My Warband, My Demo Board – Pathfinder Shane Knerl

“We left the southlands to escape the tyrannies and wars of Mantica. We fled a war-torn land for a hard and desolate one. We thought we were safe. We had found the harsh tundra forged our hearts more than any blacksmith’s crucible ever could.

A shadow is descending on our homes. Now, the wars are pushing their way north. But by the time they had gotten here, we had all been made hard and cold like the land we escaped to. Under Talannar’s leadership, we will face anyone mistaking this land for their own.“

Hello all, Pathfinder Shane here with a board building tutorial and my Northern Alliance Warband I'm using for in-store demos.

I built the table for our local games and demos and knew ahead of time that I wanted to go snow for my first try at terrain.

I had several scrap sheets of the thicker Styrofoam donated from our local store knowing that I wanted to have a trench on the board (I love the fact that you can climb or risk it and attempt to jump a trench…).

Once the basic shape was down, I had to smooth out the rough, uneven spots and begin texturing. Once the rocky land was made, I sanded it down and began painting. Primer in black, basecoat in burnt umber, then dry brushed in layers of greys starting darkest until almost white.
The last step was to add the snow itself. If you watch any Kings of War coverage on YouTube, you will know my inspiration. I used Kyle Przelenski’s video on snow .

After this I added mountains, caves, and a strip down the centre in case you did not want a trench for specific scenarios.

If anyone wants any advice or tips on building terrain, please get in touch with any of the Pathfinders and I'm sure we'd all love to help!

On to my first 200pt warband! For the demo games I am going to stick to the 8 units included in the book to allow for our local groups to grow into their warbands. I did a similar approach in Deadzone with our “Learner's League”.

Dwarf Clansmen (With Frost hammers) x2 – 18pts

Huscarl x2 – 30pts

Ice Naiad x2 – 24pts

Half Elf Berserker x2 – 38pts

Ice Kin Hunter – 26pts

Snow Troll Prime – 54pts

Total – 200pts

The basic premise would be to hit early with the Hunters giving everyone else time to position (or lumber forward for the slower units). I would pair the Naiads with the Huscarls to pin and finish off enemies once pinned. Pair attack using the Dwarfs for larger targets. And finally, let the Snow Troll do his thing (stomp everything else….).

For those in the Southwest of the USA you can join my Mantic gaming group here and find me most weeks at Military Gamer Supply running demos of Deadzone and Vanguard! See you there.