It all started so innocently… First, it was just a Salamander army.

The susurrus of the wind whispered to me through the leaves of the forest “You can usssse them in Forcesss of Nature.”

And so I made a Nature army.

Then, the baying wolves called on Nature’s Centaurs “Come, brothers, join us in the hunt!”

And so I made a Herd army.

But the sea, the sea in darkness calls “You should get some Naiads, they can be used in Trident Realm or Nature lists.”

And so…

Actually, I love this kind of list-morphing. I think it’s brilliant. If I had my way, the entire allies system in Kings of War would get tossed in the bin, and instead each faction gets access to a couple other core units from two other factions. I want to be able to daisy chain all the way from the Abyss to the Trident Realm! The armies will practically sell themselves.

Now, I’m not actually 100% sure that I want a Trident Realm army, but an interesting opportunity fell into my lap:

It was the Your Club, Your Story giveaway! Six clubs received six warbands each, plus books, dice, and objective Terrain Crates to help them grow their communities and promote Vanguard. Our little group, BAKOW (that is, the Bay Area Kings of War club centered around San Francisco, CA) was one of those lucky recipients.

I am absolutely floored by this haul, and it’s really fantastic to see Mantic supporting their fans, and empowering them to promote the game! Our group has been running Vanguard demos at cons and local game stores and playing in a regular campaign for months now, but I am embarrassed to say a lot of those games haven’t been with official Mantic miniatures. Our club can now put our best foot forward in the community.

We tore into the box with gusto and, when the dust settled, I clutched in my greedy tentacles:

So, I ended up with the Trident Realm for three reasons:

1. I would have been happy with any so I picked last. I’ve really enjoyed playing every faction I’ve run so far — they’ve all been fun to pilot and each feels distinctive – so I was pretty open to whatever. (Except Dwarves. Sorry, Ronnie, I just don’t like Dwarves!)
2. They seem like a finesse faction which, even though I absolutely suck at finesse play, I’m irresistibly drawn to it like salmon to their home stream.
3. It lets me get my feet wet with the Trident Realm before I decide to dive in with a whole army.

So that’s how I ended up awash in Neriticans. In the next post, I’ll get into my planning process and analyzing the warband and making more aquatic wordplay.

I’m thrilled to be part of the “Your Club, Your Stories” promotion and over the next couple weeks, I hope to get in a whole lot of thinkin’, paintin’, and bloggin’ about my new Trident Realm warband. Stay tuned!