Fluffy Stuff

Fluff, theme and overall appearance are things that I think make painting up toy soldiers different from a game of chess. Don't get me wrong, there are board games that I love and I enjoy painting the playing pieces, but it's nothing on creating your own backstory and schemes completely uninhibited by needing to confirm with standards requiring a different player's pieces to be identified. The detail and materials of them aren't as nice as the Mantic ones I have but they serve a purpose. These are from the board game Scythe that I painted up for the Ludoquist, Croydon's new board game cafe.

Fluff

My first port of call for fluff has been the Uncharted Empires source book. Sadly it's a bit thin only stating that there are "three major kingdoms, each ruled by a Neritican or High King". There's also a small bit about orcs not liking them. Next up is the Edge of the Abyss, 2017 Campaign book. This is a story of the living legend and doesn't really fill out much back story. Due to this I think I'll put the fluff on hold as I hear there is more depth in the new CoK 2018 book.

Colour and Theme


I like the classic colour of the Mantic models, pale blue and beige works well but as I will be allying my Neritica units with my Abyssals, and as I never really like being the good guy, I want something a bit more sinister. A combination of Darth Maul and Strawberry Poison Frog seem to fit the bill nicely. This will sort out my Naiads and Riverguard. Possibly with black armour highlighted with red but I'll think more about that. Red and black is a classic "Danger, back off" in nature so I think it fits nicely. Thuul and Wyrms will need a bit of thought as I want them to fit in.


Basing

Bases are one of the things I've learned to love about Kings of War. My old GW days were all about filling out blocks of infantry. Even before decent movement trays were a thing it was a pain moving models around and removing them when dead. My Abyssals are on a combination of single bases in case I want to use them for other gaming such as Warhammer Quest or multibased when I have lots of spares or they are Mantic figures. This allows me to in some cases reduce the model count (like my stand in hell hounds). In addition to using all Mantic I'll be trying to get full model count on each base.

The aim will be to have bases representing a transition of sea into beach with the position a unit will be in the battle line matching their base. Think D Day beach landings. Kraken, and Water Elementals in the sea, Naiads wading out of the surf, Riverguard and Wyrm riders in among the dunes and beachgrass.

I have no idea if I can pull it off but it's good to have a plan.






Boxes are beginning to arrive in the post so I'll have a peak at them and start concocting lists in the next post...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An unboxing from the Dark ages - Wargames Atlantic Irish

Image
I have always had a soft spot for Celts. The idea of those wild people from the North West of Europe, their "fingers up to authority" feeling against the Romans etc. I toyed for a while with trying to make an historical army but never really found a system or players local enough to me to consistently play it. The recent swell in mini agnostic games that are designed to be so has changed that. I was after some javelin throwers for my slowly growing Kings of War Northern Alliance list. This is intended to be my slow burn and use the models I love so what better place than to get some of those Celts I always fancied assembled and painted.  I like models to be simple enough to be functional but still have plenty of visual interest to paint. Scouring the options from vendors such as  Foundry ,  Perry ,  oldschoolminis , ebay and facebook trading groups I couldn't find anything that fitted the lead cast approach so turned to plastics. I think I must secretly be an airfix ...
Read more

Guns, lots of Guns

Image
Now I have looked at the squishy organic stuff it's time to turn my attention to the hardware (this post has evolved somewhat since this sentence however...). There is a bewildering choice of weapons on the GCPS list, there are 6 varieties of rifle alone! All seem to have slightly different stats so I am guessing a good mix is crucial. Some have rapid fire and there is weight of fire thrown in for good measure. They are all very slightly different in appearance and it turns out there is a handy guide in the Outbreak book With the base sprues I have I am limited to  LR-rifle LR-32 Carbine Grenade Launcher Flamer Laser Pistol Grenling 340 I am hoping with a sharp knife and some experimenting I can create a heavy laser rifle, Thermal Rifle, Marksmen Rifle & Accutek AWP. Although stocking up on all the weird and magical options makes my squishy base troopers pretty expensive and reduces the model count. Reducing the model count means few guns and as guns is wh...
Read more

Support Mobilised

Image
With all the guns and grunts out of they way the last set of units to review are those that do not have a direct combat role. The medic, medi bot and engineer None of them come with any particular damage out put to write home about, their purpose in life is to help others. First up a straight comparison between the two medics. The Hippocratic Oath I have only picked up 2ed and the recent Escalation protocols books and it seems that there has been a bit of a rework of the medics as I presume no one was taking them. The original ability to fix up a model that was injured doesn't really have a big advantage when most of your stuff is size 1!  The corporation is probably more suited to zipping up body bags than administering aid. The only slight benefit is the resilience the model will offer to a model in the same square. Once you have given him a ranged rifle he ends up being 5 points more than a standard marine with the same stat line. there's a chance it may  hel...
Read more