Kings of War 3rd Edition: #012: July Beat and Greet: Group Game [Kill]

With game two finished on both tables, one of the attendees had to leave. Fortunately, my opponent from last game had enough spare bases to run 2000 points of fierce Salamanders, and with plenty of time left in the day, we decided on a 2v1 Kill game to close out our tiny event. 

Lists

The Salamander player ran something pretty close to the following 2k list, as far as I can recall:

It think I got everything right? I was 10 pts shy with units and stuff I knew for sure, and I think those 10 pts were made up by Effigies on each of the Whispering Scales units. It didn't have a lot of drops and felt like a more "quality" approach with a smaller number of elite units. It looks sturdy but should be surprisingly quick due to the formation and the hordes of Rhinosaur Cavalry. Add to all this the frightening Clan Lord on Fire Drake, the Pale Rider, and support from a fiery Phoenix... the unlikely duo of Abyssal Dwarfs and the Kingdoms of Men will have their work cut out for them I think!

My ally ran the same list as before. He was catching on quickly as the day progressed! This was going to be their first encounter with a flier though, so there would be plenty more things to learn before the day was over! The Lesser Golems can be an excellent anti-flier choice, but without a source of Surge, they weren't likely going to help against the flying Clan Lord unless we got really lucky.

And going into the last battle of the day, I still ran the same list and still had the same things in mind to try and test:

• Mammoth/Rampage. I think it is a bit of a bummer relative to the Giant, but could I make use of him and Rampage?
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. These are my go-to defensive units, but I wanted to test them out a bit more. With Regiments, I should get better at deployment and threat assessment, and wanted to see if I could use these well.
• Knights. I figured they might be able to bully something in a small game like this. I need to get better at positioning them, so let's take them and see what I can do.
• Hero & IW. I am still really liking this pick. I am still not great with IW use, so we'll see how I do with him, and when / how I use IW.

Quickly comparing lists, the Salamanders had fewer units generally but a higher quality to them, as well as a number of strong, scary monsters, and most things were sporting a very sturdy Def5. The Coalition of humans and Abyssal Dwarfs was less focused, but had more units, more ranged options, and a greater variety of options at their disposal. With smaller, more numerous units, we might be able to dog-pile some of the scary things across from us with some good planning.

Table and Deployment

We played on the spooky table, adding some more terrain from its box, and spreading out to the usual 6 foot by 4 foot table space. We had some Height 3 Hills, Height 6 Forests, Height 9 blocking terrain with the Mausoleum, a Height 2 Fence obstacle, and some Height 1 difficult terrain represented by the Graveyards.

Finished with deployment, though before the Whispering Scales units scouted ahead.

I believe the Salamanders player won the roll-off for sides, and we deployed 2 things per trade, forcing the humans and dwarves to each commit something each round. We had the drop advantage, amplified by the Salamanders placing first. 

The Salamanders were wary of spreading themselves too thin with so much opposing them, so they had deployed pretty centrally, with several stacked lines. The Whispering Scales secured the right-flank of the Salamander Line. The Phoenix majestically tried to hide behind the hill. The Ghekkos screened the Ceremonial Guard who screened the powerful and legendary Pale Rider. Lastly, both of the Rhinosaur Cav hordes and Clan Lord on Fire Drake sat on the the far left of the Salamander's line (our right). This positioning should let them be aggressive without being swarmed or flanked themselves.

The battle line of the Coalition forces was a bit jumbled. We had gone wide to press our unit advantage, and spanned almost from end to end of the table. The Abyssal Dwarfs were either eager to make some friends or to infiltrate the Regnum's lines to cowardly hid behind the taller humans... either way, our lines were intermingled. With more drops, I was able to put my cavalry down late, and had high hopes for some some flanking Knights this game. Going from our left to our right, the horde of Blacksouls then anchored this flank, supported by the Decimators. The Dino deployed nice and centrally to try and prevail against the Whispering Scales of Ceremonial Guard. The Hero stayed close, with my Foot Guard, ASB and Pikes taking the center. Then we had the Obsidian Golems, Halfbreed Champion and Halfbreed Regiment, the human Militia, and finally, the troop of Immortals.

With deployment complete, the Whispering Scales scouted ever so slightly ahead, and I believe the Salamander player won the first turn roll-off, making us go first. The glare was getting a little bad as the day went on, so apologies in advance as we get into this!

Top of Round 1: Coalition

We were looking to press our advantage. The Knights moved at the double, looking pivot in the coming turns. Most things moved up, though we decided to hold back on the right a bit, not wanting to give up any Round 1 charges to the speedy wing of the Salamanders.

Poor Phoenix! I like the paint job, and think it is a cool and fluffy support piece... but it has had a heck of a time surviving in-game.

The mortar scored two lucky hits against the Phoenix which bloomed into a lot of damage with Blast, and we Def3, most of that damage connected. Amazingly, the fiery bird is popped, removing the source of Healing for the Salamanders, and theoretically making the fight to come far easier. And with first blood already drawn, we pass turn.

Bottom of Round 1:  Salamanders

The Whispering Scales no longer hear the crackling inferno behind them, and cease their advance, drawing close to their commander and now looking to hold and delay. 

