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Dwarves dropping in a couple weeks! Nords going on pre order in November.

Company is rolling out its Vanguard program (volunteer demo agents) and is solidifying their masters program for tournament ranks and championships.

Looking to flesh the game out in 2020 with we hear an undead faction and an orc type faction whose art appears to show them riding dinosaurs.

I played my first game, although I wouldn’t call it a real game, yesterday. It was just a session to feel out the structure of the mechanics, using only the core box contents. We did not even use objectives.

I played Spires and my friend and opponent played 100 Kingdoms.

Well I have to say it was very good fun and I am very impressed with the basic architecture of the game. The moving deployment lines is very fun. I also love the terrain rules. Even with very simple terrain, we had a dynamic experience that shaped the battle without overdetermining it.

This game is really worth getting into for anyone who likes mass battles.

Yeah the terrain rules are very simple, but at the same time when you have played AOS you can see that even simple terrain rules make a huge improvement on strategy and gameplay.

Really looking forward to picking up all the Dweghom...

Yep I had mine on preorder. Hoping to finish painting 100 kingdoms in the next few weeks and then looking forward to starting to paint those guys.

Yeah, Dweghom look interesting. Well, the automatons at least. Not sure I like the look of the dweghom themselves though. The warriors don't look right to me. Also, no guns makes me a sad, unless that's what the fireforged have. WHFB spoiled me; I can't help associating dwarfs with guns and artillery.
I think I might have to wait until they release more armies, otherwise I might just invest in 100 kingdoms.

The army builder is nice, and is a good tool for learning how armies are structured. I fiddled with it and I have yet to see any bugs, so it seems well made.

They have several ranged units.

The ballistae will be out in a week or so (crossbows)

Fireforged (armor piercing 2 indicates a rifle unit of some type)

Sorcerer and Steelshaper both have volley rule (missile attacks)

Then there is the Hellbringer Drake which has a barrage ability so looks like a dragon with an artillery piece.

 auticus wrote:
They have several ranged units.

The ballistae will be out in a week or so (crossbows)

Fireforged (armor piercing 2 indicates a rifle unit of some type)

Sorcerer and Steelshaper both have volley rule (missile attacks)

Then there is the Hellbringer Drake which has a barrage ability so looks like a dragon with an artillery piece.

Yeah, I noticed that the ballistae were armed with crossbows. When I read the name I thought they were going to be bolt throwers.
The Fireforged stats do seem interesting, but I suspect they might just throw fireballs.

Speaking of ranged, am I right in understanding that ranged units only fire once per stand in any ranks past the first, regardless of the barrage rule, meaning that its best to have a single rank of stands?

I did a detailed breakdown of my first game which I hope is informative!

http://lifeonjasoom.blogspot.com/2019/10/test-driving-conquest-last-argument-of.html

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 auticus wrote:
They have several ranged units.

The ballistae will be out in a week or so (crossbows)

Fireforged (armor piercing 2 indicates a rifle unit of some type)

Sorcerer and Steelshaper both have volley rule (missile attacks)

Then there is the Hellbringer Drake which has a barrage ability so looks like a dragon with an artillery piece.

Yeah, I noticed that the ballistae were armed with crossbows. When I read the name I thought they were going to be bolt throwers.
The Fireforged stats do seem interesting, but I suspect they might just throw fireballs.

Speaking of ranged, am I right in understanding that ranged units only fire once per stand in any ranks past the first, regardless of the barrage rule, meaning that its best to have a single rank of stands?

Yes ranged units only fire once per stand past the first barring a special rule. The advantage of more stands is bonus to your Resolve rolls, if that matters to you. Otherwise I also MSU my missile units.


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 Manchu wrote:
I did a detailed breakdown of my first game which I hope is informative!

http://lifeonjasoom.blogspot.com/2019/10/test-driving-conquest-last-argument-of.html

Thanks for the write up.

The pheromancer is definitely not meant to be engaged in combat. He's an annoying healing character

 auticus wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 auticus wrote:
They have several ranged units.

The ballistae will be out in a week or so (crossbows)

Fireforged (armor piercing 2 indicates a rifle unit of some type)

Sorcerer and Steelshaper both have volley rule (missile attacks)

Then there is the Hellbringer Drake which has a barrage ability so looks like a dragon with an artillery piece.

Yeah, I noticed that the ballistae were armed with crossbows. When I read the name I thought they were going to be bolt throwers.
The Fireforged stats do seem interesting, but I suspect they might just throw fireballs.

