Halflings of War

Behold, an entire legion of my worst troops!

Well I finally sucked it up and painted the biggest chunk of infantry, my Halfling Braves. I have based them so that I can field three regiments, a horde and a regiment, or a full legion.

The clock is ticking down now for the tournament next weekend but the bare minimum is done if I proxy one character (using the Feast Master for a Muster sergeant) but hopefully I can get the intended mini done over the next few days.

Before filling out the much needed chaff, I indulged in something fancy – a Harvester!

As the army has a weird flora theme, I figured my forest trolls wouldn’t be green. So he isn’t!

I played my second game with the army! In a race to get a fieldable army for the tournament, I have managed to get 2300pts together. Maybe not the most balanced list ever but good enough to try some things out!

Halflings Grower [2300 / 2300]

~ List Valid ~

Halflings [2300]

Stalwarts (Infantry) Regiment [130]

– Relentless [5]

– Two-handed Weapons [0]

– Hann’s Sanguinary Scripture [10]

Stalwarts (Infantry) Regiment [125]

– Relentless [5]

– Two-handed Weapons [0]

– Staying Stone [5]

Poachers (Infantry) Regiment [150]

– Relentless [5]

Juggers (Cavalry) Regiment [210]

– Relentless [5]

– Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding [15]

Juggers (Cavalry) Regiment [215]

– Relentless [5]

– Blessing of the Gods [20]

Wild Lancers (Cavalry) Troop [100]

– Relentless [5]

Aeronauts* (Large Cavalry) Regiment [175]

Aeronauts* (Large Cavalry) Regiment [175]

Iron Beast (Titan) 1 [225]

– Pride of the Shires [15]

Sauceror (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [110]

– Halfling Hot Pot [10]

– Inspiring Talisman [20]

Sauceror (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [130]

– Miniature Aralez [25]

– Shroud of the Saint [25]

– Heal (3)

Feast Master (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [105]

– Relentless [5]

– Gnome-Glass Shield [10]

Greedyguts [1] (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [115]

[F] Spearspikes (Wild Saucery) (Infantry) Regiment [105]

– Relentless [5]

[F] Wild Runners (Wild Saucery) (Cavalry) Troop [115]

– Relentless [5]

– Blackpowder Weapons [10]

[F] Wild Runners (Wild Saucery) (Cavalry) Troop [115]

– Relentless [5]

– Blackpowder Weapons [10]

I don’t have my brother’s list handy but it included three hordes of Shocktrrops, two regiments of Nightmares, Tunnel Runners, Mutant Ratfiend and Scud the demon rat prince thing.

So, it went poorly for my Halflings.

Obviously, as always when you take a battering, my dice rolled poorly.

Unfortunately, that was neither the start no end of it. When building this list I focused on getting the points up in time for that big tournament I am building towards. Now I need to make it into a good list!

Tactically I made a few gaffs, the first being putting too many ranged units on my right flank. I got carried away with keeping clear firing lines and forgot to put much melee over there.

I also put my inspiring units too close together in the centre where their auras overlapped. I should have moved something onto a flank.

Then, I advanced too quickly and gave up the opportunity to soften up the hordes of rats coming at me. At which point, I got hit with a freight train and units started to evaporate.

This has taught me the value of chaff units and has prompted me to put painting regiments of braves right up the priority list! I needed something to soak up a charge and give my heavy hitters the opportunity to engage. As it has buckets of dice overwhelmed my nerve values and stuff just broke before I got much chance to do anything of note.

It was an educational fight but a big loss to learn from!

An army marches on its stomach, but a Halfling army likes a little something extra in their mid-battle pick me up, and it must arrive hot! Deliver-doggo might just be the service you need!

Haven’t updated for a bit, but I haven’t stopped! First up we have a second regiment of Stalwarts. I have based these as a full regiment, they can be combined with the first two troops to form up as a full horde. This should be flexible enough to cover my needs as I doubt I will want to field four troops any time soon.

Next, in similar fashion, I have added a second regiment of Juggers! As with the Stalwarts, I already have a pair of troops so just based these as a full regiment which will combine to form a horde, for those occasions where you absolutely must sledgehammer into something.

Progress slowed a bit as I needed to take a break and paint something else, but I have continued building and priming stuff. And finally got another two regiments finished!

These Aeronauts are super cool models but they take a lot of work! Paint the crew, paint the gondolas, paint the balloons, paint the ballasts, paint the bases.. phew!

The second half of the Wild Saucery formation is done! Two troops of Wild Runners (including rifles and drunks) that push together to form a regiment.

Sliding into the sunset of the Spring Clean Challenge here’s one last entry before I carry on painting Halflings anyway.

This regiment of Spearspikes is going to be part of the Wild Saucery formation, which means this regiment gains the Gastromancy rule and magically buffs other Halflings with delicious cooking!

