Midlands Alliance

I hadn’t played a game of Kings of War since Frantic back in March. It was a long hot summer of boredom (cue Bananarama soundtrack….) but finally I got to a Tournament! Shroud of The Reaper in Bexley, South London. The last one got cancelled as it was due to go ahead the very day after England went into lockdown over the Corona virus pandemic and although this one was heavily restricted with safety measures it went ahead without a hitch. The tables were far apart, everyone wore masks with social distancing, hand sanitiser, and a great system of QR codes and online forms which meant reporting game results had no touching. It proved that when everyone is considerate and respectful of the safety rules, there is no reason we can’t continue with the face to face gaming that we love.

In my last blog I showed lots of pictures of my Northern Alliance army so let’s have a look at how well it did! It was pretty much what I had painted though I didn’t have enough points for the giant so 3D printed and painted an Ice Blade to fill the gap. The only magic items were a healing brew on the frostfang rider and fury on the snow trolls. My units are already tough so I just took more!

My first game was against Robert Hutson’s Twilight kin army and it was going to be tough as with his abyssal horsemen, silver breeze, Abyssal archfiend and gargoyles he easily out distanced me. It was fools gold so I put my scoring objectives on the left with the majority of my troops. The ice elementals took the right looking to be my main thrust. This was a lie. The plan was to use them to hold up the Abyssal horsemen while I smashed the other flank and then try to hold the centre objective for a win. It almost worked. My reaper managed to get into a unit of silver breeze cavalry quickly and rather than take the bait and wipe it out before the rest of my forces caught up he backed off. It enabled me to push him back and take the fight to him, pinning the archfiend and getting some multi charges in to take the flank and the objectives. I lost the Snow trolls in one shot to a charge from the blade dancers bane chanted with the brew of strength! Ouch! The Ice elementals held on for long enough for my bezerkers to get over, take out a unit of Abyssal horsemen and take the middle objective. Unfortunately we rolled turn 7 and he shot off my bezerkers and moved his fast cavalry just onto the objective and he just squeaked a win. Close, but a loss.

Next game put me up against Ian Sturgis’ Trident realms. On paper I wasn’t too scared as he has a lot of small units. I aimed to blast them off with my ice elementals and the rest of my army was more than capable of mopping up the rest. Unfortunately it was a massacre and he ended up with all 7 objectives. He charged his reaper in turn one and although I smashed it in return I rolled a double one and got stuck in a central combat. This meant I struggled to bring my icy breath (my main advantage) to bear and I slowly got out manoeuvred by his smaller nimble units and picked apart a unit at a time. I had some good moments and a double one for my ice blade was a big help but it was too late. I really suffered with my lack of speed and shooting in this one!

Game 3 was against Gavin Downey’s Nightstalkers. He’s a lovely bloke (and went on to win best sportsman) and has a beautiful army. It was grabbing the loot from the centre line so both armies were spread out. I set a few traps to mitigate his speed advantage get some multi charges in to win, grabbing all 5 treasure chests! I massively cocked up, lining up 64 Icy breath shots up to take out a butcher horde…. Only to forget to do it! Gavin nobly said I could go back and take the shots but I didn’t. A cock up like that deserves to be punished!!! And punished I was as the butchers proceeded to take out 2 ice elemental hordes. It was brutal but not enough. I’m looking to do a Night stalker army at some point so learnt some good lessons.

Game 4 was an odd one. Either for fun or just out of sheer malice, Mark Cunningham who was running the event had done 2 ‘joker’ boards. This one had a big river system which was all difficult terrain. Again I was against Robert Hutson’s Twilight kin. I’d learnt my lessons from the first game and with his flyers and cavalry he had the clear advantage, especially as the scenario was control. This time I put my entire army on the right flank away from the rivers and just charged full speed forward. My entire left flank was held by the reaper. He had to be dealt with or Robert’s units would be getting some nasty rear charges as they swept around. The plan worked beautifully. I had so many hard hitting units in a tight area he just couldn’t bring enough to bear and I used my chaff to get the drop on him. I had to sacrifice the Ice-blade and snow foxes to hold up the Arch fiend before I could get the charge off and one unit of Abyssal horsemen backed up by two drain life Crones just couldn’t be shifted and it chewed through several units but I got a convincing win of 3 table sections to his one. The reaper took out two silver breeze units and saved my left flank too! 

So overall I came 6th out of 14 with 2 wins, 2 losses which Im happy with. So more Midlands alliance. I also got an award for having the bloodiest battles!

So what do I think of the Northern alliance? I definitely need more shooting and speed.

The ice elementals didn’t get to do anywhere near as much as I was hoping from them. I either need to support them with more chaff or maybe drop a horde. The Huscarls, Snow Trolls and Frostfang king were all solid choices.

The snow foxes were just chaff. They didn’t do a whole lot but they were cheap and I probably didn’t use them as well as I should. Sometimes it’s just useful to have an extra unit.

The wolves were situational. Like the snow foxes they were just there. They did get a flank charge off a hill with thunderous 2 though which was juicy. I think in future I either have to boost them to a regiment of maybe drop them for something more useful.

The Half elf Bezerkers were possibly my favourite. They were fast, hard hitting and did everything I needed from them. I’d happily do an army of them but the models are generally mono-pose and hard to get hold of. With the ice-blade to support them they were incredibly versatile.

I had no problems with inspiring, the Ice-blade covering the bezerkers, the ice Queen covering the Elementals with very inspiring and the Frostfang king’s very inspiring means most of my army was covered and dispensed with wasting points on extra support characters.

And the future? I love the frost giant model though I’m not sure I have strength to paint another one just yet! It would be a useful exchange for a horde of ice elementals, giving a bit more range and punch. Another ice-blade with the wings of honey maze would give me a bit more board control and anti-war machine help. I didn’t feel I needed it for this tournament as I had the reaper for that role (I didn’t face any war machines anyway) but in the future its a must. A chimera is a lot of points to be used for that role and I’d  have to sacrifice a lot to get one in the army. 

I have the core of a Varangur army and I’m converting up some mounted sons and some Magus conclaves already so that will give me a lot of options too.

Next tournament is two single day tournaments in high Wycombe in November at Tabletop Republic. I shall alter my list for one day and then something different for the Sunday. I haven’t used my Forces of Nature in a long while and have several new painted units that haven’t seen the battlefield yet! Or I can lose the plot and try a new army in a month….

Either way…. BUGGER ME IT”S GOOD TO BE BACK!!!!!!