Recommendation: Death by Dragons

A recent Data and Dice post pointed me towards the Death by Dragons youtube channel, and I gotta say, I was not disappointed! He (Steve) is a quick-witted commentator and a pretty clever player, so the reports have been rather entertaining, with plenty of things to learn from, as he's going to tournaments and giving his play-by-play thoughts. I’m not sure how I missed this channel previously, but I am quite enjoying catching up on his recent exploits, and recommend you do the same!

…and I don’t normally deep dive in my recommendations posts, but he’s been playing his “Kingdoms of Meh” recently, and has a lot of insights worth exploring. I’m not sure when else I’d discuss these, let alone cover in a timely manner, so I guess we’ll tackle them here. I won’t critique the efficacy of the lists, I just want to point out some cool things and some general points of agreement.

This is the initial list that caught my attention, and yeah, as you can see it is infantry-centric and a little wild. He discusses it more in the videos, but essentially he’s using triple Ballistae to exert pressure and force the enemy to close in, then using the Monarch to rally the Foot Guard holding the line, with oodles of Fanatics around as a second line to deal the damage. As he notes his list has a very hard time dealing with high defense lists, so three (often more) units are usually needed to break something, and multi-charging and clever positioning is paramount for the Kingdoms of Men. 

• Triple Ballistae are solid picks. As war machines they have an additional bottleneck compared to missile units (hit rolls; Blast rolls; and damage rolls), but in my opinion are still our best shooting options. The Kingdoms of Men should usually be running several hordes, so they should be easy to fit in for unlocks, and are quite cheap in points. 
• Flying Generals are great. Their killing power isn't all that impressive, but multiple fliers are exponentially more difficult to contain a single one, so like Ballistae, they tend to perform better the more you run. Unfortunately they are prone to wavering, but are one of the few “hitty” things in the KoM list, and are very maneuverable, so very much worth taking, as you can see from my own reporting. 
• The Monarch seems slept on a bit? I have an “elite/knightly” list I’ve been wanting to test out for a while myself (oof checking my notes... this list has been ready since February yet is still untested, due to all the League stuff dominating my table time recently), as I had noticed the same interaction DBD is exploring with his list. The Monarch has a few modes, and an optional Fly. Even with no upgrades at all, it is a Very Inspiring titan with damage output similar to a Giant, which isn't bad. 
• Foot Guard are a bit of pet unit of mine, and when buffed by the Monarch like they are here, seem quite fun, and the regiments have a lot of staying power. It's nice to see a lot of these units on the table, and the interaction with the Monarch seems fun.
• Fanatic spam. Mine have typically just gotten shot off, but I will admit that I haven’t used them particularly well historically, as longtime readers can attest. One thing to note here, is that he is running multiple regiments, and they are getting the items, contrary to conventional wisdom. He expressly didn’t want an expensive Death Star unit in the Fanatic horde, so opted to make the regiments more threatening. They seem to be a pet unit for Death by Dragons, and he’s making them work here pretty well, so I should take note!

In Game 4 here, he played the Monarch list against another Kingdoms of Men list. He comments on things more deeply in the video, and seemed to take the lessons to heart. He’s got a new video up with a new list, utilizing triple Balliastae to pressure again, numerous Pike units to hold now, and triple flying Generals to help kill things, with support from a few Fanatic units still.

