Kings of War Training Game

I introduced Adrian, one of my D&D group to Kings of War recently. He's no novice to fantasy wargaming, but new to KoW.  In exchange he's going to show me how to play Age of Sigmar at some point.

We played at one of my FLGS's, I'm lucky to have three very close by.  This was Powder Monkey Gaming, and for a modest fee we hired one of their tables and borrowed their terrain.  I used the same two forces as in previous training games, but I was able to use my Karpath army for the Kingdoms of Men (at least until its sold).  We set up on a four foot square table with one objective in the centre.  The game would last for six turns, with a 50% chance of a seventh turn.  Victory would go to the side that controlled the objective at the end of the game.  We randomly selected sides, I played the Orcs and Adrian used the Kingdoms of Men.

The Karpath force look out at the rampaging orcs.  They have the greater numbers, but can they match the orcs' ferocity?

The orcs see the prize ahead of them, surely those puny humans will be no match.

The orcs advance while the Karpath force readies to meet them.  Early archery does a little damage to the Gore Riders.

The Gore Riders soon destroy the Mounted Scouts, but have ridden dangerously far ahead.  Meanwhile the orc flanking force has to make its way through the woods, slowing its advance.

Rather than charging, the Karpath force stands it's ground and hopes it's archery will weaken the Gore Riders.

Flushed with success, the Gore Riders charge one of the Karpath Spear Phalanxes; they cause horrendous damage, but are unable to destroy them.  In response, the other Phalanx catches them in the flank and the Orc cavalry is doomed.

The Bowmen turn to face the Orc flanking force and do surprisingly well.

The main Orc Ax regiment charges one spear phalanx resulting in a grinding melee that was to last the remainder of the battle.

The Orc Krusher charges the other Phalanx and causes some casualties, they hurt him in return, but 'tis but a flesh wound''.

The flanking force march onwards into a storm of arrows.  

The Orc Krusher single-handedly wipes his opponents out.  They may have taken damage earlier, but he is claiming the credit.  the Ax vs Spear melee continues, with the Phalanx wavering, but the Bowmen finally see off the Orc Flank.  The Karpath Hero wavers the Krusher, preventing him from adding his weight to the main melee.

The battle ended after the sixth turn, the Orc Ax regiment was closest to the objective, but the orc force was much lessened.

This was a great fun game, and Adrian enjoyed it and quickly picked up the rules.  Tactically I allowed my orcs to get too spread out.  I really should have had the Ax regiments arriving to support the Gore Riders by the following turn.  Put another way, I should have delayed the cavalry charge while the rest of the army got into position.  Adrian played the Kingdoms of Men nicely, wisely holding back and relying on archery where possible.  I suppose if I had held off my charge, he could have got close enough to the objective to claim it.

Hopefully I have another Kings of War player now, but regardless, it was a fun game played in a spirit of friendly competition.

I used my old Orcs, which date back to first edition Kings of War.  Comparing them to my Karpath army, I feel some rebasing is in order, and a bit of repair work.  I'll get the orcs I painted in lockdown painted first though (you can see them starting here), that will give me a 750 point force.