Monday 16 May 2016

Kingdoms of Men or League of Rhordia?

[I'm just copy/pasting longer forum posts here for posterity. Originally posted on Wargamer.].

I have a moderate-sized collection of WHFB Empire models picked up as a bulk lot. I've multibased them for KoW. I can run them as either Kingdoms of Men or League of Rhordia. I've played about 20 games with them as KoM, and 5 as League + KoM allies. Here are my thoughts.

Regiment Empire Halberds - Can be run as (LoR) City Militia or (KoM) Pole-Arms Block. Identical stats.

Regiment Empire Greatswords - Can be run as (LoR) House Guard or (KoM) Foot Guard with two-handed weapons. Identical Stats.

Horde Empire Spearmen - Can be run as (LoR) City Spears Militia) or (KoM) Spear Phalanx. Identical stats. (still unpainted)

Horde Empire Swordsmen - Can be run as (KoM) Shield Wall. No close (LoR) equivalent. This unit is cheap and can survive at least one punch to the face usually, so I quite like it. About half the time I find myself paying extra for the spears to come up against an opponent with no TC units anyway.

Two Knights Regiments. Can be run as (LoR) Household Knights or (KoM) Knights. Identical stats, except LoR Knights have Fury, KoM Knights have Headstrong. Usually I would say Fury is a better option for a primarily melee unit, but I've had 5 critical situations now where my Knights were wavered by shooting, and headstrong was/would have been really useful.

Empire Steam Tank - Can be run as (LoR) Halfling Iron Beast or (KoM) Beast of War with light ballista. This is one of the big differences between the two lists. The Iron Beast is speed 5, hits on 5s, def 6, CS 2, TC1, breath (8). The Beast of War is speed 7, hits on 4s, Def 5, CS2 TC2, and the light ballista is what it says. The model is a bit of a DISTRACTION CARNIFEX, drawing fire no matter what it is being run as, and the Iron Beast has a significant edge in survivability. But it takes a long time to get into combat, and once it's there, it actually doesn't do that much damage. Melee 5+ is a killer, it usually ends up with like 4 wounds off of 18 attacks. The Beast of War is far more reliable in combat, usually doing about 5-6 wounds on a front charge. However it is shot off the table before it can get into combat in about half my games. So I'm going to have to give the edge to the Iron Beast in this one.

2 Troops Kitbashed Mounted Scouts with Carbines. A (KoM) unit, no (LoR) equivalent. The LoR light cav (Halfling Rangers or whatever) is more expensive and has bows. I find my Carbine Scouts usually do at least 1 wound when shooting, and that's usually all I need for forcing nerve tests.

Horde of Empire Handgunners - Can run as (KoM) Arquebusiers. LoR has Musket Blocks, but they can only be taken as a Troop or Regiment. I could rebase these models into two Regiments but I really don't want to. I put the Brew of Keen-Eyeness on this horde, and right now it forms the core of my army. It can usually put ~8 wounds on any unit in it's arc (24") range. Occasionally it lets me down (in the tournament yesterday my 20 attacks once failed to do a single wound once) but typically it clears a unit a turn. I understand shooter hordes are easy to disrupt, but I just don't like working with Reload! Regiments. 10 attacks on 5s is really only 1-2 wounds, and I have Wizards or Mounted Scouts if I want to force ranged nerve tests. So KoM gets the nod here.

Empire Mortar and Cannon - Can run as (KoM) Siege Artillery and Cannon. The Mortar can be run as a LoR Halfling Howitzer, but the cannon has no close equivalent. The Halfling Howitzer is just not as good as the Siege Artillery, and no Cannon, so KoM wins here. If I were to run artillery in a LoR list, I'd look to run 2-3 Volley Guns with a Halfling Master Engineer. But I don't have those models, and I'm not looking to buy more at this stage. In general I don't find heavy artillery (the sort that has 1 attack hitting on 5s) satisfying. When they land hits, it feels cheap, and when they miss I get salty because they "should" have hit more. So either way I don't enjoy it.

