Thursday, 5 January 2023

From ByronM: 10mm Kings of War Salamander (Lizardmen) Army - Part 1 (251 points)

One of my goals for this years challenge is to finish a second Kings of War (KOW) army in 10mm scale so that I can indoctrinate welcome new players to this wonderful game in this great scale.  I had always wanted to paint up a Lizardman army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but never got around to it, and ended up giving the figures to my son Riley to paint.  So when I saw the amazing files for some10mm sculpts from "Forest Dragon" I just had to jump on board and pick them up as my second KOW army, and got to work printing out an armies worth of them.

I have kept them all based to 28mm standard base sizes using my own Northern Lights Terrain Kings of War Bases that have a notch in the leading edge to help pick out the center point of each base of figured (which is important in the rule system).  This means that a unit that in 28mm scale would be based with about 18-20 figures on the base ends up having 45-90 figures on the base.  The actual number of figures never really matters in KOW (as long as it looks correct or cool), just the base size.

 
This first submission for the army has most of the core units, with mainly specialty units to come in a future submission.  I did this because I find it way easier to bang out the rank and file while motivation on a project if high, and then get to the reward of specialty / cool figures to paint later on in a project.  As it turns out, this core block of painting is actually 1020 points total (in game terms, don't worry, not painting points!) so with it I am actually already 1/2 done this project!

So with that I have 2 horde sized units of Tyrants.  These are massive 15-20' tall lizards that swing clubs the size of full grown trees to smash their way through the enemies.  They hit hard but do not have much in the way or armour or defences.  In 28mm scale there would be 6 per base, but here I did 13 per base to give a look of unordered giants lumbering forward in rough formation.  I also painted them in 4 different shades to provide a mixed look rather than the standard single skin tone that GW always did their lizardmen armies in.  I did keep predominately to the traditional blue skin tone as I find it looks really sharp, but mixed in some pale blues and greens as well for variation.



Next up are 2 regiment sized units of Salamader Primes, the core of the army as they are both effective on the attack and have sturdy defensive abilities to take a hit.  In 28mm scale there would be 20 per base for these units, but in 10mm scale I put 60 on one base and 75 on the other base and really like how packed they look (especially the 75 model base).  I kept some variation of colour with these as well, using 3 different shades of Scale 75 Instant Color paint (Replenish Blue, Paralyze Blue, and Magic Blue) and find that the slight variation makes them look more realistic to me.

 
Lastly a pair of regiment sized units of Skink Ghekkotah Hunters with blowpipes.  These are smaller troops so end up on a smaller base.  Since they have the Pathfinder and Stealthy rules I kept them spaced out more on the base and much closer to the actual model count that they would have had in 28mm scale, but I did add a champion to each base and a few Salamaders to the back of the units with two-handed weapons as minders/tenders.  The smaller lizards are a bit flighty with lower moral than their larger brethren so I pictured having a few larger lizards with them as support, but hanging back to the rear of the unit as they are not able to sneak around as much so follow as a reserve.  They play ZERO effect in game terms and I just put them there for looks cool factor and fluff.

 
All of these were super fast to paint with the Scale75 instant colours, and are not great individually, but I think they look pretty damn good when all ranked up. So while more could be done to them, I am leaving them as is and moving on.

Points:

26 tyrants @ 2 points per (15mm scale infantry) = 52 points
135 Salamader Primes @ 1 point per = 135 points
56 Ghekkotah Hunters @ 1 point per = 56 points
8 Salamaders w/2hw @ 1 point per = 8 points

Total: 251 Points


From TeemuL: Those crowded bases look great, much more unit/army looking than GW units in 28mm. I trust your miniature count, I'm not going try to count them all and I'm happy with your 15mm tyrants. :) Looking forward to see the sequel.

16 comments:

  1. Those lizardmen look great en masse, Byron! :)

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  2. They look great! I like the different hide shades each figure has.

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  3. Well done Byron, I like the balance you have struck between the painting detail applied to individual minis vs the overall visual impact of colour variety and arrangement of minis on base.

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  4. Wonderful lizardmen, Byron! The skink handlers are awesome. I look forward to trying them out in a future visit. One thing you may want to try is placing a 'shadow' around their feet to make the figures 'pop' more. I find these smaller scales can often get overwhelmed by their surrounding groundwork.

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    1. Ok, how do you place shadow? I know on something big I would airbrush it in, but with something like this, how do you add it?

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    2. I simply use a Contrast paint like Dunes or Skeleton Horde. It flows great around the feet and those colours are semi-transparent, which still leaves some of the original base colour behind. Just put it at the front and rear ranks and along the sides (no need for the center of the units as they are usually in shadow anyway).

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  5. Fantastic large group of lizards there

    Cheers
    MattW

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  6. Great work Byron, and fun to see the inspiration you have (and are looking to share) with regard to Kings of War!

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  7. Talk about mass effect! They look absolutely amazing!

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  8. Amazing hordes. Really gives the army feel. Wel done.

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  9. Brutal hordes here... and great work! Still amazes me to see people paint this scale.. as i am tending to go bigger into the 40mm scale!

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    1. Thanks Kyle, I have been finding that as I get older and my eyes get worse, smaller is better! After all its more about impression and overall look, and therefore you dont see the myriad of screw ups in the paint job!!! :-)

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  10. Superb - the massed lizardmen are ace

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  11. Nice big entry - would love to see these small scale Kings of War armies in person. Salamanders (in 28mm) are in my future after the Northern Alliance/Varangur project.

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