Is it the lore from Mantic? Your own story?
Was it is modelling idea? Does it just suit your style?
Maybe it’s just a filthy list.
Mine are both because the concept appeals to me!
Dwarfs are made to be full of character and embody fun masculinity for me! It’s great fun to be in character while playing dwarfs.
Night-stalkers are the kind of dark insanity horror that gives me an evil grin, I love the idea of something hungry and alien just beyond the light. Tentacles are a cool aesthetic too. Plus they suit my aggressive play style, but the theme is why not abyssals or Varangur instead.
I chose Undead as my first KOW army because I wanted a change from always playing “good” armies. Also I wanted a mantic army and I liked the undead minis the most.
After a couple of years I started with Orcs because I saw a chance to paint a completely different color scheme than my undead. Still mantic models. My undead were relatively speed painted but my orcs I put a lot of effort into.
Recently I made Elves as my third army because it had been a few years since I made an army, plus I already had them lying around in boxes mostly painted up, just needed rebasing. This was my first non-mantic army.
When I dived in I vowed to do as many races as I could.
Went a bit mad on the undead last year - always wanted a classic undead army after seeing the old GW “Skeleton Army” of thirty years ago. Think I called a halt at around 4000 points reluctantly and still have major plans.
Now hitting goblins and have started elves. Planning on miniatures for dwarfs and humans.
I love my humies and they see play quite often these days. In 3rd, they migrated from the kingdoms of men to Basilea, but they are still based on my oldhammer Empire army. There’s something magic about a regular guy with a gun or sword taking on the magical beasts and horrors of a fantasy world. My 2nd human army exists only for mirror matches and training battles.
The undead are mainly as my most effective gaming army. They started out as Vampire counts and kept with me during KoW 2nd, where the human armies were definately 2nd tier. These days, the humans do well, so my undead are a bit under used.
That said, this situation makes me think twice (or even thrice) before starting a new project again. I’ve postponed (and subcequentially cancelled) a few new army ideas because I have three armies standing around doing nothing.
I DM RPGs far more often then I wargame, so most of my miniatures are with use in an RPG in mind. My fiancee is a huge fan of DnD’s forgotten realms underdark, especially their dark elves. One day came the raging heroes tgg2 kickstarter which had lots of dark elves so I got into that, picking figures we both liked.
I also had a large demon from another kickstarter so between the two I planned making a TK army. It’s the only full 2000+ points I can field from mini collection, so it’s my army. I’ve been painting them up and making the individuals removable from the base so I can use them in rpgs as well (bonus is they can also be used in vanguard).
I am using vanguard forces as a sort of guide to focus and finally finish models I’ve been using half painted for my rpgs as well. Currently my first ever models, my goblins, are getting some much needed love. Working with them is inspiring me to think of background for them as well.
I think if I do make an army solely to be an army, I’d go full out making lorefriendly backstory and testing if I enjoy the lists before purchasing models. Having the story and feeling of these are my dudes is an important aspect to me.
For me it is the models, and their theme first and foremost.
My main army is Kingdom of Men, it is a historical army (Mongolians), which I have added a few fantastical elements to. Other than being interested in their real world history, I wanted to do a Human force that wasn’t a Medieval European nation… which is usually the default setting. Plus it is nice to have a force that is cavalry heavy.
My second army is the Herd. This is mainly due to my liking of the Gnoll plastic kit produced by Northstar miniatures. Also as my KoM is a Cavalry heavy force, this allows me to do something different.
My third army is Undead. Mainly as I used to play them back in the mid 90’s, so is nice to get to grips with an old favourite. For these I want pure Mantic, as I felt like supporting them, and also the models are nice.
I have plans on doing Abyssal Dwarfs as Chaos Dwarfs were my first ever army for WFB, and the Mantic models are I think wonderful.
After that I am looking at Salamanders, but as of now it all depends on what other kits Oathmark come out with. Really like the look of their stuff.
When GW blew up the old world, KoW was suggested (by Matt, now on RC and co-author of v3) so my empire army got used as KoM (plus a few run-outs as rhordia as I had demigryhs, a steam tank & organ guns).
