Iain and I played another two games of KoW using his models. We ended up doing 1500 points of Empire of Dust (and allies) against The Abyssal forces. The Empire of Dust had basically slow moving tar pits for the most part, while the Abyssal had more flying and fast units this go round).
We played Invasion and .. .uh, what's the name? I forget, but we had to protect 3 points on the board. Forgive me - I forgot the name of a bunch of units since I'm still a newb to this game.
I played as the Abyss for the Invasion.
Dogs on the far left, Some heavy tankers and hitters in the centre with an Archfiend on a hill and a Temptress behind them, and some flyers and Cavalry to the far right with a harbinger.
The Empire o Dust seemed rather confined to me - Mummies, Guardians, some Wights with their King and some Pharaohs to support them all with Surge.
The first go - I moved up a bit and the archfiend to the side, the Dogs of course, with all that speed were going all the way !
We moved up cautiously. The point of this game is to get as many units of your own on to the other side of the field, so I didn't want to rush it.
You can see in the photos above that I wasn't being aggressive with most units - Twas all conservative play since I had speed and more units. The dogs flew off past everything though to pressure Iain's undead dudes.
Iain tried to surge these guys after moving. He just needed one more die.. he didn't make it with the mummies! So of course, I charged next turn.
The pharao goes after the dogs.
A great big charge and flank by some Knights easily dispatch the mummies.
Still holding at the centre, without much action. Iain tries to get into charge range but I just keep on sitting around, and moving back slightly. I continue throwing thunder bolts at his Big band of wights with the Archfiend.
Iain gets a flank on my Knights with all his undead forces, wiping them out properly.
Dogs still fighting the Pharao for a few turns.
I try to fly right over all the undead units now that I lost the Knights, but Iain turns about and gets his Wights in there with the rest of his shambling troops. Those birds are cooked Geese.
Thinking its time to get up close and personal soon...
Iains guardians didn't do a whole lot. They threw wind at me, once. The harbinger just retreats. Iain basically has open ground to reach my side of the table...
The Moghuls and the Wights clash, as do the Guard and mummies...
My arch Fiend flies over to deal with these Guardians.. the turns were almost over, and losing anything to stop the invasion points was worth it, so I did not care if he was flanked or destroyed.
You can see that my attacks were worth it all. The charges and fighting wiped out most of Iains forces.
Yeah, may as well take a charge from these guys, too.
After the bonus turn, which we successfully rolled, this was all that was left. Nobody had any forces on the other side of the field, and it was thus a draw.
Occupy?? Whatever the scenario is!
In this Scenario we had to occupy three points on the board, and have units within 3 inches of that point to score. If a foe was within 3 we could not score.. you basically have to hold on to that area and fight off the enemy. I played as the Empire of Dust this go round. Switched it up!
We placed our forces. The middle and right had most of the dudes, while I put the allied Undead forces on the far left - this was to match Iain's flying fellows, since most of his heavy hitters and fast stuff were opposite my middle and right, as you can see in the photos.
Go forth cautiously allies! Iain's flyers start to surround the area.
Iain took his fastest stuff and slammed them all into my right unit of mummies..
They held , and my Guardians ended up moving, surging, and flanking his dogs .. thus destroying them. Iain wasn't so aggressive in the middle as he was on my right, so the Guardians were sent in to deal with this threat.
Flyers coming in...
Smash! Frontal and flank attacks! These allied forces were basically turned into sushi.
Basically, a lot happened here. The guys on my left were all defeated, save their lone king character. The Knights were destroyed by Guardians and Mummies, and my horde weakest undead guys took out the scary Moghuls thanks to the help of the Drain life spell.
We had the honour of finding out the King of War himself was on the field! The lone allied King took on these flying bastards alone!
Iain tries to stall my forces with the harbinger, as the Archfiend flies in to help his guard fight my mummies...
Having cleared the right side of the board, my Guardians hold out and stay on one of the secure points, as I surge my mummies forward around the fighting.
The King of War fought on - he cut up the Winged Terrors pretty good, and disordered them so they couldn't avoid his advances... and all these ugly birds tried to damage him, but didn't land a single hit! Long live the King of War!
