When the Kings of War SlowGrow was announced early this year my two boys (Ages 12 and 11) and myself heartily jumped in. I had previously played Kings, dabbling towards the end of 2nd, doing a Goblin army during Covd and an Orc army during a CounterCharge slow grow - but the game never stuck. My buddy and I played through a fun campaign, jumping between 3rd Kings and Vanguard, which was an absolute blast, but neither of us had an itch to take it outside of basement gaming. Enter 4th edition and the atmosphere changed for me. It was a fresh start to Kings and now I can play it in my household as often as I would like and travel to gamestores as needed. During the First leg of the slow grow I completed 2555 points of Elves! My eldest son finished 500 points of Trident Realms and my other son finished 500 points of Halflings.
Yes, we really completed all of that in just 6 weeks! We all take a batch painting approach to army painting and find that it works really well. That means getting a bunch assembled and primed and then systematically working through the assortment of models. We paint all the shirts, then pants, then guns, etc. To help cover any issues along the way I have been having them use one, unifying wash to tie the models together (and hide little mistakes). It’s effectively an Agrax Earthshade applied over the entire model and then removing any excess to prevent pooling. But, I have my own cutsom mix of Amsterdam Inks, Water and Medium instead of using a branded wash. The big experiment of our armies was the use of a scenic earthy blend. I mixed a number of Woodland scenic flocks, static grasses and different sand textures together and we applied it over the Kings Tray (which was pre-painted brown). I think the earthy mix worked well, though it lacks a lot of the scenic flair that most Kings armies have. I also 3D printed the trays, incorporating a “handle” on the trays to give us something to grab during gameplay, instead of the miniatures.
On the gameplay side my kids have really gotten into Kings of War. They’re already played many more games of 4th Edition than I have (they have more freetime than I do). I have a game table set-up in a small 8’x9’ game room in my basement and I keep a 3x3’ abmush table ready to go. I’m looking forward to us moving off the small mat to a 4’x4’ and soon a 4’x6’ (though at our kitchen table instead). They tag along for Demos at a few gaming stores that we’ve been trying get Kings going at and play alongside our Demo Table.
My sons have gotten a little sneaky and have been working ahead by getting the next units half finished before the next deadline, so that it’s easy to complete. There are many half finished units, some simply needing to be put on bases.
I hope to get two regiments and a troop of Stormwing Cavalry, a horde of Archers and a Horde of Tallspears done for the second leg of the slowgrow.
Here’s my painted list during the first leg of the slowgrow:
Battalion 1
Army Standard Bearer [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [95]
- Horse [15]
Army Standard Bearer [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [80]
Army Standard Bearer [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [80]
Mage [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [80]
Master Hunter [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [135]
Master Hunter [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [135]
Prince [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [135]
- Horse [20]
Prince [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [115]
Prince [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [115]
Kindred Archers (Inf) Regiment [130]
Kindred Archers (Inf) Regiment [130]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Regiment [120]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Regiment [120]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Horde [205]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Regiment [120]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Regiment [120]
Palace Guard (Inf) Regiment [160]
Palace Guard (Inf) Regiment [160]
Palace Guard (Inf) Regiment [160]
Palace Guard (Inf) Regiment [160]
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Wow, very impressive progress! I love how each army has a repeated basing theme, that’s uniform within the army but different to the others. Great to hear that your sons are enthusiastic, I think you’ll be able to make a lot of great memories with them.
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That is a lot of painted Elves 
Everything looks great across the board, and really nice that your kids are jumping in too!
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Super job! I’ve got my kids involved in the hobby too, but nowhere near this speed of production!
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My son Caedmon, age 11, finished up his next 500 points, 540 to be precise:
Muster Captain (Hero (Inf)) 1 [200]Aralez [25]
Wild Lancers (Cav) Troop [100]
Forest Trolls (Lrg Inf) Troop [140]
Swamp Belcher (War Eng) 1 [100]
Now, I’m a bit of a grump when it comes to proxies, but when I’m funding three new armies, two for my boys and one for myself, I’ve gotten a little more flexible on them. We found a cute fat dragon STL for purchase on MMF and used that for his Swamp Belcher. Hopefully more and more of the models that a player would only need a few of come to the Vault for purchase so we can use Mantic minis more and more.
