Kings Of War Game

Kings of war is a 28mm fantasy battle game that I have never played at 28mm.  I got introduced to it by my friend who has printed everything at 10mm, and honestly it seems like the scale the rules should be played at.  The main reason driving my opinion is that a group of twenty warriors is treated as a single unit, they are purchased as either troops, regiments or hoards.  These units maintain their full combat power until they begin to waiver (freeze) or are wiped out.  You literally never remove models from their regiments, the whole regiment can be modeled on a single base!!  It does mean that you can't paint much detail on your models, but for some of us that is another perk!

But I digress, despite this, seemingly, over simplification the game plays smoothly and combat seems to resolve satisfactorily. Keep in mind I have played twice.  But generally a unit that charges into the front of another unit of similar power will fight for two or three turns before a winner is decided. All else being equal the unit that charged will probably destroy the opposing unit after it has fought three times and been attacked twice.  Everything is decided by a Nerve Test, which is rolling two dice adding the target's current damage and hoping to beat the target unit's nerve (Ne, see below).  

Looking at stats you see that a regiment of human tribesmen has 12 attacks (Att), needs 3+ to hit (Me) and then another roll above the target's defence (De) to cause a point of damage.  The game does require extra dice or tokens to track all the damage.  For instance a nerve of 16 is pretty standard, so 16 - 7 (average on 2d6) = 9, after receiving 9 damage (depending on the match up, the damage inflicted can range from 0-12+ in a single round, even more if attacked from a flank or by multiple units) there is a reasonable chance of destroying the cohesion of the unit and forcing them from the field.  Now, certain inspiring individuals will force the opponent to reroll a successful test and some veteran units can have a nerve value (Ne) of 20. In addition, the damage output from a flank or rear charge increases the attacking unit's attacks (Att) by a factor of 2 or 3, meaning that with the right maneuver the attacked unit can be wiped out in one round of fighting. Oh and Sp is speed and we used centimeters for our 10mm game.

So how does it play?  The way the game is designed it is only the active player that rolls any dice at all, so it actually plays very fast and the rules even have a “chess clock” variation.  My first two games were played at 4,000 points (double the recommended size) and we finished both in just over two hours. I bet our next game will be right at the two hour mark.  How does it look/feel when you play? Playing at double points, it truly looks like what you would think a medieval/Fantasy battle would look like, with long lines of regiments where a break in the line will give the upper hand and eventual victory to one side.

In the battle that we played, an army of humans were defending their territory against northern barbarians and their demon spawn allies. The first two turns were the approach, neither side had much in the way of missile troops, and the newly re-worked cannons of 4th edition, while looking much better on paper, did not translate to anything of significance in this game.

By the end of turn 2 the fighting had begun.  The human cavalry began to be victorious over the barbarian cavalry in the north, while in the center the trolls and cave dwellers of the barbarian force had made it to the enemy and began disrupting their line.  As well, a troop of Frostfang cavalry had charged into the cannons in the south. 

Turn 4 saw the main battles in the center and in the south begin with the barbarian infantry getting stuck in with the human spearmen and warriors and in the north the barbarian giant was finally killed. 

Turn 5 saw the barbarian tip the scales in the center and the south with the human cavalry in the north not having enough time to ride down and counter attack into the barbarian flank, judging from the photos the cavalry still had some trolls to clean up. Like in all dice games there were moments where the 2d6 rolled high or low and a resulting unit was broken or held at a critical moment of the battle.  But generally, the game did not feel too swingy.  As well, movement is done with pivots instead of wheels and units can “share” the frontage of an enemy even being able to shuffle mid combat (as long as they are not close to death), So rarely is there an awkward situation where a charge does not line up or there is no room to make contact when clearly eager warriors would just squeeze their way in. 

I would say that the way the table was laid out made the game feel like three separate battles that were separated by terrain. In our first game we fought over a river with the bridges and fords having the same effect. I think for the next game I would like to play with minimal terrain and certainly enough room for more than half of the fight to be in one un-obstructed area. 