• Hero on Pegasus. He ran one in the previous list; played against two in Game 4 linked above, and ran zero in this new list. At 90 points, these seem just ok? I've tried the Heroes on Horses version before, and they are in a similar place. With just 3 base attacks, just 1 CS and no TC, they can reliably disorder most things, but aren’t going to be dealing very much damage. In combat, they do have a neat interaction with the Flying General, in that they are shorter than General, so even with one in front of the other, both can still see and fight. Damage dealing isn’t the reason to take these though, which is that the Pegasus mount gives them a Unit Strength, letting them score in scenario play.
• Ballistae. Again, triple ballistae are splendid. If your opponent has titans, these can be good late drops, otherwise, as DBD shows, if you have a game plan going into the game, deploying them all early to zone out parts of the board is a great option as well.
• Pikes. Mine have mostly just been shot off, but the more melee-focused your meta is, the better Pikes will be, and Indomitable Regiments can hold scary things up surprisingly well. Hitting either a critical mass of regiments or just running a horde that can’t be ignored seems to be the way to go with these, which was a shortfall of my previous approaches. 
• Flying Generals. He went from one to three, and these add a lot of options to the list and the army as a whole. I’ve kept my own lists down to just two to be on the friendlier side of things, but three is the better and more competitive choice.
• Fanatics. DBD is down to just two regiments here. Again, they seem like a pet unit for him, but are doing well enough, it seems.
• Beast Cavalry. These became the new hotness for KoM once you could tool them up with all the options. Expensive, but they are fast and maneuverable and gives them a better hammer unit, due to the CS and all of the minor buffs adding up.
• Pegasus Wizards. These are an older hotness for the KoM that I have yet to explore, due to a lack of models. The Pegasi are resin, but Fireforge makes a great looking box that has been sold out forever it seems. I might try these at some point myself, because they do look to be that good. Two seems like a great number, and if you utilize the Tricker’s Wand, you can get two flying Hexing units into a list, which seems strong. 

So, in summation, Death by Dragons is a great youtube channel, and especially worth exploring if you like the Kingdoms of Men. Check him out!

Recommendation: Data and Dice

It came to my attention only recently that my frequent opponent has been a secret Kings of War blogger for some time. Behold, dear reader: Data and Dice! You can also interact on the new forum thread too, if you are so inclined.

If you are here, you have probably read a battle report or two featuring Trevor (known as Cartwright on the forum). He’s a very analytical player. Every list is thought out, and probability is frequently referenced while he is figuring out his shooting and charges.

His blog has some of the most succinct posts I think I’ve ever read, and covers thoughts on his armies, general tactics, and (surprise surprise) analytics for the game. He’s started parsing tournament data recently, comparing lists and their results, and looking for trends to discuss.

The hard analytics are done off screen, and everything is distilled down and presented in a very understandable way. He’s found some really neat takeaways recently, so if you want some intriguing things to think about when building your next list, or just want to see some rad art mashing up fantasy / and cyberspace, be sure to stop by and check out his blog!

Recommendation: The Nerd's Tale

In Battle 044, I was able to get in a game against a new opponent. It was an absolute pleasure! We got along well, and hopefully I can support them as they work to grow their local community. 

They are a seasoned wargamer, having played (and left) Warhammer Fantasy long before I ever picked it up. They played in tournaments back when you had to snail mail your lists in, and are now returning to hobbying and gaming. They have a splendid (and growing) collection of wonderfully painted armies and we should see more of them across the table soon.

Really great stuff!

And as it turns out, they are on the Forum as SquirminVermin, and they also have a bit of a blog of their own, which I feel a duty to shoutout in order to grow the blogging ecosystem. Hence, the post here recommending it. Check out: The Nerd’s Tale! You’ll get cool stories, see some wonderfully painted minis, and probably pick up a few life lessons too!

Recommendation: Lazy Pirate Painting

Already having a handful of painted, battle-ready armies, I was excited to notice that the last 5 blog posts of mine have been battle reports! Hobbying is great, but more games and less blabbering was my hope for the general direction of the blog, as I am running out of space to store minis!

Unfortunately, those 5 games have been spread over a few more weeks than I would have liked, and a few were demo games (good, fun, but not as intricate or exciting as dissecting a normal game, not to mention that it would probably be better not to report on those and instead focus entirely on teaching the game). 

This is all to say that I am still busier than I would like to be! Life needs to slow down a bit.

I have gotten some nights off for some self care and some hobbying over the last few months, but not enough nights to get anything off my desk. In lieu of hobbying posts, I figured I'd toss out another Kings of War recommendation for everyone: Lazy Pirate Painting.

It's a Youtube channel that covers painting and a handful of wargames, including Kings of War. The reports are quick, with most being around 10 minutes long.

Each army gets a quick rundown after they have finished deploying, and then they check in at the end of each turn with a summary of the turn's happenings. No filming dice rolls or blabbering on about hypotheticals or what statistically should have happened - just a quick and dirty report. This style of report is unique in the wargaming world from what I have seen, and worth highlighting. They field and fight a variety of armies, all wonderfully painted, so I'd highly recommend you check them out!