The center of the Salamander line advances, with the Ghekko / Ceremonial Guard / Pale Rider stack intact. The Rhinosaurs and Clan Lord continue to hold back, advancing cautiously, not wishing to overextend without the healing fires of the Phoenix.

Top of Round 2: Coalition

We are a little overloaded on the left, and a lot of things move to threaten the Whispering Scales. Even with Stealthy, the Whispering Scales take 1 damage from the Decimator troop as the dwarfs leave the spooky woods, and the other unit surprisingly takes 1 damage from the Mounted Scouts. 

The right largely holds, not wanting to give the speedy Salamanders any multi-charges. The mortar fires, and tickles the Ceremonial Guard for a few damage, but nothing serious. The Guard will chug their healing potions next turn.. 

Bottom of Round 2:  Salamanders

The Pale Rider moves up alongside the Ceremonial Guard, making a formidable line. The Rider uses its Firebreath against the Pikes, who are just in range. Four damage will be dealt, but they hold. The Ghekko troop scampers forward to interrupt any group charges from my center units into theirs.

I think this is mid-movement on the bottom of Round 2. The other Rhinosaur unit and Clan Lord were last to move.

One unit of Rhinosaurs charge the Militia, dealing 9 damage and removing them. While the Militia were in the terrain, both Rhinosaur units had magic items to mitigate it. The second unit and the Clan Lord crashed into the Immortal troop, removing it. The Rhinosaurs reformed to create a new stack of sorts, with the 

Back on our left flank, the Whispering Scales held, and braced for the worst.

Top of Round 3: Coalition

The Scouts zone out the fence, allowing my knights an unhindered charge against one unit of the Whispering Scales. Unfortunately I do this block awkwardly, with the Scouts on the closer side of the fence, despite tons of available movement. Fortunately, there is enough room for the Knights to slide down without clipping the fence. I lucked out! After some waffling and discussion with the Abyssal Dwarf general, the Dino goes into the other unit of Whispering Scales. I believe the Knights (I think) get a lucky waver on their unit and the Dino (with 1 extra attack from Rampage but with Brutal), just barely routs its unit thanks to the 1 damage it took from the Decimators last turn. Victorious, the Dino turns to face the menacing Salamander center and the Pale Rider.

The 9 damage from the Militia. RIP. Many more units are about to die.

The Dino's charge was probably a mistake. I was very lucky to Rout the one unit of Whispering Scales this turn, getting just what was needed to break them and reposition to prevent getting flanked by the Pale Rider. I think the better play would have been to flank with the Dino and to charge the same unit the Knights did. That would have obliterated that unit for sure, and really opened up some space. I should know by now that with my army, just knights or just a monster is usually not enough to rout a unit usually. We have a lot of stuff on this flank, so creating some some space might have been the better play. I lucked out with the move I made, but it was not the best move.

Some bad positioning with my Scouts, but I lucked out with the spacing.

With the Dino charging away, the Decimators fire into the Ghekkos, removing them, and the mortar lands another lucky hit against the Pale Rider. We had discussed war machine positioned a bit in our first game. I am not expert, but for something with indirect fire, I suggested centrally with a good field of view, and that seemed to be doing well for my ally here.

On the right, the regiment of Halfbreeds and the Obsidian Golems multi-charge the leading unit of the Rhinosaur Cavalry, but the unit lives. 

Bottom of Round 3:  Salamanders

Our opponent wants to charge the front Rhinosaur unit into the Obsidian Golem and the rear Rhinosaur unit into the Halfbreeds, but this doesn't look legal on the table. The Height 4 Rhinosaurs are pretty tightly stacked, and the front units should be blocking the line of sight from the leader point of the rear unit, even when they move down. The Rhinosaurs are also not Nimble, so the rear unit should be clipping  through the front unit when it would move to pivot, even if it could see. As pictured in the Coalition's Round 3, that all makes some sense, however, while writing this up, I notice we didn't shuffle the Abyssal Dwarfs to center to equally share frontage against the front unit of Rhinosaurs, thereby complicating the situation now. This was not caught at the time.

Taking the positioning as-is though, we do agree that the front unit can counter-charge the Halfbreeds, sliding way down to let the rear unit attack the Obsidian Golems. The Coalition's oopsies to share facing made this messy, so our bad, but both units do make it into combat, which feels good. I believe the Clan Lord will also charge against the Halfbreeds though? Which should have been declared at the same time... and the Clan Lord should have then ended up on the end of the combat given their position at the start of the turn. Sheesh This whole flank is a positioning mess as I try and write this up! These are the perils of a group game I suppose, and the turn is not even done! I think adding a few extra bases or cutting some out of cardstock or something might be good things to have on hand in the future, though I am not sure how much they would have helped here with all the Salamander units on top of each other and mere inches away from their desired targets.

After a whole bunch of discussion, the speedy salamanders get into combat. 

The Ceremonial Guard eye up the Foot Guard, and charge over the corpses of the Ghekkos. They manage 9 damage, but the Foot Guard hold. The Pale Rider attacks the Dino, but rolls far below the expected result, it seems only dealing 3 damage to its distant relative.

The remaining unit of Whispering Scales don't look to do anything against the Knights, supporting my thinking that they got wavered last turn.

