Kings of War: Army Construction (V.2)

So I have managed to play a game of Kings of War and have a better handle on how certain things play out and certain units function or should function in a game. So with this limited progress on my part, I wanted to update the army lists that I have for my armies. My first attempts at list for my Ratkin, Elves, and Twilight Kin are available here. These lists are designed solely from models that I already have put together and mostly painted so that I don't need to do a single thing to them before I put them on a table. As I continue progressing in this game and find that certain units are better or worse, then I might get around to putting some new things together or changing base sizes etc.

Battle Report: Kings of War - February 28, 2016

So I finally grabbed a little time to play a practice game of Kings of War. My buddy and I sat down on a cold Sunday afternoon to play a short 1000 point game to try and get the basics of the game down. We settled on just using the models that were already sitting around in my display case and play a simple game between the Ratkin and the Kindred Elves.

My buddy played the Kindred Elves and I took control of the Ratkin for the game. These are the quick lists that I put together:

Kindred Elves - 995 Points
Kindred Archers (Horde) (Brew of Keen-Eyeness - +1 to standard ranged attacks) - 295 points
Gladestalkers (Troop) - 130 points
Gladestalkers (Troop) - 130 points
Bolt Thrower (War Machine) - 90 points
Elven Mage (Individual) (Lightning Bolt, Scarletmaw's Fenulian Amulet - +2 to Lightning Bolt) - 145 points
Hunters of the Wild (Regiment) (Brew of Haste - +1 to speed) - 205 points

Ratkin - 1000 Points
Blight (Horde) (Brew of Haste - +1 to speed) - 220 points
Death Engine (Monster) (Vile Sorcery - ranged attack) - 210 points
Blight Lord (Individual) (Bane Chant) - 115 points
Weapon Team (War Engine) (Pierce 1) - 80 points
Warriors (Regiment) - 90 points
Weapon Team (War Engine) (Pierce 1) - 80 points
Warriors (Regiment) (Chant of Hate) - 115 points
Enforcer (Individual) - 45 points
Swarm-Crier (Individual) - 45 points

Note - After we played the game, I realized that the Ratkin list is illegal because there is an additional individual for which there is no base regiment or horde unit. So that 45 points should have been put into another unit (or combined with the Enforcer to grab a new unit of 90 points). Luckily, that sole individual did absolutely nothing in our game but die.

Let's take a look at how our first game went!

Update: March 21, 2016

So things have been busy. I have been busy! I have even been adulting (unfortunately) and that hasn't provided much time to play games, let alone post updates as often as I'd like. But, I have not forgotten about this space and am working on finishing my battle reports from Masters. I even played my first real (but small) game of Kings of War and will be posting a full battle report on that soon, as well. I just need to quit adulting for the time being.

Kings of War: Army List Construction

This week I peer into the depths of the Kings of War rulebook to try and understand the interesting, but also frustrating (because you can't just fit in all the cool stuff) rules for army construction. In Kings of War, each game is designed around a specific point value (say 1000 points for beginner and practice games and up to 2000 points for more balanced tournament based games). Armies are designed around units. Each unit in the chosen faction list of which there are several factions in the main rulebook (and another entire book devoted to additional army factions) has a set point cost that correlates to that unit's utility in the game. Units with higher points are generally larger and more powerful while units with smaller points are less powerful or fill smaller. This is no so much different from other war games in terms of army design. You simply add up your chosen units' total points value to make sure that you fall within the maximum points value allowed for the game.

However, in Kings of War, there are additional limitations that restrict what units can be taken. As described in the prior Kings of War articles (see Part 1 and Part 2 here), units come in different pre-set sizes. So rather than filling out a unit at a cost of x points per model and creating a unit of different number of guys based on your own preference, each unit has an assigned points value based on the predetermined size of that unit (say 10 models, 20 models, 40 models, etc.). For example, a unit of Kindred archers comes in either troop units (10 models), regiment units (20 models), or horde units (40) models with a corresponding unit cost (115 points, 150 points, and 250 points, respectively). Thus, when designed your army, you are choosing it based on unit type.

