War Machines of the Kingdoms of Men

I was thinking about the Battle for the Brew, and decided I was actually pretty happy with how my Ballistae performed. They solved a troop shortage problem for me, and did their supporting fire job well. I’m going to continue running and experimenting with them, but I decided I was also curious enough to do some additional (basic) number crunching on my other War Machine options.

So, first up we have just the stats, and then the average hits that would be generated from the Blast column.

Pts	Machine	Blast	Pierceing	Av. Hits
60	Ballista	D3+2	Pierce 3	4
85	Cannon	D6+1	Pierce 4	4.5
90	Artillery	D6+2	Pierce 3	5.5

All the war machines hit on a 5+ and have the Blast rule for generating hits, so it should be a little more honest to compare them to each other using this simple math than it was comparing them to the infantry shooters.

Like we’ve done before, we’ll take the average number of hits, factor in Pierce, and see what the expected damage caused would be against the various defensive stats.

Machine	Def3	Def4	Def5	Def6
Ballista	3.33	3.33	3.33	2.67
Cannon	3.75	3.75	3.75	3.75
Artillery	4.58	4.58	4.58	3.67

The high Pierce value on all the war machine options kinda makes for a boring table. Piercing 3 means that everything up to any targets with Defense 6 will be hurt on the same rolls. In the case of the cannon, with Piercing 4… even targets with Defense 6 will be hurt on 2’s. Our war machines can really reliably dish out the damage… if we hit with the shot.

Now, we take the points cost of the machine, and divide it by the expected damage. It looks my spreadsheet may be rounding a bit for the Ballista (should be 18.01 or .02), but hey, close enough. You get the general idea. As expected, when the expected damage vs defense isn’t really changing… factoring in the points also doesn’t really change anything.

Machine	Def3	Def4	Def5	Def6
Ballista	18.00	18.00	18.00	22.50
Cannon	22.67	22.67	22.67	22.67
Artillery	19.64	19.64	19.64	24.55

So… the big question, what does this mean?

Well, the biggest takeaway for me is that the war machines for Kingdoms of Men are very comparable mathematically. All hit similarly, and all have a good pierce value. There is no choice mathematically superior enough to simply dismiss the other choices. So run what you have or want and let your inner fluff bunny guide your picks if you want. With that said, here's how I'm looking at each option.

The Ballista is a great “all around” option. Mathematically-speaking, it deals the best overall damage for the points invested, but it’ll be a little less effective against Defense 6 targets, and deal a little less damage on average when it hits. It’s an effective, basic war machine option, and will be my go-to choice I think.

Siege Artillery is also a mathematically good choice overall, but with Indirect Fire, can do a few things the Ballista can’t. It can fire over a crowded battlefield or into forests to harm enemy targets without being hampered by cover penalties. If you play with lots of forests or often find yourself needing 6's to hit with your war machines... taking some Siege Artillery can really help you out.

The Cannon, with Piercing 4 will be a little overkill against many targets (you don't need that much Piercing, usually), but if you find yourself facing down a lot of Defense 6 units on a regular basis, running a Cannon seems like a good choice for dealing damage to everything.

Initially, I was bummed that I went to the trouble of examining these units, and didn’t find anything that mathematically stood out. While thinking more, and writing this post though, I'm actually really happy about that.

They are comparable enough that as a player, fluff can rule, and I'm not given a slew of false options if I were to try to run a "good" or "competitive" list. That's huge, but it goes a little further. Each choice also has a bit of a niche, that would let it shine a little brighter depending on your play style or your meta. That's.... really cool, and really well done game design.

The more I dig into the mechanics of this game the more I am impressed with it. Bravo Mantic!