Monday 17 February 2014

Kings Of War Elves and #miniaturemonday

I managed to finish off a few more bits for my Mantic elf army last week.

Here's a 10 man unit of Palace Guard:
And here's a bolt thrower too:

I bought the stuff for the army 18 months ago and I'm determined to get it finished before June this year. That way I'll have a fully painted force to take to the Kings of War Tournament in Nottingham in mid-June.

It's been to two tournaments already in two different builds and in a 'work in progress' painted state so I'd like to take it to a third event fully painted.

I was initially unimpressed with the Mantic Elf miniatures but I think that was actually down to the painting on the original promo pics. Once I had a look at the models in real life I saw they were a lot better than I'd first thought.

I use them in Kings of War but they're obviously usable in Warhammer Fantasy Battle too (which I'll also be using then in) if you like massed combat games.

The price of them (like many of Mantic's products) make them a very low cost way to build a big army. Or, if you're looking to use them in skirmish games an incredibly cheap way to put a force together.

Mantic elf plastic kits don't have the options you get in Games Workshop kits but that's the trade off between the two. Low cost and few options vs high cost and loads of options.

The Palace Guard above are from the original metal release, the bolt thrower is plastic. Both have been painted with GW washes, strong tone army painter dip (painted on), hit with anti shine spray then a few simple highlights and details added in.

Mantic have recently moved many of the metal kits over to the restic material which I really don't like working with. It's one of the reasons I didn't take advantage of the recent Mantic sale to get more Palace Guard (it's a lot better to use them in a regiment of 20 in my elf list for Kings of War if I was being more efficient on points values).

As it is I just use what models I have to put a force together and don't really concern myself with the min/max super-optimal approach to list building. (I can understand the value and appeal of doing it that way if you're serious about tournament placing though).

One last thing I posted these pics on twitter using the tag #miniaturemonday if you've not used twitter or simply haven't heard of the hashtag before you ought to take a look. There's some fantastic examples of hobbyists' work from the whole spectrum of the tabletop gaming ranges. It's very inspiring.

Friday 14 February 2014

Warmachine Journeyman League

I've recently joined a Warmachine journeyman league being run at Derby Wargames Society.

It's being run monthly rather than weekly so those of with busy home lives can get involved.

The league is only a couple of weeks old and I've lost all three of my games so far but it's been fun playing a new game. I'd only had a single demo game about 8 months ago before the league started so I'm very much learning the game as the league progresses.

Here's a slightly dark photo of my battlebox force.

Like a phoenix rising or maybe just a really sleepy bear...

I've not posted anything here for over two years - crikey!

This is mainly due to using twitter as a way of broadcasting my hobby activity but also due to not being disciplined enough to put the time aside to actually post regularly.

So in an effort to rectify the situation I'm going to attempt to post weekly for a little while and see how I get on - I need to get a bit of a rhythm going. I have managed to get a bit of momentum going with my painting recently so hopefully that'll channel some energy in the direction of this blog.

I've been playing quite a few different games over the last few years and can't say that I have a definite 'main game' now so the content will be very much a mixed bag.