KoW2 Batrep: Abyssal Dwarfs vs. Kingdom of Men

So finally I manged to get another tabletop game running. This time I had my first game of Kings of War 2Ed. Most of you know, that I am quite the Mantic Games fanboy but never got a game rolling. This changed now. And another premiere: We did this match in Universal Battle, a Flash based browser utility. NumbDice (which whom I also played my Warmachine/Horde games) lives a good 2.5h drive from me, so we decided to give it a try and used the Free version (with limited armies).

So after we figured out how UB works and setup a map, we placed our armies. To be honest, I didn't have the time to really make an army list, so while NumbDice placed the map, I went to EasyArmy and created one. First surprise: A 750pt army did only take 10 minutes to create, much faster than in WHFB. Scenario was Kill because we didn't want to go overboard on the first game.

Round 1

So after deployment we shuffled our units a bit around. The first Arquebusiers went in cover behind the wall and the flying general moved to the right flank.

I was not sure how strong everything is and moved slowly forward, completely forgetting, that my Decimators only have 12" reach BUT can move and shoot...
Shooting is irrelevant this turn and we both have (although not communicated) no mages in our lists (which made shambling a bit of a hindrance for me because of no surge).

Round 2

NumbDice went on straight backwards in the center and moved up on the right flank a bit more. His shooting did really hurt and my Immortal Guard already had 8 wounds here. Ouch.

So for me it was a straight march forward if I wanted to do anything with my units. My Decimators crawled up the hill to gain sight on the general and my Lesser Obsidian Golems prepared for some action on the right flank here. The Decimators did hit nicely and to my horror I saw that I misread the magical item I gave them. 5pts wasted here but not so bad...

Round 3

The shooting continued and my Immortal Guard got a double charge from the winged general and the Spearman which resulted in a complete wipeout of them. Shooting took more casualties and slowly and steadily I get blown to smithereens.

So my Overmaster flank charged into his general (sadly individuals aren't allowed to double the attacks) and moving the LoG forward to either get charged or getting a charge next round. My Katsuchan Rocket Launcher hit for the first time but didn't cause a waver.

Round 4

Now it gets bloody. The two generals hack at each other, the LoG and the Warriors also and the ugly shooting continues. The Spearblock tries some advanced manouvereing so that I move back to not get a flank charge by them. 

Here we played the terrain rule for walls wrong, I could have moved through them and stopped my movement on top of them.

I put some pressure into the General, but he only wavers. I also put 7 wounds into the Shieldblock, but they stand. Points wise I am now very far in the back. The loss of my Immortal Guard still hurts. My shooting is again useless. Doesn't look good for me.

Round 5

More bloody carnage and some aha effects. My Blacksouls get all the fire ppossible straight into their face and luckily there is the Overmaster with inspiring to save them. The Spearman sidestep to get into position for a flank charge.

My Decimators and my Rocket Launcher fire and I am able to kill the General (which isn't bound in combat anymore), Launcher ineffective as usual.

My LoG kill the Swordman, my Overmaster makes a back charge and it doesn't look so bad anymore...

Round 6

So this turn again brings a surprise: The Spearman ignore my Overmaster and make a flank charge into my Blacksouls. Wow that is something I hadn't in my playbook. My Overmaster now exposed get's all the shooting straight into his face and even he cannot survive a canon shot... The Blacksouls are completely overwhelmed and get so much damage that only snake eyes would save them...

I move up with all I have and try again something with my rocket launcher... and I see something on the profile of it: He has freaking 3 attacks. I was so used that warmachines only have one, that I played it wrong the whole time... That is some change here and he immediately wipes them out.

We roll then if there is another turn but the game ends here.
The game is a Draw with none of us getting a bigger advance (I think it was something around 40pts).

For fun we played out Round 7 which didn't change much since we only get a round of shooting more.

Conclusio

Wow that was a game. All in all it took us nearly 3 hours with all the setup, army making and also some friendly chatting in between. In the end the rounds went so fast, because we got a grab on the rules. As said we both never played a game of KoW until now. We both where absolutely surprised how straight the rules are. There are some major differences to WHFB to which I have to get used to, but these are good changes. Next time we will increase to 1000pts and see how this works.

Some small feedback to Universal Battle: 

I was really surprised how good it works. Sure it is sometimes hard to measure everything on the milimeter exact or sometimes the syncing did not work correctly for us, e.g. when you move with the cursor (you have to nibble the unit then 1mm with the moving tray). But overall it is pretty awesome.

I highly recommend a voice chat though (be it on Skype, Discord, TeamSpeak), that helps to clarify stuff very fast.

So long,

Paradox0n

Painted Abyssal Dwarf Mortars

There are really signs and wonders around. I finally painted up something! Seems like an eternity since I painted and thus it also feeled when I struggled with the paints and brushes again. One thing I recognized pretty fast: Next time I paint with a wet palette again. The whole time the paint just didn't feel right, especially since I paint now with longer bristle brushes (reason why, see here) which really struggle if the paint is too thick.
Nonetheless I painted and I will show you the results: An Abyssal Dwarf Angkor Heavy Mortar and an Abyssal Dwarf G’rog Light Mortar for my upcoming Kings of War army.

Nothing fancy or so, but since they got me back to painting I am really happy with them. The Heavy Mortar was quite a miscast sadly but I tried to do the best and cover that a bit with the paint. I think from a distance it is OK so far and that's what these two are about: Being painted for the battlefield :)


One thing I experienced through the process was that it seems that one of my Spray Primers got bad. It sprayed and everything but when it was dry, the paint didn't stick to it but dripped off of it. Like it had some strange Lotus Effect or something. Never had that before, but I was not happy with it before and now I think I just throw it away (12€ for the bin :( ).

Some more stuff is already on my table and I hope I find enough time and motivation to paint even more.


So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: I think I will experience with showing WIP pictures and stuff also through Instagram and Twitter. Maybe that helps me to stay a bit more motivated. I hope that feedback turnaround is much faster there, because the comment section is mostly not used here :(