Wrighty's Vanguard Campaign Log

Intro

Aftermath Gaming Club was lucky enough to be included in the Mantic Vanguard Community Campaign in 2019. Just recording my thoughts and progress here.

Day 34 - 20th August - Game 1

Game 1 was against Daniel and his Goblins in the Recover the Plans scenario. Unfortunately no pictures, was too busy learning everything and I forgot...

I used the list as mentioned previously, Daniel's list was a grunt free extravaganza, brave choice.

Having the Scout ability helped me jump on the first objective first thing which was luckily where the actual plans were. She only had hold of them briefly though as the sneaky goblins took her down with throwing knives in the next activation. At which point we both pushed most of our forces forward towards the now known objective.

Having first turn in turn 2 meant that I managed to grab the objective with a man-at-arms and disappear around the corner of a building, leaving most of the force on the front line. This may not have been the best idea as now the goblins couldn't see the objective and they just opened up with their laser sighted throwing knives taking out 2 man-at-arms, a panther and my Ogre. The ogre did manage to take most of the wounds off a troll first though, but in hindsight charging him into the crowd as I did was probably asking for trouble anyway. So that's me down to 5 models from 10 already, with no goblin casualties, but at least I have the objective right?!?

Turn 3 saw some change of fortune with the troll taken out by a crossbow bolt, good shot mr grunt. The Dictator, Sergeant and Chaplain also got stuck into melee to try to tie up the goblins so the objective carrier could run away some more, which he did, straight towards the table corner. A bit of a risky move as losing one more model the requires fallback checks and he has a good chance of running of the board.

Turns 4 and 5 saw the Dictator smash every goblin he saw, the Sergeant and Chaplain doing some crazy parrying to stay alive but not doing much else and the objective carrier retreating right into the table corner for a last stand. By this time a couple of the goblins had snuck past the melee and were within range of the man-at-arms. By some judicious use of Iron Resolve (including surviving an attack with 5 hits!), some interference by the crossbowman and some maneuvering around models line of sights he was still standing at the end of Turn 5 with the plans still in hand.

I was pretty sure that turn 6 would see me lose the plans and more models, especially as I was now down to 4 survivors as the crossbowman was no more. Luckily the roll went my way and the game ended there. Victorious, but it seemed at quite a high cost considering the casualties.

Time to deal with the casualties. 3 dead grunts, fine, who cares. So the first actual injury roll I make in the entire campaign is for the Ogre Palace Guard, and he's dead, dead dead. Hmmm, not a great start I think, should have brought a healer rather than a quartermaster maybe. The scout made a full recovery and the panther misses the next game so at least they got though alright.

As it was quite late we just had time to also roll for some exploration. Some poor luck saw me net only 20CG from the game, and with a dead ogre costing 32CG I guess that's a net loss.

Didn't have time to work out experience and ranks and such. Will have to do that later.

All in all the game was pretty fun, though I did get a bit frustrated early on when it seemed like the goblins had bought rocket launchers to a knife fight. That was just probably me though as I was rushed, late, tired, old man, etc. Will get the rest of the post game stuff done then look forward to the next one. I'll maybe even get a couple of more models finished before then, crossbowman are halfway done already.

Day 33 - 19th August - First game approaching

First game is tomorrow so putting a list together for that. Still haven't played a full game so no idea what to expect to be honest. With that in mind I think I'll take a bit of everything just to see how stuff works. Bit of a risk as I might lose some key models to noob mistakes but it's only a game so no matter.

So the list will be: Dictator, Paladin Chaplain, Ogre Place Guard, Sergeant, Gur Panther, Sisterhood Scout, Crossbowman and 3 x Man-at-arms

I know technically you put the list together after rolling for scenario but I have no idea what I'm doing so let's just go for it.

However, I put the list together with Easy Army, which is handy btw, but I noticed that some of the points cost there are different to the cards. I guess there has been some updates, means I may have to revisit my company roster and tweak.

Day 31 - 17th August - Company Roster

So put together my campaign company roster today. Was pretty simple as after adding all the Vanguard models I own there was only 20 something points more to fill. I threw in an extra Sergeant and a couple of basic items, job done.

Thanks to Neil for the online template for this he put together, I've fiddled with it a bit and will probably fiddle some more, there's a errors still.

Wrighty's Company Roster

Still need to do names and stuff, though they will probably come organically as I play games.

Day 30 - 16th August - Look at me I'm painting!

Slapped some colours on some things, nearly finished too.

Quick job (for me). They look a boring but they're spods so meh. Just need to do finish off the tabards then they're ready for a varnish. Varnishing means done, no more fiddling, move on.

Next to actual put some paint on a model I guess.

Contrary to current fashion I will not be using Citadel Contrast paints. I know I wanted to paint quickly and they should theoretically help but does fancy learning them at the moment. Plus these models have a fair bit of armour so some quick metallics should be a win anyway.

Will do some spears first, as no-one's likely to look too hard at them on the table so not an issue if I screw them up. As I think I mentioned before I've not painted much recently and nothing at all for months so may need to get my hand back in again.

Ready and waiting like all good grunts should be.

Also seems I have my first actual game next week so I guess I better put together a company roster. Back to the book then.

Day 25 - 9th August - Bases Painted. Too long of a break.

It's been a little while but have been busy with various things, mostly gaming related including some board games, some RPG and preparing for and playing in an Infinity tournament. Schedule is looking a little lighter over the next couple of weeks so might actually make some progress though that's probably just wishful thinking.

I'm a bit of a weirdo in that I paint my bases first, especially when just doing a dirty drybrush job.

