KOW - Ratkin Multibasing: Proof of Concept

On the weekend I started multibasing my Ratkin. I thought the process would take a long time but it looks like I grossly overestimated the required effort.

Last night I finished all the Tunnel Slaves - one Horde, extras to make a Legion and three Regiments. This morning I did the two Hordes of Clan Warriors.

The unit is on an MDF bases with home made pavers and cork/diorama effects debris.

The brave Clan Warriors are bunched behind the debris waiting for the enemy to engage.

All around is the evidence that these brave souls have voided their bowels as the Musk of Fear overtakes them.

I've tried to capture their "bravery" by grouping them all to the back half of the base - managed to squeeze in 29 figures so MMC is achieved.

Pretty sure when the fighting starts it will be every rat for himself as the most perceptive of them offers to "Go and get help".

 

Posted with Blogsy

KOW - The Hill Conundrum

Building on the occasional series that I started highlighting obscure rules or nuances, I thought I'd touch on the conundrum that is a "hill" in KOW.

There have been a series of threads bubbling away on the Mantic Forum in relation to Hills, Terrain, Line of Sight and Cover. Reading through these over the past week or so I have developed a better understanding of the KOW rules and thought it worth sharing.

Who Would Have Thought That Lurking Below Such Beauty Is In Fact A World Of Secrets?

Nick Williams of the Rules Committee provides a great summary of "Hills" as they occur in the Kings of War rules:

"The only things they [Hills] do is block LOS like other terrain and add height to a unit standing on them".

This is critically important as blocking LOS and adding Height are two different mechanisms. It also means that you get what may appear to be strange contradictions.

“While standing on a hill, a unit adds that hills height to its own. For example, a height 1 war engine on a height 2 hill would be height 3, while large infantry (height 2) would be height 4 while stood on the hill.

A unit must have the majority of its base on a hill in order to be standing on it.”

Excerpt From: Mantic Games. “Kings of War.” iBooks. 

Therefore having the front edge of your unit's base or the unit's Leader Point on the hill does not convey any additional Height to a unit. If you want the benefit of Height to see over other terrain or units then you must ensure 50% of your unit's base is on the Hill.

This is different than the rules for Difficult Terrain - where you only have to have a portion of your base in it to see or be seen. The difference comes from Hills not being Difficult Terrain - they don't hinder charges for example - but their own entity with their own rules.

The key takeaway from all this is that as far as the Rules Committee is concerned, if you want the benefits and drawbacks of a Hill (increased Height) then you only get that when you are standing on the Hill (more than 50% of unit's base). Up until then you can neither see nor be seen if the Hill has sufficient Height that LOS could not be normally drawn.

Personally I don't think it is the most eloquent of rules - 50% while objective is, in-game, subjective - it is nice to have a clear ruling. Hopefully any ambiguity can be cleaned up in v3.

KOW - Review: Vallejo Earth Texture

Recently I picked up a jar of Vallejo Earth Texture. It comes in a 200ml container and in a variety of colours. The variant I got was Dark Earth which is a brownish grey.

It has a thick paste consistency, is an acrylic - so cleanup in water - and dries in 30-45 minutes. The consistency is similar to the GW Textured Paint but obviously the 200ml capacity makes it far cheaper (GW is $13 for 24mls whereas this retails around $25 [NZ Prices]. That makes it about a quarter of the price).

I apply it using an old paint brush in "gloops" which I then work into the required position. Besides its more useful consistency over filler, it is coloured so if it ever chips you aren't left with unsightly white surfaces to repair.

I use it to provide additional texture to flat surfaces like cork or MDF. It is also great to apply over a layer/pile of coarse grit as is fills some of the holes and gaps. Originally I was using it on the bases of terrain but now I use it on my figure bases as well.

This is rapidly becoming one of my "Go To " hobby products and I strongly recommend that you add it to your painting table.

Weekly Hobby Update

Made some real progress this week on some things that are dear to my heart.