Top of Round 4: Coalition

It's time to teach my ally a little about individuals! He opts to charge the Halfbreed Champion into the wounded Rhinosaur unit, and my Hero zips out to charge the Clan Lord. I get the lucky 1 damage in, grounding the Lord. I don't recall how the Champion did, but the Rhinosaurs unfortunately stick around.

The Knights charge the Whispering Scale Regiment again and don't rout them. I guess the Salamanders are just wavered again? I did not take enough pictures to help my memory. The Dino counter-charges the Pale Rider, but also doesn't rout it. That is expected though, as the Pale Rider is strong, and the Dino is disordered, losing Thunderous Charge.

The Foot Guard and Pikes go into the Ceremonial Guard, but Bane-Chant doesn't connect. The horde of Blacksouls go into the Flank of the Ceremonial Guard, but are hindered. The Salamanders hold. I don't think I have really appreciated this unit previously. Great Nerve, Def5, Phalanx and Crushing Strength are all fantastic abilities and this is a wonderfully tanky unit.

Bottom of Round 4:  Salamanders

The Pale Rider charges the Dino, and makes up for his poor showing last turn, wounding with nearly all of of its attacks this turn and removing my monster. The Ceremonial Guard counter-charges the Foot Guard, removing them now. We are all pretty new to messy multi-unit grinding combats. They should be engaged on two facings, which would preclude a potential disengage move, so we don't believe they are allowed a victorious reform here. With such a wide unit, if they pivot around the center they are going to at least one of the enemy units as well. So, we think these are boxed in.

The unengaged unit of Rhinosaurs skirts behind the building, trying to avoid the infernal war machine. The Clan Lord rips through the Hero, and I am not sure if I remember to pop Indomitable Will on my turn. If I didn't, that's a mistake, as this is a "last stand" kind of situation for him. If I did, it makes no difference. I think I am going to do up some tokens for Indomitable Will. That might help me remember it in-game for sure. The Halfbreed Champion eats a countercharge from the Rhinosaurs, and is wavered!

Top of Round 5: Coalition

The mortar connects again, I think against the sneaking Rhinosaurs. The building is unfortunately not big enough to block line of sight completely. A shell explodes and this unit is shattered. I believe the Mounted Scouts loose and the Decimators blast at the towering Pale Rider, with the later doing damage and routing that as well. I probably should have moved the scouts down towards our deployment zone to try and make use of them in Round 6. But I don't. 

The Knights continue against the Whispering Scales, grinding them out on their third attempt. The Pikes and Blacksouls continue against the Ceremonial Guard, hacking them down. Those are some hefty losses for the Salamanders this turn.

Bottom of Round 5:  Salamanders

The surviving Whispering Scales leader has been contributing in their own small ways this game. In Rounds 3 and 4 they poked at the Dino. In Round 5 they go after my ASB, though nothing connects. While this move didn't pan out, my opponent tends to get a lot of value from these random heroes.

That sneaky little Battle Captain... fortunately no damage is taken.

The Clan Lord avenges his clutchmates, and obliterates the mortar, wheeling around to face the center. While the Halfbreed Champion did regenerate some wounds on our turn, they are still wavered, and the Rhinosaur Cavalry slams in to finish the monstrosity off, and will overrun to try and contribute in Round 6.

Sweet revenge!

Top of Round 6: Coalition

My Pikes move and pivot to look at both the Clan Lord and Rhinosaur Cavalry, ensuring front charges. The Decimators shoot at the Clan Lord I believe. For some reason, I thought the Clan Lord was pointed     uls. Because of this, I didn't think to dissuade my ally from charging the Battle Captain with the Blacksoul Horde... they do damage, but on 4's and 5's, the inspiring captain easily holds.

Bottom of Round 6:  Salamanders

To conclude, the Pikes take charges from the Rhinosaur and the Battle Captain, and are trampled. And the Clan Lord is just able to catch the corner in the blank of the Blacksouls, dealing an incredible amount of damage, and is able to obliterate the Blacksoul Horde all on his own and all in one go.

Ouch! Late game fliers are certainly dangerous. Let that be a lesson to us!

We roll for a potentially spicy round 7, but it is not to be. As the dwarven curses fade and the Blacksouls exhale their last, the Coalition looks to have lost 1515 points of stuff, with just the Decimator troop, Knights, ASB and Scouts remaining. I am not sure on the Salamander's losses, and after conferring with my opponent a few days later, they have lost somewhere between 1335-1380 points of stuff, with the expensive Clan Lord, a unit of Rhinosaurs and the Whispering Scales leader all surviving. This gives the Salamanders the edge in the violence done, but still a bit short of the 200 point threshold they needed to secure a full win. 

So, a definite advantage for the Salamanders, but technically a draw! 

Game Conclusion

What a close game! Losing the Blacksouls at the very end was rough for the Coalition, but it turns out we were slightly ahead at that time, so losing them was just barely enough not to swing the game to a loss for us. With a big healthy flier still around at the end, something was bound to die to it on the last turn, and this was a good situation for my ally to get exposed to.

Testing Conclusions

Well, I ran the same list three dang times in a row. And on the same day no less! How did my testing go and what did I learn here?