All done, bar the grass which will be added as the final step of the model, after varnishing, probably a way off yet.

Day 13 - 29th July - Undercoat Highlights

Managed to quickly finish the undercoating with some Vallejo Air White from 45-60 degrees.

Day 12 - 28th July - Undercoating Stage 1

Weather has almost subsided into its usual UK state, kind of raining, so easier to paint at least. With that I thought to get my models undercoated. I'm using my airbrush for this and this is still pretty new to me plus I have very cheap kit so undercoating is probably the best it can cope with. Have done a few dozen models with it before but still feel like a complete noob. To be fair I wouldn't have achieved much at all without it so all good. First stage in the black using Vallejo surface primer.

All went well apart from on the resin models from the booster set. I did wash these well before assembly but still looked like the paint had trouble adhering, especially in the recesses. This has slowed me down a bit as it means I'm going to have to finish the black coat by brush, which I also can't do until this is properly dry. Which means I have to properly clean the airbrush now before it gets gunked up. Something I could have avoided if I could have gone straight to stage 2, zenithal highlighting, which will now have to wait as I can't being dealing with cleaning the airbrush twice in one day as lazy as I am.

I should get the black touched up and zentithal done in the next couple of days though, that process is super quick, apart from the airbrush cleaning which is always a bit of a pain.

Day 9 - 25th July - Campaign Rules and Thunderstorms

Too hot and muggy to do anything around painting but I did read up on the campaign rules instead. Rudely interrupted by the thunder and lightning, though probably the most impressive and consistent electric storm I've ever witnessed, so pretty cool.

So the campaign rules look pretty good with decent progression and individuality and potential for characters aplenty. Unless they're grunts, no-one cares about grunts. Skills and stats upgrades available, special skills for leaders and spellcasters all sound rather interesting.

Looking forward to trying Retinue rules where you can essentially give jobs to company members for bonuses, should give another dimension to decision making.

Next I should look at some point values and see what company can make with the models I have available then, obviously don't need to cover all units listed on the roster just those I can field at a time.

Day 8 - 24th July - Basing. Still hot.

I've never been the most ambitious baser and I want to get these models to the table quickly so just went the basic sand route and will add a bit of grass later. Will look decent enough.

With the weather being what it is it was still a struggle to get these done in the heat. At least it wan't actual painting which would have been a complete no-go. Hopefully it will cool off enough in the next few days to get these undercoated and then start to get some base coats down.

Apart from the painting that needs doing I still need to look at the campaign rules and start putting together some form of warband I guess.

Day 7 - 23rd July - Demo games. It's hot.

The Aftermath Club members that are already familiar with the game put on some demos. There were 3 tables out and all were busy. But being rubbish as I am I didn't take any pictures...

I wasn't using my models, still being in production, but used Mark's Basileans in a demo scenario that he has used in the past. This was a 75 point game of "Secure The Portal" against his Nightstalkers.

Being only 75 points we didn't cover everything, neither of us had any spellcasters or even a leader. Regardless it was a great place to start for me with a half a dozen models a side. This allowed us to slowly cover off all the basics and I was quickly moving, bashing and earning VP's. It had helped that I had read the rules already but playing is certainly a more effective learning tool.

We ended up playing 2 games as at this small size they go incredibly quickly, especially when the portal is feeling very hungry as it seemed to be on the night! We took a win each in the end but not the important part as learning was the goal here and I think that went well.

No doubt we got a few things wrong, as is the norm when playing new games, but a quick read of the rules again now with a bit more context should straighten them out.

Looking forward to more, though hopefully next time not in the middle of a heatwave (30 degress in the UK , it's like the end of the world), much more fun when your brains not cooking.

Day 5 - 21st July - Assembled

It took a couple of evenings but everything is together now. As expected the resin models are really sharp, the plastics are good and the restics are fine.

There were some assembly options, mostly on the hard plastic men-at-arms sprue and I went for 3 spears and 2 crossbows. The other 10 models in the starter set are basically a duplicate set of 5 models with some options on most so all of those I have made to be different except the kitty cats which are single pose. The ogre in the booster set has a weapon option and just went for the biggest one.

Note that I have quite a bad reaction to CA glue. If I don't use the gel/low odour stuff I am literally bedridden for days after a couple of hours around it. Even still I'm going to have all the symptoms of a hay fever sufferer in a florists for the next few days. We all suffer for our art toy soldiers.

Day 3 - 19th July - Rules read

So I've now managed to read the book, everything except the campaign rules. Thankfully it looks good!

As it's based on Kings of War it is similar as expected with most of the same stats, keywords etc. There are some differences which may trip me up at some point but I think that will be the exception. I don't claim to have it all down pat yet but things make sense and I know how I want to assemble the models now.

It will probably be the campaign rules that make or break it though, those to be read soon.

Day 1 - 17th July - Unboxed

So I've opened the box. There's a a mix of hard plastic and plastic-resin in the starter set and just resin in the booster. All look fine and will be all put together soon.

I also received the rule book and power dice, all enough to get started nicely. I think the only thing I'm missing is a wizard to play with and some counters to help me in game. The former I will most likely purchase and the latter seems like a good excuse to practice some basic 3D modelling.

As I still know nothing about the games rules I guess I better read the book next, as well as get these unboxed and assembled. Although I haven't played this game before I have played Kings of War for a while so most of the fluff is familiar.

Painting Basileans could be interesting as I've not painted much clean bright colours before, I tend towards the gritty or organic forces in general. Could learn some things.