First up, as per my previous post, I started the multibasing for my Ratkin. I was dreading doing this but may solid in-roads into the task after a single day. Managed to build on that over the last 24 hours and I can see a definite endpoint. My big concern from here is removing plastic models from resin bases to mount on new mdf ones. I expect the best option will be to use a wide exacto blade....and pray to the Horned Rat.

I have also managed to get the FW Brood Horror painted. This model has sat in my unpainted models drawer downstairs for probably 7-8 years so it is great to get it painted. I now have to paint his rider which will likely take a couple of evenings. Then he can be the centrepiece of my Blight Horde.

On Saturday I managed to get in two games down at the Warlords. In the first, I was narrowly beaten by Lliam's Forces of the Abyss in the "Bounty" mission. I really enjoyed this scenario. The variable Bounty values give it layers of nuance. In the second game, I played Josh's Orcs in "Ransack". The Herd were ultimately victorious but not until after they had seen their Lycans removed by a Regiment of Morax with Brew of Sharpness. This left a hole in the Herd lines that they had to quick fill before the Orcs exploited the breach. Luckily I was able to pivot a Stampede and charge past its initial target to hit the Morax. My second line then moved forward to cover their initial position.

Over the week I have been enjoying the glimpses we have been getting of the new 40k rules on the Warhammer Community page. This strategy of highlighting specific rules and mechanisms prior to the release of the new edition in June has been excellent IMO. For someone who is looking to come back to the game, not having to deal with the bloated corpse that was 5-7th Ed Warhammer is great. There is no baggage, no requirement for "institutional knowledge". I am very optimistic on the new rules set though I think that it may be a real shock for some of the current player base. From what I've read it looks like it will herald a return to "realistic" armies that win through synergy and tactics and where games are played to a conclusion rather with list designed never to see Turn 4.

KOW - Ratkin Multibasing Begins

My mdf bases from Sarissa yesterday afternoon so I've 6-7 hours constructing the multibases for my Ratkin.

They have all had magnetic sheet fixed to the bottom and I've laid the pavers and started to build the various levels. The first grit mix has been added and I'm waiting for the glue to dry before I can seal it. I'll then start build up further levels before I grit it again and then start painting.

At present there are 6 Horde bases, 6 Regiments, 2 Troops, 2 Cavalry Troops and 2 Large Infantry Hordes. The monsters and war engines are a direct port over from current basing.

The big job will be removing the models from their current single model bases then drilling and pinning them to fix them to the new multibase.

Mapping it all out I'm hoping that I'll have it finished after next weekend.

 

Posted with Blogsy

KOW - WIP: Blight Brood Horror

While I wait for my MDF bases to turn up from Sarissa Precision (guessing tomorrow), I have been working on a Forgeworld Brood Horror I bought for my Skaven and never used.

I intend to use her as part of a Blight Horde. At present I have only laid down some off the base colours but she is progressing well.

Hoping to spend time on her this weekend and get her to a stage where she can be multibased so I can build the unit around her.

There is an enormous amount of detail on the model and I can see I'm going to have fun bringing her to life in all her giant molerat splendour.

Check back early next week to see how I got on.

 

Posted with Blogsy

KOW - Army Ranking Using UK Results

One of the benefits of constructing the rankings is that you get a dataset that allows you to do some assessment.

You'll notice that I use the word "assessment" rather than "analysis". The reason for that is that currently the dataset is too small for any statistical confidence to be applied and....more importantly....there is a wide spread of variables that have to be considered.

The rankings are based purely on that. Player ranking at the end of the event. Therefore it is not just Battle but Presentation and Sports. Each TO has their own scoring rubric and so apples are not always being compared with apples....sometimes it can be tangerines.

There is an Army Ranking page that you can access here

This is constructed taking the best ten results for each army excluding that of the person holding the Army Icon. The exclusion is a blunt instrument to limit the impact of player skill (i.e. you might have one player who is very good with the army putting an undue skew on results).

