Workbench: Algoryns, Concord, and Some Mercenary Transports

I must admit that I had kind of lost my steam after the ordering fiasco that for my Algoryn reinforcements but since they arrived I have been eager to get them done.  In short order I managed to get all of them assembled and primed, plus I've gotten the first drybrush coat on all the Yadrolla garrison troops.

Algoryns assembled!

While they will be the bulk of my force, I've decided to paint my new assault squad in the more traditional red with white markings.  I also have a medic team that will also be painted a different scheme to make them stand out a bit more as well.  All told this will take my Algoryn force up to 1000 points with 10 order dice which looks like it will be a good mix.

I also broke down and picked up a T7 transport for my Concord troops.  There have been a number of posts featuring vehicles on the Antares Facebook group so I decided it was time I picked one up.

Not gonna lie... I think this thing looks so cool!

I haven't started work on it but I've already broken open the box and I'm excited to get it together once my Algoryn are done.

Beyond the T7, I also have a couple of other vehicles that I've been thinking about using but I wasn't sure how they measured up from a size point of view.  The T7 is actually smaller than I thought it would be so these vehicles will be a perfect fit once I get some work done on them.

My off brand transport drone

Mechanically I'm going to treat it as a proxy for either a Defiant or a Freeborn T7 according to which force I field them with.  Those two have similar stat lines and they can be similarly armed they seem like a good match in this case.  I might try to add some kind of a turret to the eventually but for now I just want to repaint them and run them as is... and pick up a few more.  I've been pretty enthusiastic with my hobby purchases lately though so I'm trying to show a little restraint... at least for now.

Wrath of Kings: Goritsi Patrol Force

In my last post I talked about my Teknes patrol force so now its time to meet their opponents, House Goritsi.  Unlike the Teknes figures, I didn't start out my Goritsi collection with a starter box.  When I purchased the first of these figures I was looking for something that I could easily mod into Shrekwulfen for Konflikt 47.  Since the Skorza werewolves were made of plastic I thought they'd be perfect for the job... except they are a might bit too big.  Instead I wound up deciding to use them for the game they were actually made for.  Crazy idea, right?

For this patrol force, I'm using three Skorza skirmishers and six Ravenscar mercenaries led by a Skorza alpha and a Ravenscar sergeant and supported by a shield breaker and a scrouge hound.  Makes sense, right?  No?  I should probably explain...

The Skorza skirmishers are the werewolves of the Goritsi, larger brutes that look like they would be walking tanks but that is not the case.  While they are more durable than average troops their abilities and attacks really capture the essence of a wolf; moving quickly to strike and move away before their opponents can respond.  The skirmishers are led by an alpha, a larger and more dangerous version of the regular skirmishers who can make the other even more maneuverable.

The Ravenscar mercenaries are normal humans who work with the werewolves and vampires of Goritsi but their specialty is to move enemies around the board as they engage them.  I can see them being able to quickly surround and take down a target by themselves or moving it in front of some nearby Skorza for them to play with.  The sergeant brings more of the same plus he is one of the few creatures equipped with a ranged weapon, a massive heavy crossbow.

Supporting these troops are the shield breaker and scourge hound.  As its name implies, the shield breaker is all about intimidating the enemy and smashing them to a pulp.  In contrast the scourge hound moves quickly across the field, its vicious blades slashing through its enemies as it charges across the field.

As you might get from the descriptions, Goritsi is about lightning attacks and maneuvering so it will be interesting to see how the two forces fair against each other, which we will see next time.

Random Updates: My Algoryn Have Finally Arrived!

It only took 6 weeks, a couple of emails to the online store, and threatening to dispute the charge directly through Paypal but my Algoryn minis I ordered have finally arrived.  Now that I have them, I'm going to work on assembling and painting the rest of the troops I need to field them as a full 1000 point army which will be awesome!  It's frustrating that it took so much just to be able to get to this point but I'm really looking forward to seeing them completed.

I've also been kind of a hermit as far as our local gaming scene since we moved but I've decided that needs to change.  The store that I used to go to is further away now but I know that they play Bolt Action on a regular basis so that will give me a way to get back to gaming.  Hopefully I can also entice some people to try out Gates of Antares since its derived from Bolt Action but we'll have to see.  Either way I'm going to keep working on building and expanding my Antares armies as I really have been enjoying the minis.  I think next I'll get some T7 transports for my Concord force to make them a bit more mobile, but first I'm off to paint my Algoryn!

Wrath of Kings: Teknes Patrol Force

I decided to take a break from working on my Antares miniatures and dug out my Wrath of Kings stuff.  This is a project that I'd started ages ago but it had just ground to a halt until recently in part because of the extra step to build base inserts to mount the minis.  This isn't difficult but is a little time consuming and messy but that said I now have two playable forces for a patrol game!  Huzzah!

