More Corvus Miniatures

I am beginning to reach the bottom of this bag of 128 Corvus Miniatures, consisting of Varangian Guard and Saxons.
First up are 6 Saxon spearmen.  I really like the helmets on these figures, as they are metal-framed with either horn or leather for the cao.  I chose leather.

Next are 6 Saxon swordsmen.  They will be used as unit leader figures for "Captains and Kings".

And 5 Varangian axemen, though they look like Normans with round shields to me.  The pack was missing an axe, so one fellow got a left-over spear.

And a banner man, who will indicated the leader of the battle.

This leave me with 15 heavily-armored axemen with the axe raised over their heads, and I will be finished with the Corvus Miniatures.

However, I can never seem to find the end of these old peasant figures.  Here are 8 more.  Sure they're primitive by today's standards, but I'm rather fond of old lead. (they tend to be easier to paint).  I know there are some more with glaives somewhere.

And last, and old fantasy figure that I've had around for a loooong time, but just repainted.

You can tell he's a fantasy figure by the use of buttons, which were not used to fasten clothing until the 13th century in the German area.

Being a bit tired of chainmail in 25mm, I'm taking a break and painting a "Rally Round The King" undead army before getting on with the last 15 Corvus Miniatures.

Grishnak's Grief.

Yes it's always that black orc Grishnac, isn't it?  Well, he won't be coming back!
This is a Rally Round the King game of orcs versus elves.  It did not go well for the orcs.
But yours truly forgot some things, of course.  For this game the orc commander had a War Rating of 4 and the elf commander 3.  Of course, the orcs out-scouted the elves, with a skirmish unit against nothing but heavy infantry for the elves.  So the orcs are the attacker.
Here we have the orc army, straight out of the lists.

They stretched out as far as they could.  The wolf riders are off the left of the picture.  They were further hampered by bad going in the middle of their line.

The elves, out-numbered, chose a compact formation with a bow unit on each wing, and the marines as reserve, since they're the fastest elves.

In turn 1, the orcs advanced and the elves brought the bows to touch the back corner of the flank, thereby hopefully staying out of melee, but able to support the line.

In turn 2 the orcs advanced further, while the elves stood firm.

IN turn 3, the orcs advanced into bow range.  The orc unit on the left flank of the center battle line was handled roughly by the bowman.  The bows hit him and cause him to advance 1/2 half move, which caused the bow to take an Enemy Threat test, and fire again.  This time the orc unit ic forced to retire and take 1 hit.  He now has 3 hits, and as a Rep 4 unit is pretty much out of the fight.  The wolf riders advance towards the marines.

The elf commander decides to call a charge, but fails and must stand still.  The elves' right wing bow unit turns 90 degrees to face the skirmish unit, if it ever gets there.

Turn 4: The orc commander orders a charge, and the elves do not countercharge, but stand to receive it.  In the combat the orcs' dice total 16 hits and the elves 18.  This is not so good, as all but 1 orc unit has AC 2 and the elves are all AC 4.

The wolf riders get into threat range of marines who are dual armed, and put 1 into the orcs. The wolves completed their charge and take another hit.  The elves take 2 . And the wolf riders retire and take another hit!
 It's now the elves initiative and they continue the melee.  The orcs score 13 to the elves 7. And the 2 orc units on the right fail their UD roll and stand still.  Another orc unit retires and takes another hit.  And the orc leader dies, leaving them with a War Rating of 1.  The loss of their leader causes the wolf riders to rout.

Turn 5:  The orcs have no choice but to tough it out in melee. The orcs take another hit, and so do the elves.  2 of the orc stands rout, and incredibly the elves fall back taking another hit each.

But it's all over for the orcs.  The elves charge, the orcs stand, and the last element in the line rout, leaving the field to the elves.  The orcs have 3 stands left that have not been in combat, but being UD would be fodder for the elves.  The elves have all their stands, but all but 2 have taken hits.

The orcs at the bottom of the picture have no chance against the better disciplined elves.

Did I forget some stuff? You betcha!  I forgot that the orcs have frenzy and are UD, so those two sort of cancel out.  I forgot to start from the right of the line on the orcs twice, which benefited them.  All in all a fun game played in about 45 minutes including taking pictures and writing everything down.  Both sides had the advantage of my dismal die rolling.

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.