Here is a snapshot of the results for the past year:

# is the number of inputs that go into making up the score. For instance, for Undead the ten best scores were taken from 53 inputs.

I have only included those Armies that have 25+ inputs from which their score is drawn.

The results show some quite interesting "banding" for armies with a similar number of inputs. 

My gut feel is that the Undead result has been built on De 6+ Vampires and we may see them come back to the pack with the recent COK 2017 changes. Elves were higher ranked in the past and I believe that their current ranking reflects changes to Flyers (impacting their Dragon and Draakon builds) and probably more importantly, people learning to play against their strengths - they were very successful when the current edition dropped.

Based on the variation, a case can be made that Dwarfs and Orcs are currently underperforming relative to the other armies. In some cases this may be due to the....let's put this diplomatically...the playstyle of the players using them. It will be interesting to see if the changes to Orcs give them a boost.

As noted there are too many variables to make any definitive statements but I'll be keeping an eye on any changes over coming months.

KOW - Lonewolf GT Cream Run

Over the past weekend the Lonewolf GT was held in Fort Worth, Texas attracting nearly 90 players. It can legitimately be called the largest Kings of War tournament in the world and attracts players from over the USA plus a number of Brits.

The headline results have been released and I thought that I would have a look at the top armies in terms of Battle and compare them to what we saw last year.

Lonewolf is a nice dataset as it is big enough to have pretty much all the armies represented plus the presence of a significant cadre of KOW expertise. I'm not interested in the average performance of an army as the sample is statistical too small. However I think you can get some very good insights at what performed at the pointy end of the table.

Above is a table showing the Top 11 armies for Battle (in order) for both Lonewolf 2016 and 2017. In both cases it is 11 as what would have been 10th Place produced a tie. One point worth noting is that five players guiding a Top 11 army in 2016 are back in the Top 11 2017 - however only one is running the same army.

My initial thoughts when I saw the 2017 results was that there had been a concentration. However while true, it is only minor - 8 different armies in 2016, 7 different armies in 2017. 

This doesn't look at the make-up of the list of course, rather the toolkit at the player's disposal. Nor does it look at any path to the Top 11, either opponent or opponent/scenario.

There does seem to be at least a hint of an elephant in the room. Both years Abyssal Dwarfs have been the best represented at the top end of Battle scores.Yes, I'm sure there are instances where they didn't perform but I think that there is enough evidence over the two years to say that "in the hands of a good player, the list can consistently put you at the top tables". There may be mitigating circumstances but I do think that based on Lonewolf 2016/17 it is worth at least a conversation when the Rules Committee next discusses Army Balance. It may be nothing but the Lonewolf data may also be giving a signal. What is heartening is that a number of the RC were at the event, and at least one used Abyssal Dwarfs. 

I'd be interested in there thoughts.

KOW - Terrain: Tabletop World River Mill

I've had the TTW River Mill sitting partly painted on my painting table for the past two months. It's presence has me making guilty sidelong glances and has stopped me jumping into any new painting projects.

Mid last week I decided that I had to get it finished and so I've spent a week of evenings completing it.

Excuse the poor lighting.

It is a three storey building with a stone cellar, grindstone mill apparatus and upstairs office. I have mounted it on a GF9 river section so I can use it in-game.

Cork was used to build up the base and then I applied static grass and tufts.

Overall the piece stands about 9-10" high.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Weekly Hobby Update

Last week I ordered mdf bases from Sarissa Precision to multibase my Rats. I started the work on some existing mdf bases I had and was rather pleased with the result - until I realised that they were the wrong size. Doh!

I'm hoping that the correct bases arrive early this week so I can get the project underway properly!

Spent the weekend working on my Tabletop World River Mill and the painting is now finished and it is ready for basing. I ordered some Gale Force Nine River sections from Mighty Ape and they should be here tomorrow. Once that I have finished it I will post photos.

Had a KOW game down at Warlords on Saturday. I am gradually working through the new scenarios and in this game played "Occupy".

Less than three weeks until WSS - Autumn at Warlords so get those registrations in.