Kings of War; Orcs and Undead Clash

I had a quick game of Kings of War with my son recently, my orcs vs his undead. As it was some time since either of us had played, we went for a small 500 point battle (Ambush in the current parlance). The aim was simple,  eradicate the enemy. 

The Undead, revenants, a couple of necromancers, skeleton spears and a troop of wraiths

The Orcs, gore riders, two regiments of ax and a krusher

Opening Moves

One regiment of ax rush straight forward, keen to get to grips with the enemy, the other regiment is slowed somewhat to avoid the wood. On the flank, the gore riders carefully manoeuvre through the village.

The undead advance with the revenants taking the lead while the wraiths approach the village. At the (s)urging of their masters, the revenants and wraiths move further forward.

Orcs and Undead advance

The first orc ax regiment charges the revenants, but fails to break them.  The other ax regiment moves up and the riders continue picking their way through the village.

The skeletal spears take the opportunity to charge the orc flank. Between them, the two undead units cause some casualties, orcish armour (and stubbornness) isn't up to the task and the first unit is destroyed. The wraiths move towards the rear of the riders and both necromancers use their magic to repair some of the damage done to the revenants.

The armies clash

The first melee

From the undead lines

Middle Phase 

With the first unit of ax destroyed,  the second steps up. They charged the spears,  but didn't do much damage. Meanwhile,  the gore riders round the cottage,  sure they saw something green and glowing. 

The revenants take advantage of the exposed flank, and between them,  the undead repeat their earlier performance against the orcs.

The undead start to thin out the orcs, where's that krusher off to?

The krusher advances towards the necromancers, eager to try his ax on them, and the gore riders continue their ride, hoping to cause havoc in the undead rear, but the wraiths are surged into their flank, fortunately causing only slight damage. 

With the orc infantry wiped out, all the action is behind the undead lines

End Phase

The gores turn to face the wraiths and contemptuously disperse them, then turn to face the rest of the undead.  The krusher catches one of the necromancers; despite some nasty wounds, the wizard holds.

Only one orc regiment and the krusher left

The krusher is stuck in melee with the spears, but does little damage.  The gore riders take the opportunity to charge the revenants,  but fail to break them (by one point!).

In response,  the spears skewer the krusher,  but the revenants make little headway against the gore riders. 

And that was it. Fate decreed no more hostilities.

The end of hostilities

Aftermath

At the finish, one regiment of gore riders remained, facing the revenants, the spears and a necromancer. We both felt that had we played another turn, the gores would have finished off the revenants and turned to face the spears.  Whether the skeletons could have prevailed, we weren't sure.

But that's not what happened, and the undead claimed victory. 

Final Thoughts; Luck and Tactics

This was a great fun game,  reminding us both of why we enjoy Kings of War. 

The game seemed to go very much for the undead in the first few turns, but the orcs,  as they often do, began to turn things around.  Just not enough soon enough. 

My luck was mostly OK, but my son was distinctly luckier.

Revenants need a 4+ to hit

Just need to Surge 2 inches

He was also canny enough to face my infantry two on one with flank charges, this pretty much does for a regiment and I was lucky that the first lot of ax survived their first turn of melee. 

I managed to get stuck manoeuvring around terrain, and the flanking manoeuvre, though it seemed like a smart move, was really a waste of time, though I suppose it kept the wraiths busy and eventually did for them. I'd have been better keeping them as either a mobile reserve, or as a first strike unit, as they might have been better able to break individual undead units on first contact.

The krusher was poorly used. Initially I kept him nicely between the infantry units, forgetting that he doesn't have Inspiring. He'd have been better adding his three attacks to the combats, as there were several instances of failing to break the enemy by one or two points.

The necromancers, on the other hand, were played very well, using Surge and Healing to great effect throughout the game.

This gave both of us the impetus to play more games, and also to paint more troops (though I have something a bit different planned for October).

I've certainly got plenty of unpainted Kings of War orcs, and it's about time I rebased my original army to match the newer stuff, plus the odd bit of repairs.

I understand that there's a new edition due in December. The Mantic News page has Alessio Cavatore's blog where he teases some of the changes, I'm excited to see what they've done.

Kings of War Battle - 2000 points League of Rhordia vs The Herd

As I mentioned recently, I've been taking advantage of a short break to sort through various draft blog posts. I posted a 1000 point League vs Herd battle here, this is what I presume was the next battle we played, since it's gone up from 1000 to 2000 points, and is set following a Herd victory.