Recommendation: Any Wargame Any Time and Master Sight

I was really hoping to be posting some more substantial updates by now, but life has not quite settled back down for me yet, and my free personal time is still quite limited. So instead, I bring you two more recommendations!

Any Wargame Any Time

This channel is on a bit of a roll, playing all sorts of wargames, posting battle reports, and looks to be launching a podcast as well. If you like my blog, you might like this stuff too. You can find their youtube channel here.

I have not caught up with the podcast, but for Kings of War youtube battle reports, Dan was the main player, and mainly playing the Kingdoms of Men, which is what initially caught my eye. Like me, he tends to run some use of Militia regiments and Heroes on Horses. However he is a more "serious" player than I am, taking more hordes and playing around with and relying on probabilities much more consciously than I do, though he has still had some fun and interesting lists, exploring Chariots and Beast Cavalry, neither of which I have played with yet myself. 

In addition to recommending for the content, and the alternative approach to the army, Dan's use of the Captain bear's special mention. The Captain has Rallying 1 and the Master Tactician rule, which lets you redeploy 1d3 units. While the redeploy ability was around in 2nd Edition, and was really intriguing, my MSU style did not mesh well with the ability, and I never had much success with it. As it turns out though, the Captain works nicely with a more typical playstyle, you know, one that utilizes hordes and proper hammers and such. Paraphrasing his words: "The Captain isn't about fooling your opponent. You use the Captain to put them in a lost-lose situation." That is to say: you aren't going to redeploy one wing to the other side of the table in an epic psyche out. Instead, you put down something scary and significant very early - like a Horde of Knights - and dare your opponent to react. The redeploy will let you adjust. If your opponent does react, you can move your threat elsewhere, and their deployment should be a little more awkward. If they don't you can use the redeploy to press your advantage. This usage makes sense, but was hard to actualize with my MSU, where the 1d3 was unreliable, and no single unit was threatening enough to get real use out of the redeploy. In short, the Captain needs threats to play with! I am interested to see more from Any Wargame Any Time in the future!

Master Sight

Adam aka Master Sight is also playing Kings of War, but is even more of a serious player, with his channel focusing more on tournament prep and play. I stumbled upon his Lady of the Lake coverage recently, and really enjoyed it. Right now he too is rocking Kingdoms of Men, and playing them quite effectively. The lists and style have been very interesting to mull over, and he could be worth a look if you enjoy this blog, but want someone more competent fielding the home team armies! You can find his channel here.

Right now, his list has a lot in common with my old lists, fielding some Giants, some Flying Generals, and some Pike Regiments. Like Dan from AWAT, he is also using the Captain, but at least at Lady, was using it more for Rally than redeploy moves. His more interesting list picks have been cheaper hordes of Pole-Arms and Bowmen, some Ballistae, and Heroes on Pegasi.

While all three of these will be interesting threads to pick up in the future, I think the Pegasi Heroes are the thing most worth mentioning about his approach to the army right now. The disrupting Heroes on Horses are good, but the Pegasi Heroes seem to take everything up a notch at the tournament scent. Intrepid fliers jumping your lines doesn't seem to be that common, so swapping the 360-degree charge arc for some scenario-influencing Unit Strength seems well worth the additional cost in those more competitive arenas.

Both players have been delivering some good and interesting games regularly, and give a fellow Kingdoms of Men player a lot to consider! I'd highly recommend checking them out.

Recommendation: Randy Atchley and Visibly Riley

Most of my recommendations have been Kings of War adjacent - things I'm digging that I think you might find interesting as well. Kinda like a really bad algorithm? These two though are directly applicable to the wonderful game that is Kings of War. 

Randy Atchley is a former Warhammer player, and even wrote up that TVI Tactica I reposted recently. He has been great the last few months as I have finally gotten back into games, replying with some great feedback and suggestions in the Kingdoms of Men Facebook group, and I only recently made the Warhammer connection. He's got his own youtube channel with very concise battle reports coming out pretty regularly, focusing on the Kingdoms of Men and mostly tweaking one style of list for tournament play right now. He also has a blog, though this doesn't seem to be updated as frequently. If you like this blog and want more experienced insights on the Kingdoms of Men, or just want to see some very crisply painted old Empire models marching around, please check him out.

