And now for something completely different!

Way back in May 2019 at a local free to enter wargaming show in Norwich called Diceni, my wife and then six year old son played a couple of games of a fantasy skirmish sort, my son seemed to be drawn to the models.
During a break from the game I was helping to run, he dragged me over for a game. The game turned out to be Kings of War Vanguard by Mantic Games, their warband skirmish game set in the world of the Kings of War mass battle game. The person demoing the game had selected to use only the core rule mechanics which had helped my son get the hang of the game basics quite well. As we played another couple of quick games he added the power dice into the mix which added a bit more complexity to the game but not enough to unduly confuse my son.

Needless to say my son was quite enthused after this, but as is the way with six year olds this passed over the following days as no immediate purchase was available. I did however download a copy of the rules from Mantic's website, most of their rulesets are available for free download!, for further investigation.

Fast forward to the Other Partizan show in September which I attended with no spending planned. Looking around I saw various starter warband sets for the game discounted, a quick call to my wife and the idea of a family Xmas present was discussed and decided upon. So two warbands were bought including the one my son had preferred at Diceni, the Nightstalkers.

Nightstalker starter warband.

The other warband purchased was from the Northern Alliance faction.

Northern Alliance starter warband.

The special power dice had to be bought direct from Manic as nobody at the show had stock.

Power Dice.

So November came around and I thought I'd better get started on these figures if they were to be ready for Xmas. So out they came and assembly started. This proved to be a bit of a pain due to the various types of plastic/resin that Mantic produce their kits in, but finally all were assembled, fixed to bases, also fiddly due to some of the poses and material again, and primed.

I decided to start painting with the Nightstalkers and went with basic block colours, washes, dry brushing and some highlights. I also used some Citadel contrast paints for the first time which seemed to work ok.

My attempt at Nightstalkers, basing and varnishing to do.

After getting to this point it was the turn of the Northern Alliance warband. Again the same problems due to material types and some thin components but nothing insurmountable. The majority of the figures painted up well just some soft details here and there in the castings to make it "interesting" at times.

Christmas arrived and the empty boxes were wrapped as presents, complete with the handwritten letter from Santa explaining that he had left Daddy in charge of completing the painting of the figures due to his busy schedule. My son instantly recognised the figures upon opening and regular update reports as to when we can play have been requested since.

So fast forward to near the end of February 2020 and both Warbands are painted and based, including my first use of tufts, and ready for varnishing.

Northern Alliance Warband

Close ups

Close ups

Nightstalkers Warband

Close ups

Close ups

So that's the warbands finished, except for varnishing, next on this project will be painting up some MDF terrain I have purchased. More on that later.

Tony.