12) The Final Stretch: A Dog and Cavalry Show

The little mousefolk minis from Hedgerows and Heroes are just so cute, and so tiny. I was able to easily put twenty of them on the unit base. I arranged them very loosely, and avoided any regimental ranks or lines, because they are supposed to be a swarm, and not an organized military unit.

I painted them with brown fur, and yellow clothing. Yellow is very challenging to paint, because it is never just one coat. First I painted the clothes white. Then, I painted a very rich yellow over the white. Then I highlighted with a lighter almost pastel yellow. The clothing got an orange wash, and then a final highlight with the light yellow. That is an awful lot of steps for just one color. It's the only way that I have found, though, to make yellow look nice on miniatures.

I had to do a little bit more flock and static grass on the base for these guys, because of the little mounds that the sculpts have for stands. I'm very happy with how they turned out, and they look great with the rest of my army. The yellow I used to paint their clothing is the same yellow I used on the banner for the Ratorean Guard. This, combined with the pink ears, noses, and tails, ties everything together, even though no other unit is actually wearing yellow.

Having completed painting one out of two vermin swarms, I realized that I am running out of rats to paint. It seems hard to believe, but I am almost done with this army. All I have left is one more vermin swarm, one unit of three tunnel runners, and my Hackpaw cavalry. Everything after that is either an individual character or a big monster.

I was taking a break from squinting and hunching over my painting station, and instead squinting and hunching over my computer monitor, when I came upon some internet discourse about the in game performance of hackpaw cavalry in Kings of War. If you don't know what a Hackpaw is, they are literally rats who ride pitbulls into battle. The discussion seemed to suggest that the unit had outstanding mobility, but was very fragile in a small troop formation of five, and that it required finnesse to use it properly. A full regiment of ten loses some of that manueverability, but hits harder, and is more forgiving to a ham-fisted or inexperienced commander.

As I was reading the comments on this thread, an elderly black rat named Specules slithered out from the hood of my sweatshirt, around my neck, and down my chest to the computer desk. He sat up. He stretched. He sniffed. He squinted his eyes and glared at me.

"Need more Hackpaws." he chittered.

"Well, Spec," I replied, "I only have a single box of five of them, so I guess I'll just have to make do."

"No. no." he said, shaking his head, "Need full regiment block, yes."

"I only have five, and I am doing this project on a budget." I said.

A small white rat named Noodle peeked out from behind my computer monitor.

"What if you just base them on regiment tray square?" he squeaked, "Use rocks and trees?"

What young Noodle was suggesting, was that I exploit the minimum count/preferred mini count rule by making a scenic base, and spreading out the five figures so that they took up the full space of a regiment sized base. A lot of people do this in order to stretch out their boxed sets, and get more units for their money. Personally, though, I just don't like how it looks. I feel like these units often look really sparse. A handful of guys jogging through a park is just not as cool or imposing as a big ranked up block of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder in a field.

"No, Noodle," I said, "I don't want to skimp on miniature count."

"Quiet, hush." said old Specules, carefully climbing into my hoodie pocket, "Take carry to work bench, yes."

The next thing I knew, old Spec was leaning on the edge of my spare bits box, pointing and squeaking, and giving directions to little Noodle, as the young rat dumpster dived for parts from old broken and incomplete models. Before my very eyes, the rats laid out a beat up old Celtos chariot, two mutant hounds from Warmachine, an old GW doom wolf, and a couple of vintage ratmen from Grenadier and Heartbreaker miniatures.

"Chariot take up four spaces." chirped the frail old rat, "and doom wolf makes five, five."

"Put a rat ogre in the chariot!" squealed Noodle, shaking his tiny hands and dancing on his hind legs in excitement.

Old Specules smiled and patted his protege on the head.

"Yes, yes. Great thinking."

I thanked the boys, rewarded them with some applesauce as a treat, and tucked them into bed for the evening.

I was excited about the Hackpaws before, but now I was REALLY excited about them.

Of course, the rules don't account for a rat ogre in a chariot, but it is totally ok to use artistic license to present the unit this way as long as it is still just a regular regiment of Hackpaws in game. That's one of the things that I like about Kings of War. A unit is a unit. The stats and rules for that unit are for the unit. In the old days of Warhammer, the units didn't have their own stats and rules. The individual soldiers and warriors did, and you collected up all these individual little dudes, and put them all together and made a unit out of them. Then, every turn, each little dude did their own thing and had their own dice rolls etc... Kings of War is so much simpler. A regiment of Ratkin cavalry is a regiment of Ratkin cavalry. It doesn't have a post it note full of special considerations, modifiers, and food allergies just because Dave is in the front rank next to the drummer, and he's got a left-handed medium horseman's mace instead of a right-handed heavy one, like Larry down at the other end.

I assembled the chariot, stuck a rat on the Doomwolf, and kludged together another armored rat ogre from warpwolf, ratkin, and Chaos warrior parts. Assembling the actual Mantic Hackpaws was a bit challenging. They are resin models, not plastic, so they are a little trickier to put together, but with some patience, sanding, drilling, and pinning, I was able to do it. I planned out how I wanted the models to be arranged, primed them, and painted a test model. I painted the rat's clothing red, at first, but the red was too close to the brown on his dog, so I started over and painted his clothes blue instead. I'm pleased with how the first Hackpaw turned out, and I am excited to paint up the rest of this unit! I think they will look really sharp. I'm especially looking forward to painting each of the dogs. I want to use different coats and patterns, but I will stick to a limited pallet of black, brown, and white, so that they have variety, yet still look good together in formation.