Unfortunately, I didn't write very much at the time, little more than the introduction and the photos. It might still be of interest, so here it is, and you can check Merlin's report for more details. 

Merlin and I continued our vague storyline of the border conflicts between the League of Rhordia and the Herd.

This time, with me hosting, I wanted a bigger battle and I thought the Herd would be capitalising on its previous victory by invading one of the provinces in the League, thus the Invade scenario provided the basis for the game.

League lands about to be invaded by the Herd 

Some of the Herd Horde 

And the rest of them 

And that's all I wrote at the time.

I see from Merlin's blog that this was a League victory, though only just. Despite managing to do lots of damage to the invading Herd, the League only got one extra Victory Point. I do remember that this was a great fun game, and an opportunity to get my horde of mercenary pike on the table.

Sadly this was the last game we played with our League and Herd armies. We had already begun our Ogres and Goblins, mostly because we knew that the new edition of Kings of War didn't have lists for Herd or League of Rhordia in the main rules, and we wanted armies that we could use straight away.

When we finally got the third edition lists neither of us liked the changes. The Herd's Stampede, one of Bodvoc's favourite units, was, I think, removed (there were issues of balance, the Rules Committee felt is was overpowered and needed adjusting. Rather than rushing through changes, it was removed until further testing could produce a more balanced unit.  I understand that most players now use them as Chariots). The League lost a lot of the Halfling units in preparation for splitting off the Halflings into an army of their own. A few loyalist Halflings remain in the League, but not many. It might be fun to revisit these armies at some point. The latest lists in the Red Book have a few changes from the Green Book, so we might like them better.

Kings of War Battle - 1000 points - League of Rhordia vs The Herd

As I'm currently taking a short break I've been looking through my blog and I found I've got quite a few unfinished blog posts stuck in 'drafts'. I'll dump some of them, like a birthday post marking eight years, but I think others have some interesting stuff.

Here is a 1000 point, second edition Kings of War battle between my 15mm League of Rhordia and Merlin's Herd. The reference to an ogres vs goblins battle allows me to date it to August 2019. You can read the report of the aforementioned battle here.

I never finished this report, but I think it's worth posting. I'm sure you can work out pretty much what's happening from the photos.

"After the ogres vs goblins battle, Merlin and I had a larger battle to continue our story of the conflict between the Herd and the League.  Again Merlin had come up with a scenario, this time giving me a chance to find and wipe out the Herd Shaman behind all the recent disruption.

The Shaman of the Peaks.

A  battle of 1,000pts per side between The Herd and The League of Rhordia.

          Loosely based on the Dominate scenario, p85.

Note: The Herd has 1,000pts plus a shaman, the League has just 1,000pts.

Game lasts 6 turns, then throw a d6, on a score of 4+ play one last turn.

Ogli Starberry had won the argument with Duke Errington. The League needed to follow-up their recent battle successes against the Herd and pursue them into their homelands. Recent information led the halfling to believe that the Herd were being compelled to attack League homelands by a sinister Shaman known as Oddroc who dwelt somewhere in the heavily wooded foothills of the Aven Peaks. If they struck quickly the league could seek out the foul shaman and wipe him and his followers out once and for all.

Set-up: place 3 objective markers on the battlefield-these represent the possible location of the shamans dwelling. All 3 markers should be placed on the middle line of the table, at least 12” apart. The Beastman player then notes which of the markers represents the shamans hut whilst the League will have to 'search' the markers to find the correct one-this is done simply by moving into within 3” of a marker, throw a d6, on a 5,6 they have found the shamans hut. The third and final marker will be the hut if it has not yet been found. The shaman will be placed in the doorway looking outwards. 

Players then throw a dice, the highest score chooses table edge and places their first unit.

Players then alternate deploying units until both forces are deployed.

Objective:  At the end of the game, players need to add up the points values of any of their units within 12” of the shamans hut. If the shaman has been killed the League may add his point tally to their total. If the difference in scores is more than 10%, then the player with the highest total wins the battle. 

The League can win the whole war if the slay the Oddroc the Shaman as then the Herd forces will fall apart and start bickering amongst themselves as usual.

