Swampstalkers Army

[Nameless]

I had this wish to go back to mass fantasy wargaming after not playing for many, many years. Middlelife crisis, I suppose. Warhammer was dead, Age of Sigmar did not appeal to me, so I decided to try Kings of War. Mantic Games released the 3rd edition in October 2019 and after reading positive reviews and watching few battle reports on YT I thought I'd go with their game. It is mass fantasy, doesn't require a lot of free time as games are quite fast, and it is played with units rather than individual models, so one can make nice scenic bases with models fixed permanently. It all sounds promising.

 

I had a lot of GW Nurgle models and decided to use them to build a Nightstalkers army, which is a demonic, nightmarish army with lots of monsters. Had to buy some more miniatures and want to get even more but I have enough to start building an army. Hoping for a good progres, but no specific goals were specified.

 

So, the first unit in my Swampstalkers army (as I've named it) are Swamp Worms (original name: Blood Worms). I'm using GW plaguebearers. Now, for those not familiar with the game: units may be taken in four different sizes (troop, regiment, horde, legion). Every level has its own base size and number of models. In this case, I can use Swamp Worms as a regiment (base is 100x80mm and should have 15-20 models on it), horde (base is 200x80mm and should have 30-40 models on it) and/or legion (base is 200x120mm and should have 45-60 models on it). After some planning I decided to use two 100x80 bases and two 100x40 bases, which allows me to field 1 horde of Swamp Worms, 1 legion + 1 regiment, or 3 regiments. Sounds complicated but it really isn't 

 

 

As you can see, I failed to fit 15 plagubearers on the regiment base and I won't make it even after taking them of their individual bases. Oh well, previous editions allowed for lower number of models and in Poland (50%+1) is commonly used as a minimal number of models (in accordance with the 2nd edition), so 12 should be enough. Infantry regiment in theory should have 20 models, so the minimal number would be 10+1=11. I always knew math would come in handy one day 

 

Keep your fingers crossed, I do need some motivation 

 

[Glitterwolf]

Cool!

I want to see them painted!

[klarg1]

4 hours ago, Nameless said:

As you can see, I failed to fit 15 plagubearers on the regiment base and I won't make it even after taking them of their individual bases. Oh well, previous editions allowed for lower number of models and in Poland (50%+1) is commonly used as a minimal number of models (in accordance with the 2nd edition), so 12 should be enough. Infantry regiment in theory should have 20 models, so the minimal number would be 10+1=11. I always knew math would come in handy one day 

 

Keep your fingers crossed, I do need some motivation 

 

 

I feel your pain on fitting lots of models onto a single base. Multibasing can help, but there are still limits.

 

For what it's worth, Kings of War 3rd edition is both stricter and more lax on model count: They have done away with the "minimum model count" rule (which is where the 60% or 1/2 +1 numbers came from). Instead, official tournaments have restrictions on painting prizes you can win if you don't meet the new "preferred model count", which is 80% of the nominal number of models per unit.

 

For my own fledgling undead army I have taken that as a somewhat liberating change, as I can stop worrying about cramming "MMC" onto each base. I don't know how local events will evolve in your home region, but I thought you might want to have the update.

 

I like where you are going with your army, and look forward to seeing more!

[Nameless]

19 hours ago, Glitterwolf said:

Cool!

I want to see them painted!

Oh, me too, believe me!

 

15 hours ago, klarg1 said:

  Instead, official tournaments have restrictions on painting prizes you can win if you don't meet the new "preferred model count", which is 80% of the nominal number of models per unit.

Isn't the PMC set to 75% now? Anyway, I'm not a tournament player, and even if I would be, there are no official Mantic events here 

 

 

This the second unit, Swamp Fangs ("Needlefangs" originally) made of Nurglings. I can field them as a horde or 2 regiments. There should be 3 swarms on each base, and as you can see, this time I have a full model count and there is even free space for some individual nurglings to be placed (which I will do).

Edited January 3, 2020 by Nameless
Photo and everything below it

[Nameless]

Painting time! Yay!

You've seen earlier that some of my demons were primed brown, some white and some were not primed at all. Old plans, never put into practice.

Now I've started with two spray paints from DIY store, olive green and light flesh and primed the unprimed models. I used zenithal priming for brown minis, and finally painted white ones with Raw Sienna. I don't want them to look like a rank'n'file army with uniforms, but hope they will look as a unit after I mix them on bases. Nurglings in the back were painted in different colours too. 

 

 

Details: silver/gold for metal, orange for horns/claws, red for wounds, purple for tongues/guts, yellow for eyes.

 

 

Time for some washes and then highlights!

 

[Nameless]

Back to work 

Dark wash unified the look. It's time for some highlights now.

 

And the next model for my armour - yet another version of the Great Unclean One, it will substitute a titan called Terror. I bought it with base colours on, so can't take credits for that. I had some wash left after painting smaller minis so I used it on this giant's one leg and took the pic.

 

[Glitterwolf]

Awesome!

 

 

[Nameless]

Quick pics after highlighting with different colours (to make even more colour schemes, lol)

 

On to the details now...

[Standifer]

Creepy! That is a VERY big model! Good job.

[Glitterwolf]

Yes, that's what Nurgle Minis should look like!

Awesome!

Edited January 13, 2020 by Glitterwolf

[Nameless]

On 1/13/2020 at 9:54 AM, Glitterwolf said:

Yes, that's what Nurgle Minis should look like!

I wouldn't dare saying that, there are multiple ways you can paint any mini  

 

Didn't have time for painting, but I found this cthulhish model from Fenryll in  my boxes. I tried many different colour schemes on it few years ago but wasn't happy with results. It looks like this now, don't even know what exactly happened to this mini. Army Painter dip I think... I glued one of its wings back, but I couldn't find his right foot. Will probably just drybrush it quickly and use it as Mind Screech, which is a floating and spell-casting brain-like thing.

 

 

[Glitterwolf]

That's a nice mini!

I look forward to see some more colour on it.

That mouth screams for a nice purple/pink/ red combo.

[Nameless]

Pink it will be 

Half an hour of quick and rough drybrushing and some GW blood effect and it looks like this. I will pick some details and call it done. Tomorrow, maybe.

 

[Glitterwolf]

Looks good!

That one will fit in nicely!

[Nameless]

No progress for now, just checking under the daylight if they all work together as an army.