Playing Kings of War

Rich and I have been threatening to try out the full Kings of War seconded edition so yesterday we had a couple of games of Ogres vs Undead. It was a good example of how the rules can be used to proxy WFB armies as Rich was playing his Tomb Kings models as Vampire counts type models so that he could use his chariots and Ushabti but with the rules for cavalry and Zombie trolls. 

2,000 points of Ogres! I have high hopes of getting them all finished before the end of  September.

The terrain setup with my new F.A.T mat from frontline gaming (thanks Will and Virginie!)

Game one saw us line up very much in the classic straight line formation in a kill each other game.

As the sun set the hordes of Undead ascended upon my Ogre army!

Sorry it's blurry but this is where it all went a little pear shaped for Rich as I managed to roll some really high Nerve tests to take out the left side of his army.

It was only after my multi charge from a mammoth and a legion of  Ogres that we remembered that Rich could have used the Inspiring rule to force me to preroll the lucky nerve tests. We would do better in game two.

With our learning game done Rich was able to go through his army list and tweak bits  (switch characters and add magic items etc). We decided to play one of the other scenarios to see if it could go beyond the usual kill each other that was so often the mandatory game of WFB

For the 7 objective tokens I busted out my new coins! They were really cool and the theme of Dwarves treasure worked well.

Rich set up first in a wide line allowing him to get his fast cavalry one both flanks.  This left me with only the option placing my army into my right corner meaning that I could try to hold four of the seven objectives whilst forcing his shambling units on the left to spend as many turns as possible either swinging around to engage me or holding to claim objectives and thus allow me to gang up on his units. 

Rich used his mobility to pull his cavalry back into the centre. One thing I had leant from game one was how to spot a trap as I was itching to charge due to the fact that you don't attack back in your opponents turn so if I wanted to hurt him I have to charge in. But with units doubling or tripling their attacks for side and rear charges I had to hold my units for an extra turn to avoid being pulled to into a fight which exposed me to such devastating multi charges

With the use of of numerical height values for units and terrain it allows you  to use terrain to block shots and charges a without the worry of having to make LoS blocking terrain each time, plus it means that hills can be small size 2 or large size 4 and you add your units height to determine what you can see over meaning the stepped hills work really well.

The Chariots actually represent six Cavalry models so this was a fair match up, until the chariot side charged. as the game uses a really clever and clean mechanic of using Crushing strength (which always works)  and Thunderous Charge (which works against in some situations, one of which I only just realised we over looked) to boost your damage rolls without you having to remember a load of special rules. 

Eventually Rich's units on the right ponded my shooting units and made sure that they were holding three objectives.

End of the game at turn 7 (variable length works on a 4+ at the end of turn 6 you get a turn 7, nice and simple yet adds enough variation that you still have to chance your arm) I held the right but Rich had swung ack through the middle leaving it 3 objectives each with a contested central objective. Great game! 

I won't speak for Rich as I'm sure he will chime in but I absolutely loved playing this. We managed to get in two games and dinner in about four hours without rushing and looking up rules. I can't remember the last time I finished a GW game in two hours and had this much fun! There are some many really clean mechanics that at first you may feel a little as though the units all feel very similar but once you being house them you will quickly see how they have their specific uses. A good example is the Undead catapult as they only have one shot hitting on 5+ but when they connect they dish out between 3-8 hits that have Peirce 2 (+2 to damage from ranged combat) which is pretty devastating against smaller units and can chip away at larger units pretty well. 

Over all I really liked that fact that I could focus on my deployment and movement of units rather than thinking about rules for different units. If you like the idea of fantasy army battles with your own painted models then you have to try this game, I'm certain you will enjoy it!

Score: 4.5 Daves (This is the game a miniatures company makes to let you focus on enjoying playing with your lovingly painted models)