Individuals. I have a bunch of heroes and wizards that can be run as all sorts of things. KoM has better stock wizards (the option to take Lightning Bolt for free is great), but LoR has the Halfling Sorcerer (Windblast 7). I'm still learning to use them, but I'm convinced that a couple of windblast sorcs can really help me protect my rifle horde. KoM gets The Captain, which I love, But the League gets the Duke on an ancient winged mount, which I think is superior to the General on a Winged Beast. The Duke is more expensive, but has 7 attacks (General has 6), and a bit more utility with Heal 4 and Iron Resolve.

So this is the crux of my dilemma. To go straight KoM, to add in LoR allies (to bring the Iron Beast or Duke maybe) or to run LoR with my rifles horde allied in. I'm reluctant to run a front line unit like the Iron Beast as an ally, just because it's difficult to get it inspired or healed. The Rifles are ok as allies, usually if my rifles are being nerve tested I'm in the process of getting tabled so whatever.

Here's some example 2k lists that I'm toying with:

League of Rhordia with KoM Allies:

  • Horde City Spear Militia
  • Regiment City Militia
  • Regiment House Guard
  • 2 Reg Household Knights, one with +Pathfinder
  • Halfling Iron Beast
  • Mounted ASB with Heal Charm
  • Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
  • 2 Halfling Sorcerers, one with Wings of Honeymaze, one with Inspiring Talisman

Allies:

  • Horde Arquebusiers with +1 to hit
  • Troop Mounted Scouts w Carbines
  • Mounted Hero w blade of slashing


Vanilla Kingdoms of Men

  • Horde Arquebusiers with +1 to hit
  • Horde Shield Wall with Scrying Gem
  • Regiment Foot Guard w 2-handers
  • Regiment Pole-arms block
  • 2 Regiments Knights, on with +Pathfinder
  • Troop Mounted Scouts w Carbines
  • Beast of War with Light Ballista
  • Mounted ASB with Heal Charm
  • General on Winged Beast with Brew of Haste
  • The Captain, Mounted
  • Wizard, with Lightning Bolt + Bane Chant + Inspiring Talisman


Any advice/thoughts much appreciated.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Tournament Report, Kings of Dave 4



I usually run my army (mostly old WHFB Empire models) as Kingdoms of Men, but for a tournament over the weekend I decided to run them as League with KoM allies. It was a 2500 point no comp 4-game swiss tournament in Canberra, Australia.
My List:

KoM Allies:

  • Horde Arquebusiers with Brew of Keen Eyeness
  • Troop Mounted Scouts with Mace of Crushing
  • Cannon
  • Hero, Mounted with Blade of Slashing
League:
  • Horde City Spear Militia
  • Regiment House Guard
  • Regiment City Militia
  • Regiment Household Knights with +pathfinder
  • Regiment Household Knights with +nimble
  • Halfling Iron Beast
  • Halfling Howitzer
  • Army Standard Bearer, mounted, with healing charm
  • Halfling Sorcerer with wings of honeymaze
  • Halfling sorcerer with inspiring talisman
  • Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez + ensorcelled armour
  • Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez + brew of haste

Like I said, I usually run KoM, but I wanted to try out three changes in particular.
I wanted to see if the Halfling Iron Beast was more useful than a KoM Beast of War.
I wanted to see how annoying two windblast (7) casters could be, over bane chant wizards.
I wanted to see if the Duke on Ancient Winged Alarez' were worth the extra points over the KoM General on a Winged Beast.

My opponents were:
Game1: A very punchy Orc army, with some goblin chaff and war machines allied in. (Kill, big Loss) I deployed in a pretty tight 'castle' formation, around my shooters on a hill. My shooting did ok, but he was into me by turn 3, and who knew that getting caught in melee with orcs was a bad idea? I should have deployed out wider I think. He used terrain and goblin chaff very well to protect his flanks, and once his morax regiments got stuck in it was all over. This was one game where I really wished my Halfling Iron Beast was a Beast of War. The Orcs chewed through it quickly anyway, and despite the high number of attacks, hitting on 5s just sucks.

Game 2: A very shooty elf army, with some FoN allied earth elementals (Kill & Pillage, Win). If my iron beast was a dud last match, he was the star of this one. My opponent had two sea-guard hordes, and they just could not get through my Iron Beast's armour in time. My heavy artillery took care of his earth elementals, and my 2 Dukes were able to keep his dragon lord contained.

