The patrol marched for two days among the dry wilderness before skirting around a mesa, and stumbled up these vicious-looking enemies. Hordes of fetid flesh shambled forth, supported by equally numerous smallfolk, with beady eyes and what looked like whiskers poking out from their long noses.
A cry ran through the ranks of men, and they formed up quickly. They could not march to safety with a such an army so close behind. They would first need to fight - and win - before they could return home and warn their comrades...
I had been trying to play an intro game with an Undead player for... well, most of October. We finally were able to squeeze in a game, and even bring another player along for the ride. They suggested each bringing 500 point lists to fight 1000 points of my KoM, in an attempt to keep the game small and quick.
Undead
Horde of Zombies
Regiment of Skeleton Archers
Troop of Skeleton Warriors
Troop of Revenants
Necromancer (Surge 8; Lightning Bolt 3; Heal 3)
The undead player made his list beforehand, and it has all the buzzwords of the undead; zombies, skeletons, and a necromancer. My opponent did not catch that each caster can only cast one spell per turn... so it's oddly a little magic-heavy while simultaneously lacking the usual Bane-Chant.
Ratkin
Horde of Warriors with Dwarven Ale
Regiment of Blight
Death Engine
Swarm-Crier
I was a bit worried about facing down two hordes at once, even if they were more on the rabble side of the scary scale. It was going to a lot of effort to beat those, either by sustained withering fire from afar or an overwhelming group of charges. Maybe even both....
TastyBagel's List:
Regiment of Spear Phalanx
Regiment Crossbowmen
Regiment Mounted Sergeants
2x Troop of Knights
Troop Pole-Arms
Army Standard Bearer on Horse
Beast of War with Light Ballista
I built my list back in early October, and it sat in a box until last night. I wanted to run a bunch of regiments and get away from my troop-heavy lists. The goal was to keep a large number of units and models on the table while hopefully avoiding the points bleeding that I had been experiencing with all my troops. I added the Beast of War (honestly) to show it off a bit, and highlight the game's pretty loose approach to models. Lastly I avoided magic because it was letting me down there the last few games, and magic items, because I wanted my opponents to face off against a very mundane list, to keep it simple for them. I'd totally run this list again.
The goal of the game was to introduce Kings of War to these players, so we did a few unorthodox things to save us some trouble. Since I arrived first, I set up a quick table. I also deployed my entire list first, and then let them deploy theirs. Lastly, they just got to go first, because I wanted them to be rolling dice and making decisions as soon as possible, rather than watch me play. I'd totally do all aspects of this approach again. It saved so much time!
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| Deployments! |
I really liked my deployment, and with my stuff on the field, my opponents devised a strategy and began deploying all of their stuff; placing the two Hordes front and center, to hopefully support one another and steamroll right up the center of the field.
Turn 1: Team Eeevil
The first turn was pretty uneventful. Stuff moved up, but only a little bit. The rats mainly decided to keep pace with their shambling zombie counterparts, who then ended up scooting ahead a bit due to Surge (the spell, not the drink, though hey, modeling idea for you folks). The Death Engine and Blights started shifting towards the far left to deal with my Mounted Sergeants and Knights there. Considering that I realllly wanted to sling my Sergeants down the far side of the field and try for some rear charges this game… that was probably a good idea on the Ratkin player’s part.
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| Team Eeevil moves up. Slowly. |
I move literally nothing. I’m happy with my deployment versus their lines, and they are far enough away I don’t want to change anything just yet. So I just sit back and shoot, targeting the Ratkin Horde of Warriors since I know they can’t Heal or Life-Leech it away. We end up getting side tracked discussing the staying power of typical Hordes and Nerve Checks, and how units accumulate damage, but stick around and remain fully potent until they are eventually routed. My opponents get gleams in their eyes and are liking the theoretical resilience of their mammoth units.
Turn 3: Team Eeevil
Their second turn is much the same as their first, with stuff largely just scooting forward. My undead opponent is super-excited to have both units that can move and units that can shoot. His archers decided to do both this turn, and even manage to slip a wound through on the knights on the far right.
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| Hoold!! Hooooooold! Team Eeevil approaches! |
….And we’re in typical BR territory here. It’s a pivotal turn, and so I completely forgot to snap a picture of the action. Sorry, everyone.
On the right, I decide to charge my Beast of War, my Regiment of Crossbowmen and my Troop of Knights into the menacing Zombie Horde. I argue that my knights get a front charge; my opponent thinks I’m in his flank, and we roll off, and they end up in the front. That's how we roll.