• Mammoth/Rampage. My tests were rough all day, and Rampage rolled above 1 extra attack once, for a 2. I feel like this unit can have a place in certain metas or in tailored lists, or with a themed list of some kind, and I am glad I have some, but for 5 points more the Giant is just such a better buy and deals much better with the big scary things that my normal humans struggle to. I gave the Dino some good chances and this just felt weak.
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. I am really liking the Foot Guard in these smaller games, as they are more forgiving with their better stats. Pikes can take the charge but I need to be more aware of where I am positioning them. Both are good, but Pikes take more thought for me.
• Knights. This grind over a few turns is how I've used them to "bully" stuff before. It's not a great use of them to be honest. I need to get it in my head that these are not going to break anything on their own in one go, and I need to get better at using them alongside with other units. 
• Hero & IW. He did well every game, but I struggled a bit with IW usage, and I think getting a better grasp of that will really push the Hero over the top in terms of usefulness. 
• Terrain! Terrain tripped me up throughout the event. Difficult terrain near my deployment zone is  just sooooo enticing, especially with Pikes, but I really need to keep the scenario and my opponent's list in mind. With few long-range threats over these three games, most of the time I was just sight-seeing around my deployment zone and seizing that difficult ground did me more harm than good.
• Turn Counter. I did well with this on the first game. The other games not as well. I would turn it, but with it being off the board on the spooky table, I wasn't getting it into frame unless I took a second photo. I think I will look into hobbying up a few more buildings to hold the counters.
• Pictures. There was not method to my picture taking as the day went on. I had enough pictures to quickly write up the first two games, but reconstructing this battle took some effort, as some pictures were taken mid-movement. I'll kick around some ideas and see if I can into a groove documenting some future games.

Thanks to the trio of other players that joined me for the tiny event! I learned a lot organizing this! I had a lot of fun playing in it, and hope they did as well. Hopefully we'll play some more sometime soon!

Kings of War 3rd Edition: #011: July Beat and Greet: KOM vs Salamanders [Dominate]

On to Game 2 of this tiny event!

I had played my next opponent before, on my trip to Milwaukee. He's unfortunately still waiting on some packages, but is making great progress on the minis he does have, and he has continued to explore his army list. For our game, he played the following:

I thought highly of the Rhinosaur Cavalry regiments he ran previously, and those appeared again for this game, and were even joined by a Battle Captain on Rhinosaur. All three were pretty strong and quick enough that I would need a plan. Supporting the cavalry were some Corsairs, made regular by the Firebrand. The pirates seem like an interesting choice. Not a lot of attacks, but pretty decent stats, and with both Crushing Strength 1 and Piercing 1, they seem like a neat anti-infantry or area-denial choice, especially when deployed closely together. I unfortunately did not look at them too closely ahead of time, so their stats and 18" range surprised me a bit once we got into the game...

I do not say this often, but I brought the same list as last time! It was an event after all. Maybe my tactics would get better with time? One can only hope. So, going into game two, I still have my Mammoth / Dino, and still have the same things to try and test.

• Mammoth/Rampage. I think it is a bit of a bummer relative to the Giant, but could I make use of him and Rampage?
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. These are my go-to defensive units, but I wanted to test them out a bit more. With Regiments, I should get better at deployment and threat assessment, and wanted to see if I could use these well.
• Knights. I figured they might be able to bully something in a small game like this. I need to get better at positioning them, so let's take them and see what I can do.
• Hero & IW. I am still really liking this pick. I am still not great with IW use, so we'll see how I do with him, and when / how I use IW.
• Anything learned or improved upon from previous games?

We played on one of the two "spooky" tables I had packed up. Hills were height 3, the graveyards  were height 1 difficult terrain, and the forests were height 6 difficult terrain. Being a smaller game, we again shrunk this down to a 4 foot by 4 foot area. The playmats were from Mats by Mars, which I had ordered with the Kings of War overlay. It worked great for shrinking down the table size, as that overlay has some 2 foot by 2 foot markings.

Deployment. 

I am not too pleased with my own deployment. Generally I think I am focusing too much on the difficult terrain, and ignoring the scenario. We are playing for the middle, after all. With the lists as-is and the scenario here, there is no good reason for me to be in or around the terrain near my deployment zone. 

Having just played the Abyssal Dwarfs, I assumed the pirate-themed Corsairs with their Piercing 1 weapons were Blunderbuss equivalents, namely with a 12" range. Thinking they were 12" range, my plan was to use the Dino and infantry to smash the Corsairs while the Scouts and the Hero to delay on my left. Alas, the range on the Corsairs is 18". With Steady Aim as well, my infantry should be nowhere near this. 

I did deploy back more this time, as with a trio of potent and speedy elements against me, I was a bit concerned and wanted to give myself a little breathing room. And the Dino was indeed opposite from the Corsairs, so I had those two things going for me.

My opponent won both roll-offs, and elected to have me go first, which I think wat the better call, given his short-range shooting. 

Top of Round 1: Kingdoms of Men

I advance, keeping out of reach of the Rhinosaurs. I was hoping to maybe disrupt with the Scouts and Hero, turns 2-3 and hopefully make something happen elsewhere. 

Scooting about. With the graveyards making for some awkward unit positioning. 