Game 3: A pretty standard undead army. (Loot, Draw) This was a very cheeky draw for me. By the end of the game I had killed ~900 points of his, while he had killed ~2100 points of mine. I only had the regiment of House Guard and the Iron Beast left. Unfortunately for him my House Guard had one of the loot tokens, and my Iron Beast was screening the other one (if I had played my last 2 turns better I could have actually picked it up and snuck out with a win). Lesson here is to always play the objectives hey. Also shambling legions and hordes are slow af to pick up objectives hey.

Game 4: a ~very~ shooty Twilight Kin army. (Dominate, Loss) The most frustrating game by far. He managed to waver a bunch of my units through a combination of his bolt throwers and perfect nerve rolls. Any lower and I would have held steady, any higher and I would have got the inspiring re roll and almost certainly held steady. I managed to desperately cram a lot of stuff in the centre, and windblast his stuff out. If the game had ended turn 6 it would have been a draw, but it went to turn 7, and he was able to kill one of my Dukes in the scoring zone, and push his units deep into the zone (so I would have needed perfect rolls to blast them out again).

So, would I have been better running KoM over LoR? As you'd expect, some games yes, some games no. The windblast sorcerers were very terrain and scenario dependent. We played 2 kill scenarios in this 4 game tournament, but if we had played more objective type ones, they would have been more useful. I also played 2 games on a board that had no difficult terrain (to push things into), so I'm not sure I can draw a line under this experiment yet.

The Iron Beast was tough, and hung around for 3 out of 4 games. I was disappointing in combat, but at least it made it into combat hey. My Beast of War is usually shot off the table before it can get in. Iron Beast was excellent against low CS/Piercing opponents, the Beast of War would be much more useful against high CS opponents. So it depends on your local meta hey.

The Dukes were pretty cool. I only used their heal spells a couple of times over the 4 games, but the iron resolve was awesome. You pay 35 extra points (over a General on a Winged Beast) for 1 extra attack, TC 1, Heal (4), and Iron Resolve. I think that's a good deal, and it was handy having a couple of points dense units to help me score on dominate. But if you're playing in a comped system (disordered flyers lose fly, flyers score 50% on invade/dominate), I think the General on a Winged Beast would be better.

Sunday 1 May 2016

Random Thoughts on Kingdoms of Men

[These were my thoughts after the Kings of April tournament, posted on the KoW Fanatics FB group].

The Shield Wall is surprisingly resilient. I thought a Def 4 unit would not be tough enough to be a proper anvil, but it can take at least 1 punch from all but the hardest hitters so if you have stuff ready to flank it's job done.

The Arquebusier Horde (with brew of keen eye) is awesome, slaps 5-8 wounds on pretty much any target, but if the enemy has fast individuals will only get 1-2 shots off before disruption. I still love it.

The Knights are great, benefit greatly from having the pathfinder & haste potions. Classic hammer units.

The Foot Guard Regiment w 2 handers is another good hammer. Harder to get into position than the knights, it hits nearly as hard and is much cheaper.

Mounted Scouts are fantastic. I usually run two troops of these. Able to screen for my knights, hold objectives, can take out war machines, and can force nerve checks with 1-2 wounds with an 18" range. Love them a lot.

The Steam Tank (beast of War) is great in extended fights, but it is a bit of a bullet magnet. Hard to cover, and people love to shoot at it. In 2 out of the 4 games on the weekend it was shot off the table before I got to move it. But in the other 2 games it made a major impact.

My mounted standard bearer with the heal charm is another really useful unit, significantly increasing survivability.

My war machines are iffy. One game my mortar didn't land a single hit, another game it landed 4. I'm considering dropping them for 2k games, but they are really useful for tagging high def flyers so still on the fence. In 2500pt games I often run 3 of them.

Wizards with Lightning bolt and bane chant are great force multipliers.

The Captain is a tough one. His tactical redeploy can be awesome, but not reliably. I usually send him off to hunt shooter hordes or war machines, so his inspiring usually only covers himself. Considering swapping him for a mounted hero next time. But it is nice having a very points dense unit in scenarios like Dominate.

The General on a Winged beast is useful too. Not as much of a powerhouse as a dragon, but for 190 points he's a lot cheaper. For a 2k game I wouldn't bother putting ensorcelled armour or regen on him. I usually have him work with my 2 knights and scouts on one flank.