I am new to KOW, and am trying to build an army primarily as a hobbying challenge, but I do want to take it to a local tournament or two when it’s done. I bought a Mantic Companion account and am trying to wrap my head around the factions and units.
I bought the old Northern Alliance Mega Army and want to get a head start on some Varangur. I’m painting up the Tribesmen and the Trolls and ready to source some models for the other units.
But for some of them, I’m not exactly sure what they are meant to be!
Can some of you, more knowledgable about the lore and customs help me figure out what sort of models I ought to be looking for for the non-mantic produced units for Varangur?
Like, I can sorta conceptually get that they have cavalry and zombies. But some other things, like “The Fallen” or “Reavers” are more confusing. The Fallen are large infantry? What were they before they fell? Reavers are human? Why do they have crushing strength? Why is a Magus Conclave a war engine? That sounds more like a group of magicians to me.
The Fallen are the original worshippers of Korgaan, known originally as the Var’Kyr
They were exterminated by the Celestials during their war against Korgaan when they realized they could not kill him,the best they could do was imprison him, and wanted to prevent him having any means of escape.
When Korgaan was freed and later in the timeline lead the First Reckoning (which put simply is calling all Varangur together and going for whatever target Korgaan has in mind.(there is actually more to it but my ramblings will already be long enough as is and I easily go off target)) against the Wicked Ones he ordered his Sons to capture a entire colony of Gargoyles .
Taking them all the way to the tombs of the Var’Kyr in a great blood ritual the essences and regenerative abilities of the Gargoyles was used to resurrect the Var’Kyr
Model wise It is a bit hard to say what to use honestly, they are bigger then humans but are describes as being armed with glaives and being surprisingly agile.
Maybe something that looks slightly possessed or something that looks armored but agile at the same time?
I actually am of the mind to get my hand on some Undead Wights (since technically they are undead beings) and try to replace the heads with some leftover Chaos helmets or something alike.
The Reavers are pretty much berserkers.
Korgaan is worshipped by the Varangur in three aspects, the Warrior, the Deceiver and the Reaper.
While you can dedicate yourself to one aspect, Korgaan likes those who masters all three. (Well I say ‘likes’ but it is more that he may find them usefull pawns.)
For this reason Korgaan is often referred to as the Three-faced god.
Those who worship the aspect of the Reaper must wear something known as the Mask of the Reaper, which embows their wearer with a bloodlust that the wearer must learn to control.
The Reavers are those who failed to contain that bloodlust and have been driven insane.
Model wise…well lets be frank there is plenty of choice for frothing berserkers.
The Magus Conclave is pretty much a group of mages yes but the way they are used is like a warmachine.
They are compromised of lesser magi, each must channel one of the aspects of Korgaan, their combined power unleashes bolts of explosive magic over great distances.
If one of them even tries to channel the same spell on their own they would die.
Even combined they can barely pull it off since all of them are drained and practically defenseless after each barrage.
Hope my rambling wasn’t annoying, all over the place or confusing.
Welcome! The Varangur are a lot of fun top play. I’ve played them a bit (links to battle reports can be found here and the blog has hobby posts as well. The forum also has some more discussion on the battles here.
A little more on the army’s fluff and background can be found in the game’s supplemental books, namely the Uncharted Empires books from both 2nd and 3rd Edition, but @Dubren definitely hits the highlights.
If it helps, here are some old pics of mine covering those units.
My Fallen, hobbied up ages ago. Some Skorne models from Warmachine. Being able to run cool-looking units from other games is a nice plus for Kings of War.
Some Magus Conclaves. They are indeed small groups of casters, but working together are able to toss around some devastating magics, functionally similar to a war engine. Having Nimble and Steady Aim, these duders can move around and still shoot, unlike most other war machines, making them a lot of fun to field.
Welcome @RansomsRegret and thank you for raising this topic. I’ve meant to ask the same thing on many an occassion. I’ve considered using one of my historic armies as Varagur: Romans for example or Vikings.
Possibly, the theme for this army might go back to the old Warhammer Warriors of Chaos from GW, and Mantic trying to develop rules for this type of army. To follow on from @Dubren 's helpful explanation, some good models for the Fallen might be the newer version of the same, now Chaos Warriors / Chosen from the Slaves of Darkness army, or use theKoW Huscarls, ( now decomissioned it seems from Northern Alliance mega army or a unit i’m currently finishing off : Umber Berserkers from ASOIF ) Basically, you want heavily armoured knights on foot, (Anti-Paladins).
Chaos Marauders might be a good choice for Night Riders, or some dark elf rangers,.
Thanks for the background! This is good info. So the Fallen are not humans at all, some other race from prehistory, but they are reanimated in this context, so might as well look like anything. That works for me. I can start looking around.
Reavers are very workable model-wise, then. Excellent.
So the conclave has one mage from each of the three Korgaanish Schools? That makes sense. It also will be fun to source models for.
Excellent ideas. I think I’m going for historical minis for some of my Varangur units, too, so might as well keep it up, I guess! I’ll look into your suggestions.
Obviously, Mantic have some great models for either rank and file, as well as heroes. GW likewise can offer some seriously detailed options although they wont come cheap. Id check out their Lord of the Rings miniatures too. Other option are Oathmark revenant or Skeletal infantry at a euro a peice for your hordes of Draugr.
Others have done a good job giving the background (which is available as a free pdf from Mantic’s website) but just a couple of comments on model choice etc
In relation to the Fallen (effectively resurrected heroes imbue with gargoyle spirits), they are Large Infantry in-game for footprint/unlocks etc. However they are only Height 2 (so human sized). Think i recall a post from the RC when the list was designed that the inspiration came from some of the Warmachine Hordes Skorne models (possibly these ones?) of weird dudes with glaives
And thanks for telling me about the PDF! I’m headed there now.
And I didn’t notice that the Fallen were height 2, that changes things. It’s confusing to me that they would be large infantry, but height 2. Are there other Large Infantry, Height 2 units out there for me to compare with?
Sceleris is right, justification is that they fight in loose formations to fully utilize their glaives.
Frankly don’t worry too much about it, if they are slightly taller then humans I don’t imagine anybody throwing a fuss about it as long as you make clear which unit they are.
If you bring models that you like and they aren’t ridiculously big go for it.
We have seen some weird, awesome and funny model stand-ins, kitbashes and conversions in this community. Just have fun with it , that is after all the point of the game.
For me, I really appreciate when people maintain relative model heights in their army. That means in this case that your Fallen (H2), why they might be taller than your Tribespeople (H2), aren’t taller than your Snow Trolls (H3) or Mounted Sons (H3). I’m not very concerned if your H2 Fallen are taller than my H3 large infantry, but IMO it’s helpful to your opponent (especially ones newer to the game) if the visibility among different units in your own army is represented by the models as well.
Note that experienced opponents won’t care, we know (or ought to!) that Fallen are H2 so can’t see over your H3 cavalry.
Thankfully, with KoW , Heavy Infantry are on a 25mm base rather than the usual 20mm base, so can look chunkier than their counterparts in light/medium infantry. This comes in handy in the likes of NA Huscarl or Umber Berserkers or the GW evil knights on foot options.
Granted the Northern Alliance Human Clansmen are not much smaller in all their furs, so minimal model count might be important too. A lot of the Historical armies are 28mm, which might be a factor, too