While I realy enjoyed this game, It is probably not for people who enjoy painting detailed models and likely there are meta lists that we have not encountered because we aren't playing competitively. But it is a quick and fun game that in my limited experience had no gotcha moments, no endless flipping through a poorly organized rule book for special rules or weird interactions that left you wondering why they put that in the rules. 

Legion Imperialis - Battle for Honour

Game two of the weekend, was knights with some marine support against a vehicle heavy Auxilla force.  In this game we played that all knight melee weapons have engine killer (1). Two damage worked well, and the combat still took more than one turn to resolve, just not the entire game. Generally, The engine killer is an essential skill if you are playing against knights and titans.

This game was a bit more straightforward, and it developed into a standard pin wheel.  However the Knights in the bottom of the picture had more success then the heavy vehicles in the top of the picture and the game ended with a Knight/Marine victory.  The Shadowswords did some early damage on the Acastus but when the knights shifted to their left and the shadow swords didn't chase them the Acastus was then able to show its worth by destroying or helping to destroy two detachments of tanks. This game also showed me the limitations with Auxilla who are out of command range and unable to receive First Fire orders, when they are providing Advancing Fire they will start losing tanks before the full weight of their fire can be felt.  

Transport detachments are incredibly powerful, not because they kill anything but because they give a strong slingshot movement to transported forces (This seems to be the intention), but also they can act as dummy activations if you are waiting for your opponent to commit to something, and can also act as mobile fences to prevent your enemy moving into some areas of the battlefield with vehicles or infantry. I am not sure these last two effects were intentional and they definitely make 10pt rhinos well worth their cost.  They probably should be required to receive the same order, and activate at the same time as their transported detachments and there could be a special trait that required lightly armed transports to receive only fall back orders once their cargo was unloaded.

 

Auxilla infantry are probably where they should be for points/power level, they hold objectives just fine but don't do much else, and die quickly unless garrisoned.  Marine infantry seems also to be quite sensible with them all having a distinct role, terminators are an anvil not a hammer IMO.  I have come around to Ogryns and Veletari, initially I thought their Rend rule was too strong (it is strong), but without it Auxilla forces would have no way of defeating garrisoned infantry except by collapsing the building so from a game play perspective they make sense.

I need to build some roads 🙁

Legions Imperialis - March of Titans

This weekend I squeezed in two games of Legion Imperialis. Both were approximately half sized games.  In the first one I wanted it to be just titans and some infantry, for scale.  The second was Knights vs. tanks but more on that later.

The mat was 3x3 and it does seem small but the game played fine. Deployment zones were 6 inches in and just toeing on to the mat was acceptable. Being on top of each other did not seem to hamper the game much, perhaps it was just a very dense sector of the battle.  Both sides were almost mirrors of each other based on an Axiom Manipule, (one of each Warlord, Reaver and Warhoud) with five infantry detachments and four knights each.  No formation special rules were used but the faction rules for Imperial Fists (Accurate when on First Fire), and Auxiliary Chain of Command (can only use advance orders if not within 6” of their commander) were.

First two turns were a general advance with cover being provided by the Warlords and Legion Gryponicus Reaver.  The traitor Reaver had a melta weapon which forced it to move more aggressively to get into range. There was a battle between the warhounds and a knight, top of the picture, which ended in mutual annihilation, thanks to some supporting fire from the Marine Devastator detachment.  By the end of turn two, both Warlords were also destroyed.

The third turn had an interesting situation where one Cerastus charged the Acastus.  Since the acastus had 4 wounds (not to mention it can heal), they were essentially stuck with the Cerastus always winning the fight but only doing one wound so the Acastus died in the last round of the game..   

Eventually the Loyal Reaver destroyed the traitor and the remaining marines were able to secure sufficient objectives to give the loyalists a victory.

Some observations were.  Titans should have titan killing weapons in their load out and should make use of cover (the -1 does help).  I think the best load out for titans is the long range stuff.  Being out of range with 30% of the guns of a 400pt detachment (Reaver) is not my idea of a good investment.  Things like heavy barrage missiles and gatling cannons are great for knocking down void shields and then a volcano cannon to seal the deal seems like a pretty cost effective selection.

The devastator marines are very versatile as they are able to garrison structures and destroy vehicles. Their frag missiles also do a good job of killing other garrisoned infantry at long range, for infantry.

