Matt Gee Minis

Pre-Intro Ramble It's been a long time since I have blogged so what's the best way to solve this? Get someone else to write a piece! A guest contribution from Kings of Hert's Mat Green on the ins and outs of dice rolling. Mat hosted the first competitive wargaming event I ever attended and has, with gaming partner in crime Paul, been one of the champions in growing a KoW tournament scene in the London area. It may be the first of many entries, we'll see! That's enough rambling from me though. Over to Mat... Introduction I was reading an article about dice rolling etiquette in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy issue 105 recently. It was a great article, and I suggest you go read it before we go any further. Go on. It’s a great mag, Ill wait. Back already? Cool. The article was talking about gaming in general, but rolling of dice in Kings of War, and the rules and norms involved have come up a few times on podcasts, forums and Facebook threads. It

William Black had been an unextrordianry child. Born to the village shipwright and her husband he spent his childhood playing with toy boats in the harbour and setting them adrift in the waves. On his 12th year as was customary he left for a life at sea, enrolled as a deck hand on the Prancing Naiad. A swift cutter, the Naiad spent its working days ferrying wares across the infant sea; young Wiily exposed to all the wonders he could face. As he matured into adulthood it was clear he was a hefty lad, not broad but tall. Put to work furling sails and packing the hold it was apparent his continuous growth showed no signs of abatement. Struggling to manage his enlarged frame William had given up strapping his worn leather shoes as he was unable to reach them. The rest of the crew jibed and joked with their lumbering crew-mate and the soon enforced tag of “shoelace” became part of his moniker. Everything changed the day the midnight sails of the Swift Vengance hoved into view. Spying

Game one of the Campaign for the crew of the skinned elf was against the Northern Alliance's Black Order. The pair of scouting parties had tracked down a massive walking monstrosity and would set out to do their best to irritate by a thousand cuts.  The Ogres set out to war with: Ogre Sgt, Jock Wrekham - Heavy Weapon, bandages Warlock, Grakem'Goroth - Lucky charm Siege Breaker, Horny Hagrath Warrior, Chef Rotgut Mauler Warrior, One eye'd Grok Brave, M'Goor'Gn'Throg Brave, G'Throg N'Gorog Goblin Rabble, Scroat - Spear The Northerners formed up with: Thegn - Rare Mount, Heavy Weapon Hurscal - Common Mount, Heavy Weapon Hruscal - Common Mount, Heavy Weapon Ice Queen - Helm of command Elf clansman Elf clansman Elf clansman Ice Kin Hunter - bodkin arrow, long bow As per the scenario the giant set up in the centre of the board, the pirates in two distinct bands with the braves, siege breaker and warlock on the left and the others

Initially sceptical about vanguard and only having played a few games I've had the chance of throwing a company together and playing in a slow burn campaign. While temporarily distracted by deadzone  I am going to try and use either system to make a welcome distraction. It looks like it will be pretty good timing with the new Fire and Ice release on the way there may be some tweaks that make the game more appealing to me. I have played a handful of games and some of the mechanics look good but there seemed to be a few things that felt a bit broken and open to abuse. We have a gentleman's agreement not to use things like battle mounts in the campaign as they seem very hard work, other changes that arise we'll just adopt as the book arrives on doorsteps. Who's clamouring for attention? I'll be multitasking and making the most of painting up the remaining Ogres for my KoW army and aiming to use them in Vanguard. Because I am single basing a lot of the 40mm

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  help

The Strider... The model that caught my eye and drew me deeper down the rabbit hole into Mantic's sci-fi universe and into Deadzone. The concept of mechs and armoured walkers in wargaming has been with me for over two decades. I first prized open a copy of GW's Space Marine in the 90s after meticulously studying the box art in all its glory. The titans just looked amazing. Ridiculously  impractical but who cares when they look cool. This evolved through systems into playing some battle tech /mech warrior both online and with minis. Few chances to play this meant I progressed through to 2ed 40k with the Imperial guard Sentinels. Then a series of films that captivated my imagination and just looked so damned cool arrived. The Matrix features some iconic walkers in their APUs, the loping run coupled with the heavy guns pouring streams of fire looked fantastic. Avatar's AMP exo-skeletons seem closest to the Mantic models but just feel a bit less violent looking, too cur

The way Mantic games work appeals to me a lot. There's way less focus on super-mega-killy-death-heroes that can destroy units or tanks with a merely a rye smirk, you have to take regular infantry. In both Kings of War that I have been playing for the past two years and now deadzone, objectives and VPs are (usually) a quicker way to a win over a straight out bloodbath. This means that leaders tend to act as a buff to tip the game over the edge. This could not be more true than for GCPS. Far from being combat monsters and only boasting about the same shoot stats as a line trooper the leader options will not be setting the world alight in a shoot out or bearpit. I see them as two things.  A way to get more command dice A way to make use of the Mantic splat The comparison for the infantry options seemed to work last time so I'll do the same on the leader options. We are presented with the motley crew of: Marine Sgt. Ranger Sgt. Major-General Unit

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