Visibly Riley has an amazing youtube channel with a trove of reports with all sorts of lists. His play and attention to rules and especially positioning detail is miles above me and the variety of lists and scenarios he plays is great. I don't follow the competitive scene, but Visibly Riley seems intellectually tuned in to that thinking and has great insights on every list and match-up. He explains his thinking concisely as he goes, and has some great after-action commentary as well, looking at lists and usually giving constructive optimization advice. All in all, it's impressive stuff, and I'm looking forward to digging into his catalog more!

Recommendation: Turin (youtuber)

My hobbying has been scatterbrained this summer, so while I continue to chip away at things and not post, I wanted to point you fine folks towards a youtube channel I have been enjoying very much over the summer: Turin. He largely plays and casts the Warhammer Total War games, which as a Warhammer Refugee into Kings of War now, I have very much enjoyed, and thought some of you might enjoy as well.

While I was aware of the existence of the various Total War games, and have obviously played Warhammer Fantasy, I have never played anything from the Total War franchise. Thankfully, Turin's commentary during his casts is quite insightful, and he is very good at  distilling games. He explains everything from basic game mechanics to general army tips, to the meta strategies for each match up. His meme-game is pretty strong too, which adds to the entertainment. He's been doing the youtube thing for years, and has a deep catalogue of Warriors of Chaos and Empire games, which helped draw me in as those were my armies back in the Warhammer days. Check him out!

Recommendation: Wyloch's Armory and One Page Rules

Back in 2018 or so, my girlfriend's younger brother decided to get into 40k with some friends. He really started getting into it, so I gifted around some paints and brushes, and eventually gifted him a bunch of old Slaanesh Daemons of mine (his faction of choice). 

Who could say no to that face? A nice little kitbash with my favorite fantasy warrior helmet and weapon. These got a very shiny Tzeentch-inspired scheme. The power weapon could use a little more work, and the gun barrels are slightly off-center, but it was my first time playing with either thing, so I was happy with the result.

Years previously I had picked up a Chaos Lord kit on discount from a local game shop. Seemed like a cool model at the time, but I never got around to painting it up for fun. And as his interest in hobbying grew, I decided buy a box of Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Bikers and join him in a few casual games.

It ... did not go all that well.

We used the dumbed-down freebie rules for 8th to keep it simple, but despite being college-aged, list-building eluded the young'uns, and they could not manage a legal list, (not with points, nor with power level... they couldn't even get the basic detachment approach down for 8th). Innumerable rules and 8th Command Points were similarly always misunderstood. It just wasn't great. We got (I think) three-or-four games in before Fall 2019 and schooling asserted themselves as priorities.

After the first game, I had been trying to figure out some basic industrial terrain to add to the table, and happened on a fantastic youtube channel: Wyloch's Armory. While on a hiatus currently, the channel is still a treasure trove of great terrain hobbying projects and advice. Seriously, go check out that channel. It's great for D&D, fantasy, industrial, sci-fi... all sorts of fantastic hobby ideas. 

As I delved deeper into the channel, I found some oddly titled battle reports, between things like Robot Legions and Battle Brothers and Alien Hives. The thumbnails all had 40k minis though, so I was confused. As it turns out, these were battle reports for a great ruleset from OnePageRules. I was immediately smitten, and encourage you to check them out as well.

Essentially, their "schtick" is to take an existing game and distill it into something very basic (typically, 1-2 pages of basic rules). They focus chiefly on GW, with rules to mimic 40k, AOS, and WHFB, though they do have a nice selection some one-off games, including takes on Gaslands, the insanely cool Crossfire wargame, and a few oddballs, like a game designed around plastic toy Army Men. Rules are free, though you can join their patreon to help playtest, preview new games, or just get files for 3d printing (and 2d printing, for the ultimate in casual wargaming). 

Grimdark Future is their 40k equivalent, and the ruleset appeals far more to me than the real deal! All of their rules are done by the same group (themselves) with the same points calculator, so while you lose the very granular distinctions for each subset of the big factions (no ultra-distinct chapters here, though you can mess with some special rules and upgrades), in exchange, you get a pretty balanced game. That is a win in my book!

The gameplay is similar to the inspiration, with lists and points and various upgrades and such built ahead of time, but the game takes the I-go-U-go formula down to the unit level, thereby limiting degenerate combos and preventing crippling alpha strikes, while creating a more dynamic battle. I very much like this approach!

