We’ve known it’s been coming for a long while and they finally let fly! Mantic are doing STL’s for home printing! I wrote a couple of blogs a few years back when I got my 3D printer and discussed my experience and most importantly, what impact it would have on the industry. I said at the time that Mantic would probably survive it as their IP was getting stronger, the sculpts were getting better and their miniatures were still so cheap that the hassle of printing was a counter balance. However, the world has changed quite brutally over the last few years and the industry has fluctuated quite a bit due to the Pandemic, Brexit and the war in Ukraine and the new pressures put on businesses have put thousands onto the scrap heap. In many cases it was simply a case of adapt or die. While I think Mantic would have carried on regardless, they have rightly, and bravely embraced the changing industry, following the similar model of Avatars of War and Raging Heroes by producing both physical, and now the option of digital too.

Will it work? Lets have a look at the pro’s and con’s…..

PRO!

-Accessibility! If you want Mantic products, you can often be out of luck. If your local store (IF they actually stock Mantic products) doesn’t have it then it’s a case of ordering it, often adding the extra cost of postage. And because Mantic have such a huge range of models, casting them takes time for such a small business that often products are out of stock for months. Who can remember the great Soulflayer drought of 2021-22? Actually that particular one was a good thing…. But now, you can simply download a file, jiggery pokery it in a computer and stick it in the printer and a few hours later you get the model! And you can print it as many times as you like!

-Cost! Imagine you want that Ceremonial Guard horde (40 lizard chaps) for your Salamanders army. Two plastic regiments of Salamanders are £50 and then the upgrade packs are (mail order only) £12.50 to upgrade only FIVE models. Total cost……£150 for a 265 point unit. I think I speak for everyone when I say “no sodding way am I paying that Renton!!!!!”. But now the option to buy some STL’s and print them yourself is there and I would happily spend £60. Well done Mantic, you’ve gone from no sale to a sale. Smaller win but still a win. A lot of the resin figures can be very expensive and this will bring the cost down and make collecting new armies a lot easier for a lot of people, enabling people to use armies they would never have been able to afford before. Riftforged Orcs struggle without Helstrikers. Now they’re affordable, getting the rest of the army to go with them doesn’t seem quite such a chore…..

The subscription price tag is totally fair and in line with other patreons out there. I only have one and I’ll probably cancel that now and subscribe to the Vault instead.

-Environmental Impact! The world is dying, the human race is stripping the worlds natural resources and polluting the environment at a terrifying rate. We’re adding to that collapse just because we wanted to play with little toy soldiers. But now we don’t have to feel quite as bad because now instead of having to produce and send tiny toys in boxes way bigger than they need to be halfway across the world in polluting ships and planes….. We can send models there at the press of a button! Just like e.mail saved millions of trees from being cut down, now we’re saving penguins. Or something like that. I don’t care. Submarine birds that go ice swimming are unnatural anyway, they should be in the Nightstalkers list or something.

-Hobby options! Planning and buying an army is fun. Getting free or cheap toys and then working out what to do with them is AWESOME!!! I picked ups a couple of cheap Plague models at the Mantic open day and it sent me down a rabbit hole and now I’m nearly up to 1500pts of painted horror! A bit of inspiration goes a long way. Now new and interesting lists can be made and ready to go BEFORE you’ve had the chance to realise it’s a daft idea! And the conversion and scaling opportunities are endless. I took one look at the first picture and thought ‘That Aeronaut needs blowing up to airship size….’

-Stability! Sales go up and down and once the initial ‘new release’ bubble pops, the money made on sculpts goes down and slowly declines over the years. At that point you’re selling so few that you might as well sell them as STL’s and that subscription means a stable regular income that Mantic can rely on every month and that helps with planning new stuff and a better release schedule because they know the money will be there to do it. And it means there’s cool stuff for us every month!

-Cross game pollination! That’s just me trying to sound clever and say that it covers all of Mantic’s games. Between this and the Companion you can simply print a Deadzone Force/Ambush army in a weekend, have the rules and jump straight in and give it a go. No need to go down the shops and buy a new starter box just to try a new game. And for all those people who already play across many games there are tons of opportunities for adding new units or starting new forces.

CONS!

-Accessibility! While UV resin may only be £50 or so a litre, you can easily get a tournament sized army out of a bottle BUT the start up cost of getting a printer in the first place can be prohibitive. And there’s all the additional costs which you can do as expensively or cheaply as you want but it all adds up. If you only want to print a few models now and again…. Find a friend with a printer and annoy them or just buy the models themselves. It can be pretty much another hobby in itself and requires a lot of work and research to master so while it may initially may look like you’re getting a good deal, once you get into it with time and money you may wonder why you bothered or that you’re in over your head. After an initial frenzy of printing I barely use mine now and it’s in a box in the attic. As it needs to be 20 degrees plus to use effectively without failed prints, where I live now means I can only realistically use it maybe 4-5 months of the year.

The main problem I see with the Mantic Vault is that they DON’T HAVE THE OPTION OF PRE-SUPPORTED STL’S!!!!!!! I’ve followed several patreons and I know that Mantic are going to spend forever having to answer every single Facebook Vault post that they don’t have a pre-supported option and why they don’t. Eventually they will have to give in because you have to cater for the lowest common denominator and that is people like me who don’t have fancy new machines with fancy new software. Some people need instructions with their kits and this is waaaay above that skill level. There are a large number of people in the same boat who don’t want to have to spend ages working out supports and 2 days and 3 failed prints later to decide that it’s not worth it. It reduces the accessibility ESPECIALLY for newer hobbyists and there will be a fair few Mantic fans who get into 3D printing just because of the Vault. It’s a steep enough learning curve as it is. I’m a lot more experienced at it now and I still winced when I saw there was no pre-support option (Most Patreons have both) and was the main thing to put me off.

I’ve also seen online the payment method Mantic has chosen has been a problem for some people, especially overseas. Apparently they can’t accept PayPal either which is also a massive pain in the arse for a lot of people who use it for online payments. Also, they are restricting it to their own platform and by ignoring MyMiniFactory and Patreon they are missing out on potentially thousands of customers who use those services for getting their STL’s. 

-Cost! Printers are bloody expensive and add in all the little extras you need for washing and curing, electricity, repairs, safety equipment etc and it adds up. A litre of resin does go a long way, but it’s still expensive and there will be lots of failed projects that will eat into your wallet. Sometimes it will feel like it’s expensive for cheapness sake and just because you CAN print something doesn’t mean you need to. I have armies sitting there for years that I never get around to painting. 

-Environmental Impact! Resin is toxic and gives off toxic fumes. It needs proper ventilation and needs to be disposed of responsibly. You need gloves to handle it and while I’ve had plenty on my skin and it’s been a mild irritant at worst, I have seen pictures of people that it has burned quite badly. I don’t even want to think about what long term inhalation does and the cleaning alcohol is quite potent to breathe in too. You can’t pour it down the sink so you have to leave it in the sun to cure the resin and let it evaporate so you can safely dispose of the waste. Be warned!

-Hobby options! There’s not much bad about this apart from lack of options until the range is fleshed out. I get the feeling we’re going to see a lot of Helstriker-heavy lists in the coming year….. 

-Another thing is that older Mantic sculpts (like Rebs) were done by hand and can’t be put up as STL’s as it was before digital sculpting. Fortunately the newer Mantic miniature design is generally much better!

-Cross game Pollination! I’ve had Armada for nearly 2 years and haven’t even played a game of it yet. I have a painted Orc Fleet and a built Basilean fleet but still have no one to play with locally so there’s no way I’m going to be printing any more. The first month is certainly Armada heavy in the STL department so there isn’t actually a lot for me, even though I play all the games. I don’t do Riftforged Orcs and I already bought 2 boxes of the poachers and have the Aeronaughts I need…. So it will be a bit hit and miss at times. 

And me? I’ll probably subscribe at some point though wether it will be month one or not yet I haven’t decided. I like the welcome pack and has some Firefight models I’d like and I have a spare giant I got halfway through converting that would quite happily take the storm giant parts. Plus if I print those Helstrikers after all then all I need is some plastic Riftforged orcs….. After all, it is nearly summer and warm enough to get the printer out of the attic.

I rate this brilliant out of brilliant. Well done Mantic, you have embraced the future, and we shall embrace you.

