Kings of War - Fields of Battle

Another night at the old games club and another Kings of War battle. I will admit that last week I was playing Warhammer Old World and while the two games may seem similar at first, especially if KoW is being played at 28mm. I think the two games actually focus on two different aspects of the same type of game.  The result is two different games looking for two different experiences.

Just for giggles my friend and I decided to play without terrain.  We also played on a surface that would easily fit on a single 6 foot table.  The point was simply to see what it would be like, would we feel constricted on a smaller table or would the game be boring without scenery. Guess what!  It worked just fine.  In fact, as I reflect on the battle I can see some of my deployment issues, perhaps more clearly than if we had terrain.  Anyway...

So standard Battle of Good Guys vs Bad Guys. My friend does have other armies but we are comfortable and not bored with these two yet.  This summer I will probably print my own army,  I don't print in the winter because I like to open my windows and I cure o’natural so not much variation in the miniatures.  Here is the deployment.

The Forces of Chaos in the North are looking to get stuck in as fast as possible and use their superior armour to carry the day.  The Forces of Good have cunningly deployed further back (units deployed no closer than 24cm, my furthest stuff was probably 36cm away) to give more time for shooting.  This was probably a good idea.  Otherwise the goodies had the anvil on the right and the hammer (griffon and cavalry) on the left. There was a small screening force of three troops of carbine wielding light cavalry to the front as well.

Despite setting up a bit further back the approach happened quite quickly, this picture is at some point of turn two.  One cavalry regiment on the left broke from the line to charge a demon spawn, which they managed to trample in a single charge with a bit of luck.  They will get crushed by trolls later but the spawn is a nasty monster and you don't want it disrupting your line before the main battle.  On the right the trebuchets and carbines did a remarkable job wounding the giant.  The nice thing about this game is that everything can hurt everything, cheap stuff just hurts it less. I feel like the attrition caused by all units means that you don't need a killer near invincible heroes, and you can worry more about maneuvering your forces. Heroes have a different role, inspiring the troops!  Oh on the right, one troop of light cavalry moved off to try and bait the mighty warriors of chaos into exposing their flank to my line.

And it kind of worked…  The light cavalry were slaughtered and the warriors were able to reform but they were still in charge range of two regiments of elite human swordmasters.  On the left the cavalry had finished off the evil Eagle Riders and the battle had begun in the center.  Hopefully there would be time for the flanks to fight their way to the center and win the day. The trebuchets were earning their pay by smashing the Ogre Cavalry and making them re-think their life choices.  This may have been significant as that large unit of Ogre Cavalry was going to be killer if it ever got into combat with my line.

Every game has its “most important roll”  sometimes it is initiative, maybe it is moral, maybe it is a super gun’s to hit roll and KoW is no different.  The Nerve Test is where KoW battles are won and lost. Often, especially when it is a close roll (7 or better you should get that all the time right 🙂)  accompanied by cries of anguish and fists pounding the table.  In the picture above the center of the Chaos line was badly mauled, indicated by the red dice tracking wounds,  but they held their nerve and stayed around to push back next turn.  My cavalry on the left got bogged down in combat and without the devastating power of their charge, they were likely not going to make it to the center of the battle in time.  Luckily the Swordsmen on the right were demonstrating their elite status and chopping up all the invading raiders, they even kept their nerve at a critical moment so I guess what goes around comes around. Pay attention to the Evil Dragon in the Center.

The dragon had taken some minor damage from the carbines and one trebuchet shot, as well the dragon got a bit greedy and charged the human hero in the center and ate him. I can't remember why it didn't turn to face my spearmen but I remember it ended up exposing its flank to two regiments of commoners who valiantly charged and killed the dragon.  In game mechanic terms, the flank charge gave them twice their attacks so it was like the wounded dragon was attacked by four regiments.  I can't remember how close it was, but it worked and the dragon was slain.

As the dust settled most things were dead... The frenzied chaos elves in the center had not quite satisfied their lust for blood and were still killing things at quite a pace but were running out of victims.  The cavalry on the left was still dealing with their trolls. The general on the griffon had left his cavalry to try and get to the center but did not have enough time, he stopped to kill some trolls on the way and would probably have finished off the warriors, though he would have taken some damage in the process. Ironically the trebuchet made its nerve test, it needed snakeeyes, after the warriors charged it. On my right my swormaster and hero were holding their own. Good game, close game.

