and wanted to know more. Then there are another couple of guys I know from gaming around London in general.  It’s been great to get the chance of semi regular games in. There was a great showing at the event and they all made the effort to attend. 

What was the reasoning behind 1495pts as a game size?

I’ve never been a massive fan of the list building that involves just taking all your toys or being able just to take loads of for example the same War Engine. It’s a hot topic at the moment and 1495 limits the amount of duplication a player can take. It’s also not enough points to take everything you want and so forces more thought into list building. Overall the reason though was to help newer players build on the 2k doubles events the KoH guys have run as a stepping stone to larger events. It’s not quite as daunting if you have fewer models to paint up to get them on the table. 

So tell us a bit about your wargaming background-how did you get into Kings of War?

How long have you got….

A mate brought a box of Rogue Trader marines into school when I was very young and I found them amazing. He clearly picked up on this and being (on reflection) pretty well off he gave me a paint set and some plastic minis for a birthday present. It was straight down the rabbit hole for me from there. Anything GW produced in the 90s I saved up and tried to get. 4th ed WHFB and 2ed 40k were the start but quickly 40k became dull with 3ed and I dropped it. I drifted away with 6ed WHFB coming out and stashed all my gear. 

Roll on to 2018 and I’m into board gaming and I discover the wargaming stash and start trying to sell it off. This leads to me finding I don’t really want to and that I quite fancy trying to find some of the old models I could never afford as a kid. A deal on a load of Ricco’s Republican Guard pikemen with a guy at a suburban train station led to him mentioning there was a new game around called Kings of War and if I fancied it I could give him a game at their local game in Hackney. He didn’t turn up but A certain Dan Read did and after a game I was hooked. It felt I was transported back 25years into why I took up the hobby in the first place and I’ve not really looked back. 

And lastly, what are you working on at the moment and what future cool stuff do you have planned?

I’ve usually got too many stupid ideas on the go at the same time but currently it’s adding a few more units to my Ogres. Then getting my all Mantic Nightstalkers army polished off. I am planning to try and build a fancy-pants display board but we’ll see if I get time. I really should get round to starting that Japanese themed multi use army as my titan forge stuff just turned up too. And then there are all those Keva Adams night goblins in a box somewhere and….well yeah we’ll see.

When I told Matt I wanted to review his tournament he said, jokingly, that I could be as brutal as I wanted but he needn’t have worried as it was positively delightful. At 1495pts I could take a new army and spent the Yule holiday slapping contrast paint on a ton of Undead Infantry. Along with a couple of characters and a catapult I added 2 hordes of werewolves that I already had. It didn’t have a lot of drops or unit strength but I was hoping the tag team of Lady Illona and the werewolves could out manoeuvre most armies and eat them a bit at a time. It worked a little bit at least…..

Game one was against my usual doubles partner Martin Garbino. We met last year on Facebook when both of us were looking for a doubles partner and we’ve been gaming buddies ever since. this time however he challenged me to a first round match up to finally see who was best! It was The dominate scenario and he had a tough, well rounded Ratkin army that has taken him forever to paint but looks lovely! With careful manoeuvring I managed to get my werewolves around his flanks while holding off with my centre in a classic pincer, taking out his hardest units and then chewing through the rest turn after another. I lost a horde of wolves but I got one of the most convincing wins I’ve ever had in Kings of War! Huzzah! 

And then it went horribly, horribly, detestably wrong.

This put me at the top Vs Matt Gee himself and his lovely classic Orge army. It was the raze scenario and his army wasn’t too scary. I sacrificed a regiment of zombies out on the right to hold up some of his smaller units for a bit and held a solid central line against his warriors while Illona and wolves took the flank. I burned one token but his general on chariot got away and the centre became a big sprawling melee. I had several chances to swing it my way but a waver on the wolves and Illona in one turn and then the other wolves the turn after put me at his mercy and there was no coming back.

Game Three versus Ian Sturgess was always going to be tough and although he made mistakes, he managed to out play me. I wasn’t aggressive enough with the wolves and a double one on his Dragon with Illona and the wolves meant they got swamped in a multi charge and my skeletons and zombies weren’t tough enough on their own to take on the rest. I loved the Wiltfather though and may have a future conversion in mind….

Finally Game 4 against Rob Phipps new Northern Alliance army. He’s beaten my twice previously with his Abyssal Dwarves and this looked a far easier prospect. It was loot and he ignored one token completely for my zombies to grab. The other two were hotly contested. The main thing that scared my was the frostings but my war machine and 11 lightning bolts were only enough to waver them and he healed the wounds. I should have finished them off first but I went for it and although I held two tokens, his better troops beat me one unit at a time. It was tense but he got them both!

Well, 1 win, 3 losses is acceptable for a brand new army I suppose and I learnt some valuable lessons. The Liche king with his heal (6) and Lightning bolt (8) with his broomstick was useful but nowhere near made his points back. I was unsure wether Illona or soul reavers would be better but she is defiantly worth it! I have the Jack of Herts tournament at 1k in a few weeks so I’m painting a Revenant King on dragon and making the zombies into a legion. I’ll see how units work out for me and my play style before I work out a 2k list.

There’s lots of small things about tournaments that make them good or bad and much of it is down to personal choice. Compared to a lot of tournaments I’ve been to over the years, the Kings of war scene is fantastic. Even the small things aren’t bothersome. There were some timing issues, which I only actually noticed when I was told there were timing issues. The hall had been booked for the evening which was beyond Matt’s control so we all went hell for leather clearing up (which is brilliant for me as I can’t stand around bored and need something to do) and then for the awards we had to pile into a tiny end changing room. It was cramped but it was also kinda fun and the type of quirk you remember fondly.

Scenery, a little bit of attention to detail here and there would help but otherwise good. The choice of missions was fair though the scoring was a little awkward to get my head around at first but seemed to work and was a nice change. Prizes all were good, mainly models from OS Miniatures which are nice and characterful. I especially loved having original art pictures as prizes too! 

Just like King of Herts the Pit brought their shop down for the event and gave us a discount so I got some extra enslaved guardians. 1 unit isn’t enough really is it?

I even got 3rd best army and best unit for my werewolves so I can forgive my poor gaming.

In short, for a smaller tournament in South London it was great. For a first time at running a tournament it was fantastic. Matt did good.