I realize now the Pikes aren't going to be doing much hiding in the graveyward, and they start their trek out towards the center. The Foot Guard move their 5" up, getting caught up on the terrain while the Dino lumbers forth looking to menace the Corsairs in the coming turns. The Dino was deployed poorly too, I think. I should have gone a few more inches to the right and tried shooting up the side, or angled it towards the center to get it moving quickly, zipping between the graveyard and the forest. 

Bottom of Round 1: Salamanders

On his turn, the Rhinosaur battle group and the Ghekko's moved up, keeping out of range of my slightly faster Knights.

Ouch! The Corsairs have more range than I thought!

We did discuss lists as we deployed, but I didn't realize the reach and strength of the Corsairs until we had started. With Steady Aim, 18" range, Piercing 1.... they are ideal for blasting away at normal infantry like mine, putting this flank in a bit of a pickle. The Corsairs blast away, dealing 7 to the Militia, but they hold.

Top of Round 2: Kingdoms of Men

With the surprisingly potent fire from the Corsairs, I am feeling the pressure now. I am badly deployed against a pretty solid list. The injured Militia move up at the double to try and tank another volley before going down. I move the Dino up into the woods to threaten the pirates next turn. The Foot Guard move up, but not into charge range. I am indecisive with them, but felt that opening them up to a double-charge from the Corsairs was a bad play. Here, I am giving my opponent some choices to make, and just hoping I can make the best of whatever he chooses next turn.

Go Scouts!

The Pikes advance slowly, and the Hero and Knights reposition, all still out of range.. My general plan now is to hopefully dance and delay with the Rhinosaurs over the next two turns while I try and remove the Corsairs? 

Scouts are victorious!

While my opponent was wary of the Knights, they had ignored the Mounted Scouts. The Scouts decide to charge the Ghekkos. Looking at the math, this was a bit foolhardy, but luckily it works out, and the smaller lizards are broken, with the Mounted Scouts able to overrun out of any retaliatory charge arcs. With the Scouts breaking through, I am hoping that my opponent will have some tough choices next turn, and I can cobble some plays together.

Bottom of Round 2: Abyssal Dwarfs

The Rhinosaurs on the far left sweep down the side looking to exert some pressure on my Knights, while the second unit takes up residence in the forest, looking to draw out a hindered charge from my Knights. The Battle Captain hungrily lurks at the edge of the forest to get line out sight out of it.

The Firebrand takes aim at the Mounted Scouts, wounds them three times, and wavers them. My opponent continues to get great value from their hero slots each and every game, so kudos to him for seeing those plays and making it happen. 

The Militia eat a single Firelock volley and are routed while the second Firelock Volley goes against the Foot Guard.

Top of Round 3: Kingdoms of Men

I am behind, and so opt for some risky plays to get me back in the game. The Hero moves up to block off the spooky forest, allowing my Knights to get an unhindered charge against the baiting Rhinosaur unit. Unfortunately, my tricky play fails. I don't do enough damage and come up one short on the Nerve check. Fearless prevails and the unit remains. 

A tricky charge, enabled by my fabulous Hero.

The Dino rampages out of the woods and into the far unit of Corsairs, as planned. I roll up 1 extra attack, and end up dealing and insignificant 3 to the unit. My big plays fail for now.

Bottom of Round 3: Salamanders

The Rhinosaurs countercharge the Knights, rolling a bit hot and dealing 5 damage to the Knights, wavering them. Due to the shuffle to center, the Battle Captain is able to charge the Hero, something I did not consider, but really should have. It connects with most of its attacks against my Hero, who dies without popping Indomitable Will. Fortunately for me, my opponent plays this out of order, rolling the Rhinosaurs vs Knight combat first. My Knights have Headstrong, and did a fair bit to the Rhinosaurs last turn, so they might still be in the fight.

Disaster!

The ineffective Dino is counter-charged by one unit of Corsairs, and flanked by the other. routed by the Corsairs, who get the beast close to "snake eyes only" territory. On the Nerve Test, the Dino is easily routed. 

On one turn, we forgot the ranged phase and had to go back. I think this was the turn, so the wavered Scouts should fall to the Firebrand's pistols this turn as well, but with the Corsairs swinging, that is it for the ranged stuff. A very devastating turn for the Kingdoms of Men!

Top of Round 4: Kingdoms of Men

The Knights fail their Headstrong test, and that spells the start of the end of the game. We do play through this turn and the next to get some more experience, but I am out of scoring units by the start of Round 6. 

A decisive victory for the Salamanders and an ignoble tabling for the Kingdoms of Men!

Game Conclusion

My opponent had a bit of a drive to make it to the tiny event, but I am glad they did. Congrats on the resounding victory! 

I deployed poorly, and woefully misjudged the Corsairs. Those were two pretty big holes to dig myself out of, but I still had some chances. The Hero assisting the charge of the Knights was a clever play, but it didn't pay off, nor did the Dino charging into the Corsairs. 

My dice also went ice cold, while my opponent rolled amazingly hot on their Round 3. The Firebrand was rolling warm, but that turn the Rhinosaurs countercharging the Knights did about double the median damage statistically expected, as did the Corsairs against the Dino, as did the Battle Captain against the Hero. Not much one can do against such hot dice in a small game.