To represent that, I 3D printed a bakers cart I found on Cults to be the centerpiece of the unit and positioned the troops to mount a tasty defence.

Getting into the Infantry and starting with the heavy swinger’s. Two troops of Stalwarts based to push together into a regiment.

The bodies are plastic, the arms/helmet upgrades and commander’s head and hammer arms are 3D prints courtesy of the Mantic Vault.

The shroom rocks are also 3D prints.

Hopefully learning from my Juggers, I have been building minis and blu taccing them into place to check the look before painting and committing to it.

Here we have two troops of Stalwarts that will combine into a regiment, and a regiment of Spearspikes that will be part of the Wild Saucery formation. As the spears regiment effectively has a built-in Sauceror, I have included a 3D printed mobile bakery. I saw it and just had to!

Realising that a club day was coming up and I had enough stuff together to cobble together a 1,000pts Ambush list, I played my first game!

It was my first time using Halflings and I’m still figuring out how to play Kings of War and use things like strategy, so it was a loss of course. But a close one!

It was Halflings Vs Kingdom of Men in the get your units onto your opponents side of the table scenario. Lots of units died and I managed to hold up my opponents advance enough while losing to make it close, so there’s that.

I played this before finishing my Juggers so they are blue tacced onto the bases here!

Halflings Painted [1000 / 1000]

~ List Valid ~

Halflings [1000]

Poachers (Infantry) Regiment [155]

– Relentless [5]

– Staying Stone [5]

Juggers (Cavalry) Troop [160]

– Relentless [5]

– Brew of Strength [30]

Juggers (Cavalry) Troop [165]

– Relentless [5]

– Brew of Sharpness [35]

Wild Lancers (Cavalry) Troop [100]

– Relentless [5]

Iron Beast (Titan) 1 [210]

Sauceror (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [115]

– Halfling Hot Pot [10]

– The Boomstick [25]

– Lightning Bolt (3)

Feast Master (Hero (Heavy Infantry)) 1 [95]

– Relentless [5]

I am playing around with basing elements, what fits on bases, what looks too crowded and remembering how things fit together.

My first finished regiment (based as two troops to push together into a combined unit) is my Juggers, which have taught me a couple of things.

First of all, I initially intended to go for the full five model cavalry troop with a big mushroom covered rock for interest. And I decided to paing the riders separately to the mounts.

Lesson 1 – With hindsight it would have been easier to pose the riders while on the mounts, and I ended up attaching the riders part way through painting to make them easier to hold.

Lesson 2 – once the riders were on I realised that they were bulkier than I thought and the base was over crowded, so I dropped a model off each base. I now have two spare painted models to roll into another unit later.

Lesson 3 – while making the bases I tried to leave spaces in the shape of the model footprints among my texturing and scenic elements. Then I changed the model count. Then I kind of rushed gluing the models down and did not get the spacing quite right. It looks ok, but is a little off to my eye and I flipped a base around from where it was meant to be, so the ricks ended up next to each other. Hopefully other people don’t notice once the army comes together!

Overall I am happy with how they have turned out, but I will be approaching future units a little differently.

After a little break from the little guys to paint some superheroes, I am building upwards and getting the unit bases done as a batch job. Might as well get the meds out of the way right?

Batch painting is my Achilles heel so my theory is that if all I need to do is glue minis down as I finish them then units may just appear before my eyes!

I have 3D printed some scenic elements with a fungal theme and marked out spaces for the cavalry to fit into. Then I used some thin XPS foam to add a little variation in height.

Then I mixed up some polyfilla, sand, cork pieces and paint into a texture paste to slap liberally about before priming and painting.

After several years of bullying encouragement by friends I have given in to peer pressure been inspired to start a Kings of War army!

After a lot procrastinating weighing options I decided to start by taking the Halflings from the League of Infamy boardgame and using them as the core of the army. I had aimed to get them done for Dungeonalia but got distracted by hosting an Armada tournament, but they are done now!

In there we have three heroes, The Sauceror, Greedyguts and Feast Master. Handy!

And the mighty Iron Beast. It is chonky.

The cavalry I’m calling a troop of Wild Lancers, they need a base to bring that together.

The rest of it is a grab bag of things that I am planning to bundle up as a regiment of poachers. Due to the size of the boardgame based they don’t easily rank up on an infantry base, but I can neatly fit 12 of the 16 onto a regiment base so that will do!

Now, the theme of the army. I have an alien landscape mat from Deepcut Studios and a terrain crate of Mantic’s alien trees that have a weird fungal theme to them. As the background for Halflings in Kings of War is that they are constantly seeking out new food sources, my concept is a that the army is pushing into a weird mushroom rich landscape and forcibly settling it. So I am embracing the weird and wonderful for my basing and will be seeing what I can do with multibasing!

Next steps will be……oh god, batch painting……