From the depths

So 2019 well nearly,
Around April-May this year i decided to invest in KOW and Mantic more heavily and start a Mantic IP army. I've started the Trident Realm as i enjoyed the aesthetic and wanted 2 things, a wildly different play style from elves and a huge challenge; as depending on who you speak to this faction is universally either considered the equal weakest faction in the game or one that may be gets to middle of the pack with horrendous match ups with advanced players.
I'm intending on documenting my journey for better or worse with this faction and also potentially show what can be done with nature occasionally.

So the start of the journey,
i had a quiet day at work and they had sent me 50 miles North for one job that took an hour, after sitting around for an hour or 2 i decided to just drive to Mantic HQ and see if i could get invited in, luckily for me I met Andy Meechan at the door and we chatted for a long time about the game and numerous things.  After a while i took a quick tour round the factory watching the metal get cast before I went shopping.  I started my collection with the basic box set, some additional water elementals, some gigas and maybe some additional naaids including wyrm riders.

Moving forward i was happy playing my elves but really wanted to push on with the trident realms as I had invested in them and knew they could sit in boxes for years if I didn't focus.   During this time period i made a decision deliberately not to play thee faction for fear of results putting me off hobby.
Anyway I also made another massive decision, to paint the army with no traditional painting techniques, I instead decide to mass paint using only washes and dry brushing on a cream/bone spray.  This i'm sure sounds horrific to a lot of people but please bear with me and i'll show the results during the journey towards 2019, the models i've added and the way i chose to lay out models on multi basing.

I'm hoping to do the first blog i've ever seen on a table top army standard paint job and how i'm going to bring a mish mash of colours together and not even bother to paint but hopefully still come out with an acceptable, original and hopefully more effective army than many people have seen before by a guy who 100% can not paint.
Further more as this year develops I will be giving my opinions on TR, Cok 19 and the different builds i feel this army can do, the strengths and the weakness' in my eyes.
Anyway don't want to ramble, but i do want some help, how do i take nice photos of models on an ipad, if anyone has the answers to this please contact me on the messenger AP i will be very grateful for your time, and hopefully this of interest to some people in the new year.

Elves and their roles part 2

Sorry for long delay my laptop broke
So had some interesting feed back after part 1, and I thank everyone for that.
Some people want more tactics (they will come), others want a nicer layout and I will try, and the juiciest bit for me is some people disliked my comments.   I love debate so feel free to challenge what I say, however I'd prefer it if you didn't try and put me down at the same time they are merely my considered opinions.

So without further a do let's move to part 2 and look at the characters and monsters.

A reminder of my ratings system
1 not a sound investment
2 will see sometimes
3 a likely choice
4 what you will likely see lots (main stays)

Bolt thrower 2
The humble bolt thrower is strong by the standards of warmachines, it has less spectacular but more consistent damage.

Dragons breathe 3
This was a real staple prior to cok 19, loses some shots now but I still think it will be common just likely one instead of 2. Personally i've never used them but that's because of models and playstyle, they are a real bug bear of low defence armies


Army standard bearer 4

Don't know many armies without one, elves don't have loads of characters that inspire individual types of troops so this guy is very likely and he's very likely to be carrying the lute of insatiable darkness, probably was a 3 in cok 18 but his stock has risen since there is no longer a black iron crown.

Mage 3
You saw them a lot in cok 18 I think will be less in cok 19, but natural heal 3 the potentially for either damage spell with items and elite and the ability to to still be inspiring or cast 2 spells a round means they are still going to be present, it just makes me sad they cant take surge.

Prince 3 (should be a 4)

The most under pointed chaff in the roster. 75 points on a horse with crushing one and 3 elite attacks def 5 + is a no brainer and if you have the unlock slots he makes several options like battle cats seem hugely unappealing 

King 2 or 1
He's ok on a horse, bad on foot, decent with the wings of honeymaze but compared to other rosters a little poor for the same points. I don't see a reason to take him but have seen others

Noble on war chariot 3
Decent chaff, that also contributes at range, wish he was crushing 1 thunderous 1 instead of tc2  but that's being greedy I guess. 8 attacks in a flank 3 + elite and tc2 with nimble is definitely a valuable contribution to line breaking

Master hunter 3
Underused I usually take 1, sometimes 2, have this guy as a vanguarding ASB with the inspiring talisman, he can get to warmachines, contribute at range, inspire forest shamblers or baby sit archers, lastly he's fast enough to be the inspiring to the second flank of drakons, this guy is made of win.