After going tournament crazy last year I’m having a more relaxing season and having some fun with the game. My Free Dwarf Masters list had 3 Living Legends in it which was a lot of fun. Living Legends add a lot of character and theme to armies which only increases the immersion in the battle, making more of a story to the game. In fact, I enjoyed the experience I’m going Living Legend TO THE MAX!!!! I shall be attending the Northern Kings tournament in a couple of weeks (one of the best tournaments I attended last year and I would highly recommend it, only it already sold out within weeks it’s THAT good!) and as I’m no longer chasing the masters list and only out for fun I’m taking the Northern Kings! That’s right, a Northern Alliance army with all four Living Legends! The Northern Kings are going to Northern Kings. Plus I’m Northern too (I try not to broadcast it because I live in Surrey these days and, you know, standards) so that’s a lot of Northern. It’s so Northern I want you to go and read all that again with Sean Bean’s voice in your head. 

Will this army be any good? Who can tell? Well, let’s have a look! In my opinion, which is totally correct (piss off internet, it’s MY blog!!!!) here are the BEST Living Legends in Kings of War!!!

JARVIS!!

The only Living Legend in the game who is so awesome he actually changes the entire army alignment. He really is that good. While a basic Necromancer with surge (6) may only be 50 points, it can only perform that one role. For 140 points Jarvis has everything and more. Bane chant, heal, lightning bolt and surge means that he has a use in every single turn of the game. He can support your battle lines however you need it and that lightning bolt can cause chip damage in the first couple of turns and can even snipe wounded units in the last couple of turns too. That 12/14 nerve is also very respectable and will keep him alive when other characters would pop. Where he really shines however is his Ophidian book of secrets which adds 6” to all his spell ranges. As the battle progresses and units spread out you can’t always get the spells you want where you need them but that isn’t a problem for our boy! In addition he is very inspiring which also covers a large area and both of these mean he can often do the job of two characters by himself, saving points for elsewhere. He excels in smaller points level games but can do the job regardless. His only downside is that you can’t take other Living legends in the same army, but an Undead army is not shy in the character department so that isn’t too much of a problem overall. 

ECKTER!!

Def 6 on an individual is great. Def 6 with ensnare AND phalanx and you have the toughest individual in the game. With 6 attacks at Crush (2) hitting on 3+ he can reliably put out the hurt too! I’ve had him out-grind hordes, hold entire flanks on his own and take charges that would make a greater earth elemental pebble his pants!. As an individual he doesn’t get multiple attacks for hitting someone in the flank, BUT it also means he doesn’t take them either, making him even harder to kill! His ability to wound with his wind blast is good too for either tactical play or just putting wounds on something. Though I had one embarrassing game were he was chasing a unit towards an objective for 3 turns who were faster. Every turn I windblasted them further away while hurting them and eventually blew them onto the objective without passing the nerve roll! And that highlights his biggest weakness…. He is slow at Speed 5. But slow and steady win the prize!

MAGNILDE!!

This girl is hard as nails! 7 Attacks hitting on 3+ is pretty nice but with Crush (2) AND elite she can comfortably take on most things and win. That Def 5+ fearless 15 AND iron resolve will keep her slapping stuff down all day long. 175 points is a lot for an individual but a speed of 7 and the ability to fly 10 once per game means she has an enormous amount of board control. This is great for tactical play as she can be where she needs to be at the right time and mainly avoid things that can hurt her. Either going hunting on her own or joining your hammers to take off enemy units in one go, she is a must take! Weaknesses? Sod off! She’s a Northern lass!

BA’EL!!

Everyone loves the Beast of Nature, and the Manifestation of Ba’el has a lot of the same attributes. 7 attacks hitting on 3+, Crush (2) and vicious on a nimble-flying mini-dragon size base is great. For 60 points more than the BoN you lose pathfinder and a point of nerve but gain Brutal, stealthy, Inspiring, Regen (5+), fury and a lighting bolt (7). So many special rules that his biggest weakness is that you might forget some! Oh, I did! He also has a range attack where all enemy units within 6″ become disordered. It is very situational  but if played at the right time to strip a thunderous charge, stop a wizard casting (meaning he can get close enough to use the ability without getting surged in return!) or deny a couple of units of glade stalkers shooting then it could turn the battle. I wouldn’t rely on it though as he has plenty of awesome stuff to play with already. The stealthy and regen (5+) should keep him alive if you are careful and that lightning bolt (7) means he has a use in every single turn.

THE WILTFATHER!!

Treemen are already stupidly tough, this guy is tough AND nasty! He trades the radiance of life for the cloak of death and that bonus wound per round is well worth the upgrade points. Over the course of a game they can really add up and help swing fights. Only being speed 6 might not be too attractive to the casual observer but having scout means he can start on the centre line already and gives other scouting ‘verdant’ units the punch they lack. If you have heal in your army then he’s nigh impossible to kill and can spend all game chewing through your opponents and with 10 attacks, hitting on 3+ with pathfinder, crush 3 AND vicious he does it with style. At 300 points he is pricey, so loses a bit of his shine in small point games, but anyone who sees him in your list will inevitably loose bowel control when they see him there!

SVERI!

Combat characters are great but characters that are ‘force multiplyers’ (eg. Have an ability that makes your army better) can often make their points back in other ways. Sveri does both! His wild charge +1 aura for berserkers only mean that your brock riders can now charge 17” and outdistance other enemy cavalry, often the bane of slower moving dwarfs.

And he is no slouch on his own either. Again, while Free Dwarfs are a slightly faster list than their loser Imperial cousins, they still lack in that department. Being speed 8 and nimble means Sveri can get in their and scratch that itch that other dwarfs simply can’t reach. 10 attacks, hitting on 3+ with crush, thunderous and vicious is simply beautiful and while only being def 4, his survivability is in his whopping 18 fearless nerve! Nimble him around the back and in later turns he can quite happily take off enemy hordes in the rear in one go! His main weakness is lack of pathfinder or strider which can reduce his bite by quite a bit but he’s still a must have for virtually any Free Dwarf list!

There are many more, Hrimm, Nomagarok, Groany Snark, Shobik, Esenyshra, Skudsbnfhfjrfndjdndjdjskksklwmm and others who could all feasibly make the list but they didn’t. Feel free to argue with me and change my mind, but I’m feeling exceptionally stubborn so you won’t.

I’ll let you know how the Northern King at Northern Kings with the Northern Kings goes.

So on a frosty January morning I turned up at Mantic HQ for the UK masters to finally declare who was Kings of War 2022 Champion! After 14 tournaments I was 9th in the rankings. As I also had best in race for Free Dwarfs I took them and my list comprised of;

Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Ironclad (Infantry) Regiment (20) [125] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Free Dwarf Berserkers (Infantry) Regiment (20) [165] 
Free Dwarf Brock Riders (Cavalry) Troop (5) [125] 
Free Dwarf Brock Riders (Cavalry) Regiment (10) [195] 
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Mastiff Hunting Pack* (Swarm) Regiment (3) [80] 
   – Throwing Mastiff [15]
Greater Earth Elemental (Titan) 1 [255] 
   – Craggoth & Kholearm [25]  
   – Fireball (10)
Herneas the Hunter [1] (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [135] 
Free Dwarf Packmaster (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [100] 
   – Mastiff Munchberries [10]
Berserker Lord (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [150] 
   – Wings of Honeymaze [40]
Berserker Lord (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [145] 
   – Brock Mount [30]  
   – Blade of Slashing [5]
Sveri Egilax on Hellbrock [1] (Hero (Large Cavalry)) 1 [210]

It is a toolbox army with a lot of different elements to enable it to deal with anything (to a degree). I hadn’t played a lot with them at 2300pts so rejigged my list to fill in the gaps. The main thing was Craggoth and Kholearm. It added the crushing strength and high defence I was lacking and with it’s extra rules it meant it could operate alone and act as a pivot for the rest of the army to work around. The list also lacked long range punch so added in Herneas (I used the girl ranger model so it was actually Hernea!) the Hunter. It was a compromise between a cannon or rangers and more versatile. The last addition was the regiment of Bezerkers to add some late game punch. I’d have preferred a troop and had to drop the pathfinder on them and the brocks as I needed the unlock.

The basic idea of the army is a line of 4 mastiff (3D printed badgers!) with throwing dogs (actually badgers) with 4 regiments of dwarfs behind with throwing badgers. The pack master sits in the middle with the vicious aura (and inspiring) giving a nasty battery of short range shooting. The extra speed of the badger packs give a surprising amount of board control and mitigate dwarfs natural slowness. There is usually 1-3 turns of moving forward avoiding the throwing dogs and by the time the lines meet there is a turn or two of getting through the chaff. By then they don’t have enough time to chew through those cheap def 5 dwarf units and I win on unit strength. The rest of the army is there as a distraction to make this happen! Many players go one about how powerful certain units are and need ‘nerfing’ but the best unit in this army is the humble Dwarf regiment. It wins games.