I’m expecting to do some decent damage, but not expecting to win the fight. They are Zombies, and they’ll take some effort to remove them. In order to focus on the Zombies for the next turn or two, I need to delay the Ratkin Horde, and so I park my trusty Pole Arms Troop in front of the rats. The Spearmen pivot, and shuffle up a bit, getting ready to offer themselves up to delay the Ratkin Horde on my next turn... which will hopefully allow me to deal with the Zombie Horde.
Combat is brutal… and when we go to roll the nerve check here, I realize that I have Brutal on the Beast of War, and with that little bonus, end up getting exactly what I needed to Rout the Zombies. Things are off to a very good start for me. My victorious forces shuffle back D3.
On the left, my Knights and Mounted Sergeants both charge the Death Engine, but bounce off. The armored monstrosity in unfazed.
Turn 5: Team Eeevil
The Ratkin Horde (And Crier) charge the Pole Arms troop, looking to reform afterwards in order to hold the line with the still shambling undead. They do so easily, and the Horde reforms to avoid any nasty flank charges, while the Crier backs up.
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| All the Ratkin charge! |
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| Bit of a mixed bag for the Ratkin. |
That said, the Ratkin on my left weren’t in a terrible position. Everything was grinding now, but I had lost Thunderous Charge on both my cavalry units, which is usually their death knell. It was a grind, but one that the Rats could conceivably win, particularly with the resilience of the Blight Regiment.
Turn 6: Team Human
I continue the scuffle on my left flank against the Ratkin. The Knights, even without TC, are apparently quite keen to “get some” and deal an unreasonable amount of new wounds (like 6?) and, combined with the accrued wounds from my last turn, are able to see the Death Engine off. The Sergeants, without Thunderous Charge and fighting against Ensnare don’t do much, but my human units now outnumber the Rat units on the left. I still haven’t gotten a feel for the Blight, but I’m liking my chances there.
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| Fighting on my left flank. Games sure are better with painted models. |
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| Cue the epic music. There's a nifty battle at hand. With a dinosaur! |
The Knights are unfortunately too far away to charge the Skeleton Archers, and decide to ignore what turn out to be lowly Skeleton Warriors on my far right, and charge the Revenants, who turn out to be kitted defensively (I thought he would have given them the Crushing Strength Weapons and such, being a little troop). The Knights bounce, but that’s not a bad position for them to be in at the end of the turn.
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| The Ratkin take some big losses this turn... and I have yet to reform. |
Things are, unfortunately, not going well for my opponents. Both their Hordes are gone, as is the Death Machine. I meanwhile, have only lost my Pole Arms Troop.
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| What Team Eeevil inherited for Turn 7. |
The Skeleton Warrior Troop meanders around the little mesa on my far right, and after some discussion, the Revenants crash into my damaged Knights alone. While the Skeleton Archers do have a flank charge against the Knights, at 6+ to hit, my opponent decides to have them shoot instead, and they, along with the Necromancer lob arrows and a Lightning Bolt at my Beast or ASB. I don’t remember which because no shots landed.
The lone Revenant Troop bounces off my Knights… BUT leave them Wavered. It's a (very) small victory, however, the overall situation of my opponents just went from bad to worse, because now it’s my turn.
Turn 8: Team Human
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| What I have to work with at the start of Turn 8. Things are... going really... really well. |
I feel like I'm cheating at this point. This has never before come up in game. My wavered Knights get to roll for Headstrong. Usually they just die to some ancient dragon. But here, in this game, they do their best to channel T Swizzle and just shake it off. They and the Beast both charge into the Troop of Revenants, with the dino getting into their flank. The Revenant Troop are summarily ground to dust.
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| Pictured: Apparently the single best use for crossbows. As clubs. Also a fabulous combat for my dino. |
Turn 9: Team Concession Speech
My opponents concede, and that’s that. The two big dice-rolls to break the Hordes both went my way, and there is not much they can do at this point.
The enemy hordes were broken, but the dead do not remain idle for long, and who knows how many other Ratkin were lurking in the lands nearby? The Regnum had won the battle, but two new fronts had been opened in their war of reclamation…
Deploying back was a good call for me, and is something I will continue to do for the foreseeable future. I should also stress the luck factor in this game. I got incredibly lucky this game, and was able to break both Hordes before they managed to do anything. A few pips lower on those rolls, and the game would have gone quite differently.
While they did (unfortunately) get trounced, both my opponents really liked the game. The clean, intuitive rule set really won them over, and very quickly we had pulled our noses out of the rulebook and had our focus primarily on the table, discussing stats and strategy – which is what we all want in a war game. Tactics for the win!
They both have pretty deep collections to draw from already (and lots already painted up really, really nicely), so we should be able to ramp up the points-level pretty quickly. They both learned a lot in just this first game. I for one am looking forward to the next one!
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