MHWC Vanguard - Steve, Post 1

As previously stated by my fellow club members, the MHWC was invited to take part in Mantic's 'Your Club, Your Story' promotion for Kings of War Vanguard. Like everyone else, I was very excited to take part. After all the goodies were divided up, I found myself back at home with a Trident Realm starter box and 2 blister packs, along with a rulebook and other odds and ends. In all it was a very generous and more than enough to get our teeth into. I read through the Trident Realm section in the rulebook, and I will quote it here :

"The Kingdoms of the Trident Realm are proud and territorial, and can commit to violence with little provocation. The lord of any land-bound territory would be wise to treat their inlets and coasts cautiously, lest they stir the fierce Nerticans who claim them as their own. When the Trident Realm stirs, the very seas boil - storms rage, waves crash upon coastlines and the tides rise only to retreat, revealing the Nertican host, water cascading off shells and armour and ready for war."

In my head, the Trident Realm is neutral. Not in a 'we help whoever needs our help' sense, but more of a 'we ally only when it suits us - do not be in our way' sense. I already had a theme for basing (which is something I usually struggle with!) I decided that I wanted my creatures to be emerging from a tropical lagoon, ready to engage the enemies of their intentions!

 I started off rummaging through the boxes, assembling figures and pondering where I could draw inspiration from. After assembling my figures, I decided that I wanted to go down a tropical/more striking colour scheme for my assorted water based warband. So, I started searching through the internet for different animals I could use to get my painting off the ground.

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 After much searching and debating, I had my inspiration images prepped and ready. My 2 Thuul were inspired by the Giant Pacific Octopus. The striking red of the animal stood out to me, and I thought they would look great as henchmen.

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The spellcaster however, needed to look more special. As such, I decided the Blue Ringed Octopus would be a great base for a paint scheme. The striking blues coupled with the vibrant yellows work well to indicated a certain level of ‘mysticism’ within the creature.

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Then came the Riverguard. I knew I wanted to make the Riverguard look more tropical and settled on a Red Poisoned Tree Frog. The combination of blues and reds looked great as a scheme, and I thought the inclusion of black leather gave a nice balance for the two colours.

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The Treeleaper was different though. I had the idea that it was a bit more 'stealthy', less striking. In my head the name is literal - the Treeleaper hides in the branches of trees and pounces on unsuspecting foes below. I settled on the Red Eyed Tree Frog for my Treeleaper. I think it came out pretty well, with a nice balance of colours that isn't too striking to not be at least a little stealthy.

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The Naiads were slightly more troublesome. It took me a long time to decide how I wanted to paint them - the only thing I could decide was that they would have blue skin! I knew I wanted to include a fair amount of gold on them, and as painting continued I decided on the notion of the fins actually being ornamental and not actually organic. This had them become silver - maybe at some point the Naiads in my force devolved in some way from the norm, or perhaps they covered their fins in metal to protect the weak flesh there. The pale bone colour idea came from painting shells on the other figures. All in all, it's quite a cold look for my Naiads - something that fits with my understanding of a neutral race that comes from the waters to enact their will on the land.

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 The Giga came next on my painting list. This one was fairly simple for me. In my eyes the model looked more like a Lobster than a Crab, so I went ahead and found an image of a lobster to use as a reference.

 

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Having finished my force, I discovered an option on one of the unit cards - an Otter Bevy! I absolutely love otters, and as soon as I knew I had the option to have some I absolutely needed a unit! Unfortunately, there were only 2 Otters on the sprues I got in the box, so had to be a little creative. Thankfully I had a spare Thuul head, and I thought 2 otters overlooking a tentacled beast emerging from the waters would be a neat substitute.

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And that's my painting journey for the Kings of War Vanguard! Up next will be some games and thoughts  on the rules themselves. Thanks for reading!