a league of their own

Month two of the Kings of War Historical Escalation League is now in the books.  This month we had 300 pt battles, while participants were supposed to build and paint 400 more points.

So how did it go?

Well 300 pt games are extremely quick and tend to be fairly bloody.  Everyone only has a couple of units and maybe a character .  Still fast and fun, we did get several people to get games in last month.

First Felix's Vikings faced off against my Romans in a Dominate scenario.  The first several turns were all spent maneuvering, with the Romans taking the center and the Vikings moving around to attempt to flank them. After several turns of maneuvering, the battle was finally joined and both sides suffered casualties, with me losing a unit of Legionnaires and Felix losing his unit of Huscarls.  This left me with a single unit, and Felix with a unit and a general - but the points were close enough that the result was a tie.

Next Felix's Vikings took on Jon's Celts (Barbarians) in a Loot! scenario.  I didn't pay attention to most of the game, but Jon ended up with the win.

Finally Jon and I faced off - giving a test to what are planned to be my two demo armies for historicals, with Romans vs Celts in a Kill & Pillage game.  At such a small point value, all Jon had to do was sit on the three objectives nearest him and he could win, because he had three units and I only had two.  The Romans were not going to put up with that nonsense however, and rushed to take out the pesky barbarians.  The elite Romans were able to overcome the barbarian hordes due to some unfortunate dice rolls (Jon really should have taken out one unit) and ended up winning this small skirmish.  (I find it very common that one side is tabled in this small of a game, as happened here).

Not only did we get in some games, but some people even finished the 400 pts due last month!

I do have some pictures of some of the new units.

First Jim's Crusaders.  These are using the Basilean miniature range.  I am continuing to paint these up, and eventually will actually finish this Christmas present to him - if only about 15 months late. This month I added a mounted general to bolster the morale of the troops and a horde of spear-men to center the battle line.
General on Horse
Horde of spearmen
For my Roman army, I added a regiment of Praetorian Guard and a regiment of Praetorian Cavalry.  I was very glad to get the cavalry finally done - these are all metal minis, and the bases on the horses are a bit narrow, meaning every time I so much as looked at them sideways on my paint table they would fall over, and like dominoes knock over all the other models as well.

Praetorian Guard
Praetorian Cavalry
Felix added to his vikings by adding a horde of warriors, a regiments of Huscarls and a musician w/ Yew Longbow
horde of warriors
regiment of Huscarls
musician w/ yew longbow
Several of the other players have fallen behind.  Jon finally finished assembling his first 300 points of barbarians, but they are still only primed.

So the current standings at the end of January are:

Player
Army
Total
B1
B2
P1/1
P1/2
Jon Carter
Barbarians (Celts)
5
1

3
 1
Mike Carter
Romans
13
4
4
2
 3
Keith Ambrose
Vikings
4
4



Alex Ambrose
Romans





Beth Hill
Indians





Felix Castro
Vikings
11
4
4
2
1
Kara Brown
Carthaginians





Jim Schwerdtfeger
Crusaders
8
4
4



While I still encourage people to build and play, it does appear that we are down to only two players left - Felix and myself.  I believe Felix is working on finishing his army, and both my Roman's and Jim's Crusaders are nearly complete.  It might mean however that Felix and I will have to play twice in a row this month and next.

So what has happened?  A couple of factors I believe have affected this.  First was delays both getting started as people had to order in miniatures, so we had to postpone the start for a month.  Then the holidays meant we lost the entire month of December.  The other big issue, I believe, is the number of Kings of War fantasy tournaments in February and March which had most people focusing on their fantasy armies.  Daycon on Feb 18th is a 14 person tournament at a new game day, though I don't think this really had any effect.  What did have an effect was the Kings of War Masters Championship coming up on Feb 25th & 26th.  Three of our more serious players in the league, (Jon, Kara and myself) all have been working on our masters lists (as well as Kara's wife Amy, who didn't even start the league).  Jon and Kara simply didn't have the time to both work on the new units for their masters army as well as build a historical one.

I still hope that Felix and I can continue on to the end, and with April a make-up month maybe some people might come back to get some games in.

Because it is all fun and games . . .

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