In Kings of War, an army is allowed to include up to 2 Troop units for every Regiment unit in the army. Thus, in order to take any troop formations (smaller units) the army must also include a Regimental sized unit at a ratio of 2:1. Similarly, an army is allowed to include up to 4 Troop units for every Horde unit in the army. So if you want lots of smaller troop units, a player either needs to take multiple regiment units or a large horde unit. Similarly, if you want to take a monster, war engine, or hero, then you also need to take a regiment or horde. For each regiment, a player can take either one war engine, monster, or hero. For each horde (or legion) then a player can take one war engine, one monster, and one hero. So if you want lots of heroes, etc. then you will need to take several hordes and regiments.

I have been looking through my collection of Warhammer armies to see what I could put together and play with immediately to get some practice in. Here are my first run at three different 2000 point lists based solely on what I already have put together and painted. If you have any suggestions or comments wound off in the comments below.

New Swag

While at the U.S. Master's Tournament a few weeks ago, I stopped into the shopping area of the LVO and bought myself a few new things. Now to get my Kings of War on and put together a few new armies.

Tournament Focus: Broadside Bash 2016

The 2016 tournament scene is beginning for table top wargaming. For those of you who are looking to drop into either Kings of War or Age of Sigmar, the Broadside Bash has you covered. The Broadside Bash is a yearly wargaming tournament held in San Diego, California. This year the tournament will be held during Kingdom Con, April 30th to May 1st, 2016 at the San Diego Crowne Plaza in Hotel Circle, San Diego, CA. And more importantly, this year the Broadside Bash is running both a Kings of War event and an Age of Sigmar event. If you are interested, you can sign-up for the tournament here.

Let's take a look at what the Broadside is bringing to both Kings of War and Age of Sigmar:

Age of Sigmar
The Broadside is offering a 20 player, 2000 point Age of Sigmar tournament that uses the SDK point system. Each army must be drawn entirely from one Grand Alliance (so all Chaos, Order, Death, or Destruction - no mixing of the alliances, but mixing of races is totally fine). However, no special characters will be allowed (sorry Nagash!). Each round will be governed by a special scenario which are available here. Additional special rules are also available in the packet and include basic rules like a roll of a "1" is always a failure. I just took a quick glance at the scenarios and they looky pretty interesting. Not enough to keep from playing Kings of War, but if that wasn't an option I could see playing in the Age of Sigmar tournament just to break some models out onto the table.

The margin of victory for the Age of Sigmar tournament is pretty low. Between 1-299 points is a draw. While over 300 points is a win. A win will get you 17 points, a draw 11 points, and a loss 7 points with a possibility of 3 additional points from the scenarios. I expect a lot of wins coming out of these games as a 300 point margin of error on 2000 points in Age of Sigmar is pretty slim (especially under SDK).

Kings of War
For Kings of War, the Broadside is offering a 30 player, 2000 point tournament using the 2nd Edition rules and army lists, including the Twilight Kin!!! However, like Age of Sigmar, no special characters can be taken. Missions for Kings of War will be played straight out of the rulebook and all scenarios use the standard victory points as described in the 2nd Edition A win will get you 17 points, a draw 11 points, and a loss 7 points with a possibility of 3 additional points from the scenarios. This is a standard introductory tournament for the game system which has - from what I hear - flooded the Southern California gaming scene. So I hope the tournament fills up and that Kings of War transitions itself into a solid tournament gaming system.

Warhammer U.S. Masters 2016: Results and Winning Army List

The 2016 U.S. Masters Warhammer Fantasy Tournament is over and done with and after a weekend in Las Vegas only one man stood undefeated and in victory: my friend, Josh "Bad for the Hobby" Stuart. Josh took down the 1st Place trophy in a field of over 50 invited players from across the United States with his mid-comp Dark Elf army. His list surprised many of his opponents with its careful conservation of points and amazing amount of punishing damage that he could throw out every turn and with his ridiculous amount of dice re-rolling even the laws of averages could not tame him. Congratulations, asshole!

I, however, did not win the tournament. Although I did not end up doing as poorly as I did last year, two solid loses (including one ZERO) kept me out of the running (though I single play in Round 5 kept me out of the top 10). In the end, I ended up 27th overall with a final score of 53 battle points, 2 sportsmanship points, and 8 paint points for a final total of 63 (79 if I didn't screw up the last game). Next week I am going to delve into my games and where I made mistakes that could have saved or gained me a few additional points, but for now, I present to you the winning army list.