The draw was made the week before and we got to see the altered scenarios, lists and the draw as to who we were facing first round. So here we go…..

Round 1!

I drew against John Quayle, UK number 3 and organiser of the UB Quayle Cup tournament. I’ve played him twice before and lost both times BUT I haven’t lost to Nightstalkers with this army so it could have gone either way.

We played a control style scenario where a 12” line runs down the centre of the table, cut into 3 sections, the middle worth 3 and the outer 2 worth 2 for a total of 7 scenario points. Add a possible 3 kill points and each game was worth a maximum of 10. There was no wins/losses/draws to affect the rankings. I weighted my left flank with Sveri and brocks and then the mastiff(badgers!)/ironclad battlegroup. Herneas, Craggoth and the bezerkers held the right.

John had annoyingly put all his juicy targets for my honeymaze lord behind other units and slowly advanced. One of us had to break first so I sacrificed the brock troop to get Sveri and the regiment in and they took out the scarecrows. As much as I wanted to take out his nastier units, I had to take out his unit strength to win. His phantoms flew in and bounced and that worked in my favour as that meant his other units couldn’t get in. He finally went for it with his soulflayers but my mass thrown dogs brutalised them and with Herneas long range wound chipping, managed to get rid of them. I had some good luck with a double 1 on Sveri which held my left flank for an extra turn but by the end I had all 3 board sections and he only had a unit or two left and I got the maximum 10 points! An awesome start!

Round 2!

So I strutted into game 2 thinking I was Jonny Big Bollocks with delusions of winning everything and that promptly failed…. It was against Simon Coopers Abyssal Dwarf List which was primarily 3 Hellfanes and 3 hordes of decimators. I wasn’t scared, I outdistanced him, I had the tools to take out his chaff and shut down his shooting and could out manoeuvre him to claim the objectives.

That didn’t work. At all. I went forward as planned, Herneas pelting one Hellfane and wearing it down, Craggoth taking on one of the others Hellfanes. I think the only mistake I truly made was sacrificing Sveri taking out a bezerker troop but the rest just didn’t go my way. My shooting was utterly abysmal (1 wound out of 16 shots….) and Simon didn’t fail a nerve roll, just taking off unit after unit. I then had to throw all my reserves into the fray and the same thing happened to them. The brock lord nearly managed to out grind a decimator horde but obviously failed his nerve check and died. Simon is a nice guy and fun to play but I always have the worst luck against him as a similar thing happened last time I played him too. Maybe he’s cursed. I got 1 kill point.

Round 3!

Me and Richard Laking with his Ratkin were on the livestream so my failure could be witnessed by everyone. It was always going to be close as we both had a lot of short range shooting and it was a dominate with a lot of central terrain. I used the trees as cover and unleashed my badger barrage…. Only to double 1 the nightmare unit in the centre. My bezerkers failed to rout his vermin tide and Craggoth bounced too and I never really recovered from that one lousy turn. I used my brock troop and Sveri to shut down and kill his flying demon and come back to the centre but too late. The main thing that swung the game was the tunnel runners with brew of sharpness getting a very tight cheeky flank charge coming off the hill into craggoths flank. I threw 3 units in after that but thanks to all his rally and heal I just couldn’t break them. It was a hard grind which I eventually lost and he got a convincing win 9-3 if I remember correctly.

Round 4!

A lovely meal and an early night and I was good to go against Mike Smiths Forces of Nature the next morning. It was a scenario where we place loot like objectives and Mike decided to be a little shitbag and place his in the 4 corners as far as he could. He had the air formation and a lot of fly and surge units backed up by a lot of magic. It meant I had more units so sent two into the corners to pick them up and sent Craggoth ahead. With his fireball he managed to waver the scorch wings and hunt them down to claim that loot and the centre was a melee that went back and forth several times…. Which ended in a draw! We both netted 3 scenario points and 2 kill points each! I’ve not beaten Mike before so this was a pretty good result for me!

Round 5!

The final round was against Richard Miles and his Riftforged Orcs. It was a Push scenario BUT you couldn’t start with all the tokens on a single unit which meant we actually had to think! I generally out ranged him but he had an obscene amount of killy def5 units! Again using Herneas to pick at a giant, I threw Sveri and the Brocks down there left flank to hopefully take out his token force there and swing in later game. While the Brocks were stuck there (brock riders suck. I don’t like them) Sveri used his nimble to squeeze past and I managed a mulit charge on his horde with him, Craggoth and the brock troop. The troop did terribly and overall and I didn’t break them. I only just survived the counter charge and flank from a regiment and my punch back took them off. This meant I could get Sveri around the back and get a rear charge on the other horde and take them off too! The other flank unleashed shooting hell on the giants and then I used chaff to hold everything up before the bezerkers could get in and roll up the flank. I used Herneas and the pack master to keep chipping away and managed to take off a couple of things too so I finished the game on maximum points!

End results.

It got me 8th place and as my rankings position was 9th I can’t complain at that. The army played well for me but I’m bored after playing it so much. I think in the future I’ll take out the brock riders for a scouting horde of shield breakers and get some rangers in there so I can try new things. That won’t be for a while though as I have plenty of other toys to play with first!

Chris Lynch got his Masters Crown (well, helmet) and it was well deserved as he’s put the time and effort in for it. Some people in the past have said they don’t like Masters as it’s too competitive but as most of the players there were from my region and we all new each other it was just as relaxed as normal, if not more so! I’ve done it once so don’t feel the need to do it repeatedly-I’ve proved my worth and you can have too much of a good thing and I don’t want to get tournament burnout. It’s just one aspect of a hobby that has many facets to it and I enjoy all of them. It’s just nice to turn one up to 11 at times! I didn’t get to face Ed Herzig and reclaim my pride for losing my Forces of Nature crown but he’s a jolly nice chap so I guess I can let him off. Most importantly, I finished one place above Rob Hutson proving without a doubt that Free Dwarfs are better than Imperial Dwarfs. 

I’m going to an Ambush tournament next with my Trident realms using models that haven’t seen the table in 3rd Edition. Should be a nice palette cleanser!

In a blog many, many moons ago in the glorious days when I did regular updates I did a post about myself and my personality traits that held me back in having more success at Kings of War. So, after several years of slowly climbing the Masters listings I thought I was finally going to make an effort and be in that glorious top 16! That meant sticking to one army and over the year learning it’s strengths and weaknesses and achieving mastery! It wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t but it would be nice to prove to myself that I could. There’s lots of fun aspects to the game and competitive play is one so why not embrace it every now and again?

My initial thought of doing Order of the Green Lady stalled halfway through so I started the year with Forces of Nature and did quite well and crammed in loads of early events which rocketed me to the top 10 and kept me there for most of the year. Nature it seems, suited me just fine until I did the Easter Endurance event (5 games in a day) and just couldn’t write a good list at 1kpts based on the models I had. So in stepped the Free Dwarfs list and I came 2nd! This was my best ever result so from then on I went with both armies and for the first 6 months I was best in race for both Nature and Free Dwarfs. I eased off over the summer months what with holidays and whatnot so lost my Forces of Nature crown but finished the year in 9th place out of 269, and Best in Race for Free Dwarves! So what did I learn and what were the highs and lows of my two chosen forces;

Forces of Nature;

I’ve toyed with several lists and included many variations. While the ‘Meta’ (ye Gods I despise that term!!!) seems to hang on the air elementals formation with extra Greater Air elementals on top with cherries, I only took the one. I was even using it before it got the massive update and it was doing just fine as it was. I found it worked best supporting 2 Water elemental hordes with a mounted druid (so she could keep up). With the speed, regen and surge they are good all-rounders and always formed my faster wing of the army. The core would usually be two anvils, either earth elementals or Naiad hordes and then the rest would be supporting units. I tried plenty of variations so here’s the…

GOOD!

Hydra! Is one of my favourite units in the game! This bad boy is my token carrier, he can be used as chaff or an anvil and for the points is an utter bargain for the points.

Pegasus! Usually 2 of them-they do very little damage but are great as chaff and late game rear charges/objective takers. Taking objectives in the last turn has won me plenty of games with these.