Testing Conclusions

• Mammoth/Rampage. Still underwhelming, but cold dice make for poor tests. I again rolled a 1 for Rampage, making the results so far, 1, 2, 1, and 1! It definitely underperformed this game.
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. I did get Pikes vs Rhinosaurs late game, but they still managed to do 7 damage off 9 attacks to me on Turn 5. I think we might have forgotten to remove TC that combat? Hot dice all game I guess. Anyways, I still like the mix idea. with their better stats, Foot Guard seem more forgiving, so I'd lean towards a 2 Foot: 1 Pike split to start out this testing, whenever I get around to it.
• Knights. I liked their big play, and it had potential, but was not to be.
• Hero & IW. I didn't pop it this game. This does seem like a mistake to not use it, but I think keeping it open was still the right call with the expected math. Good attacks and good nerve would have just wavered me; planning around hot dice like that doesn't seem wise. So I think I'd agree with keeping it open for the following turn still, since it could remove the possible waver.
• Anything learned or improved upon from previous games? I think I did worse! And that's not just the result.  I had good "micro" moves, like with the Knights, but worse "macro" moves, like with deployment. Underestimating the Corsairs was also a pretty big blunder on my part. 

Not much else to really dissect with my play. I put myself in situations I should not have been in, tried to make the most of things, but couldn't. Congrats to my opponent on the win and thanks again for making the drive over. On to Game 3!

Kings of War 3rd Edition: #010: July Beat and Greet: KOM vs Abyssal Dwarfs [Invade]

So, I organized a very tiny "meet and greet" sort of event at the end of July. The goal was three games at 1000 points, against three different opponents to try and get some local connections made and nurture a budding Kings of War community a bit. I got to play as well, and this was the first game.

Lists and Scenario

My first opponent for the day was Kenny Lull from the Combat Phase Podcast. He is a good friend of the Nightstalkers player from my Battle 009, and they had played a quick game over the last week. While a very knowledgeable wargaming veteran, he was still new to Kings of War. However had put together a pretty reasonable list and was eager to try things out.

He admittedly was taking "a little bit of everything" to try and learn the game. The Lesser Obsidian Golems, being a shambling unit without a source of Surge is an obvious weak point in the build, but he's got the basics covered with a recognizable anvil unit (Blacksouls), hammer unit (Halfbreeds) and a nice variety of supporting elements to test out.

I brought the above, building around a Mammoth with more regiments and oddities to explore. Seeing some of the chatter leading up to the day, it sounded like there would be a fair amount of Large Infantry and Large Cavalry units - so the Giant would have been a better choice. Stats-wise, as I've pondered previously, the Giant would likely be a better choice, (likely dropping the Pikes for Foot Guard to make that happen). But me being me, I had stuff to test and compare and I opted to try out a Mammoth instead. I wanted to explore the following things:

• Mammoth/Rampage. I haven't used it in third yet. I think it is a bit of a bummer relative to the Giant, but could I make use of him and Rampage?
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. These are my go-to defensive units, but I wanted to test them out a bit more. With Regiments, I should get better at deployment and threat assessment, and wanted to see if I could use these well.
• Knights. I liked the triple regiment list. I figured they might be able to bully something in a small game like this. I need to get better at positioning them, so let's take them and see what I can do.
• Hero & IW. I am still really liking this pick. I am still not great with IW use, so we'll see how I do with him, and when / how I use IW.

I had tried to organize the event games into Kill, then Invade, then Dominate, but the other table started playing Invade, so we followed suit. We traded deployments as one does, with my Knights and Dino (Mammoth) coming down late. Overall, I was ok with my deployment. The other lists at the event had far fewer units that would trigger Rampage, so I wanted to prioritize trying this out, so the Dino was hidden from the artillery, which was the big thing I was concerned with, for testing. 

Pre-emptively removing the trees for my Pikes to move into the woods.

With a smaller game, we shrunk the table down to a 4 foot by 4 foot area. The playmats were from Mats by Mars, which I had ordered with the Kings of War overlay. It worked great for shrinking down the table size, as that overlay has some 2 foot by 2 foot markings. For terrain we had some Height 6 palm tree forests, Height 3 Hills, two small obstacles and the Height 9 Blocking Tower that would hold our turn counter, which I actually used pretty competently this game!

My opponent won the roll off, but decided to make me go first, as he wanted to see a turn in action and how I might approach the game. With his artillery piece, that might have been an error, though it can indeed be good to go second in these scenarios. Regardless of the logic, that was their decision, so off I went.

Top of Round 1:  Kingdoms of Men

Given the scenario and the short legs on the opposing army, I had deployed uncharacteristically far forward, and now tentatively advanced. I am still playing humans, so don't want to get into fights all that early. The Scouts and Dino hid behind the tower, with everything else moving up a bit.

Cautious advances by the Kingdoms of Men.

The Hero remained behind. He's quick, and I figured keeping him more central and in reserve until I needed him would be a good idea. I didn't have a plan for him yet, so figured doing nothing should be an ok use of him for now.

