Sunday, March 30, 2014

Rally Round the King armies from Mighty Armies boxes

I have two Mighty Armies that have sat in the box since the rules came out in 2004.  At that time we would play 6 or 8 man DBA tournaments on Wednesday night.  I had my barbarian army and a couple of others had other armies.  If you've ever played a friendly DBA tourney, you know that 2 guys will finish way before the other and have to twiddle their thumbs white waiting for their next opponent.   So the Mighty Armies was played in between the DBA games.  Of course, Katrina ended all that, wiping out the game store where we played, and a couple of our guys lost their homes and armies.

So, I now have a couple of friends who are willing to play Rally Round the King.  I have converted my Barbarian army to that ruleset and done my Orc army to the same.  Let's start with the Orcs.

Here's the whole army in one shot.
                                 
There are 5 Orc bases at 24 points for a total of 120.
 Plus a Foot Skirmish (Archers) at 8 points, a Black Orcs base (where my general is) for 36 points and a Dire Wolf Rider base for 36 points.
This is a 200 point, 8 base, army straight out of the army list.  After making your 200 point army, you are left with another Dire Wolf Rider base @ 36 points, 2 goblin bases @ 20 points (40 points) and a 3-figure Orc base which would be 18 points (derived by dividing the 4-figure orc base by 4 and then multiplying by 3, duh!).  So you have an additional 94 points in the box.  Oh, and you get a spellcaster.

Now for my take on the Barbarian army.  YMMV.
Being a dyed-in-the-wool DBA gamer with a penchant for warband armies, the Mighty Armies set up didn't light my fire.  So here we go.  All bases are AC 2. All but the Archer bases are Frenzy UD, and the Berserkers add Fanatic.
For the general, I used a 4-figure base, figuring he would have more hangers-on, and gave him a Rep 5 for 24 points.  Since Mighty Armies has a separate pack of Berserkers, I included a 3-man base at Rep 6 for 30 points.
Then we add 7, yes 7, 3-man bases of Warriors @ 18 points for a total of 126. ( I did 2 pics of them to show the mass.  Neither is sparkling.)
And two 2-man Rep 4 bases of Archers (Foot Skirmish), 8 points each for 16 points.
This gives you a total of 11(!) bases at 196 points.  When the Mammoth is available again from Rebel Minis I'll add it at 6 points (Rep 4), either dropping a base of Archers for a total of 194 points, or if I'm playing a charitable opponent, add him for a total of 204 points.  Of course, elephants are just as iffy in Rally Round the King as in DBA, but much easier to hurt, with only AC2.  What's left?  Only an Archer base, since I used 2 of them with swords held high to fill out a Warrior base (the last base in the top photo of the Warriors.)   I could have filled it out with figures from the Berserker pack, but I wanted the Berserker base to be unique in my army.  By the by, this is one of the few armies for which you can buy extra Warriors and Berserkers.  Oh, and the spellcaster!
I hope this gives players a little hint about how to make your own armies.  I'm sure one could go into the historical army and find a use for the chariots, but they are so huge that they would have to be mounted on 40mm x 50mm bases.  You don't want 4 of something that enormous falling back!  Here's a picture of them.  I may at some point get bases for them and go to the historical lists for an army, but they would only be either Rep 5 light chariots (Mounted Missile) at 7 points or Rep 5 (Mounted Melee - Dual Shock) at 12 points.  At any rate, here's a photo of them.
Though I've showed them before, here is my other army so far, Amazons straight from the Valkae list.
2 noble bases, ET, one containing the general.
3 Warriors - Frenzy
1 base of Sword Maidens Frenzy Elite and one of Marines Dual.
and 2 Archers

To swap out I have 1 base of Noble Cavalry, Shock and 2 of Cavalry (Mounted Skirmish)
Now if I can only get time and energy to get some solo games in.  The Amazons are from Black Falcon.  All other figures are from Rebel Minis, who is the supplier for all things Mighty Armies.