Avatar of the Green Lady! People often say the unicorn is better as it has a damage output but don’t underestimate her cloak of death/radiance of life. My record was causing 8 wounds in one turn and her manoeuvrability gets her where she needs to be to keep your troops in the fight.

Scorchwing Horde. I found the regiments lacked the punch and are too fragile but the horde is superb! It adds some much needed firepower and speed and gives you a ton of tactical options.

The Wiltfather. He hits like freight train and I often scout him up a flank on his own and he does the business. I found him better as an add on to a 2k list when it went to 2.3k. He’s a hefty chunk of points and other things can do the same job job in small games for much cheaper.

BAD! 

Naiad Wyrm riders. Their new Riverbourne stats suggest they are the hammer that the list needs but they just don’t deliver. The lower speed means they are outdistanced by cavalry and that beautiful regen means nothing if you’re already dead.

Centaurs. They were a substitute for the wyrm riders and just didn’t do enough either. I think I have to build around them as one regiment isn’t enough on it’s own. I think a horde properly supported would be amazing.

And so on to the Free Dwarves…. For my thoughts on them you will have to wait until next time! I shall be heading off to Nottingham on the 21st January to fight the best in the country! Most of the players are from the South in my area so I know I’m guaranteed a bunch of great games! I’ll write part 2 to tell you just how well I did. I have no grand goals, just to play for the joy of it-I’ve already done what I set out to do. Now it’s 2023 I’m focussing more on getting different armies on the table and already taken my Forces of the Abyss out to a tournament for the first time! And after Masters I’m off to play Ambush with my Trident Realms who haven’t seen the table since 2nd edition! 

And as I am officially a Masters player now, what was my most masterful moment of the year…? Well, I was having a particularly tough game against UK No1 Chris Lynch. He had a flying elf hero who, after a cock up positioning from me, had managed to charge my glade walker druid. She’s a tough girl and survived and I healed her up, only for her to be charged again. And again. In the close press of units I couldn’t get anything to take him out so in a masterstroke, I reversed my earth elementals, wind blasted the elf in front of them and surged them in to kill the little bastard. I lost the game but that was a moment of perfection!

And when I said I didn’t have any goals for the weekend I was lying to look nice. Ed Herzig has stolen my Forces of Nature Crown (it was NOT, repeat NOT my own incompetence!!!!) and I want him humbled under my Dwarfish boots for his impudence!

Tune in next week for Pt2!

Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 two games intertwined on so many levels but boiling down to simply…. Fantasy and Science-Fiction. 

Kings of War, while being Warhammer’s stunningly charming cousin you wished you’d met before you got married, it’s Sci-fi side has always been lurking at the side of the dance floor waiting for it’s turn. Not that it’s not fine looking in it’s own right, it’s just overwhelmed by the colossal warlord titan of Warhammer 40,000 filling the dance floor. It’s hard to comprehend the size of 40k, the background literature, the insane amount of models created over decades, best selling video games, you will find players in every club/shop in the land….. It’s accessible and well supported and can’t deny it’s pretty awesome. 

So…. What have we got? Apparently there’s a game called Warpath but I’ve only met one person who’s actually played it and it’s so unbalanced it’s not really worth it. I read the source book for the game and the background for the universe is actually pretty cool, but I’m sure as hell not going to blow a load of cash on an army I’ll never get to play with. At the other end of the scale, set in the same universe we have Deadzone, which is pretty awesome. I’ve only played 4 games and already fallen in love with it. It’s simple, fun and reminded me a lot of youthful sleepovers playing Necromunda until dawn. But, similar to Warpath, I don’t have many people I can play. 

And now along comes Firefight, nestling happily between the two for scale, not a mass battle nor a small skirmish. In fact it’s pretty much the scale of Warhammer 40k, and this I find extremely interesting, because although I’ve mainly moved to Mantic Games these days, I still love the Warhammer 40,000 universe and really miss playing sci-fi games. But the problem with the actual game of 40k is…. It’s a bit poo! When the current edition arrived I adored the new simple ruleset but within months it became the same garbled mess of garbage the previous editions had been.

So, having painted up the GCPS from my Deadzone box, (And a Warpath box my sweetie got me for my birthday and some snipers) I headed up to The Pit gaming shop in Borehamwood near Watford.

As the game was so new (apparently there was a 1st edition which seemed to sail largely under the radar) it was the first ranked Firefight tournament in the world! The Kings of Herts were organising it and seeing as they were instrumental in building the hugely successful south east Kings of War tournament scene, it’s a hope that they can do the same with Firefight. So….. what’s all the fuss about?

Having only been out a month, it was a bold move to run a tournament so soon but there were no painting restrictions and it was kept to a reasonable 750pts.

3 squads of marines, 4 Autocannon teams, 5 Ranger Snipers, Strider, Major and Medic! Didn’t quite get finished painting them…… but they’ll do for now!

Having barely read the rulebook, and having had no practice games or demo I was right into;

GAME 1! This was against Mark Robinson who is on the rules committee for the game and marvellously offered to play me first as I knew bugger all. As an introduction to the game it really showed what it was worth. The rules, a beautiful blend of Kings of War, Deadzone, Vanguard and 40K meant I picked it up incredibly quickly and although Mark won convincingly (and rightly so!) I did make him at least sweat for it. Compared to the 40k ‘I have the best army so you lose on turn 2’ style of gaming it was a breath of fresh air! 

We had dispensed with the building rules for the tournament as we were mostly new and it was an extra chunk of stuff we didn’t need to remember so I had 2 big chunks of terrain in my deployment. I placed virtually my entire force in-between, as the mission was to capture the centre (the Kings of Herts guys had specifically chosen missions similar to Kings of War so we wouldn’t get too lost!) and I reckoned I had enough firepower to create a kill box in the centre and just walk in with my reserves for a win. It almost worked….

I managed to gun his 2 marionettes squads, cyphers and sky razors down for the loss of just my sniper squad (using my major and medic to keep my losses low) but I learnt the true strength of the Asterians pretty quickly. While it was fairly easy to strip shields, you really have to focus fire to take things down before they can bring them back up. His spectra neatly cut down my strider and then teleported to worry my centre and his Black talon prime and bodyguards in cover with stealthy AND shields meant I simply couldn’t kill enough to make a difference. 

Main lessons;Use small arms fire to strip shields and THEN hit with the big guns. Polaris cannons have a long range so you don’t have to run forward like an overexcited newb. Medics are awesome.

Game 2 was against Niall’s Marauders. This mission was control the table quarters and he had a bunch of big tough squads to chew through. We were also using reserves. Again I kept my squads (mostly) near my medic and major to get the most out of them and whittled his squads down in order to make them break. The single ripper suit left managed to pass his nerve 3 turns in a row on a 7+ while laughing at me but the focus firing managed to work on 3 of his other squads. It was just enough for me to pull off a win but it could have quite easily gone either way.

Main lessons;Play the scenario. I was used to this one from Kings of war so kept an eye on my Unit strength and where it was. Marauders are waaaay better than me in combat (the brawlers diced me without even a sweat) so I couldn’t push forward. Instead I had to shoot the right squads in the right places to make sure I had my two and deny him one of his.

Game 3 was against Matt Ramsden himself who runs the shop (it’s a Mantic premier store with a huge stock range and great discounts and mail order too!) and it was also his birthday so he gave us all cake! This didn’t help him at all as I blew his rats to smithereens.  We had to evacuate civilians and again, I was nervous about pushing forward into close combat range. A couple of things helped me win. Obviously Matt’s terrible dice rolling, but Veer-myn shooting isn’t all that great….. while I managed to again make the best of my medic and major to keep a stable centre and use my mass shooting to take his units out a bit at a time so even the nasty stuff that did make it in thankfully didn’t have enough punch left.

Main lessons;I have the Veer-myn models from Deadzone and an extra box which is the start of a new force. I learnt some valuable lessons about their strengths and weaknesses and they have the potential to be devastating if used right. Luck helps too!

So in the end I came 4th which is pretty good for my first try and Tactical War-games World is running the world rankings and as this was the first tournament I’m officially 4th in the world! Not exactly a major achievement but I shall shout about it while I can! 

GCPS are my army of choice to start with. I always liked the Imperial Guard in 40k and these models are cooler. All my troopers get the fully enclosed helmets and they’re all painted like Master Chief from Halo. I’m also a big Starship Troopers fan….. there’s lots of scope to do what you want with them despite the lack of variation in troop themes.