Kings of War feels less swingy than other wargames I have played and I think I enjoy the sense of predictability, there are no failed charges, there aren't really whiffs just times when you didn't do much damage, there are not too many moments when the fate of a critical model hangs on a single D6.  The result is that your choices of engagements and depth of deployment matters more than your dice.  TBH I have not really got into list building yet but it doesn't seem like there will be skew lists either but hopefully more on that in a later post.  

As I alluded to at the top, Warhammer Old World, looks better and gives more opportunity to build your perfect character or unit.  Kings of War is fast and simple and really focuses on the combat between units.  Maneuvers have been simplified so units can move in a more fluid fashion, units don't get stuck on a corner like a bunch of robots. The Nerve Test is central but it is a 2D6 test and there are ways to get a re-role or a plus one if your hero, who is probably junk at fighting, is close enough to inspire the wavering unit. The trade off for not having to endlessly flip through the rules is a game that is simple and quick but may lack depth.  Currently, I find the game interesting but I am curious to see how long to see how long it holds my interest.

As for terrain, I really like how it isn't just “use six pieces scattered about the battlefield”. In fact that approach would probably detract from the game.  I still think terrain can be used, and should be used, and since the game is so simple it seems like it would be quite easy to just have a single feature, with accompanying scenario and rules, to make the story.  

For instance a scenario that requires looting a temple would be quite easy, by just have a small area for the interior of the temple that only a troop or hero can fit into, simply state that all units in the temple are engaged, and done. The rule book even has rules for sieges!  Until next time.

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.

Legion Imperials First Battle and Thoughts

 I have found that when it comes to understanding a new game system, you can read the rules all you want but until you play it, it is hard to see how the pieces fit together. For this battle we used mostly the contents of the Legions Imperials (LI) starter box, both sides were approximately 900 points each. The game was played on a table 4 x 4ish, (the mat is a meter wide so deployment was done on and off the mat). The intent for this game was to try and forget as few rules a possible, we came close but certainly not perfect. This meant that deployment and the first round or two were quite slow but picked up quickly as rules became more familiar and the model count dropped. I was curious to see if garrisoning detachments in structures was worth the benefits, how fragile flyers were, and how robust titans really were.

Building lists in LI is quite straight forward. Armies are made of formations and formations are described pictorially and contain detachments. In modern terms detachments are platoons. Since the opposing forces were essentially drawn from the starter box there was little choice on what to take. It also forced the core detachments of formation to include all the supporting units. In hindsight, even if I had access to all the models I would still make combined core detachments. Since the owner of the detachment can choose what stands are removed the specialized units can be protected by their “normal” infantry units. Also, the specialized units became the anchor in close combat for the detachment but more on that later. The Solar Auxilla did make one detachment as small as possible (four stands) and the other core detachment twelve stands.

In addition to the core models we also used a Fire Raptor Gunship and two Questoris Knights for the marines. Also the marines took two battle tank detachments when their formation technically restricts them to one. The list building rule of having only 30% of your points on strategic assets (knights or titans) was also violated slightly for each list.

I have enjoyed the list building aspect to all GW games and I think this game is no exception there are quite a few choices to make, and your force can certainly be tailored in many ways. Maybe all the flyers form a single detachment to get the discount or does each formation take a few. This decision will effect a formations break point, when a detachment takes a moral check and also number of activations. In general I think large detachments are better, except for maybe flyers. The other choice is the weapon selection for your more powerful units. Some choices seem to be no-brainers, Vanquisher Cannon!, but weapon selection on Knights and Titans makes a huge difference on how the unit is employed.

The table was set up with one side mountains, then hills and urban terrain in the centre, and moving into a more open space. Both sides set up their armoured detachments in the open area and infantry in the urban centre with agile walkers preparing to move through the ravines. The mission was simple, break the enemy lines and steal one of the three objectives in the enemies deployment zone.

