Since I’ve gotten a few games in with my new Herd army, I figured I should probably get caught up on writing reports for them as well. First one is up here: THE HALLOW GAME 1: OGRES – BLOODFIRE
Dunno if it’s a spoiler, but between dialing in a new low-powered army and having not played since 2020, these are going to be some rough games 
SPOILER
That was unfortunate with the Hex Herder, well done for playing on though. I’d only restart if something truly catastrophic happened that made the game no fun for my opponent either, as there was no game to be had.
Scout looks tricky to use, and you have a lot of scouting units. Swordmaster makes good use of it in his battle reports, though he’s only using two regiments of Shamblers - might be worth a look.
I have the minis to run Herd (though not quite your list) and considered taking a third of the army as a scouting battlegroup. Another third would be the all the fastest units - Lycans etc. This second group would aim to catch up with the scouting contingent by the end of turn 1. Hopefully this would mean that they weren’t picked off separately.
(hadn’t quite decided on the last battlegroup but was considering some sort of anvil and trying a refused flank)
I’ve pretty much discounted Scout for the entirety of my KOW career, it just seems to get units in trouble if 1-2 out of an army use it. Mass scout I think has some interesting uses, especially for shambling units that get to enjoy up to 3 turns of movement by their first turn! I also haven’t made good on this yet, but if you give Mead of Madness or Brew of Haste to a Sp 6 scouting unit, you can first turn charge enemy units lined up on the 12" mark. I’m not sure that I want to fling a Shambler unit or Herder that far forward so early, however it’s a thing I keep toying with (my winged Shambler unit was vaguely going to have a speed buff item whenever possible but I got away from that as my list design rolled on).
Cheers for the comment! We’ll see how much work I get done today, might get to Game 3 before the week is out.
Enjoyed the last battle report - it’s good to see some more Herd content as there’s not much about.
Have/would you consider using some of the large infantry hordes as lycans (thinking the winged models) or guardian brutes? Bit faster and punchier, at the expense of being surgable and some resilience.
Interesting thought! I make intensely thematic armies and lists, so I hadn’t even considered it On the whole I’ve been happier with the Forest Shamblers than I expected I would be - they’re extremely generic elementals, but thus far that De5+, At18, CS1 base has done more work than I thought it would. Maybe that shows how pillow fisted most of the army is 
Speaking of rethinking unit roles, I’ll spoil the list I’m playing next:
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Beast of Nature - Upgrade with Wings, Increase Attacks to 7
Tree Herder - Trickster’s Wand, Surge (8)
Tree Herder - Surge (8)
Centaur Chief - Blade of Slashing
Druid - Conjurer’s Staff, Bane Chant (2), Heal (2)
Total Unit Strength: 26
Total Units: 14
Target Points: 2300
My games showed that the Spirit Walkers aren’t really fast enough to project real threat, and De3+ is too weak (and 165 too expensive) to perform the utility roles I want these regiments to do. Tribal Spears wildly improve on that survivability for significantly fewer points, but with enough attaks to let me roll a decent amount of dice and make lucky flanks a thing.
Swapping all four regiments over gave me enough points to upgrade the Warden to a true hammer, which I’m going back to the Beast for that raw utility. I have a Minotaur Chariot regiment that could serve here, but I really should learn how to run a flying monster at some point 
Finally, I’ve concluded what most people do in regards to the Great Chieftain, that the Centaur Chief is better at flyer interception, blocking, etc.
Good that the Shamblers are working out okay - they do keep the theme as the backbone of the force.
I’m interested to see how the Tribal Spears perform (have three regiments myself). They seem like a good jack of all trades unit, with phalanx, TC1 and a bit of speed. Have you considered one horde?
I’d also be very interested to see the minotaur chariots in action - hopefully they’d be worth their points.
I have no interest in running Herd infantry hordes at the moment, since the only Herd infantry you see in the meta is a single horde of Spirit Walkers (my buddy tried to run two hordes of Walkers and downgraded swiftly back to the single one with a good item). Part of the goal with this army is to make regiment spam work, which I really like Herd infantry for (because of pathfinder, so you can maneuver multiple regiments in support of each other, as well as TC, so the units can get something done in combo-charges or flanks, without costing too much).
As for the Minotaur regiment, I really like what you get for the points, especially after my Hex Herder was rolled by that Ogre unit, and IMO the Herd version is better (I’m looking at +1Sp on mine when it hits the table).
Spoiler:
Congratulations on the win! Good to see The Herd taking down some nasty combat units. And Scouting being useful - helping to nab those tokens. Glad that the Spear regs worked out too.
Thank you both! Also for a peek into how much goes into the lists for armies I play, check out the development folder for these dark fae critters:
You can also see the pre-conceptualization of the army, when I started working on regiment spam lists and landed on Spirit Walkers as my choice out of all regiments in KOW 
Two in a row - nice to see Undead taking a battering! 
I will be v interested in how the Moonfang works out - have my own mini for one of these. Also, interesting to see the tweaks to the list on the fly.
I know people talk about playing the same list 10/20 (sometimes 50!) times but I reckon there’s a lot of fun to be had in the tinkering, even if it’s not very scientific! Plus, I’ve never played any one game heavily enough to rack up those sorts of numbers.
Sixth game is up: THE HALLOW GAME 6: OGRES – BLOODFIRE
Pretty sure this is where my 2300 point list has ended up, at least through my tournament next month:
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Beast of Nature - Wings, 7 Attaks
Tree Herder - Pipes of Terror
Tree Herder
Druid - Conjurer’s Staff, Bane Chant (2), Heal (2)
Centaur Chief - Sabre-Toothed Hunting Cat
2300
I’m back and forth on the one Tree Herder’s upgrade, but I think Brutal is my favorite, given the heavy lifting these always do for me.
Good to see the Spears are proving to be useful. Shame that the Moonfang didn’t have a a better outing!
Game 8 too: THE HALLOW GAME 8: UNDEAD – BLOODFIRE
That’s it for practice, headed to the tournament next weekend. They’ve already announced our first match-ups, looks like I’m facing triple Warlock Ogres in Invade. It could be worse? He’s a great player and painter as well, so it will at least be friendly and pretty to look at!
Here’s my final list:
The Herd 2300
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Forest Shamblers Horde
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Tribal Spears Regiment
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Centaur Bray Striders Troop
Beast of Nature – Wings, 7 Attaks
Tree Herder – Pipes of Terror, Surge (8)
Tree Herder – Surge (8)
Druid – Conjuring Staff, Bane Chant (2), Heal (2), Lightning Bolt (2)
Centaur Chief
Enjoyed both the reports. Good luck at the tourney.
No points for the cat?