They’re not individually that good, but with a medic to keep them resilient and returning wounds and officers to inspire and issue orders they can really stand up. They’re not great in combat so suffer from that lack of flexibility BUT they’re a great choice for a tactical shooting force. Huge amounts of shots, sacrificial units to put enemy troops in bad positions, using pinning and flamer weapons to dictate how much damage you suffer in return…… It all sums up a really fun army to use. I learnt a LOT, even at 750pts and now I have a better understanding of the game I can look at the list and see what I need to upgrade and what weaknesses I have to mitigate. Next is some anti-tank rangers in a drop ship. I’m sure they’ll help mitigate my combat weaknesses a bit but mainly they’re totally cool.

All in all even after only 3 games, this has immediately captured my imagination more than any other Mantic game (after Kings of War of course!) and I was genuinely astonished at how much fun I had playing it. I’ve been waiting nearly 5 years for Games Workshop to get the Horus Heresy game back up to scratch and they’ve finally released a new edition that looks great with loads of new toys and books….. and I’d much rather play this! I walked out of the shop with an extra GCPS mega force under my arm!

The next tournament is up north at the start of July which I sadly have to miss due to a 2 day Kings of War tournament at Tabletop Republic in High Wycombe (a brilliant excuse if ever there was one!) but the Kings of Herts have another lined up at The Pit on August 6th! Be there or be square! The South East has a thriving tournament scene and the Kings of Herts were instrumental in building it so it looks like the same might be true with Firefight too. 

One of the big issues facing the game is players, after all you can get a game of 40K in virtually every town in the land but if there are no visible Firefight players to play with then why would you invest in a game you’re not going to be able to play? A thriving tournament scene will certainly address that issue and compared to 40k the clean balanced ruleset will appeal to competitive gamers, indeed it will attract many disgruntled 40k refugees (I am one). There’s an interesting argument about using proxies and any 40k players coming in may very well want an alternate 40k. Several of the races are fairly easy to proxy and if it means someone can start playing straight away….. then why not? I’d rather have a game against someone using 40k orcs than not have a game at all. We only had one out of 10 players in the tournament using an old army and he’s already looking at Mantic stuff. If that’s that way it’s looking going forward then it’s all good.

Word on the street is that it’s been a big success for Mantic and I’m not surprised. There’s only a few races to start with but it’s a big galaxy and there’s plenty of scope for new races and background. 

I’m in.X

As you may have noticed by now, I do rather enjoy a good Kings of War tournament. Not having much chance to play local friendly games, they are my main gaming outlet so I try and make the most of them and use the rest of my hobby time painting and building. 

The main problem with this set up is all the Vanguard stuff I’ve bought and never get to play with. And Deadzone. And Armada. League of Infamy and Dungeon saga (and now Firefight…..) are added to the list and that’s just the Mantic Games.

So imagine my delight when I saw the announcement for Explod-a-con down at Entoyment games in Poole. A full weekend of Mantic Games tournaments. It was only an hour and a half drive from me so I chose exhaustion to save money over the hotel.

So this is a tale of two gamers and they’re both me.

Gamer 1! As I have said in a previous blog, I suffer at Kings of War because I tend to take models or armies that I fancy depending on my current fancy. Not this season! This season I’m taking 1 army and learning how to use it properly and then try and get to masters. I’m not too fussed about actually going to masters, but looking at the list of people who went last year, I had beaten about half of them. So this year I figured I’d actually prove to myself that I CAN do it, at least the once at least. 

I didn’t get around to doing my Order of the Green Lady so I’ve been taking Forces of Nature, tweaking the list after every tournament to find that sweet spot.

But first…..

Gamer 2! Still me! But this me isn’t the ‘aiming to win guy’, this me honestly doesn’t care!

Friday at Explod-a-con was Vanguard. I’d only played 4 games before with a Dwarf war band at a small tournament at the Pit and that had been a couple of years ago….. The previous tournament wasn’t kind to me. Dwarves only have little legs and I came up against 3 Orc war bands and a Goblin war band and I got utterly, utterly stomped. I found the game overly complicated and a little clunky with the way the fatigue rules worked so I finally used it as an excuse to paint up those sweet Basliean models I got with the Kickstarter, to give it another go. I wasn’t expecting to win a single thing, I just aimed to have some epic moments!

My first game was against Todd’s Trident realms and had some tough guys and a leaping frog who was no end of trouble but my war band were a mix of Paladins, sergeants and a Dictator, heroes all! I quickly picked up the rules and relied on my shining armour and skill at arms and pulled off a surprise win! The surprise continued by also winning my second game against Alans dwarves, destroying their baggage wagon, One Paladin spent half the game rolling around in the dirt parrying dwarven hammers while the Dictator played dwarf cricket with his giant hammer.

Alas my winning streak came to an end as I came up against Jon’s Abyssals trying to pervert some power stones. Now playing at 200pts I added in a Ogre and another paladin and it was an epic fight of good versus evil, my Dictator killing the Hellequin with a single blow before being cut down by the Seductress! My noble paladins mounted a heroic defence (like the last battle in Steps to Deliverance!!!) but to no avail. My last game against Alex was another brutal fight against Abyssals, and after a good start my Dictator was sucked in and spat out by the portal, returning to see his war band slowly overwhelmed.

So another loss, but I had won more than I thought I would, had a lot of fun and changed my mind about Vanguard and would definitely love to get some more games in. It was lovely just to play something new for a change, just for the love of having a bit of fun. It clearly worked as I got my first ever sportsmanship award. As anyone will tell you, I’m FUCKING ADORABLE so needless to say I’ve always been confused that I’ve never had one before but there you go! Numbers were down due to covid but everyone had a great day! I didn’t stay for the Walking Dead but was back for day 2 for….

Deadzone! I’ve never played Deadzone, only having just got it for Christmas So I painted the box GCPS, added a Strider and some rangers and went in at the deep end! Needless to say Game 1 against Tom’s Marauders was a brutal learning curve. I manage to kill one before I lost…. Game 2 I killed several Nameless before I lost….. Game 3 I killed even more Asterians, enough to win! And then promptly got shot to teeny bits by Todd’s enforcers, finishing off a thoroughly enjoyable day! I didn’t stay for the awards as I had to dash off as me and my lovely lady had tickets to see Andy Zaltzman that evening!

So back to Gamer 1 (still me) and the final day…. Kings of War! I challenged Todd after my Deadzone massacre and scratched a win. I played well but had one round where 3 combats all failed to go my way and it was a hard slog to get back on top. Reaper units are utterly, utterly hideous. I may have to treat myself to a Nightstalkers army…..

Game 2 against Jon Gunns was a brutal and tactical affair and came down to me failing a 1 inch surge to get my greater air elemental into the Soul reaver flank…… leaving me open to get butchered. My hydra had two tokens in the far corner but it wasn’t enough.

Final game was against Seb’s Rhordia which was a lovely army I’ve wanted to play for ages. When I saw how he was deploying on my left I weighted my right flank and hid the naiads in the woods in the centre. I smashed the flank and got the objectives I needed and redeployed to protect my centre…. And just to be a shit, as it was Salt the Earth I flew my pegasus over to destroy one of his objectives, winning the game.

So two wins and a loss….. put me at the top of the Masters leaderboard! It only lasted a week but it’s great to see your name up there! I have plenty more tournaments to go so if I keep up playing at this rate I may make masters! 

Theres lots of aspects to this hobby and this little adventure has proved you can be gamer one or gamer two. Both are awesome, don’t hold back and just go for it. And most importantly, have some fun. 

Another year has passed in the wonderful world of Pannithor! Or has it? In the chaotic time-warp of pandemic restrictions, lockdowns, political calamities, social division and the, well, quite frankly utter insane bullshit of the real world, it’s sometimes hard to remember.

Despite all this, in the fantasy land where we go to avoid such unpalatable things like real life, things have actually gone quite swimmingly! Mantic have been dropping quality on us like a goose laying golden eggs. So lets go Veruca!!!!!!;

-Model quality has gone up! Rather than the occasional new army that might intrigue, we’re barely recovering before another fantastic release has tentacle slapped us across the chops alongside some of the best models Mantic have ever produced! A good sign of quality is how much a model sparks our interest. I’ve never even contemplated Veer-My before yet the Pack leader with the Deadzone starter set is just so fantastic I’m having a hard time forcing myself not to do a strike team to go with him. It’s the same across the board with every release! Awesome new models everywhere!

