Varangur rulz OK

Andy's Kingdoms of Men army is almost finished, and we'd promised a game again for some time. For a change I chose to use my DBA/HotT based Barbarians, very suitable for Varangur, one of the new races in Kings of War. The DBA/HotT basing doesn't quite match, but it is close enough for us.
The Varangur is a pseudo celtic race, and I took a warrior horde, two warrior regiments, two regiments of heavy horse and two of light horse (the mounted looked suspiciously Hunnic and Gothic in nature) and a unit of cave trolls (a mammoth proxying for the third troll. There was also a character as general.

Andy's KoM army had a regiment of foot guard, one of spear wall, two of heavy pike, supported by two regiments of those fearsome knights, and three troops of archers. These were lead by a captain and supported by an army standard bearer. Each army was approximately 1500 points.

Initial deployment, KoM on the left, Varangur on the right

KoM knights on Andy's right

KoM heavy pike

Tentative advances

The KoM knights rushed forward and hit the lighter Varangur horse...

The lighter horse fled, and the heavier Varangur horse came along to play

First contact - we hadn't realised how effective the Varangur heavy horse were .. ouch

Trolls and heavy horse hit a unit of heavy pike, eliminating the  pike

Closing the gap in the centre - the warrior horde closes in

The heavy pike gone ..

argy bargy with the infantry masses in the centre

The trolls are hit a unit of foot guard, and the heavy horse are caught in the flank by a unit of archers

The mad melee of infantry in the centre

The second unit of Varangur heavy horse hits Andy's second unit of knights..and routs it

The other unit of heavy horse hits the foot guard in the flank, and routs it

But the Varangur warrior horde is in turn routed. Gaps are now evident in both armies

The second unit of heavy pike hits a Varangur warrior regiment in the flank.. that was never going to end well for the warriors

Andy turns his left to close in on the Varangur, and claim some loot counters

Not  a lot left on the battlefield at this stage... a very bloody affair all round

 The game was 'Loot', and I managed to sneak across in my last turn and capture a third loot counter to Andy's two.. he'd slightly mis-judged and was about a centimetre too far away from his third counter.

We both felt that the game was an honourable draw, but a really exciting game, with lots of laughs.

One last close up of one of Andy's knight units.

So, I managed to make good use of an historical army of 20/25mm figures to create some interesting variety in our games, and visually it didn't look too bad despite the scale difference. The game was 'bloody' in casualty terms, but a really exciting affair which swung backwards and forwards from turn three to turn six. Along with the beers and food overall it was a great evening.