Battle Report: Kingdoms of Men vs Ogres

My second game of Kings, against same opponent as first. This time I had a couple of explicit goals to improve on. I wanted to deploy smarter. I wanted my Steam Tank to get into melee. It's shooting is useful, but it is primarily a melee tool with TC and CS. I wanted to use my individuals better, making sure all my units were covered by Inspiring at all times.

My List: Kingdoms of Men

My list was unchanged from my first game.

• Horde Foot Guard with +phalanx
• Regiment Foot Guard with greatswords
• Regiment Pole-Arms (halberds)
• Horde Arquebusiers with +1 to shoot
• Regiment Knights with +pathfinder
• Regiment Knights with +1 speed
• Cannon
• Siege Artillery
• Beast of War wit Light Ballista
• Army Standard Bearer, mounted with +10 breath attack
• Wizard with Lightning instead of Fireball, with Bane Chant and Scrying Gem.
• The Captain, mounted

His List: Ogres

His list was changed (for the better IMO). He dropped a Horde of Shooters for a magic item and 3 Red Goblin Blasters (basically suicide car bombers).

• Warlord on Chariot w +10 Breath Attack
• Boomers Horde +headstrong
• Shooters Horde +1 to shoot
• Shooters Horde
• Chariots Regiment x 2
• Siege Breakers Horde x 2
• Red Goblin Blaster x 3

We rolled the Kill! scenario, and deployed. I used my Captain's tactical mastery to redeploy three units from my left flank over to my right. Oldy had deployed two Red Goblin Blasters (car bombs) on that side, and they never had a chance to impact the game. I was quite pleased with that little switcheroo.

However I made a critical error here by deploying my Arquebusiers a couple of inches back into my Deployment Zone, for no reason at all. This meant I was more than 24" away from Oldy's Shooters, which meant that my Arquebusiers would not be able to fire on them without moving. (Oldy's units have a range of 36", so no concerns for him there). This meant my Arquebusiers were blown off the table before they could get a shot away.

We also had 1-2 too many pieces of terrain I think, which caused me problems. Hordes are hard to maneuver around.

Deploy

Turn 2

You can see my other critical mistake here, with that pile-up of my units near the small forest in the centre. I got really excited by the thought of my Mounted Standard Bearer just sitting there and spouting off with his magical breath attack while getting lots of defensive bonuses from the forest. I forgot to consider that Oldy's Boomers (the unit directly in front, sort of behind the ruined building) ignore cover bonuses. If I had swapped my Knights and Mounted Standard Bearer around, the game could have gone the other way, or at least been a lot closer. As it was, the Standard Bearer was wavered, and really just cocked things up by getting in the way a lot.

Turn 3

I finally got into things here. My Beast of War (Steam Tank) hits like, well, a Beast. My war engines were doing their thing, hitting most turns. I had my knights holding back on my right flank, waiting for his chariots to engage. They did, and my Knights got the critical first charge in, but were destroyed on the counter-charge.

Turn 5

You really see the fruits of my earlier mistakes here. Pretty much all of Oldy's units had a significant number of wounds on them, to the point where a 7+ on the nerve test would have routed them pretty much. If my Arquebusiers were still around, it would have been a very different story. I am strongly considering deploying them as two regiments instead of one horde next time.

I was pleased with my Foot Guard Horde though. 25 attacks hitting on 3+ is a lot.

Turn 6

It was all pretty academic after Turn 5. I managed to rout his Boomers after a charge from my Mounted Standard Bearer (a single attack!), and my Captain wavered his Chariots but it just wasn't enough. Overall I was much happier with the way I used my Individuals this time (apart from that one mistake which possibly cost me the game). I completely covered my forces with my Inspiring bubble this time around, with not a single unit dying uninspired.

Result: 700 v 175 to Oldy.

By the end of Turn 7 all I had left on the board were my two war engines. He had his Warlord, and one unit each of Chariots, Siege Breakers, and Shooters. I take some comfort from the fact that all his units had a bunch on wounds on them.

Lessons:

Don't go toe-to-toe with Ogres. This should be obvious, but their high Crushing Strength values mean that they will do a LOT better than you on the counter-charges.

Don't deploy your fkn main ranged battery out of range. I mean wtf Tas.

The Captain is worth the points you pay for him. Being able to stack one flank or the other after deployment is super useful.

Red Goblin Blasters are an excellent area-denial tool. One of them put 10 wounds on one of my Knight Regiments, a very important stop for Oldy. He traded a 65 point unit to take out a 215 point unit, excellent value. Especially considering that if he hadn't, my knights would have rolled his Boomers and Shooters in short order. I think they will be a very interesting anti-flyer unit, as well as making life a nightmare for opponents on the Dominate and Loot scenarios.

I need to work out how to get my knights in on a flank charge more consistently. It was a tough ask this particular game because of the terrain, but still.

Conclusion:

Another fun evening with a quality opponent. A couple of glaring mistakes, but generally I played much better. I really want this army to do well. I don't want to have to use flying units to win.

I have my first Kings tournament coming up on the 28th. I'll run with this list, for lack of tournament-ready options more than anything else. I'm not convinced that my two infantry regiments (the halberds and greatswords) are being used effectively. I know running 4 war machines is a very popular Kingdoms of Men strategy. Still, I'm really looking forward to playing in a more competitive environment, and seeing how I stack up.

I'm also hoping to start painting a test unit in for this army this week.

Exciting times in the toy soldiers department!