Forest Warden 3
find him interesting with the surge spell in cok 19, he was a good cheap unit strength before and isn't awul in the flank of something, I personally don't find him compelling, but with dragons breathe going down in shots, this guy with diadem and vanguard is always fun


Drakon kindred lord 2
Mobile unit strength and inspiring that's not trivial to remove, but contributes very little, 2 more attacks and id be very interested

Dragon kindred lord 3-4

Again has lost breathe but the elves don't have many hard hitters and this guy can, boots of levitation, chalice of fury, vicious or brew of haste, likely to see one, I think 2 is less likely now as the breathe is a diminishing return on before

Treeherder 2
I wanna like them, and they can stick around in heal builds, but basically I don't think they contribute enough for 260 points, probably gonna see them with medallion of life when you do, and not terrible, but why when the dragon is not that much more, especially now the forest warden has surge.

Green lady 2-3
A solid army leader, elite heal 8 and very high defence and nerve with fly also make her very good piece of chaff if needed. However Id nearly always take a prince on horse or master hunter and mage with the extra heal item for less points or equal points and more output and options.  My fundamental issue with her is you are paying for defence and fly for someone I want healing, if used as chaff I then cant heal and not contributing in what is in an already elite army. I've seen people try the formation and ive tested it, but it lacked something and I actually think it was just a 100 points to expensive because of her.

Latheal silverheart 1 (should be 3)
You never see her but is the best surge caster in faction with a lightning bolt 5 to boot, I've used her a lot in practice and any sort of improvement to forest shamblers in the future and she will be everywhere.


Elf tactics soon incoming soon, although;
i've actually moved away from elves at the moment, 25+years (7 year gap in middle) of playing them at every level you can imagine and I want to try something new.
I enjoyed them in COK18, I won 2 out of 3 tournaments I attended at 1 day level (12-24 players) and finished 11th at clash of kings, but had I not rolled 5 or 6 sets of double 1s in the last game would have come 3rd. (that's not taking away from my opponents play at all)
In Warhammer I played them at ETC level, was world number 1 ranked high elf for a while(that's not to say im the best its just an arbitrary achievement I attended to accomplish and did), uk number 1 for many years, podiumed at a couple of larger events and won a lot of small events or finished in the top spots. (this isn't meant to sound arrogant its merely meant to show why I feel I can share my Opinions).
Hopefully after a break and when I feel they offer something fresh for me to try ill do that, but right now i'm moving to Trident realms, which ill tell you now are so far below elves in power level its not even real. Anyone that thinks this game has good cross faction balance i'm here to tell you it doesn't. However its a challenge I was after and I will take it, but I may give these guys a run out at masters in January frankly so I just don't make an embarrassment of myself using TR.
PS I don't hate TR they just needed around another 5-7 units buffed in COK 19 to make them even a viable competitive faction imho, the models fluff and play style I really enjoy and cant think of many cooler things than a kraken or trident king can you ?

Making a kings of war army presentable (a guy that cant hobbies guide)

Ok after the gaming post last time, i decided to gain some motivation for my current huge hobby project and hopefully give people some tips along the way.
Having recently got into kings of war properly i was fed up ranking my models all of the time and my hobby shelves in the games room being a mess. I haven't finished yet but i'm at a place where i feel confident to share my elf army. Also id like to add a caveat here i'm an average painter at best with little time in my life and no motivation to create high end models, what the post is about is how to motivate yourself to paint to a 3 foot standard and how and what to get to make a multi-based kings of war army.

The elves i've completed so far

As you can see i have a fairly large collection (probably another 4-5k on this just elves tbh), and to motivate my self i wrote themed lists to include these models that i could test to see how they performed. I then began by making up the models that were in bits on my shelf such as chariots and drakons and cutting out some old hardboard i had at home with a stanley knife to see how the bases would come out.  This was a partial success but with the time involved and finish i got I ended up deciding to get laser cut bases from https://warbases.co.uk/ , I'm sure others are available but I had heard good things about this guy and certainly wasn't disappointed.



So the themed lists, I'm sure most people in the hobby like me have broken or half painted models or armies around, an example of this in my case was the wood elves i was bought 6 years ago, they had some paint on them and were based in a scheme different to my high elves from the old game, so firstly i had to remove all of them from the original bases.  Removing models from bases I'll warn you now is a laborious and soul destroying thing to do, models snap at feet and knees you have to glue stuff back together and I've found no magic trick, just clippers, a knife, glue, some tape for your finger and a lot of patience.
Its my opinion though that cohesive basing is everything, your army can be a very average standard like mine but if based cohesively it will look the business on the table.


some wild hunters from my force

So now what to put on what base, imho its important to leave your long term gaming options open, don't put hordes on horde bases as tomorrow you may want 2 troops, or a regiment and a troop, with this in mind i really considered my options when making my bases up making sure they would fit together when complete
 

so these guys can be archer/spear troops or regiments

 
or then again seaguard regiment or horde

my whole army is done like this and its the best advice i have to anyone multi-basing, unless you are creating an award winning diorama its best to leave your gaming options open.

