Kings of War: First Game

by SandWyrm

Farmpunk and I had our first Kings of War test game last Wednesday. How did it go?

Pretty much as we expected, with the MSU gunline handing the assault build it's rear over 6 turns. It didn't help that we went a little overboard with the terrain (some of which had been boxed away for years). But we did have fun and learned some things about the KoW system.

We rolled off for the pick of the two armies. Farmpunk won and took the gunline.

AT THE DOUBLE!!!

I screwed up and tried to push everyone through the choke point. I should have sent the Berzerkers around the other side of the house. Through the woods. While at least 2 of my units on the left should have gone through the woods for cover.

Some confusion on the movement rules had me moving slower than I should have over the hedges. Difficult terrain halves your normal move, while obstacles like walls and hedges only keep you from marching.

First unit runs. I'm thinking at this point that a proper assault build is going to need at least a cannon or two for plinking off enemy war machines and small units of riflemen. Both have lousy Nerve.

My King got into contact, but the Berzerkers got shot up and Wavered at the last moment. When they failed their headstrong roll (Dwarves have a 4+ to ignore wavering), we decided that the game was lost. So we went ahead and said they passed for yuks. But that posed an interesting problem.

If they pivoted and assaulted the guys attacking the King, they would kill that unit but be open to a charge from the riflemen in front of them. If they plowed straight forward, they would kill the rifles but get charged in the side from another rifle unit. They were dead either way.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about proper block tactics. It's been a while.

So I charged the rifles, got charged in turn, and the last block was shot off the table. That left the King at the mercy of the Rebels. Oh well. Game over. We were going to trade armies and mess with the lists some between battles, but Mrs. SandWyrm was 2.5 hours late getting back from a gig in Chicago. So we were slowed down by Daddy duties. :)

We did have fun though. We also agreed that if we'd not been distracted and knew our rules, we could have finished the game in about half an hour. That's pretty damn fast!

Some Interesting Insights

We did decide that the way to win the game is to manage the probabilities of your opponent's units running. The optimal amount of damage per unit is probably Nerve + 2 (or +3 with a banner), as this should give them only a 27% chance of passing their next Nerve test. Your cannons should probably be targeting Kings and Army Standard Bearers ASAP to keep your opponent from getting the re-rolls that these grant.

This will also likely be dependent on range, as it will probably make sense to try and spread a little damage around in the early game, so that whatever unit jumps forward later can be mowed down more easily when it matters. So getting a spread of units down to Nerve - 2 (72% chance of passing) will probably be a decent tactic.

Next Up

EvilTed has agreed to a 1500 point Dwarf on Undead match this Sunday, which should be a better test. He's warned me to expect large blocks.

I'll bring the camera.