-Gaming quality has gone up! Now we’ve all had a while to absorb 3rd Edition, we’ve been given Cok22 which has given the game a fantastic range of new aspects (I’m not even going to bother going over them as loads of other people have already discussed it ad nauseam and I’m lazy) and everyone has dived into making new armies and lists like it’s the second coming. Seeing the excitement online has been a delight to watch and I’m looking forward to the new tournament year like never before. Speaking of which….

-Gaming volume has gone up! Down in the South East of England, at the start of July we had our first proper post-lockdown tournament (with careful restrictions) and that kickstarted plenty more across the country. I made it to Stockport, Cardiff, Bristol, High Wycombe, had a great time at all and no cases of covid! Hooray! Despite my best efforts I didn’t make it to Masters but seeing and this season lasted 3 years I guess I’ll write it off. Starting in 2016 where I placed 144th (then 72nd, then 46th), this season I placed a respectable 36th! This year perhaps I think I may try my best to stick with one or two armies and learn how to play it properly instead of getting over excited! I love the Order of the Green Lady changes in Cok22 so they will be my army, though it will take a while so I’ll go with my Forces of Nature for now. And I will have plenty of opportunities to try as a tidal wave of tournaments have already been announced and I have paid and signed up for 10 already! It’s got so busy I’m in the position where I can pick and choose which is a wonderful position to be in. Some tournaments have sold out in hours so the need is strong, and while we have a hardcore base of players to fill places, there are events to welcome new players in too!

So with all this, plus the success of Armada and it’s huge amount of releases, Kings of War is in the best shape it’s ever been! Deadzone 3rd edition is super-juicy and I’ve jumped onto that too with my first tournament in March at Explod-a-con in Poole. I should probably learn how to play first.

With the looming threat of the return of Warhammer (market share threat at any rate. We have the quality, they have the marketing) this massive investment in Kings of War is a great move by Mantic, solidifying a strong base for the game which will once again have strong competition in the ranks and flanks department. It has kept it’s versatility for accepting other models/systems while also establishing it’s own identity. Things are looking good for the future.

Kings of War also has what many other game systems lack-a strong welcoming community. Having seen some of the toxicity in systems like 40k and the Old World Facebook page, it’s lovely to have such a friendly supportive community to bounce around with. 

We’re not perfect by any means. Recently there was quite an uproar when the Masters site gave an award for the most attended events titles “Kings of War Whore”. It was a joke. Crude? Yes. Crass? Yes. Cringeworthy? That too. But still a joke. But comedy changes as all things do. Try watching a Carry on Film that were hugely popular in the 70’s and judge it by today’s standards and you will wince. I know Rusty who won the award. The thought that a super-cute balding middle-aged man with an unhealthy dwarf fetish may may be a ‘painted lady of the night’ because of his love of Kings of War is rather comical (Jan was also in the running for the award and had she won it then things would have gotten a whole lot more awkward a lot quicker….)  But comical between a small group of friends does not extend to the rest of the world. As the community grows it will encompass all manner of creeds, colours, genders and of course, sense of humours. A word in itself is not an evil. It’s just a simple string of letters describing a thing, behaviour or a subject. The issue comes with the intent. Words have power when used in certain ways and a middle-aged white mans experience of a word won’t be the same as a young lady’s. 

What then happened on Fanatics was frankly like watching a playground brawl (oooh! FIGHT!!!), where everyone dived in, people tried to break it up, they got punched too, I’m pretty sure a brick got thrown at a teacher….. We have to remember that we are all human beings, with our own feelings and real world stresses but importantly we’re here for the same thing, which is to have fun with toys soldiers. It’s something that unites us. We’ll never get everything right and the important thing is how we deal with problems and that little spat shows that we could all do with a bit more understanding, patience and kindness. Smiley face emoji.

But, that was one incident in an entire year of goodwill, hobby enthusiasm and support for something we all love! So bravo!

So with the charm of a young John Cusack, I’m in High Fidelity mode and I think it’s only right I give my Funky Funk Pannithor Collective top 5 of the Year!

1. People! Real life people! Gaming and having fun with real armies on real tables. No more lockdown sitting in your pants painting toys and eating 3 day old stale pizza because you can’t face queueing for 2 hours to get into the supermarket! No sir! We paint together, we roll dice together! Bad boys for life!
2. Halflings! While, as a gardener, I feel personally victimised by Mantic taunting me by bringing sodding lawnmowers into my fantasy life, I shall let them off because the model is super-cute! I’ve never wanted a halfling army as such jolly little fellows should never be subject to the horrors of war, but give them troll lawn mowers, hand grenades, dog cavalry and giant walking pig-tanks and the little bastards are in the zone boi!!!! I held off for a while as I just couldn’t face doing another army, especially a horde one…. But as soon as I saw the poacher formation led by Ally McSween I couldn’t resist! So I’m doing a 1000pts of pint sized criminals especially for doubles games! Had to brave Nottingham, West Yorkshire, smashed a wing mirror on the way but thanks to Matt at the Pit (on tour in Pudsey) I managed to get two boxes of poachers! Adventure! Plus my dog Pippa looks like an Aralez. She’d be no good in war though as she can’t even catch the fat brain-dead squirrel that comes in the garden. She’d have no chance against a Rift forged orc. She is however, great at stealing biscuit wrappers.
3. Manticores. Mantic, a game about fantasy monsters that doesn’t make Mantic-ores. It’s almost insult to the world of comedy. But they sorted it! Finally! The Riftforged orcs are great and Mantic’s orc line really needed a refresh. The new models and list are superb. I don’t like the lightning theme and names as much, as many people have pointed out they’re almost like a Orc version of Stormcast eternals (TOTAL VOM!). I’d have liked them a little more Abyssal. So Rift-forged don’t quite make the top 5, but Manticores do because….
4. I love Clash of Kings updates. The new tactical challenges and opportunities provided by the updates can be really inspiring. I’ve wanted to do an Order of the Green Lady army ever since I first saw the list but want to do an all Mantic army to keep with the background. With no new models anytime soon, it went on the back burner, but the new water elemental formation (which I already have) is superb and the updates to the army at large are perfect so that’s this years army project sorted! I’m making a horde of Redemption and a horde of Forsaken all out of different heroes and races of Pannithor riding different beasties. It’s a lot of converting and painting but enjoying it so far! So those Manticore riders are getting turned into Dandylions and used as forsaken. I couldn’t say Daniel when I was tiny so used to call myself Dandylion instead, and these  flower infused Manticores are going to be as super-cute as I am.
5. So working 40-50 hour weeks, with a ton of extra work due to only two of us in the company who could carry on working alone safely, family time, hobby time, pandemic shopping for others who couldn’t…… Despite all that, I still managed to finish my first Tales of Pannithor novel ‘Rage and Grace’ for Winged Hussar Publishing! Rejoice! I’m currently reading through, making sure everything is perfect before I send it off to the publishers. There’s editing and possible re-writes but it feels good to finish the year getting the first draft finished! The pandemic really hit the release schedule of the Pannithor novels but they’re slowly getting back on track but it will still be a long while before mine see the light of day. I may even have time to write another in the mean time……

So that’s my top five for the year! I’m sure you have your own and I didn’t even get to mention Deadzone 3rd edition! Next year looks like it will be bringing Firefight too so will be a bumper bonanza of Sci-fi goodness for me to get my teeth into! I’ve already got 2 squads of GCPS nearly painted and ready for action!

Right, I hope you enjoyed that, though feel free to not. If you found it insulting then please come and find me in person and don’t bother crying on the internet about it.

There won’t be a review of 2022 as I plan to have achieved my Apotheosis by then. 

Oh, and Happy New Year you magnificent bastards!

XXXX

This year I would like for Christmas (Yul, Hogswatch etc)…….

A pony! Well not just a pony, lots of ponies! Big ones! With armour! The fact is Mantic makes pretty good infantry, monsters and heroes, but what it is really lacking is some quality cavalry sets. A lot of the older ranges are all PVC, a little clunky and don’t stand up to the modern ranges. The Halfing doggy cavalry are proof that the future has four legs! Obviously, I want never gets, and Mantic can only produce so much new stuff so what I     

REALLY think will make everyone happy is a Knights of Pannithor box! A plastic sprue set to encompass the basic knights of Pannithor. A list of additional resin upgrade sets could cover more specialist choices like Brotherhood monster hunters and Knights of Redemption, Abyssal horsemen etc and I daresay players of other games would jump at the chance of a plastic fantasy knight set too. It would cover so many options in Kings of War it’s a brilliant plan that can’t fail! 