They then all got multi based, plus various other units got added. I slowly built up a stock of little allied contingents (4-500pts), of which the dwarves and Varangur (now NA) all became full armies.
Some Amazon vouchers from work, finding a cheap abyssals army set and being inspired by Dan Read’s basilean army lead to the next weird and wonderful creation.
Leftover scenery from that, lots of random historical models and re-purposing some of my original empire army created KoM army number 2.
More random stuff (camels!) plus lockdown meant I got round to doing something Arabian Nights style for KoM army 3.
Elves/trees are up next, an actual halfling heavy list planned and want to do a viking-esq Varangur army (the old one was more barbarian style), partly inspired by the Last Kingdom series of books I’m ploughing through!
I did medieval history as a degree (with mathematics!), a dissertation on early medieval warfare always like historical stuff, so human armies tended to be my go to - there are so many great/cheap/varied ranges out there.
Actual ability on the table is mainly secondary - none of the armies have ever been planned around lists or usability in game, but usually finish mid-table regardless!
Not really read the lore, kinda wanted to do a dwarf army but I always prefer the “bad guys” armour always looks better and often have great designs to paint… so I like the abyssal dwarf aesthetic
Yes, Abyssal Dwarfs are tempting… and so are many others. I play Undead, mainly because I did so in WHFB. I changed almost all the models since the days of the old world though (I used Mantic Zombies and Ghouls before, because the GW ones are horrible {not in a good ‘undead way’}). My army (only 1500pt atm) uses mostly Mantic models. I liked undead for a very long time, the Mantic lore is ‘ok’, but what I like is the mix of classic undead creatures and the ability to field skeleton armies, which resemble their living counterparts. And the Mantic Undead models are great.
Interesting reading here - good thread, thank you for starting this one @DarkBlack
It seems my reason is quite unique though so far… “cos my friends kinda forced me to play Orcs & Goblins” is the tl;dr version of it!
I actually wrote a big blog post about the full reason behind it though. I’ve posted it here before I know, but here’s another link anyway
That’s a loooong-ass post I know, so I’ll quote the relevant bits of it here too:
I was playing Orcs & Goblins not by choice, but as a sort of ‘handicap’ (as I was by a fair margin the most experienced & dedicated player in the group) which was originally to stop me playing Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 (as, at the time, Space Orks in 40k were seen as the ‘weakest’ army by my friends). So I’d only picked them up in WFB too as part of that – in fact I generally played as ‘the Orcs’ side from then on in every game we played
As for why I’ve gone with Goblins first, for when I finally get to play KoW anyway once this lockdown is lifted…
Once I started to think about playstyle of my old army though, the decision was really made for me – only Goblins have artillery in KoW, and as that was such a focal point of the list – being very “shooty” I really had to start there.
But I do of course want to try Orcs as well in KoW too at some point… (& I really still think there should be a ‘Greenskin’ united list too in KoW, loads of reasoning/whining about that in that long post, hehe)
I also think the Goblins and Orcs should be rolled into one list. Sure it will be a list with a lot of unit options, but it is difficult to see Greenskins as separate forces.
Also, I do think that as much as I love KoW, I think it has too many lists, and think a lot of them could be rolled together. For example, did Brotherhood really need splitting into two lists? I would much rather it be rolled into Kingdom of Men, with the units that are the same left as one option to avoid clutter.
Also, I’d remove Werewolves from the Undead, they should be on Forces of Nature… still looks weird seeing them in the Undead.
I chose salamanders because of a 2 minute conversation I had with Ronnie Renton about the faction at the Best of the Rest tournament this year. His enthusiasm for the game in general really made me want to support mantic by buying their models.
I can’t agree!
First: I love my werewolves!
Second: It would be too much stuff cramped into huge lists. It would be a nightmare to balance that and I think it would take away a lot of the fluff, too.
Third: I love my werewolves!
I came from Whfb back when 8th edition started and I was happy to use my existing armys. But eventualy the Forces of the abyss showed up. The miniatures reminded me at Dungeon Keeper and I had to buy them. Later a few NA and Nightstalker were added to my collection.
Even so I like the story of KoW, the reason why I buy stuff is the aesthetics of the miniatures.