Bottom of Round 1: Abyssal Dwarfs

My opponent had positioned a few units for "at the double" moves, but held back a bit. The obstacle protected the flank of the Halfbreeds, who moved pretty far up. Their movement tray was a bit large. I still don't know why, but most of the grey space should be extra space, allowing the Halfbreed Champion to sit nearby, despite what it looks like. (I think he might have been using a monstrous infantry horde tray (150x100) instead of the cavalry regiment tray (125x100)? That would explain the 25mm wide extra space.)

The Decimators are out of range, and the artillery misses against the Foot Guard, and so it's a pretty quick turn for my opponent.

Top of Round 2:  Kingdoms of Men

I actually move the Knights back. I am hoping to draw the Halfbreeds out a little bit more next turn in order to hit them with both the Knights and Foot Guard. 

Tying to lay some traps Turn 2.

My center mostly holds, looking to keep it safe this turn. I decide that the Hero should aim for the war machine or the Decimator Troop, depending on what my opponent does on their turn, so I move him up to get him ready for his sprint. 

The Scouts slide down to harass the Decimators, but their arrows don't land. The Militia back up a bit, looking to occupy the attention of the Golems in the coming turns, and hopefully keep them from doing anything significant this game.

Bottom of Round 2: Abyssal Dwarfs

I fail. The Golems can just barely see the flank of the Scouts, and have the inches to get there. Caught unawares, the Scouts will rout. 

The Decimators are just in range of the Foot Guard, and though the blunderbusses sound ominous, only one damage slips by their shields. The infernal artillery chooses to reposition this turn.

With the exception of the Immortals and the war machine, the rest of the Abyssal Dwarf line squares up juuust on their side of the battlefield, with the Abyssal Halfbreeds pivoting slightly to get the Knights in their front-arc.

Top of Round 3:  Kingdoms of Men

I oblige my opponent, and charge the Knights and Foot Guard into the front of the Halfbreeds. My ASB strums with menace and Bane-Chant connects, boosting the Foot Guard. The Halfbreeds are routed. The nearby Immortals are out of position with an odd facing, so it will take a turn or more for them to get back into position. The Knights decide to overrun and the Foot Guard pivot to face the center of the Abyssal Dwarf line. 

The Dino should have slid over to the center. We did catch that later.

The path to the artillery blocked, the Hero charges against the Decimators, miraculously wounding with all three attacks and wavering the blunderbuss-toting dwarves. The Militia flank-charge the Golems, doing no damage, but do seem get their attention.

The Pikes are about an inch shy on their charge, so the Dino charges in alone against the Blacksouls, which are very generic as it turns out. I figure this should be a good test of Rampage! I roll up a whole one extra attack, and end up dealing 5 damage. My first rampage is a bit underwhelming, but the rest of the turn has gone quite well for me.

Bottom of Round 3: Abyssal Dwarfs

The Dwarves do a lot of counter attacking. The Blacksouls attack the Dino, dealing 6 to it through the weight of numerous attacks. The Halfbreed champion rears up and turns into the Footguard, dealing 3. The Immortals decide to play the scenario, advancing at the double to get clear of the fighting and set up scoring in the coming turns.

The Obsidian Golems counter-charge the Militia, dealing 3 and Wavering them. Looking at the pictures now though, the Golems should have a possible flank-charge against the Pikes here, which might have been the better choice. My Pikes didn't turn to face the Golems, so I missed this play myself during the game.

The heavy mortar thwumps a release, landing squarely on the Knights. Five damage is done, and a strong 10 is rolled for the Nerve check, bringing them to a wavering 15. But we realize the the Mortar has Shattering, and the Knights are instead frightened off the field!

Top of Round 4:  Kingdoms of Men

The wavered Miltia opt to move back, hoping to draw the Golems away and out of position from any future combat.

Beginning of the top of Round 4.

I thought the Pikes joined the Dino this turn, but that doesn't look to be the case, looking at the next few pictures. I think I measured poorly and didn't move them up enough last turn. So I think the Dino continues, rolling a 1 or 2 for Rampage, dealing 6 damage this time, with the unit holding again.

The angry strumming grants the Foot Guard Bane-Chant again, and the soldiers land some good blows against the enemy Champion. The Mounted Hero whiffs on all his attacks against the Decimators. 

Bottom of Round 4: Abyssal Dwarfs

The Halfbreed Champion regenerates a few wounds, and continues his assault against the Foot Guard, dealing another 3 damage, but the humans hold. The Decimators back off, and shoot at the Hero, wounding him once. 

Another pip of damage appears on the Dino, and 4 damage on the Pikes.  Leading me to think that the artillery hit the Pikes and the Blackguard counter-charged the Dino, whiffing heavily. I know remember my opponent had one really bad combat, so I think this was it. 

The Golems change facing. Looking at the picture now, I think my opponent might have thought he was limited to a 90 degree pivot in victory? I think I used the term "pivot" instead of "change facing"  when going over victorious options for units. There is nothing to threaten where the Golems ended up. At the time I thought we was just playing the scenario, like the Immortals were, but I think this was me explaining things poorly, so my apologies to him if that was indeed the case.

Top of Round 5:  Kingdoms of Men

The Pikes should finally join the Dino now, and break the Blacksoul Horde. Both will choose to overrun. The Pikes get within the safety range for Indirect Fire, but the Dino isn't as quick, surprisingly. The Hero slashes against the Decimators, and routs them too. The Foot Guard again press against the Halfbreed Champion and drag him down as well, and then turn around to face the Immortals.