My League army consisted of;
Duke Errington, Baron on horse (he has been demoted from Duke to Baron since he always loses the halflings under his command.  They are no longer Inspired by him)
Sgt Alefast, Halfling Master Sergeant with a bow
Ogli Starbrow, Halfling Sorcerer with the Zephyr Crown
1 Regiment of Household Knights with the Aegis of the Elohi
1 Regiment of House Guard
1 Regiment of Halfling Knights
1 Regiment of Halfling Spearlings
1 Regiment of Halfling Archers
1 Troop of Halfling Scouts

(Unfortunately I don't know what Merlin fielded and it's too long ago to find out, but it included some Centaurs and the Stampede)

The field of battle

The Herd preparing to defend Oddroc

More Herd, including Merlin's nice new Stampede on the right (nice if you're not in front of it when it charges, as I later found out)

The League prepare to seek and destroy

The two armies about to clash.

The opening moves; the League are cautiously advancing, trying to guess where the shaman will be.

The centaurs spy the halfling Scouts in the wood and charge in, wiping them out completely

The knights take the bait and charge the Stampede, but can't damage them enough to slow them down, due partly to facing them on the edge of the woods.  Likewise the House Guard are hindered against the centaurs

The Stampede crashes into the flank of the House Guard, leaving nothing but trampled mud and bodies, then they turn.

Sgt Alefast and the halfling knights charge in and the halfling spearlings face the centaurs.

The victorious Herd celebrate.  

Only Duke Errington and the Halfling Archers survived to bring the sorry tale back to the League.  Doubtless they had different versions of events; the Duke told how he bravely rode into enemy territory to try and seek out the shaman, only to be let down by the *ehem* 'short'comings of some of his troops.  The archers complained that the Duke treated his army as disposable and took little care about their deployment or tactics.

Merlin played very well, and used the terrain very much to his advantage.  Hindered charges make a big difference to a League army, and Merlin was able to put me in the position of either having to make a Hindered charge, or face a charging enemy.  Of course, the fact that most of the Herd don't suffer hindered charges only made things worse for me.  Well played.  

(We'll be back)"

Kings of War Ambush, Karpath vs Basilea.

I played another Ambush game with my Karpath Kingdoms of Men recently, this time against my son in law's Basileans.

Set Up

We chose the Pillage scenario, so placed five objectives around the neutral ground between our forces.

Even before the action began, the Sisterhood Scouts snuck forward to claim one objective. 

Before the action

Opening Moves

The Basileans seized the initiative and marched forward. The Spearmen claimed another objective, as did the Gur Panthers.

The Sisterhood took out a few of the Mounted Scouts facing them, though they held steady. The War Wizard chose to remain safely out of sight behind the lines.

In response the lead Karpath Phalanx advanced to claim an objective and the Mounted Scouts moved to loose a volley at the Sisterhood. The Bowmen targeted the Basilean Spearmen, but none of the Karpath arrows struck home.

 

The Sisterhood Scouts turn to face the main action, casually loosing a volley that finishes off the Karpath Scouts.  The War Wizard bravely steps out of cover to enspell the Bowmen, some fall, but they hold steady.

The Basilean Spears charge the leading Karpath Phalanx causing some casualties, but not enough to daunt the brave men of Karpath. 

The Bowmen exact their revenge against the War Wizard, despite him being a small target they bring him down in a hail of arrows.

The Phalanx hits back against the Basileans, causing some damage, but the power of their faith lessens this.

Middle Phase

The Sisterhood are able to draw a bead on Artem, but the Karpath leader survives, blooded, yet unbowed.

The Basiliean spearmen continue their assault on the Karpath Phalanx, while the Gur Panthers lurk, ready to spring in to action when the time is right.

The Bowmen shoot at the Sisterhood.  Despite them being partly obscured, the archers cause sufficient damage to waver the Scouts.

The 'spear grind' continues, and the Basilieans take more damage, wavering them too. 

Basilea's choices are severely limited, with only the Gur Panther reserve unwavered.

The Karpath Bowmen eschew their arrows and swing round to hit the Basileans in the flank.  This is enough to finish them off.  After disposing of the Men-at-arms, the Bowmen turn to face the Sisterhood and the victorious Phalanx advances.

The Bowmen swing into the flank of the Basilean Spearmen. It's enough to seal their fate.

The Battle's Ending

The Sisterhood loose arrows at the Bowmen, wavering them.

The Gur Panthers seize their moment, crashing into the flank of the Karpath Phalanx and wiping them out completely.

The Wavering Bowmen can't shoot, so they retire to claim an objective.

The second Phalanx charges the Panthers, along with Artem. They hit hard, but not hard enough to get rid of the Gur Panthers.

At the end of the battle each side controls one objective, so it's a well fought draw.

