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.