I took advantage of the Ambush box deal and he has 3 Halfling Ambush boxes coming. His ability to have a variety of core model choices will be getting much better in a day or two! Thanks Mantic for the great deals! (Now I’m just hoping Ratkin stay in stock for another week so I can expand to a new army myself…)
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My son Greyson, age 12, finished his 500 points (570 actually) for the next leg of the Slow Grow 2026:
Placoderm Tidewarden [2] (Hero (Inf)) 1 [145]
Axel Tricklebrook [U] (Hero (Lrg Inf)) 1 [185]
Placoderm Razorswords (Hvy Inf) Troop [120]
Tidal Swarm (Lrg Inf) Troop [60]
Tidal Swarm (Lrg Inf) Troop [60]
Greyson has been the most ambitious and already has the next 1,000 points half painted and in the wings for Saturday, when he can finish some of them for the 3rd leg of the Slow Grow Challenge. He’s been trying to pace himself, not for fear of burnout, but because I’ve only bought each of my boys about 2,000 points of models. If he gets too far ahead, he will struggle to get 500 points for each leg of the Slow Grow.
The ambush box deal popped up and I bought him three more Trident Realms Ambush boxes, so he should be able to have a bigger selection of core choices and more to paint, which should allow him to paint at the pace he wants too. I’m hoping Ratkin stays in stock, I would like to pick up 6 of them this weekend as a good Core backbone to a future army…
Axel Tricklebrook was particularly fun for us, as was the forest trolls that Caedmon painted. Both boys wanted to paint something to a high quality than just base coat and a single wash over the entire model. We spent an evening, my two sons and eldest daughter, learning about highlighting, wet blending and where the light source is coming from. That was a great experience and they learned a lot about imporving the quality of a paint job by a few extra little steps.
Both of my boys are looking forward to the mass assembly project this coming weekend where I’ll be helping them put together 60 riverguard, 60 halflings, 30 halfing cav and 9 dambusters. I’m already grimacing thinking about it, I’m not a big fan of assembly. But, at least it’s Plastic Cement we’re using, I’m terribly allergic to super glue.
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I have also finished my leg of the second phase of the slow grow. I slowed down a bit from last time and only cracked out 1005 points. Life got busy, as it does, and kept me from getting through as much as I wanted.
Battalion 1
Kindred Archers (Inf) Horde [215]
Kindred Tallspears (Inf) Horde [205]
Stormwind Cavalry (Cav) Regiment [220]
Stormwind Cavalry (Cav) Regiment [220]
Stormwind Cavalry (Cav) Troop [145]
Here’s some better close-up shots of these Core choices:
I’ve enjoyed the Elven models more than I expected. After hearing a fair bit of criticism regarding the older Elven sculpts I was a bit nervous about them. But, when I scored 290 tallspears and archers on ebay for cheap, I decided it couldn’t hurt to tackle the army even if the models were my favorite. But I was pleasently suprised! I found I quite like the old models.
The main problem I have had has been the base plugs that are designed to go into the square bases. On my orc army I very carefully removed the orcs from the plugs. Removing the plugs was no fun. Painting them without plugs was even worse because the ankles were so thin and I couldn’t pin the legs to anything. And then getting them to stick to a base was even more awful. They still regularly break off the trays and I consistenly re-adhere them. And that’s where this Elven army came in. I wanted to try to base them without removing the plugs and without them looking bad. And if it didn’t work, oh well, at least I gave it the good old college try, right? And it worked! My next post I’ll lay out what I did to work around this and make it look good (and how I will do my orc army going forward and hopefully someday those awesome Mantic dwarves)!
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And we’re back at assembly for the remaining legs of the slow grow. Assembly is my least favorite part, so my boys are learning how to work with plastic cement and get good cuts off of the sprue! We took advantage of the ambush deal and they should be set! Both of them are looking forward to their first Kings Tournament, hopefully this summer.
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So many models got assembled today! Happy to help them learn because there’s no way I can keep up with assembling three armies!
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Great to see the kids getting involved!
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