Round 1

In the first round the detachment orders were a nomination of march and advance. This is probably quite typical. The only exception would be if Titans were facing other Titans then I would definitely put the Titan on First Fire orders. In this game the Warhound had a Gravitation Gun and a Turbo-Laser. Since the Grav Gun has only a 30” range, medium range for titans but longer than most vehicle or infantry weapons, it advanced. In future games I think I would try and give Titans weapons with ranges that are 40 plus so they can reach most of the board from their deployment spot and spend the entire game on First Fire. In this game the hound got lucky as a large marine detachment (8 stands) occupied a building within range and the building was brought down with a single grav gun hit (most weapons can't do this but buildings are far from invulnerable) all but one marine stand was destroyed in the collapse. I don't think the shot had a lucky roll, just that the opportunity was lucky. Even through the fire raptor had advanced orders and could have deployed to the board, it chose not to since it could not get into the rear arc of its desired target, the armoured units. Every turn flyers moves onto the board from the deployment zone edge (including the small bit on the sides), and then removed in the end phase of each turn. This means that it would take two turns of an enemies advance before the Raptor could get rear shots on the tanks. Otherwise the armoured detachments blasted away at each other. Typically each main battle tank has a one dice primary weapon and possibly an anti tank secondary weapon. Each system hits on around 4+. The Leman Russ would save vs a lascannon on 3+ but the predators saved vs the vanquisher on a 5+, not to mention the range advantage of the vanquisher. Dice were on the marines side, one Predator and two Leman Russ were destroyed.

Round 2

In this round everyone left the buildings after seeing the destruction of the grav gun last turn. All the infantry continued the advance and the armoured detachments that were in position went on first fire as other detachments moved closer. The knights moved into a position to see the Warhound hoping to draw some fire. The maximum amount of damage this Warhound could do in a turn was only enough to kill a knight if it got perfect shots. This round the Raptor was able to get in behind the Solar Auxilla armoured detachments but only did a bit of damage to the heavily armoured tanks. The Solar Auxilla tanks however ripped the marine tanks to pieces since initiative allowed them to fire the first detachment in the First Fire phase and the first detachment in the Advanced Fire phase. As predicted the Warhound damaged but did not destroy a knight, unfortunately the sentinel detachment was able to sneak a missile through for the last point of damage. In this round the Warhound started taking shots and lost all of its void shield and took some damage. Also this round all but one of the marine tanks were wiped out by the Solar Auxila armour. The lone marine tank failed its moral check and was issued fall back orders.

Round 3

This round saw a lot of close combat with an Ogryn charge into the Contemptor dreadnoughts. The dreadnoughts managed to kill one with over-watch and was then engaged by the remaining three. The marine commander anticipated this and also charged in to the combat to fight beside the dreadnoughts. In the centre of the board the marine detachment (8 stands including 2 terminators) charged into the large (12 stand) detachment of Auxilla. While the Orgyns were defeated by the dreadnoughts it was only because of some lucky rolls and the presence of the commander. The marines and terminators were torn apart by the axe-wielding solar auxiliary, Veletarri, however managed to stand their ground because of the determination of the terminators. The standout ability in close combat is Rend, the extra d6 for the axe warriors and Ogryn completely offset the superior close assault factor (CAF) of the marines. 

 For shooting, the gunship took the two remaining wounds from the Warhound, thanks to the rear armour bonus, but after the Titan had destroyed the last knight, again with sentinel support. The Rapid Fire weapon attribute also seems powerful, it makes to-hit rolls of a 6 become two hits. This is powerful because when firing on over-watch or firing at flyers 6 are needed to hit anyway.

Round 4

Not much was left in this round the dreadnoughts tried to charge into combat to help the remaining terminators, one was shot by over-watch of the sentinels. Sentinels have 4 dice per stand against walkers and infantry, and since any detachment with first fire or advance orders can over-watch, even after they have moved the sentinels were able to move into a position to cover the Auxilla before the dreadnoughts charged. The gunship showed up again to try and kill the Auxiliary armour who had taken a marine objective but again failed to do significant damage (their armour is the same as the Warhound, but it was against their front armour). The dreadnought and commander were able to break the Solar Auxilla but only after the last terminator and marine stands were destroyed.

Round 5

Round 5 was played briefly but the victory was given to the Solar Auxilla as they were able to take one enemy objective and the marines were unable to get any.

Playing the game is the best way to learn a game. In Legion Imperials the infantry do feel like cannon fodder, fodder that can secure objectives. Tanks can be tailored to either infantry support with lighter weapons or for engaging other tank units with heavier weapons. Flyers darting onto and off the board feel like fast air and not hovercraft. The Titans are interesting, they are very powerful but even a stand of marines with heavy weapons can knock out void shields, and the Warhound did get destroyed. I think their advantage is the tremendous range on their weapons and their towering height. Structures are definitely a double edged sword providing great protection against most weapons and being an easy target for a few.