Speaking of ranged, am I right in understanding that ranged units only fire once per stand in any ranks past the first, regardless of the barrage rule, meaning that its best to have a single rank of stands?

Yes ranged units only fire once per stand past the first barring a special rule. The advantage of more stands is bonus to your Resolve rolls, if that matters to you. Otherwise I also MSU my missile units.

I was thinking less MSU, and more of a gunline (bowline?) of like 6 stands of crossbowmen / ballistae / whatever, churning out 24 shots at a time.
Getting a resolve bonus is also pointless when it comes to ranged units as resolve only matters in close combat, and you don't want your ranged units in that. That's my analysis, anyway. Conquest has yet to show up in France, and it will probably stay that way until they release the rules in French.

I can't wait to see their City States army. Apparently you will get gunners with them.

So far in all of my games, the obscure rule comes to play a lot so the missile units are good to have but I don't load down on them. Need units that can claim objectives and score.

The City-State idea has a few people in my area tempted but thats still quite a bit off. I'm interested in seeing some spartacus warriors though based off of the greeks for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I hope they get a french translation to you soon!

Cool report, Manchu!

The FGD are so bad Even as tar-pit, they will just die too fast. I would like to try them as suicide bombers: 3 stands + catabolic node. Maybe adding an assassin with adrenaline surge to (probably) delete a unit/character for sure.
I also think the way characters are dealt with is a bit meh, dying along the regiment makes you think twice before adding upgrades or forces to join a solid "bodyguard". And agree it is a shame the starter set doesn't have 2 cards for the FGD and Men at Arms....

But I'm not sure to get gaming soon. The language barrier for the average local is a death sentence for any game. I picked up a core set in english, but I heard the translated versions are not complete, with special rules, cards and other stuff still in english, which is a deal breaker for many. Maybe Parabellum should look into this? Unless they want to consolidate the US/UK crowd first.
Putting on the web the half translated rules in PDF would already be a good start so people can at least check it out.

I like how characters are dealt with simply because I always hated death stars in warhammer with unkillable characters laughing at you while they stomped your army in even if you could kill their unit.

This makes them more a support piece as opposed to the main course, where you have to use your entire army as a whole instead of crutching with the death star and having your massively powerful hero do all of the heavy lifting.

 auticus wrote:
I like how characters are dealt with simply because I always hated death stars in warhammer with unkillable characters laughing at you while they stomped your army in even if you could kill their unit.

This makes them more a support piece as opposed to the main course, where you have to use your entire army as a whole instead of crutching with the death star and having your massively powerful hero do all of the heavy lifting.

I agree, it's a good position between deathstars/herohammer and the disproportionate effect they have in the supposedly unit-based KoW where they run around on their own.

Avoiding a comparison to warhammer, but considering the stats and upgrades available, I think it is safe to say that characters in Conquest would not be overpowered at all if counting as their own unit. An average unit could wreck any of them fairly easily (say 4W/2-3D, generally speaking).

Not to mention that counting them as a separate unit does not automatically imply something along the lines WHFB or KOW. Other options are available, such as keeping the "must join unit" enforcement to prevent them running loose or being pretty average in terms of damage output, as most of them already are. The basic design of Conquest already prevents things like deathstars, herohammer or having expandable characters blocking everything even if individual character units were a thing.

All things considered, the current format does sort of rely on large/tough units to hide your characters if you don't want them deleted on a first charge. Also, utility of equipment/upgrades will often be quite limited (ex: defense buffs are only for duels as they don't take damage otherwise, so very situational). It's a valid way of designing the rules, but feels a bit anticlimactic and odd to have them disappear in thin air.

VBS wrote:
Avoiding a comparison to warhammer, but considering the stats and upgrades available, I think it is safe to say that characters in Conquest would not be overpowered at all if counting as their own unit. An average unit could wreck any of them fairly easily (say 4W/2-3D, generally speaking).

Not to mention that counting them as a separate unit does not automatically imply something along the lines WHFB or KOW. Other options are available, such as keeping the "must join unit" enforcement to prevent them running loose or being pretty average in terms of damage output, as most of them already are. The basic design of Conquest already prevents things like deathstars, herohammer or having expandable characters blocking everything even if individual character units were a thing.

All things considered, the current format does sort of rely on large/tough units to hide your characters if you don't want them deleted on a first charge. Also, utility of equipment/upgrades will often be quite limited (ex: defense buffs are only for duels as they don't take damage otherwise, so very situational). It's a valid way of designing the rules, but feels a bit anticlimactic and odd to have them disappear in thin air.