Initiative was a big deal, but not because of activation order. But rather, when setting up the combat for garrisoned forces.  This refers to a previous comment of mine about “gerrymandering”.   Essentially the person with initiative can get mileage out of a detachment with models with different CAFs, even if it is not their detachment.  For instance 6 Assault marines charge a detachment of 4 Auxilla and 4 Ogryns garrisoned in a building.  If the marines have the initiative they can pair the auxilia and marines one to one and the four remaining ogryns then smash the two remaining marines.  The combat should be a 4 to 2 victory for the marines and result in the Auxula detachment being pushed out of the building.  If the Auxila have the initiative then the Ogryns are paired one to one with the mariners and the four auxilia pair up on the last two martines.  This should result in all 6 marines stands being destroyed and 2 auxilia being destroyed simply because of who has initiative (this only works when one unit is garrisoned, anywhere else the pairs are determined by movement).  Maybe it is a corner case, but if you play with a lot of structures it will come up, so try to charge structures when you have initiative.

Legion Imperialis a Second Look

 

Yesterday I played through a fun game of Legions Imperialis, we played 1600 pts aside with Imperial Fist Space Marines and Heretic Sollar Auxilla.  It was an intro game and both sides had two formations, one Infantry based and one Armoured.

It has been about two years since my last game, see post below 🙂and I was eager to try the revised rules from the FAQ and the new compendium Liber Strategia.  It also allowed me to reflect on some of the rule interactions which I will go through after a recap of the game

The mission was Devastation and the lists were

Both players were new to the game so had fun moving towards each other and rolling dice.  On the second turn we had some excitement with the Auxiliary Commander leading a charge with their ogryns and auxiliary against a structure garrisoned by terminators. The combat was inconclusive and when more marines joined the following turn it swung in the loyalist’s favor. There was also an air-assault launched on one flank when the marines tried to attack and destroy one of the Auxillary’s home objectives from a Thunderhawk.  They managed to melta bomb a detachment of tanks but the Veletarii launched a counter attack and pushed the marines off (FYI the Veletariii are 33% more expensive).

We didn't really keep track of the points and the game was more about learning the rules then winning. At the end of the game the marines certainly controlled more of the board, but with the three undamaged super heavy tanks the auxiliary were not out of the game.  Some general observations

Setup.  I deliberately kept the large structures or clusters of small structures 6” apart so that infantry could not move between them shooting all the while.  Also I think a fun game needs more types of terrain then just structures and open terrain.  Ruins and/or obstacles will certainly make the game more interesting and not just about destroying infantry hiding in buildings. 

Orders.  I think revealing all the orders at the beginning has grown on me. Rather than ruining the “suspense”,  It mitigates the advantage of having more activations. This way if your opponent has more activations you still get an idea of what to expect when your activations are finished and you can no longer react. You can also still use a master tactician to try a few surprises.  Another great rule is the Auxiliary Chain of Command, The Auxiliary have slightly better tanks for a similar price to marines, only being able to be given first fire if near the commander is a huge disadvantage, but also something that is fun to work around.  Ogryns cause a lot of fuss as well, seemingly because they are better than the lore would have you believe by easily smashing through large groups of marines.  I am less worried as they are expensive and without them the Auxilary would be hard pressed to push garrisoned space marines off of an objective.

Moving is moving, now that infantry are no longer marching triple the transports make more sense and transports with assault are monsters.  I do think that transports with march orders should not be able to unload detachments but that is a minor quip.

Shooting works well and the best part is if your opponent has a unit you really covet, no problem, it's a civil war and you have access to your own version (most of the time).  Natural game balance, brilliant!

Close combat gets a little confusing, it can be resolved quite easily in friendly situations but since the player with initiative organizes the pairs, and if there is a garrisoned detachment involved (that can be assigned to any opponent touching the building) it could get a bit cheeky with the player with initiative gerrymandering the combat. Long story short, you want initiative on a turn with important combat.

All in all, I think I am enjoying it more now that I have printed tons of stuff and that I am getting some of the nuances in the game.  The baked in balance helps as well.