While play moves unit-to-unit, things are still tracked by model (wounds taken, can it see enough to take the shot, etc). That's not too bad actually, as their other neat rules trick is limiting the number of models in a unit. If you buy a unit of 5 marines, you can bump that to 10 (if everyone has the same gear, no mixing and matching, for simplicity), but no higher. So Death Star units are quite hard to field. While this limits some army design, when the result is better balance, I still count this as a win. 

Age of Fantasy is ... well, their fantasy equivalent, and follows the same general rules: the I-go-U-go approach by unit; model-level tracking; and limiting the unit size (though with Fantasy, the units are larger, with most starting at 10 and maxing out at 20). 

All in all, I still prefer Kings of War for my fantasy game of choice. Being able to ignore the individual model is still a stroke of genius in my book, and this lets it really capture a mass battle feel. More KoW posts coming soon!  

But...

If you are in need of terrain tips for any wargaming or RPG setting, check out Wyloch's Armory.

And if you need another easy game in your arsenal, definitely consider something from OnePageRules.

Recommendation: Wiley Games and Fistful of Lead

Sitting down to write the blog's summary of 2020 got some gears turning again, so I guess the nebulous "catch-up" posts from 2020 will be coming sooner rather than later. I kept up blogging basically through April, so we'll just take it from there I suppose, and tackle it roughly chronologically, starting with some non-KoW recommendations. 

One of the tabletop purchases I made in early 2020 was a digital rulebook for Fistful of Lead, from Wiley Games. This purchase was pre-pandemic, and part of a plan to coax my girlfriend back into some tabletop gaming in 2020. That did not come to pass, but the ruleset still seems like a great way to get folks into tabletop gaming, so I'll offer some thoughts here.

The ruleset is very casual, and the game aims to facilitate small bands of miniatures (roughly 5 models per side), skirmishing over objectives. My hobby space started shrinking in April and May, and these smaller units were about all I could manage, since I needed to unpack and then pack everything up at the end of every session.

The orcs are all old GW models, purchased close to a literal handful of years ago now. I bought a blister of the push-fit orcs for fun, and was lucky enough to end up with a few armored ones back in the day from browsing some online bits stores.

In the game, models can do a variety of things above the typical attack and move, including literally creeping, interacting with objects, or completing tasks of varying difficulties. While you could play a more "kill"-style game, the scenarios provided and the larger number of potential actions your models can take want to push players towards a more narrative and objective-focused skirmish, like searching for treasure among some ruins, or powering down a superweapon node before the big things fires off screen. More scenarios are included in the webstore for purchase, but being a casual game, you could easily think up some things yourself.

These are minis from Reaper, with a guest appearance from a GW lizardman, who was my test model for orange. This probably isn't a legit crew for the game (certainly not optimized), but it was fun playing around with orange paint.

Gameplay is pretty unique, and actually geared towards pulling in multiple individual players, rather than dividing into strict teams. The game utilizes a shuffled deck of cards for turns, and players are dealt cards equal to the number of things they have to activate. Each round, you work their way through the face cards and suits in an order. As your card/suit comes up, you can activate a unit, and then play continues until everything has gone. This approach is not something I have encountered before in a wargame, and I really like this design idea, especially for a more social or casual game.

I am actually a fan of GW's various push-fit blisters. I ebayed the hero model to lead them, as a little birthday present to myself, as he looked really spiffy.

For cheap (just $7 at time of publishing this post), you can get a digital (but still printable) copy of the basic rules, though there are hard copies of the rules, game aids, and stylized playing card decks for sale if you want to support the designer more. I eventually did upgrade to physical rulebooks in September 2020, getting the core book plus some expansion rulebooks for running horrific monsters, broad sci-fi, and the post-apocalypse settings. 

Since they are selling the rules, not a line of miniatures, the system has a "use whatever you want" approach to running the game, which is awesome for a gamer like me with a lot of miscellaneous miniatures. With this encouraged flexibility, the game reminds me of playing with action figures as a kid? Or the Ultimate Showdown? Mashing up that much individually cool stuff is bound to create some fun times!

Wiley Games has created a pretty neat system. If you are looking for a casual game, particularly with Covid still running rampant, I'd suggest checking this out!