Currently I own starters for four of the five factions in the game. For now I'm focusing on assembling my Goritisi and Teknes of which we are going to look at Teknes first.  Back when this game was first Kickstarted, I seriously considered jumping into it.  Most of the factions had something that caught my eye but I must admit that Teknes was probably my least favorite.  With their giant pig men and bizarre looking gnomish troops they just didn't do much for me.  When I decided to start getting more of the minis for the game they were the cheapest of the figures floating around on Amazon and since I wasn't looking to sink a ton of money into the game they fit the bill.

As I worked on assembling them and reading more of their fluff I actually found them pretty interesting.  Mechanically Teknes is supposed to have the most well rounded troops so in the end it just made sense to pick some up.  For my Teknes patrol force, I decided to field six union workers, four linemen backed up by one warsmith, a zaalak, and a galvanic defender led by a union boss and a lineman controller.  Which just leaves the question, "What the heck does all that mean?"

The defender linemen are the stock troops of the Teknes army and are pretty durable.  Equipped with greatswords, they have a chance to cleave through their enemy's defenses, they can rescue friendly models that are engage by swapping places with them, and they have a chance to launch a vicious counterattack.  They are lead by a lineman controller who has similar abilities but except he carries a massive hammer that knocks back the target of his attack.

Supporting the linemen is a warsmith, a trooper capable of smashing through her targets defenses but she can also offer some protection to friendly models or assist them to let them land a critical blow.

The other soldiers in the forces are the pig like union workers.  While these troops are easier to wound than the linemen, the workers can take more damage and become even more dangerous once they have been injured.  Driving them on with his whip and tongs is the union boss.  He make friendly models more effective in combat and he can also take his lash to the workers, damaging them while driving them into their pain fueled rage.

The last two choices for the army are the magical galvanic defender and the abomination known as the zaalak.  The defender is a mounted magic user who helps protect friendly troops while giving a measure of magical support.  He is also fairly durable and fast moving so he should be able to move to support the troops that need it most.  While the defender is fast, the zaalak is even more nimble with a higher move and the ability to ignore rough terrain.  It is more resilient that others in the list but once it is wounded it can potentially lash out one last time at all nearby enemies before it dies.

All but one of these are standard troops, leaders, and specialists right out of the Teknes army box.  This is a good force to start with but there is actually more in the army box; another six union workers, eight more linemen, another union boss and another lineman controller.  As you can see these army boxes actually come packed with a lot of figures though you do need to supplement your leader and specialist options for the larger games.  Even so its great to get a solid force just to start with.  As you might have noticed, the warsmith is one figure from this list which isn't from the starter; she is actually from a unit box that contains a total of eight warsmiths and one warsmith captain.  This is a little surprising since they overall seem to be more of a supporting unit so I would have expected them to be a specialist but I won't argue with CMON's decision to give me more for less.

It will be interesting to get these minis to the table.  The core rules of the game seem straightforward enough with the individual unit types have rules that tweak these in one way or another, kind of like a CCG with minis.  I can see how this would create a lot of strange and unique interactions that might be broken but the figures from the initial release have been errata'd to take care of these issues so I'm trying to focus on rounding out my troops with those minis.  The warsmiths are from the newer releases so they might be off but they don't seem to overpowered so I think they'll work well enough.

Next we'll take a look at the patrol force for Goritsi but that will come in my next post. In the meantime I'm also going to try to push these troops around the table as well so I can post some sort of a battle report after that.  Wish me luck!

Antares: Strike on K'Ara Nine... The Algoryn Forces

Having looked at the first faction from the Strike on K'Ara Nine starter, its time to turn to their opposition, the forces of the Algoryn Protectorate.

While the Algoryn troops are typically painted in red armor, I decided that I wanted to go for a different look for my troops.  For their backstory, they are based on the world of Yadrolla, a planet where the landmasses are dominated by dense marshes and rainforests.  Green with red and yellow marking just seemed like the perfect fit for this and I like how they came out.  I might add some more accents to differentiate the squads at a glance but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to handle that.

This force only weighs in at 391 points since unlike the C3 sprues the Algoryn sprues don't include any support options.  Even so it should be fairly easy to bump them up to a comparable force.  I'd already picked up some minis but support units are what I really need for them.  Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the pieces that I ordered over a month ago just to get shipped so my Algoryn are going to be put on hold for a bit.  I'd actually even contact the online store I'd purchased them from and told them to just cancel the order but they responded that there had been a delay with their supplier and the seller had received them and was going to ship them out.  That was two days ago and it still hasn't shipped according to their website.  This isn't the first time that I've had trouble with this particular seller but this time is definitely the worst experience so far.  The store is NWS Wargaming and they sell Warlord products at a hefty discount which is great but at this point I can order things directly from Warlord in England and receive them in less time than it takes for this store to ship from Florida.  It's just getting ridiculous but enough of that little rant.

In the interim I'm trying to decide whether to focus on my Ghar army or I'm thinking I might dive into something completely different.  I recently started looking at my Wrath of Kings minis again and I want to get more of them assembled so I can actually try the game out.  Definitely seems like it would be a good distraction while I wait for the rest of my troops to arrive.