Elves! The same idea goes for Elves too. The elf range was the first and possibly the most disliked of all the Mantic ranges. The new models in the League of Infamy game showed just how cool they could be and the Drakon riders followed suit! Give us more of the same, and just like a plastic Knight set, the opportunity for resin add on kits to turn them into Sylvan Kin or Twilight kin makes it 3 for the price of 1! 

Elves! Well, half of them. I am of course talking about Half-elf berserkers. We had so many awesome models released with Vanguard, and while some like Reapers and Shadowhounds got a few resin alternate sculpts and made into box sets, my beloved Half-elves and Huscarls (one of the best units in the game that EVERYONE wants!!!!!) didn’t. Instead we got clansmen upgrades for bows and big axes that NO ONE wanted. I haven’t seen any on the tabletop, none in lists or online and they even had to write a formation for them in the Cok22 book to entice people. 

A similar choice happened with the Salamanders. An ancient upgrade pack? Def 6 AND inspiring? Hell yeah! Nope, instead we got the fairly pointless unblooded which you could pretty much make from the plastics anyway. It sometimes goes right as I am utterly in love with the Halfling poachers and Stalwarts but fleshing out some of the existing lists, especially obvious choices and things they already have sculpted would be brilliant!

Vanguard 2nd Edition! By last count I’d collected about 20 Vanguard boxsets. And despite that I don’t have a painted war band and I’ve only played 4 games at a single day tournament where I speed painted some dwarves and played 3 Orc players who walked straight over me. I realise it was only my first time and was a tournament, but it signified some glaring problems with the game and I’ve heard the same things echoed from other people too. With the fatigue, force fatigue, command….. And the tokens…. Oh god the tokens! The rules, where they are located, updates, cards, books….. I could write an entire blog about it! At it’s heart it’s a good game but needs streamlining, especially for a skirmish game. I played a lot of Necromunda and Mordheim when I was younger and this just doesn’t compete. Even the hardcore buddies who played when it came out don’t even bother now. So all those models I have for it are either in a pile or in Kings of war armies. I’ve signed up for a tournament at Explod-a-con in Poole in March (alongside Deadzone and Kings of war) so I’m painting up some Basileans for it. I’ll give it one last go! And speaking of……

Deadzone! Everyone raves about it, and after 25 years of 40k before giving it up, I am seriously after some sci-fi tabletop action. 2nd Edition rules seemed all over the place too so I’ve been hanging on for 3rd Edition and it looks awesome! I have have 3 months to learn and build a team before Explod-a-con! And not being able to trust Santa, wishes or Elves, I bought it for myself so I wasn’t disappointed. I can’t wait for tomorrow morning to finally get my hands on it! AND the fight with my girlfriend when I try to get out of going to visit family because I want to sit at home building toys instead…..

Merry Christmas!!! May you all get toys and avoid having to drink egg-nog, that slightly racist Grandpa and that drunk Auntie that threw up on the dinner table that year which your Mum still hasn’t forgiven her for!!!!!XXXXX

I happened upon a lovely Facebook post on the Pannithor Lore and Wiki (wiki wah-wah, biggity biggity yo-yo-yo all da Kings fam in da house say yo!) asking which historical period corresponds best to the Kings of War settings and technology?

Well, looking at the themes, cultures and technology of Pannithor….. it’s a bit of a bloody mess isn’t it? With Empire of Dust displaying a very obvious ancient Egyptian theme going all the way through to the Ratkin gas masks and crude tanks evoking themes of World War One. With the exception of the last 100 years, the Kings of War background has thousands of years of human history and culture to pick and choose from.

Well, I hate to say it, but Pannithor isn’t real. Bubble burst, not a real place. It’s all made up, but ANYTHING made up has to have some some reference to the human experience in order for us to quantify it. The most enduring stories are the ones that people can relate to or understand. Star Wars undoubtedly did well because there were bars and everyone was a bit scruffy, far from the ultra clean science fiction of the 60’s.

You can’t explain the unexplainable. You have to give it a reference. Even the Bible refers to an unknowable God as ‘Him’.

‘Is there a rough technological outline for the setting or are the writers just tossing in whatever they feel like?’

This was asked in the post and as one of the writers tasked with helping to build the fabulous world of Pannithor, I thought I’d share my reasoning on this because its something I’ve thought about a lot. How do you build a world? How complex does it have to be? Who will be interested? What are we building it for? How far can we go? How far should we go? 

It all comes back to what I originally stated and it also answers the Facebook question. Anything I write has to have some reference, some connection to the human experience for us to comprehend it.

Take the word Alien. It means from another country or another world, a foreigner or extraterrestrial. It could describe something disturbing or distasteful. Just saying the word might evoke a mental image of a little green man in a flying saucer, if you’ve been watching a lot of X-Files on repeat it might be grey spindly humanoids, only mysteriously seen in flashes.

To me it immediately evokes an image of the xenomorph from the Alien movies. I’ve watched them repeatedly from a young age. Way too young in fact but don’t tell my mother. At the age of 12 I had to run home in the dark convinced that one was going to jump out of a darkened driveway. I once was going so fast I skidded over and skinned my knee! That childhood horror turned to fascination as I got older and added to my incredibly healthy obsession with fantasy, science fiction and the macabre. 

The Alien franchise has lost some of the horror of the first movie simply because our human experience of it has changed. When it first came to the screens it was a revelation. Not just the shock horror of a regular horror movie, it had themes that cut to the very core of human emotion. H.R Giger’s creature was unlike anything seen before. Something new and unknown. Giger’s art has many sexual tones, and sex is where we are at our most naked and vulnerable and that perhaps some of the genius of the horror. It attacks us at out most primal stripped selves. And it doesn’t stop there. The method of reproduction, a suffocating mouth rape by a spider, impregnating you with a monster that then tears out of your chest is hideous on so many levels I can’t even. There is the lonely silence of space, the hopelessness of having all that technology and yet no weapons that work and even if you do hurt it, it’s blood will eat through the hull. Or you. And then there is the android, a blasphemousperversion of the human image…. I could write an entire essay on why this film is scary and still stands up after 40 plus years. But why am I saying all this? It’s my human experience. Those themes in the film were all familiar to us because we had sympathy with the characters in those situations, even though the actual events were alien to us. (Is that a pun? I’m trying to be serious so not this time. I’ll make a bottom joke later). As the films progressed into a long franchise, it never quite hit the same mark horror wise again. Nearly, but not quite, because we’d already experienced the horror and were more prepared for it. Our frame of reference for alien movies now included spider face huggers etc…. The unknown had become known. So my perception of the word Alien comes with all this extra baggage.

So how does this ramble of mine relate to Pannithor? Well that all depends on how much you already know. What’s an Orc in your head? The comical bright green fungus the bogeyman Citadel Minatures orcs of the 80’s? Or the snarling huge jawed fungoid gorilla brutes of the current style? Are they the mismatched chimp-walk, rubber mask orcs of Lord of the Rings movies? Or perhaps the childhood memory of the ancient Lord of the Rings cartoon-fuzzy dark shapes with glowing red eyes? Maybe the cultured ogre-like orc of World of Warcraft? Or the green human with tusks of Skyrim? So with all those mental images in your head…… WHAT IS AN ORC?!?!?!?!? And more importantly, what are the Orcs of Pannithor like? Do we just rip off another orc culture? Do we make up an entirely new orc culture that is unlike any other orc ever? Would people like that? Where is the balance line between plagiarism, a homage, a nod to, or totally dismissing what has gone before. At some point when we write about orcs we have to acknowledge the previous human experience of what they expect an orc to look like and how it behaves.

So much of the cultures and technologies of human history have found a place in the cultures of Pannithor simply so we can identify with them on some level. Their clothing, weapons, way of fighting social structures all mimic humanity on some level. Some are obvious, some are subtle. Some have completely contrasting levels of technology in the same army. Ratkin have rifles AND slaves. Ogres use giants crossbows AND black powder weapons. Does the level of technology matter? Not so much. The English long bow of the Hundred years war didn’t have a competitor for rate of fire until the 19th century. That’s 600 years. And a blade will gut you just as well, be it a roman gladius, A medieval longsword, a civil war cavalry sabre. There has to be a wide range stylistically to keep things interesting and a difference between races.