Mid combat. So far, I've rolled a 1, 2, 1 for my Rampages this game.

It's another big turn for the Kingdoms of Men, removing a lot of scary stuff from the table.

Bottom of Round 5: Abyssal Dwarfs

The Shambling Golems try to give chase, but are too slow. Had he about-faced with them, he may have been able to charge the Dino given it's low overrun. I think I explained the victorious repositioning options poorly, so again, apologies to my new opponent.

Top of Round 6:  Kingdoms of Men

The Dino slams into the war machine, and the Pikes move at the double to make sure they are scoring and safe as the game concludes. 

The very start of my Round 6.

The Foot Guard are not scoring. I don't know if moving back or to the side would have gotten them there. I think so. The ASB will get out of the way of the Golems, menacingly strumming again for the Foot Guard, who decide charge the Immortals. They do some damage but don't rout them.

Bottom of Round 6: Abyssal Dwarfs

The Immortals strike back, and the Obsidian Golems wave their shackled fists at departing humans, with nothing in range I suppose.

The Pikes (3) and Dino (1) are scoring for the Kingdoms of Men, with the Immortals (1) and Obsidian Golems (2) scoring for the Abyssal Dwarves. A narrow 4-3 victory for the Kingdoms of Men!

Game Conclusion

Props to my opponent for making it out to dive head first into a new game! Despite some sub-optimal plays for both of us, we both had a great time and it was a nice and close game.

I definitely misplayed my Scouts early on! The Obsidian Golems should not have had a chance to get  into combat with anything until I was ready. I should have been less bold with the Scouts and prioritized moving and surviving over shooting. The Pikes were also used poorly, snared a bit by terrain and moving 5 inches at a time. They should have joined the Dino a full turn sooner if I was smarter. It's a moving scenario, so I should have used the forest for screening and ignored it otherwise.

Testing Conclusions

• Mammoth/Rampage. So far, underwhelming. I forget they and the Giants hit on 4's normally, so they really want those extra attacks. I picked a good target and was dealing pretty average damage, but unsupported this felt underwhelming.
• Pikes vs Foot Guard. I do like them both, and like having both. If I am paying for regiments I think I should probably run both, and I think I'll run a 2-1 split in larger games. 
• Knights. I used them ok? The positioning of the Halfbreed Champion meant that the knights weren't grabbing a ton of space against the Halfbreed unit, and the obstacle would be troublesome in victory. I rolled like a 1 or a 2 on the overrun though, and ended up on top of it. One more inch and I think I clear that. Getting blasted by the artillery was unfortunate, but that's the game sometimes!
• Hero & IW. I did not pop IW at all this game, so no great insights here...
  

Props again to my opponent for diving in! With four people in a very casual setting, we just swapped to whoever was free and we not tracking win/losses or anything like that. On to Game 2!

TastyBagel runs an Event - The July Beat and Greet

I have been trying to get a regular Kings of War play group going ... well, essentially since I started the blog. While I did get some games in here and there, I think it is safe to say that historically this goal has not gone well for me, but I am finally making some progress now in 2022 with 3rd Edition! This year has been nice, and I have found a handful of nearby people quite interested in the game. Unfortunately we are all a bit fragmented into tiny, disparate groups.

So, with my wedding behind me, I decided to start organizing a one-day event, aiming to get people  meeting up in person, playing some new folks, and trading contact info for getting more games in.

For this first ever event, I decided I wanted the focus to me on meeting people, not necessarily playing the most games or the largest games. An even 1000 points seemed like a good level for this event. A few fun toys should be able to show up in lists, but the scope of the games should be more limited, hopefully allowing us get in three games on the day without too much fuss or fatigue, as we are all pretty new at this.

Stuff for four tables all packed up!

I like enabling nerdy endeavors and can have a bit of a stubborn streak. So I decided to do all of the mats and terrain myself. I parsed my terrain into about 4 tables-worth of stuff, and even splurged on a cheaper 4th playmat in case we needed all four tables. As it turned out, that was a little presumptuous! We ended up with just 4 attendees, but that was still a good number, as each game could be against a new player. Plus now I am all organized and prepared for some larger future events!

The Old World campaign map. It all it's fuzzy, blurry glory.

The venue was Pegasus Games in Madison, WI, a old shop with new owners. They have been busy renovating and  expanding and I must say that things are looking pretty great! We played at a few shops during my Warhammer 8th Edition days, this one being primarily where where we ended up and the end of all that. We had a neat End Times Campaign going for a few months, battling over regions of the Old World and culminating in a mega-battle which I tried to coordinate with some mixed success. It was a learning experience but a lot of fun, and it was a nice flood of memories to see our old cork-board map in the game room, even unhung, as I was setting up.

The event was July 31st, and it went pretty well I think. I learned a fair amount. I didn't take a ton of pictures of my games as it turns out, but did have some stuff to test and should have enough photos to write up the battles I got in. Those should be up later this week, and southern Wisconsin hopefully have some more small events popping up in the coming months!

My Game 1 from the day can be found here.

My Game 2 from the day can be found here.

My Game 3 from the day can be found here.