This was a great fun game, the Basilean tactics were sound and I felt he made me work hard for the draw. I had some bad luck with the dice, but it probably balanced out over the game (taking out that pesky Wizard when I needed 6s to hit was great).  Once again the Mounted Scouts survived the first turn, though they fell soon after.

It was also great to face the Basileans, my first experience of fighting them. I had wondered if the two human armies would seem a bit samey, but the Basileans are quite different.  I'm looking forward to facing them again.  I wonder how they'd fare against my Orcs?

Kings of War Demo Game

I finally got to show my nephew how to play Kings of War. He has lots of experience with other wargames, but this was his first try at Kings of War.

We used my standard 500 points Orcs and Kingdoms of Men forces and a simple 'last army standing ' scenario. I gave him the choice of army and table edge and he chose Orcs.

Set-up

The men of Karpath deployed in the gap between the wood and the cliffs, the bulk of the Orcs were poised ready to advance to the wall, while the Gore Riders prepared to march round the human flank. the Mounted Scouts were ready to try and stop the Gore Riders from rolling up their flank.

Turn One 

The Orcs advance, not to hold the wall, but around it, meanwhile the Gore Riders begin their flank march.

In response, both Spear Phalanxes advance and the Mounted Scouts ride up to the wall. The Bowmen shoot at an Ax regiment and the Scouts at the Gore Riders, but neither are able to cause any damage.

Turn Two

Both Ax regiments advance further, being too far away to charge. The Gore Riders ignore the Mounted Scouts, focusing on getting behind the Human line.

In response one of the Spear Phalanxes charges an Ax regiment,  the other advances to protect their comrade's flank, but is too far away to charge the other Ax regiment. The Mounted Scouts manoeuvre to keep the Gore Riders targeted. Archery is slightly more effective, both targets take slight damage, but not enough to stop them. Similarly, the Spear Phalanx damages the Axes, but not enough to slow them.

Turn Three 

The Gore Riders ignore the Human cavalry and trot on towards their goal. The unengaged Ax regiment charges the Spears facing them while the Krusher looks on.

Both Ax regiments damage their opponents, but the Humans stand firm under the watchful eye of their leader.

In response the cavalry and the Bowmen turn to face the Gore Riders. Their archery does some damage, but not enough to stop them.  Both Spear regiments damage the Orcs; the regiment near the cottage is hurt enough

Turn Four

The Gore Riders see their chance. They smash into the Human Hero. Once they have trampled him into the mud, they do a smart about face, ready to tackle the Scouts. One regiment of Ax wipes out their Spear Phalanx, but by the cottage, the Orcs are still reeling from the damage they took previously. The Krusher is able to charge the Humans, but on his own can't do much.

This is the sort of luck the Orcs were having

Determined to avenge their leader, both the Mounted Scouts and the Bowmen charge the Gore Riders.  Despite the sheer number of attacks, they are unable to destroy them.  The remaining Phalanx wipes out the Orcs they are facing, then readies to face the  Krusher.

Turn Five 

The Gore Riders are still reeling from the damage they took, but the remaining Ax regiment charges the flank of the Bowmen, who are destroyed in short order.  They then turn to face the remaining Phalanx. The Krusher continues to fight the Spearmen.

The Spear Phalanx knock the fight out of the Krusher, the Scouts continue to keep the Gore Riders on the back foot (hoof?).

Turn Six

The regiment of Ax charge the flank of the remaining Phalanx, quickly finishing them off. They then turn to face the remaining Humans, the cavalry engaged with the Gore Riders.

The Scouts finally finish off those pesky Gore Riders and turn to face the threat of the remaining Orcs.

The Final Turn

With a seventh turn rolled, the Orcs take the obvious choice. All their remaining forces charge the Mounted Scouts. Although they can't quite destroy them, they are unable to fight back, so merely withdraw prior to, presumably, retreating to safety.

This was a great fun game. Despite only having 500 points each, there was enough to allow tactical manoeuvring, and the action was tense. I felt that the Men of Karpath seemed to be doing well to begin with, but there were several combats and volleys where I just failed to break the Orcs. The Orcs' high defence definitely helped them. In melee I needed 5+ to damage the Orcs, but they only needed 3+ to damage the Spearmen. If Orcs can hold out long enough to make contact they tend to do well.

My nephew had a good grasp of the tactics required, managing flank charges and picking off my units. I'm annoyed with myself for leaving my Leader exposed and vulnerable to the Gore Riders though.