Slow Grow Challenge Week 14: Community Army Spotlight

Stage Two Community Spotlight

We’ve now passed the halfway point of the Slow Grow Challenge! Stage Two is behind us, and across the Kings of War community there are more and more armies taking shape on hobby desks around the world.

In our last Team Mantic update, we checked in with Alex, Dan, Ross and Tobias as they reached the Stage Two milestone. This week, we’re putting the spotlight back on the community and featuring two more army projects that caught our eye: Danial’s Basileans and Dave’s Abyssal Dwarfs.

In the next blog (in two weeks’ time) we’ll be featuring more community army projects, and in the one after that, at the end of Stage Three, we’ll check in again with Team Mantic to see how they’re progressing.

A quick reminder of the remaining milestone dates:

• Stage Three: Friday 12^th June
• Stage Four: Friday 24^th July

Now, without further ado, let’s take a look at two fantastic slow grow army projects from the community.

Danial (Singapore) – Basileans

What first caught our eye about Danial’s Basileans was the colour scheme. These are not your classic blue-and-white Basileans. Instead, Danial has gone for a bold yellow-and-black palette – read on to find out more about how and why he landed on that.

Danial, posting on the Kings of War Forum as 'dan_sasuga', is based in Singapore and has been around Kings of War since first edition. In fact, this Basilean army has a long history of its own. It was the very first Kings of War army he bought, all the way back in first edition, but like many hobby projects it spent a long time waiting in storage while other armies and games took priority. Now, with the arrival of fourth edition and a little more time available, Danial’s Basileans finally got their moment.

His vision for the army is based on the idea of disciplined ranks and elite visual impact. Basilea already combines medieval holy orders with angelic high fantasy, and Danial wanted to emphasise that feeling: lots of bodies for the rank-and-file, strong formation aesthetics and colours that make the army feel both striking and intimidating on the table.

The yellow and black scheme is central to that. Whereas blue and white can suggest nobility and calm authority, Danial sees yellow and black as more aggressive, zealous and uncompromising. The result is a Basilean force that still feels recognisably like the Hegemony, but has its own distinct personality.

He’s also put plenty of thought into tweaking and kitbashing throughout his army. Some of his cavalry date back to earlier editions, so he modernised them by swapping heads and lances, while also making similar changes to the Paladins on foot to help unify the army.

For the Elohi, he wanted something mysterious and severe-looking, so he converted them with hooded heads.

Danial has even created a backstory for the army. In his words:

They are the Ashen Dawn Legion, a breakaway militant order within the Basilean hierarchy who walk willingly into corruption, shadow and flame so others don’t have to. During a catastrophic battle against the forces of evil, the Basilean line was moments away from being wiped out. No Elohi answered their desperate calls for aid. Instead, it was the Phoenixes who descended; great wings blazing with yellow fire, their feathers dancing like living embers.

The ordinary soldiers, awestruck and saved from certain annihilation, took this as a divine sign. Abandoned by the celestial host yet delivered by the fiery guardians, they pledged their faith to the Phoenixes.

From that day on, they bore the colours of flame and shadow, yellow and black, in honour of the creatures who saved them when all other light failed.

We love it! It's a great example of how a visual idea and some custom lore can feed each other, helping an army feel more like a living force than just a collection of units.

Progress-wise, Danial is not just keeping pace with the challenge - he’s stormed ahead. By the end of Stage Two, he had completed slightly over 2000 points, and his painted army is due to make its tabletop debut at Clash of Kings Asia on 23rd May.

His message to other hobbyists taking part is a good one: don’t rush, and don’t be discouraged if progress feels slow. Even painting a single model and calling it a day is still progress.

We couldn’t agree more!

Dave (UK) – Abyssal Dwarfs

While being completely different from Danial’s Basileans, Dave’s Abyssal Dwarfs are similarly striking visually.

There’s a wonderful cohesiveness to the army, with thematic basing that Dave has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into. It’s exactly the sort of project that shows how much personality Kings of War armies can have.

Dave has been playing Kings of War for quite a while, and has a formidable collection of miniatures that spans more than 10 different armies! For the slow grow, he decided to focus on Abyssal Dwarfs because he’d already started work on the army back in 2024, but had got distracted by other projects. The challenge gave him an excuse to dig them back out get them back out and get more paint on them.

We should also mention here that, before joining the Mantic Slow Grow challenge, Dave was already participating in the “one unit per month” slow grow that our friend Kay has been running on the Mantic Fans Discord server. He credits this community as a big source of motivation and inspiration, that’s helped keep him on track – especially as he doesn’t usually enjoy painting to any kind of deadline.

For Dave, the appeal of Kings of War lies in the way it delivers the look and feel of a massed rank-and-flank game without getting bogged down in unnecessary complexity. It is quick to pick up, tactically rewarding and, crucially for him, offers fantastic opportunities for hobby creativity. He says that multibasing is probably the main reason he’s ended up collecting so many armies!

Visually, Dave’s Abyssal Dwarf army draws some inspiration from Dravak Dalken’s story in Halpi’s Rift, particularly the idea of finding and following a strange glowing green ore. That green accent colour gives the army a distinctive look while avoiding the standard fiery Abyssal Dwarf approach. Dave also told us that an inability to paint realistic fire may have helped steer that choice, which is exactly the sort of honest hobby problem-solving we respect!

His painting method is very army-focused. Black undercoat, drybrushing, contrast paints, regular paints, more drybrushing and a few details where needed. The goal is not to treat every miniature as an individual display piece, but to get a whole force painted and looking cohesive on the table.

One of the standout units is his Death Engine, which began life as a rummage through spare Goblin Mincer and Chariot parts.

After some experimentation, those pieces became a larger two-level vehicle, with blades, engines, supports, railings (even a Death Engine needs to comply with health and safety regulations!) and a suitably dangerous-looking drill. It was not originally planned as a Death Engine, but sometimes the kitbash gods know best.

Dave has already managed to get his army on the table, losing narrowly against some Basileans. More importantly, it was his first game of fourth edition, and he described it as still feeling very much like Kings of War and great fun to play.

For Stage Three, the plan is to tackle more of the core infantry, including Blacksouls and Orc Slaves, plus perhaps some Ratkin slave units and more weird contraptions to go along with them.

Dave’s advice to others taking part is simple and very much in the spirit of the challenge: don’t feel pressured, don’t compare your progress too harshly against anyone else, and enjoy your hobby time. Positive things tend to follow from there.

Onwards and Upwards

A huge thank you to Danial and Dave for sharing their armies with us. They are each maintaining a hobby thread in the Showcase section of the Kings of War forum, so if you'd like to check out more pictures and follow their updates as they go, be sure to head on over.

We’ll be back in two weeks to feature more slow grow armies from the Kings of War community. Two weeks after that, we’ll return to Team Mantic and check in on how the guys are getting on as we hit the Stage Three milestone.

Until then, keep sharing your progress, keep supporting each other, and most importantly, enjoy your hobby.

Happy painting and happy gaming, everyone!