So how to base, i have read a million posts from everywhere and some people (hats off to them) spend longer basing a model than i do a couple of regiments. This does not work for most family guys and imho is unnecessary unless you are wishing to compete for best army somewhere. I also feel this is where cost can be saved as well as time compared to anything I've personally read before.
So here's what i do, whenever i cut plywood on my bench saw i save the shavings in a microwave container

i then add the cheapest railway hobby ballast in the world

and make this mix

once my models are then all stuck to the base i then simply get pva glue, brush it all over the base and tip the microwave container all over the base which i sit in another microwave container, it takes minutes. This is compared to glueing sand, then painting sand, then drybrushing it, then adding tufts etc etc, over a large force you are saving days and serious money i have likely based the equivalent amount of models across systems of 40-50k KOW and that has cost me £6 in basing materials including glue.

Overall then i'd just like to share some more photos with you guys, and please don't feel you have to hobby my way at all, its just an idiots guide to quick cheap hobby and to let people know what im up to right now. Photo spam below just because :)  any comments would be greatly appreciated


palace guard


drakon riders


army left


army right

Elves and their roles

Following up my first post then, I thought I'd have a quick guide/Ian opinion with elves in kings of war. I'll talk about first what describe the units, and then what lists I tend to play.  Hopefully this will lead you tomorrow understand both me as a player and elves a little better.  Today I'll just do the core of the army elves get the unit strength they struggle to fit in lists.

Ratings
1 not a sound investment
2 will see sometimes
3 a likely choice
4 what you will see a lot (main stays)

Kindred tall spears (3)
The elven anvil, elves don't do proper anvils because at speed 6 that probably wouldn't be ok, but at def 4+ with phalanx, nerve21/23 on a horde this isn't bad. Punchy with 30 attacks hitting on 4s rerolling 1s (elite)it takes crushing strength and bane chant really well. It's issue is infantry hordes are unwieldy terrain will often means it hits on 5s.

Palace guard (3)
These guys are the elite hitters, the troops are really good chaff that hit hard, the regiment is a mainstay fairly resilient def4+, 15/17 but 12 attack output isn't amazing even with 3+ Elite natural cs.

Kindred archers(4)
You can leave home without them, but you need a reason to. Elves struggle with unit strength this horde is great for that, add piercing to their bows and hitting on 4+ they can wreck the world. In truth they are like 5-7 damage a round on most things against a good player who uses cover but the spikes in dice people remember and they can down infantry regiments or monstrous hordes in a round if you spike with a cheeky bane chant.

Thrennian sea guard (2)
This unit is in my humble opinion caught between a rock and a hard place, they are spearman with 5 less attacks in horde ( that are 50 points more) and archers (that are 30 points more) that hit on 5s with 5 more attacks than archers. However in reality as stated above spears like cs and archers like piercing, so what banner do you give these? Then the shooting, playing on a bowling green against new player doesn't 25 shots hitting on 5s is great, but playing against experienced players those 6s to hit compared to the archers 5s will mean you are hitting half the time. However I think as regiments in very specific builds of music type there may be a place for regiments naked of items.

Kindred glade stalkers(2-3)
Sorry I'm on the fence, another archery unit that gains +1 to hit in melee, pathfinder and vanguard and loses a point of defence. Often this means first turn (if you roll it) the unit can shoot with no penalty which is sweet however the drop in defence is massive and pathfinder unnecessary to gain cover most of the time as you will want to stay still and are unlikely to want to run. If they switched one of the rules for nimble would be vastly better. Competing with regiments of sea guard I'm afraid or some sort of gun-line builds.

Hunters of the wild 3(I think)
Massively under utilised by myself to date, this unit is primarily a bucket of none elite attacks with pathfinder. I think their issue is do I want to invest 190 points and the cs item on a 14/16 unit and it's probably no, they maybe a few points over because of the largely unnecessary vanguard but 25 attacks from that frontage should always be a consideration to your lists.

Forest shamblers 2-3
This monstrous unit is a cheap anvil often seen with brew of haste to utilise its vanguard and charge t1 as above. I think that use is a trap normally. This is a more genuine anvil than the spears as it's fearless def 5+ and pathfinder helps on a small frontage. However the offensive output is perhaps challenging at best, I genuinely prefer these as regiments-/14 5+ for 125 points is really good for speed bumps.