As we borrow from history, we also borrow aspects from other fantasy worlds so the reader can feel comfortable with their previous experiences of that race. The elves of Pannithor may follow a lot of similar themes to the High elves of Warhammer and the Elves of Lord of the Rings, but at no point was an Elven mage freed to go on a dungeon saga quest because Master gave Wizzy a sock. There has to be a limit.

Somehow we have to bring these races and cultures to life. Sometimes the perceptions and expectations of the reader flows along with the themes, sometimes it may be in direct opposition. Sometime there might be one tiny little fact about a race that you find really, really annoying and can’t get over-there has probably been a car park brawl at some point over the anatomical differences between a wyvern and a dragon. Fu*king nerds.

The more generic the setting, the more freedom you have to fill it with your own expectations. The more background and stories Mantic produce often conflicts with your own perceptions. It’s a minefield of personal tastes. Some will love it, some won’t mind and some will whine about it on Facebook and start an argument. I do love a good argument.

So yes, the writers can toss in whatever they want, so long as it makes sense. So long as there is some grounding in human reality, so long as it fits the themes and stories….. but we don’t just toss in everything. We try and select what is believable for the setting, what is cool and entertaining and as always we hold it to the light of human experience to look at it before we show it to anyone. Sometime we get it wrong (flying butthole worm with a castle on its back is wrong) and sometimes we get it right (troll lawnmower with a halfling on top is Nobel prize territory). Someone, somewhere along the line will rein in anything too wild or stupid. No socks for Wizzy.

I’m getting near to the end of my first draft of ‘Rage and Grace’. It’s pretty much the big battle at the end left to write. I constantly read over what I’ve done and ask myself if it’s realistic, if it fits in Pannithor. I’m currently reading Natures Knight and see if I have to go back and re-write anything because I got it slightly different to the other writers. 

There’s lots of little things I have to consider. Lots of human sayings and terms that wouldn’t exist in Pannithor, what other races they would have interacted with based on geography, how food, commerce and social standing alter character perceptions.

As an example I have a Twilight kin character who is incredibly self absorbed, clever, but also insane and depraved. Saying someone is depraved is one thing. But how do you actually show depravity? To a certain historical period flashing an ankle is depraved. At the other end of the scale some of the jolly things that the Emperor Caligula got up to would make even the Marquis de Sade blush. So where do I go on that depravity line? Brandon, the fabulous editor at Winged Hussar Publishing has to read it and he is notoriously nice, so my depravity level might not get past the censors…. but it might. I tried to keep it relevant to the character and the story. Depravity for depravity’s sake is just depravity. My earlier words come back to me. How far can we go? How far should we go?

Well that was all a lot of chit chat wasn’t it? And I should probably finish on that bottom joke I promised, but my writers imagination is now fixated on if an alien face hugger attacked the bumhole instead of the mouth, would it still work the same? Answers on a torn and bloody scrap of flesh to the usual address……x

With our first tournament in the South east of England, and the US masters generating more excitement than the Euro football thingy, I’ve been having a think about the higher level of gaming. What makes an exceptional player? Again and again you see the same names near the top of the lists. I’ve barely met any of the Americans and yet I look down the list and seem to know who they are and what armies they use. I know many of the English players and even though I attend many tournaments there are plenty of the top gamers I don’t know either. I’m good at the game, but I’m not exceptional. I’m a good mid table kinda guy. So why aren’t I exceptional?

For a start, I’m not hungry for the win. I love it when I do, and am frustrated when I don’t but no matter what I always remind myself that it’s just a game and not worth getting upset over. Having worked in a Games Workshop store and having lost to mere children hundreds of times, it pretty much gives you the tools to accept defeat graciously. Plus training competitively with steel weapons gives you no room to get angry or people get hurt. You accept your hits. If you don’t like losing then analyse your mistakes and train harder. So I play for fun, and if it stops being fun then it’s no longer a game.

Secondly, I could play chess, but I love Kings of War. Both are strategy games but it is the spectacle of the armies that draws my love. I adore the miniatures and crafting and painting a force and that creates another obstacle to me winning games. I want to paint certain models because I love them, not spending huge amounts of money and time creating specific units just to win a game (that particular trend pretty much killed 40k for me). For example I currently have about 40 Empire of Dust archers built and waiting to be painted. By all accounts they are terrible in the game but I love the look of massed skeletal archers and bugger me, wether they are fantastic or utter codswallop, I shall paint and use them! I love the army reviews and listen and read intently which units are good or not but that still does little to sway me-I paint models I want to play with and enjoy the process of learning how they play in the game.

And that leads me to my next problem. I get sidetracked easily. I’m constantly switching armies because I want to paint fun new things. I have several armies and while I can stay focussed and paint new armies for tournaments, I often just paint new units for my existing forces in between just to keep things exciting. This mainly means that I rarely stay with an army long enough to learn all it’s ins and outs and become better with it. As time goes on with this process, all my armies slowly get bigger and bigger and I’m getting more options to make better army lists. 

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And that leads me to my last problem. Because of this process I’ve learned to enjoy learning how the armies work through actual gaming. There is a difference between looking at a unit entry on a rulebook page and understanding it to be a bit poo and actually playing with it and seeing how it can be used in actuality. With every victory or defeat I learn a little bit more of my units and lists and how they perform and what fun units I can add in to make it better. Sometimes those units will be fantastic, some may not be and I add it because it looks good but every game I learn a little bit more. So I’m enjoying the journey of the game, and maybe, just maybe the destination of that journey is exceptionalism. So hold on tightly to those champion pants Dan King, one day, probably far, far, in the future I may be coming to cut your knicker elastic!

LEVEL UP! Part 2.

So looking at what makes an exceptional player now I’ve got my own crippling inadequacies out of the way!

There are a huge amount of aspects to Kings of War and looking at any list of tournament players shows that there is a huge variation in any particular race. There are 26 (I think, I didn’t bother to count) to choose from and that no race is overwhelming chosen over the others indicates that they are pretty balanced between them. In essence this means that a good player can win with any race they choose as long as they’re good enough. The winner of the US masters won with the Herd, an army that many consider one of the weakest.

But again, what makes an exceptional player? I’ve noticed that there are several layers to the game and you can win or lose at any of them. Indeed you can quite happily be successful at any level but I’m looking at the exceptional. 

Level 1! Point and click! This is easy mode and becomes terrifying in the hands of a good player. It basically involves taking the hardest units you can and shoving them down your opponents throat. While this has been mitigated somewhat with the huge re-balancing of 3rd edition, the Drakon riders, Twilight kin chariots and formations of 2nd ed still echo through eternity. Super hard units still exist but they are carefully watched by the rules committee and are addressed yearly in the Clash of Kings updates to keep the power levels balanced. Even so, taking a lot of fast, tough or huge units can be hard to deal with and can provide an easy win. A good player will always have ways to deal it but it becomes more of a challenge. A full cavalry army, multiple ice elemental hordes, flying armies, armies of def6 units, lots of flyers….. all can be a headache. Point them at the enemy and smash their face in.

Level 2! The toolbox! A good player will have the right tools for the job. Taking good units is one thing, but getting the best out of them is another. Using disposable units to deliver your attack, softening the enemy before you get them, making sure the right units are inspired or supported….. It’s a matter of choosing the right units to do what what you need them to do. In a way this level is about fine tuning your army to a level of finesse. Most tournament players exist at this level and at the higher end of the spectrum you learn that aside from just killing the enemy, you know that you need an army that can fulfil the scenario objectives in order to win. You learn that even seemingly rubbish units on paper can win you a game if used correctly. You learn that units might seem amazing but just aren’t worth their points.

Level 3! Never be where the enemy wants you to be. It’s a game of ranks and flanks and that means positioning your units to the optimal, making sure you get every angle and distance correct. At this level it’s less a fight and more of a dance. Shambling units and surge add extra angles that your opponent has to think about, enthral and wind blast can pull/push units out of position giving you even more to think about. Flyers/nimble/height all add dimensions to those angles and distances. It’s all about forcing your opponent into making choices he doesn’t want to make. The better you out manoeuvre an opponent the more of those bad choices he has to make. Looking at that Herd army list that won the US masters, it had a lot of speed and flyers including 3 beasts of nature. In the hands of an exceptional player that’s a lot of ways to get put in places you don’t want to be. A winning list doesn’t necessarily mean winning player. A lesser player might lose nerve and charge too quickly or tarry too long before striking but in this case clearly did the trick and he came away with the gold!

This is all my speculation, it might be genius insight and give you ideas on how to play better or it might be total hogwash. I think the only realistic response is to play some games….. Happy dancing!