Dwarven Ambush – A Kings of War Red Book Army

Oh, okay then…

Woodstock is taking the new Ogres and so my box of dwarfs is getting pulled off the top shelf, the layer of dust chiselled off and an army begun

This is a mass battle game and there’s a lot of other projects on the go so the paint scheme needs to be quick and easy. Back when I bought this army, I was still an active World of Warcraft player (oh the days of being able to afford an MMO in time and money!). The colour scheme was never in doubt then.

Time for a test model. Grabbing one from the box that was already primed in a mid-brown. Total painting time was only around 25 minutes. This will be cut by waiting until everyone is on their base before doing highlights (no point highlighting parts no one will see.

I have ideas for basing and for the shields but first thing will be to bash out the models. How many do I need? Comparing with what Woodstock is getting in the started box (or rather what the opponents in the box gets cos the Ogres are a size up), it looks like a couple of regiments of base infantry and maybe one regiment of cav.

Given we are aiming for our first Ambush games in January, I’ll be aiming for a regiment of infantry in November and December. The cav will probably be a Christmas project. Something to work on as all that turkey digests… 62 days to go! (You’re welcome)

This is a wee project that should have been ticking away in the background. It hasn’t been. I have the attention span of a four year old on sherbet so instead I painted Underworlds warbands. So I got to the week before Christmas and realised I need to paint up 750 points in three weeks (roughly).

An audiobook later and the two regiments of Ironclad are painted and basing commences.

Originally I had rather elaborate plans for these bases that involved resin but as the motto for the year is “finish armies for the table”, I’ve swapped to a more traditional texture paint-ground texture flock-snow paste combo.

This is a second hand army and so whoever owned it before glue all the models at odd angles on their 20mm bases which means they don’t fit properly when you mass them up. How, even if they were the right facing, you’d fit all twenty on a base is beyond me so I’m aiming for PMC+1. Off with their bases!

• Next a homemade hot chocolate texture paste. Sand, PVA and paint. Smother and allow to dry overnight
• Add a layer of pva and sprinkle over some brown flock for more texture then realise you could probably just have put this over the texture paint while it was drying… joined up thinking is not one of my strengths
• snow paste added between the rows so it looks like they have stomped through it all.

I have more to do in terms of adding in some wet looking patches and I have transfers for the shields but time is short so this will do for table ready for now.

First three units finished(ish). Shield transfers will be done at a later date but these are now ready for the table.

Next up is the main hero and two troops of brock riders and I’m hoping to get them done this week. Woodstock and I are trying to hammer down a game day for during my week off next week.

January’s painting and playing plans were waylaid by a home improvement project that was more involved than I was expecting and then a horrible chest infection. Woodstock and I had a day put aside for our first games but as I’m still not fighting fit, it’s on hold.

Painting progressed with the two troops of brock riders completed. The only thing that needs finished now is a Stone Priest.

For the snow basing I’ve been playing about with the AK Snow Terrain paste and Snow Microballoons. Still not 100% happy with it but it is relatively quick and dirty. The photo below shows one base on the right with just the snow paste on it and the one on the left after a layer of microballoons have been glued down. Definitely looks softer but I could give a drybrush to the bare earth parts to make them looks a little frozen. In fact, I will do that but I’m not going to take photos of it, you’ll just have to use your imagination.

The only thing left to paint in the original list is a Stone Priest. Once it is done, the temptation is to just go on with other projects however, given how many more models I’ll need to paint to get up to a bigger army, I really should probably prep the next batch of basic warriors.

I can’t claim any props for the list, I found it on the KOW app and happened to have the models already. The original list is here: https://companion.manticgames.com/kings-of-war-list-builder/?list=302

Finished painting the Stone Priest watching the Unofficial Hobby Hangout last night and with that, the 750 points for our first lot of games are complete.

Sadly I’m still knocked out with a chest infection so we don’t have a date for our rescheduled games but hopefully we’ll manage them before the end of February!

Finally a game! Woodstock and I have started to joke about this project being cursed, it has taken us the best part of four months to get a game in. We’ve been taking turns at being ill with Covid, chest infections, migraines and goodness knows what else. However, on the last day of April, we managed to get a wee Mantic game day in.

We fit in two games at 750 points. Both were pretty evenly matched and deadly as hell. We didn’t make it past turn four in either game. It was a lot of fun and  though there was a fair bit of checking the book in game one, game two had a much better flow.

Running the game on 3ft by 3ft, the dwarves didn’t feel as slow as I was expecting them to. Crushing strength on those ogres is brutal, my dwarves quaked in their tiny boots frequently.

We’ve agreed to go up to 1000 points in the next month – she is adding a Giant and I’ll be adding some ranged. Not having any unit to be plinking away as the melee units moved in felt like a wasted opportunity.

We had just enough time to fit in a demo game of Armada. Don’t know I loved it but maybe with a second game in the future to see if the things that annoyed me would stop me from playing it or just take a bit of getting used to. Lack of a water mat wasn’t one of my deal breakers 🙂