Silver breeze cavalry 2
This shooting unit has 1 problem its prohibitive cost(145). Speed 10 shooting with nimble is cool, however there are really bad in the flanks as they are treated as horse archers not genuine fast cav. I dunno 11/13 4+ seems seriously fragile to me if they were mellee 4+ or thunderous charge(tc) 1 I'd find these more palatable.

War chariots 3reg 1 horde
Chariots are what I would take instead of seaguard/glade stalkers if you are going an msu type build, regiments contribute little but enough and are not trivial to shift while offering some alpha or counter punch threat. In truth their output is poor but they terrify other chaff.
In horde I rate them between 1-2 this is because the base size requires both nimble and pathfinder to function against a half decent player and we know tc units have enough issues without that base size issue.

Stormwind cavalry 3

These are not a strong 3, but like the chariots speed 9 units can't be lower, they don't have the bows the chariots do but at def 5+ and melee 3+ they can do considerably more damage and are more manoeuvrable than chariots. Sure they still have all the cavalry problems and need to have pathfinder banner probably but decent cavalry for sure.

Battle cats 2
Cheap chaff, not bad at it, if they had the path finder they feel they should have id probably take them even if nimble got dropped, but not being able to march is troublesome for chaff and a prince on a horse is cheaper.  They occasionally make my list just as an extra scoring piece.

Windborne (legendary silverbreeze) 2
I feel rough giving these a 2 as they are flavour of the month, however keeping this 170 point 11/13 unit alive and not wavered is hard, amazing ability in a windblast that damages, but a mage on a horse with windblast is arguably more resilent and when did you see that? The issue is good players mitigate windblast and bad players often accidentally do, may be cool in a list that also surges but I haven't looked in depth at that.  Really wanna like these guys but generally I see a couple of spells or shots wiping up 170points.
 I wanna give them 3 I really do, but the rational part of me said I couldn't.


Drakon Riders 4
Lastly and definitely not least drakon riders.  These are the weight lifters of the army, fast, nimble, hit hard and hard by elf standards resilient. If you haven't played against them, then you will and if you haven't played with them, what are you doing. I personally horde them always but its very possible to take them as a regiment also especially in MSU builds. Nothing else to say these are the main stay of the faction.


In the next instalment ill do warmachines, monsters and characters, I may even look at allies and formations. till then keep rolling.(my drakons below)

From warhammer to kings of war

Hi, I'm Ian Sturgess,
Some of you may know me from my days as a regular on the WFB scene, where I believe I played for longer than I've ever held a job, others may have met me throwing dice around in the Midlands KOW scene or in warmachine/hordes or possibly off my couple of years on Ohio hammer or from the ETC (if Fred reads this I know I've made it).  Anyway I have been known as Chaffmaster for a long time (Ed Morris to blame)and it was down to a term I used for swordmasters if you ever heard it, it was my baby.

When fantasy ended and AOS came out to be honest I'd had my fill of rank and flank and the concept of AOS intrigued me, I'm sorry to say it let me down massively and I tried many games before sticking to warmachine for tournaments; and KOW but only in my games room with my long time
friend Mick Mckee.


Many people tried to get me into the KOW Uk tournament scene especially my mate Lordy(Darren Parkes) but tbh I think I was temporarily burned out on rank and flank, even though setting wise it's what I loved.
I attended around 1 event a year and got my ass handed to me by people like Dan King as frankly whatever rules me and Mick were playing were not the ones in the book.
Last year something happened though I got dragged along to a black dragon event in Hinckley and I started enjoying the game, its cleanness and simplicity finally won me over I guess as a yang to warmachine, my mojo for fantasy had returned.  For me this was great I read some fluff dusted off the woodies I had half finished painting and began to plan single basing etc etc

Got to be honest haven't got far with the painting yet but on the gaming front I've reimmersed myself in the scene.  The uk community I've met in the Midlands seems friendly enough and I'm afraid to say they probably all know me now as I have an inability to keep quiet.

The blog im writing this blog really as I don't have time to do podcasts but would love a little record of my hobby and learning experiences to share with you guys.  I'll try to remain positive on the game etc but I will have my say if I don't like something.  I did try and set something up with Tom Robinson and Adam Padley a couple of old mates of mine and it hasn't happened as they are busy with the Northern Kings events.

Anyway the blog, will contain tips,tactics, reports, I'm not sure myself but I'm a very mathematical player and in my next blog I will start to go through some dice maths stuff or my elf infatuation and explain some mistakes I've made.