They don't just disappear though. There's a rule where they always get to fight, even if the unit is wiped, iirc.

Correct, if their unit is wiped out before they have activated they get to fight a last bit of combat and then they are gone.

On one hand, it is kind of odd how a character can never just by himself on the field, but on the other it makes sense; if the general of an army is out in the field with none of his soldiers near him, of course he is going to be ganged up and shot by every single enemy soldier.

I greatly prefer the character rules for Conquest than 40k. I don't find the character rules all that dissimilar from WHFB, as whilst there are some absurd statlines on characters, most characters tend to be pretty tame and having them just walk around was a bad idea due to being shot at. Look out sir was only on a 4+ if the character wasn't in a unit, iirc. It was only Vampire Counts, Ogres and Chaos who were the worst offenders, as they had characters who not only were fairly durable but also had a lot of killing power, iirc.

Also of note is that there will be monstrous characters that can and will be on their own.

Well yeah, that does make sense at least.

The Hellbringer Drake rules are odd to me.
So it has the barrage rule which allows every stand in its regiment to contribute shots when it volleys, but its a single model that can't have more stands added to the regiment.

It has the overcharge rule, but it doesn't have armor piercing, which would mean that, if I understand correctly, that you can overcharge turn after turn, and it will only have Armor Piercing 1, according to the Overcharge rules.

Also, it has terrible accuracy. Its basically an Ork unit; lots of shots, but low hit chances.

Idk, I find the hellbringer drake to be underwhelming for what it provides. Those inferno automata seem to be a much better use of a restricted slot.
For just a bit more points you get more wounds, roughly the same defenses and movement, better close combat, Aura of Death, free reforms, and its a light unit, which means that you can have it on the field early and do some damage to your opponent's light units. I imagine that for a light unit, the automata is pretty deadly. The drake does have terrifying, but as its a ranged unit that rule will never come into action, but the Automata's Fearsome should see more use.

Maybe the drake is better on table than on paper, but if I go Dweghom I think I'll go for automata.

Another thing - I noticed that some of the spells don't specify if the target is friendly or hostile. It just says target regiment. Does that mean I can buff enemy regiments? I'm thinking Roots of Stone can be a pretty effective spell in that case, as you can either use it on your ranged units or units stuck in combat to make them harder to kill, or use it on enemy regiments to immobilize them at the cost of making them more durable.

I like how you have to roll under values. I thought it was a bit odd at first, but after reading more of the rules I noticed that such a system handles modifiers a little better, as in WHFB and 40k the terminology gets a little weird.
For example - A 3+ save gets a +1 modifier. Logically, you'd think it would become a 4+ save as 3+1 = 4, but no, it becomes a 2+ save.
I get the idea is that you are modifying the dice roll itself, but its still an awkward process to explain to new players. Conquest's system is easier to understand, as a minus works like a minus and a plus works like a plus.

I'm slowly getting used to the roll low mechanics as well. It took me a little bit I will admit.

Mathematically speaking its actually not different from GW's system, its just a question of muscle memory.
A stat of 2 in Conquest is basically just a 5+.

Yep. When I started, the first five or six games I would turn the 2 into a 5+ and state that, going for high numbers.

Now that I am a vanguard for the company, I had to force myself to play with the low numbers and get used to them. But now its fine, just a little bit to get used to

auticus wrote:Thanks for the write up.

VBS wrote:Cool report, Manchu!

Thanks guys! I hope it gives people a pretty good idea of what it’s like to play right out of the box.

I am pretty happy with how characters work. Giving them that chance to take some parting shots if their regiment has not yet acted in the turn on which it is removed strikes the right balance IMO.

I’m also looking forward to getting into a duel — just not with my pheromancer!

Tell ya what - my last game my pheromancer ended up killing like 7 men at arms on his own I started calling him Yoda.

I'm a little confused by the character activation rules - I get moving when the regiment moves, for obvious reasons, but what about shooting and fighting? Do I have to draw his card first, or do I fight / shoot with him when I draw his regiment's card?

The character fights and shoots with the regiment when the regiment activates.

When the character card comes up he does what they call his "third action" which is whatever buff or draw event that he can do.

That is covered under character actions. It did confuse us for a bit as well.

Dont have the book to hand (currently at work; although it is in my car lol) but do you declare challenge on a character card draw?

Character card activation, you can do a duel, seek new escort, or spellcast.