The archfiend and Abyssal Guard take out the Mummy unit in the middle...
In the next bit of fighting, the Temptress, Archfiend and abyssal guard all take on the horde of undead dudes, but they turned the Guard into swiss cheese and basically got the best out of the fighting.
THe King of War took 4 wounds... and still held these pterodactyls down, alone.
Red tokens are 1 wound, blue is 5... See how little damage they did to the King of War? Some say it is luck, but I say PURE SKILL - THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR FIGHTING THE KING OF WAR HIMSELF!
My forces start to surround whats left of Iain's stuff in the middle..
And the King fights on...
But our last bonus turn came to an end ! Here's what was left on the board. My forces won this scenario since my Guardians were the only unit within 3 inches to one of the secure points, and Iain had nothing.
And so - those were the last two games I played of Kings of War. I'd say the game was better this second time around... (probably because the rules were better known to me this time).
So, how do I feel about Kings of War now, after playing a second time? Here's the three things I'll have to say.
Number 1 - The game is more interesting with scenarios. Having a straight up fight toe to toe Kill scenario , to me, is not so exciting in this game. There's tons of dice rolling, trying to flank, trying to kill.. but it's just not as epic as say, massive 4-6 hour games of rank and file battles (my favorite kind of game) since Kings of War games are supposed to only last 40-90 minutes or something like that. With the added Scenarios I felt that my forces were better utilised and more strategy had to be considered. Spells and effects were useful and effective and they meant something to the scenarios and how the game worked out. It was just a better experience the second go round because of these two scenarios and the units that were brought to play them. That, and the game is meant to be fast. We played two games in less than the course it takes me one game to play Hail Caesar!
Number 1 - The game is more interesting with scenarios. Having a straight up fight toe to toe Kill scenario , to me, is not so exciting in this game. There's tons of dice rolling, trying to flank, trying to kill.. but it's just not as epic as say, massive 4-6 hour games of rank and file battles (my favorite kind of game) since Kings of War games are supposed to only last 40-90 minutes or something like that. With the added Scenarios I felt that my forces were better utilised and more strategy had to be considered. Spells and effects were useful and effective and they meant something to the scenarios and how the game worked out. It was just a better experience the second go round because of these two scenarios and the units that were brought to play them. That, and the game is meant to be fast. We played two games in less than the course it takes me one game to play Hail Caesar!
Number 2 - 1500 points - More points means bigger armies, but also more unit variation. I think in the first 1000 point game, the units were basically fighting each other head on for the most part with their basic strengths and weaknesses. This time we played with flyers, really fast units, and even units that had their own spell abilities.
Number 3 - Bigger Playing Mat. Playing on a 4x4 foot board even with 1000 points felt quite constricting. This time our board was close to the standard 6 x 4 feet mat, and thus there was more room to move about.
Overall, a good game and I can understand why many people would want to play it. However, I'm still in heavy preference of my big old rank and file historical games. That is because I absolutely love the historical scenarios, human-level of fighting (no magic, based on real world mechanics, nor inhumane strength involved) and aesthetics of it all, but Kings of War to me is a good game to go and play a few quick rounds in an afternoon if you just wanted to get together with some friends and try to out do one another in these fun little scenarios.
I can see myself playing again in the future, but I have decided not to collect any of the standard forces or armies that the game uses. I have tried to shop and make army lists, but ultimately I am not all that happy with building up a whole fantasy force. For fantasy models I enjoy collecting handfuls of random individuals that I really like, and using them in skirmish level games like Mordheim and Frostgrave, and not so much for the rank and file or KoW large battle settings... I am just too focused and intrigued by world life history and feel more joy through collecting models relating to world history over fantasy.
Instead, I am going to continue painting the way I prefer to, and my soldiers will continue being built and painted following my plans and methodology for Hail Caesar! (and soon Pike and Shotte). Once they're done, I will have enough Romans, Gauls, Hoplites, mixed horsemen, or whatever have you to probably build a generic Kingdom of Men or Historical force to bring to the field to take on whatever fantasy horrors await me!
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment