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So this evening, I got in my first game of KoW. After having spent much of the last couple of weeks converting the shed into a decent room for gaming and then hiding from the week-long Melbourne heatwave. (actually, we spent the first two 43C+ days in there cleaning out crap). Finally got a 7x4 table top, which gives us space for a 6x4 with some table edge. So finally tonight, my wife (Marouda) and I got to play our first game.

Using the two 600-pt armies that Doug sorted out for me several months ago that I've been trying to get painted (Ogres and Twilight Kin), I sorted out the Ogres pretty easily using mostly the old Citadel and new Mantic figures I've been painting for the army - just needing to kitbash the Army standard bearer from an old Golfags Ogres standard that needs some updating for modern times with an elven chariot. (Clearly, the Ogres stole it, and the elves are pissed off!). The TK were a mix of the old GW High Elves from the 90's that the army was built for with my new-secondhand previous-edition GW Dark Elves that I started buying afterwards from eBay for the TK army.

Anyway, set up the table, read the rules out loud so we both vaguely knew what was going on (Marouda almost falling asleep from the boredom) and finally got started just after 10:30pm... not the best timeframe to get in a game of Warhammer. Since the printer was out of Cyan Ink, it refused to print out in B&W (we do have black ink) so no cheat sheets tonight, just lots of flipping back and forth in the rulebook for stats.

The game? We played 5 1/2 turns before the winner became completely obvious (she hosed my Ogres). Some of it came down to luck, as it does in these games - she got a lucky stun (wavering) in on my 2H Ogre Warriors in her 5th turn, then shredded them in her 6th. But then, there were a couple of moments like that, as there will always be in these buckets'o'dice games. It was a lot of fun. Only 600 points, but as our first game, both starting as completely unfamiliar with the rules, it still only took 2 hours. This is with me needing to flip through two different books constantly because of the printer issue (cheat sheets would have allowed us to skip all of that lost time.) By the end, we had it down reasonably well. Especially since there were fewer and fewer units on the table, so the turns were faster for that reason as well.

Verdict: A lot of fun. I haven't had a chance to play mass fantasy battles for years now, and WFB has turned me off. Heroes seem decently powerful, but more as support for actual units than herohammer. Game plays fast and simple. We didn't have any magic, but as it appears to pretty much be more shooting I think it should be fine. I still vastly prefer GW's models to Mantic's, so I'll just use my Warhammer armies, rebased to my own preferences, (25mm rounds) with the odd Mantic/AoW/LotR/Reaper/Rackham/whoever figures all smushed together (except the undead, I have a huge pile of Mantic Undead now.

I'll probably blog about the battle and throw up some photos in a day or three. Got to have the swap-sides rematch first!

A couple of quick questions:

When a shooting unit halves it's attack dice due to modifiers (7+), do you round up or down? We rounded up, because maths.
If a unit gets charged in the rear and survives, does it get to pivot/change it's facing?
There was a third question, but I forgot it....

It's certainly got me enthused to start painting again. Just need to install the carpet tiles we got today, assemble the new bookcases, and then one more shelf, and some bike racks, ad we're done. Unless I start going for wall-mounted TVs and such.

So, Azazel...would you say you'll be playing a lot more KoW in the near future? Lol. I'm gonna try to talk a few people into playing tomorrow, myself, but it's always nice to see more people jump in. Even if their life expectancy can be measured in minutes due to local, deadly flora.

For your questions, I believe the book does have the answers somewhere (round down for shooting, I believe; option to change facing for surviving rear, although that doesn't happen 95% of the time).

1. Half a unit's attacks for shooting halfed rounding down is the method per the rulebook section on shooting.

2. A unit that survives a rear charge could (remember the units separate by 1" after the close combat) pivot to face its attackers. While doing this turn around move it may interpenetrate the enemy unit (s) as long as it's not overlapping them when it completes the pivot. The pivoting unit cannot then immediately charge the unit that hit its rear arc last turn. It would likely face another attack on the opponent's next turn but at least wouldn't have 3 times the attk dice coming its way.

3. Happy to dig for an answer if you can recall the 3rd question.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
So, Azazel...would you say you'll be playing a lot more KoW in the near future? Lol. I'm gonna try to talk a few people into playing tomorrow, myself, but it's always nice to see more people jump in. Even if their life expectancy can be measured in minutes due to local, deadly flora.

/Steve Erwin Voice
Mate, you've just got to learn how to deal with the little bastards. If you see a Tiger Snake or a Brown snake when riding your bike along the river, just leave it alone, and hope it doesn't decide to chase you.



Thanks guys, I couldn't find the answers to either, flipping around the book when it was almost midnight. The rear charge was from a single character, so we did remember not to triple the attacks at least!

It's rounded down; that way a one-die cannon, if it requires greater than 6+, simply has no chance.

There's no charge reaction per se. If the unit survives, next turn it could Change Facing as it's movement (remember, even a Wavering unit can Halt, Change Facing, or Back), and pivot around it's center. And remember units can interpenetrate each other during rotation (friendly and enemy). (It's also good to remember at this point that friendly units may move through each other during movement - but not during a Charge).

I'm really glad you two had fun! One of my favorite things about the ruleset is you pretty much have it memorized after the first game - but it's always good to keep referencing the rules on your second game (as wargamers, we have a tendency to transpose 'common rules tropes' from multiple other systems onto a new one, so it's good to always triple check to make sure). Then you'll have the rules pretty much memorized so then it becomes a far more tactical game of maneouvering and of baiting your enemy to move.

I just have to say things like this is the reason why I am excited to start KoW versus a certain other company's similar but much more expensive games. I love how KoW emphasizes actual tactics and battle strategy versus load up on killer units and crush your opponent. I love how deceptively simple the rules are and how well everything seems to work together.

Heh - I made the semi-pseudo-sorta mistake of playing a 2,000 point game for my first battle. (Using the first version of the rules.)

We were able to get everything figured out, and pretty quickly, but a 600 pt. game for the first run through is certainly a better idea.

But even then there were no rules arguments, impressive when those rules can fiton two sides of a single poster sized piece of paper....

Shooting, magic, and heroes are generally better as support - the main line troops are a must. (So, no HeroHammer!)

But the important thing was that we had fun, and it sounds like you did too.

The Auld Grump

 Azazelx wrote:

Anyway, set up the table, read the rules out loud so we both vaguely knew what was going on (Marouda almost falling asleep from the boredom) and finally got started just after 10:30pm... not the best timeframe to get in a game of Warhammer. Since the printer was out of Cyan Ink, it refused to print out in B&W (we do have black ink) so no cheat sheets tonight, just lots of flipping back and forth in the rulebook for stats.

Am I correct in guessing it's an Epson printer?

It's a Canon. You know the jingle: "You can on a Canon! Can-do!" Except in this case, where obviously you can't.

Anyway, in the midst of our second game (swapped forces). We're trying to work out if a character on a chariot counts as Large Cavalry rather than an individual, and so is able to double/triple rear/flank attacks as well as suffer doubled/tripled attacks from the same. I'm thinking yes, but can't find anything specific to say so. Googled and found a couple of FAQs, but neither talks about characters on chariots.

I think I'm going to run with that, and so therefore it's probably the wrong interpretation(!)

OK, back to the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OK. This time, I used the Elves and this time I won, though we lost track of turns played (so much like the old days of WFB and 40k!) and so the game may well have "properly" been a draw. Good fun once again, and again it could have gone either way for quite a few turns. Especially impressive was the turn where all of my units rolled incredibly badly, and so my projected wipe of two Ogre units, erm, didn't happen. Took a gakload of photos, so I might write up a battle report for my blog and post a couple pics on Dakka, though with two small armies, one (mostly) painted and one (mostly) unpainted, it's not exactly a visual tour de force.

Due to lack of cheat-sheet, I kept playing my Swordmasters, erm.. Darksome Guard as hitting on a 4+ instead of the 3+ they should have had. We're buying some more printer ink tomorrow, and we've got a laminator, so I'll sort out some Army Summary (cheat!) sheets for the 600pt forces, as well as the 1200 and 2k pt forces that Doug worked out for us.

The good thing is there'll pretty much never be rules arguments, since I'm also going to always be the defacto GM!

 Azazelx wrote:


Due to lack of cheat-sheet, I kept playing my Swordmasters, erm.. Darksome Guard as hitting on a 4+ instead of the 3+ they should have had. We're buying some more printer ink tomorrow, and we've got a laminator, so I'll sort out some Army Summary (cheat!) sheets for the 600pt forces, as well as the 1200 and 2k pt forces that Doug worked out for us.

Definitely check out my battlescribe files for easily putting together a cheat sheet.. it gives an army list summary with all the stats and special rules descriptions for everything in the list.

If you want a general cheat sheet for the whole army, just make a list with one of each unit in it and it'll provide a neat output of everything.

Even if it's not the format you'd like for a cheat sheet, it'll give you an easy source of stats and info to copy+paste into your own version.

Azazel, which character was on a chariot? I know ogre characters don't count as individuals already, so they would get the increased attacks anyway, but I do believe chariots make charafters lose the individual status.

It was an Ogre Army standard, and ahhhhhhh... sssooo thaaaat meeeeeans a solo ogre (unit of one warrior or hero) can both give and receive flank/rear charges with all of the bonuses?!? And then the same also applies to Monsters ridden by other races' characters that remove their individual status?

Thanks, SS. I'll check them out. BTW, your more recent posting of the past quite-a-few months I'm finding pretty awesome regarding Mantic and reasonable criticisms of the way they do things - right and wrong. I don't think I've massively disagreed with a point you've made for 6 months or more. Except you should have sent back those MAA for a refund/exchange for some reasonable models.

 Azazelx wrote:
It was an Ogre Army standard, and ahhhhhhh... sssooo thaaaat meeeeeans a solo ogre (unit of one warrior or hero) can both give and receive flank/rear charges with all of the bonuses?!? And then the same also applies to Monsters ridden by other races' characters that remove their individual status?

Yup - "Individual" is a special rule that removes flanking/rear (and adds 360 LOS and overrunability)
so if your unit doesn't have Individual then it's a normal unit
so Ogre Standard Bears on Chariots are not Individual
nor are single Ogres

Don't think of it as heroes riding things, or single monsters, etc. Remember, KoW units are a statline and any special rules. Only those statlines with "Individual" have those extra rules.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azazelx wrote:

OK. This time, I used the Elves and this time I won, though we lost track of turns played (so much like the old days of WFB and 40k!) and so the game may well have "properly" been a draw. Good fun once again, and again it could have gone either way for quite a few turns. Especially impressive was the turn where all of my units rolled incredibly badly, and so my projected wipe of two Ogre units, erm, didn't happen. Took a gakload of photos, so I might write up a battle report for my blog and post a couple pics on Dakka, though with two small armies, one (mostly) painted and one (mostly) unpainted, it's not exactly a visual tour de force.

Due to lack of cheat-sheet, I kept playing my Swordmasters, erm.. Darksome Guard as hitting on a 4+ instead of the 3+ they should have had. We're buying some more printer ink tomorrow, and we've got a laminator, so I'll sort out some Army Summary (cheat!) sheets for the 600pt forces, as well as the 1200 and 2k pt forces that Doug worked out for us.

I love losing track of turns played - usually means I'm having too much fun!

PS Buy a color laser printer. I bought an HP 3600 network color laser printed in 2007 and after having printed several thousand sheets it still has over 70% toner remaining on all four toners that were included WITH the printer. I got the printer on sale for $300. Each toner costs $100 or so, but I have yet to need to replace one and won't for probably a decade. While toners may cost several times more than an ink cartridge, the yield is 10 to 20x. Plus many times faster (20ppm usually) and higher quality. Here, the Brother HL-4150CDN is a great color laser office printer - and it's currently on sale, with a rebate, with cheap consumables (looks like ~$60 per toner), is fast, has built in duplexing, uses less than 1 watt of power when asleep, and you can plug it into your network to print from anywhere in your house. http://www.megabuy.com.au/brother-hl-4150cdn-duplex-network-colour-laser-printer-50-cash-back-until-28th-feb-2014-p221062.html

Be sure to send me your list of Undead models, as I saw your sneaky request for some more army lists, haha.

 judgedoug wrote:

Don't think of it as heroes riding things, or single monsters, etc. Remember, KoW units are a statline and any special rules. Only those statlines with "Individual" have those extra rules.

Yep, yep. It's just getting my head around that distinction (and the fact that models can go from one to the other via a wargear upgrade).

 judgedoug wrote:

I love losing track of turns played - usually means I'm having too much fun!

PS Buy a color laser printer. I bought an HP 3600 network color laser printed in 2007 and after having printed several thousand sheets it still has over 70% toner remaining on all four toners that were included WITH the printer. I got the printer on sale for $300. Each toner costs $100 or so, but I have yet to need to replace one and won't for probably a decade. While toners may cost several times more than an ink cartridge, the yield is 10 to 20x. Plus many times faster (20ppm usually) and higher quality. Here, the Brother HL-4150CDN is a great color laser office printer - and it's currently on sale, with a rebate, with cheap consumables (looks like ~$60 per toner), is fast, has built in duplexing, uses less than 1 watt of power when asleep, and you can plug it into your network to print from anywhere in your house. http://www.megabuy.com.au/brother-hl-4150cdn-duplex-network-colour-laser-printer-50-cash-back-until-28th-feb-2014-p221062.html

Be sure to send me your list of Undead models, as I saw your sneaky request for some more army lists, haha.

Yep, I've just got to count them up.. also need to decide if I want to include the half-painted ones, because that'll make me want to finish painting them, which will queue-jump the stuff I'm already trying to paint and finish(!)

Painted stuff up there seems to be 8/8/8 of Gondor Spears/HW&Shields/Bows with approx the same for Mordor Orcs, and 12 Army of the Dead guys finished and a ton more started. Like I said, it's finishing figures that's the hard part, and I really want to try and retain some focus for the Ogres. Even though I've just paited 30 zombies and started on 12 Elves (have I mentioned how much I hate Mantic's Ogre shooter models lately?)


I'll look into the printer, though we're also thinking of getting a tablet for PDF/eBook/YouTube viewing/web browsing, etc - but not too expensive and not an IPad.

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Don't think of it as heroes riding things, or single monsters, etc. Remember, KoW units are a statline and any special rules. Only those statlines with "Individual" have those extra rules.

Yep, yep. It's just getting my head around that distinction (and the fact that models can go from one to the other via a wargear upgrade).

Yup, there's a lot of little fiddly Warhammer cobwebs still in my brain which definitely colored the first few games of KoW I played!

 Azazelx wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

Be sure to send me your list of Undead models, as I saw your sneaky request for some more army lists, haha.

Yep, I've just got to count them up.. also need to decide if I want to include the half-painted ones, because that'll make me want to finish painting them, which will queue-jump the stuff I'm already trying to paint and finish(!)

Painted stuff up there seems to be 8/8/8 of Gondor Spears/HW&Shields/Bows with approx the same for Mordor Orcs, and 12 Army of the Dead guys finished and a ton more started. Like I said, it's finishing figures that's the hard part, and I really want to try and retain some focus for the Ogres. Even though I've just paited 30 zombies and started on 12 Elves (have I mentioned how much I hate Mantic's Ogre shooter models lately?)

I'll look into the printer, though we're also thinking of getting a tablet for PDF/eBook/YouTube viewing/web browsing, etc - but not too expensive and not an IPad.

Hahaha, well, I could just make you a couple generic Undead lists and you can shoehorn in your vast collection - I know you've mentioned you have a ton of undead, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Trust me, color laser was one of the best investments I've ever made.

Ah, I might do a smaller allied Undead list, but the large, huge list won't even be looked at until the TK and Ogres are painted - and probably the "High" elves as well.

I got two of these:
Undead Army - $50
Contains 40 Skeletons, 20 Revenants, 20 Ghouls and 30 Zombies.

One of these:
Undead Wraiths - $25
Contains 20 Plastic Wraiths.

Two of these:
Revenants Knights - $25
Contains 10 Revenant Knights. Please enter the quantity of this item that you would like.

Plus I have the Morghoth's Revenge box, and not an "undead army", but many bits and pieces of GW/other undead collected over the past 20+ years, a bunch of TK blisters, some of the newer GW skellies (a box of infantry, 2 of knights/hexwraiths), stuff from Bones.. a bunch of LotR Army of the Dead.. you get the idea.

Undead will be a big project, so probably better to do on it's own later on after the Elves and Ogres. Might start with a smallish allied detachment first after I finish the giant for that other allied detachment..


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 judgedoug wrote:

Yup, there's a lot of little fiddly Warhammer cobwebs still in my brain which definitely colored the first few games of KoW I played!

And yeah, lots of "march move", "mighty blow", "leadership test" etc in these games.

You have an immediately large and useful undead army. If you ever do Army Painter style painting you can have that bad boy done in no time.

But now that I have a good idea of what you have, I'll do a 600/1200/2000 point list for your Undead as well. I'll make the assumption that any character models you should have (as well as the freebie KS undead standard bearers). I'll make sure the 600 will function as a good allied force.

The GW stuff means I have a plethora of Vampires on and off mounts, several wights, a few necromancers (including Heinrich Kemmler).

I also have at least 2 plague carts, some of those Ushabti, Tomb Sphinx, Necrosphinx from TK. Coven Throne and Mortis Engine, Undead giant (bones!) several Dracoliches of differing sizes. casket of souls, a unit or two of Tomb Guard, a tomb king or three(s). Zombie Dragon, Terrorgheist, at least another 5 (or 10) cavalry, a unit of archers and/or spears, a ton of (dire) wolves, a bunch of Bones stuff - couple of bat swarms, several spider swarms, giant (25mm round base) spiders, beetles, etc...

Also at least 9 mounted Ringwraiths, and about 13 on foot (I started collecting the names ones as well), at least a unit worth of Black Numenorians who also look pretty Ringwraith-y

I believe I lack chariots and screaming skull catapults., though I think I may actually have a box of three TK chariots somewhere as well... also plans to get a Varghulf (unless I already have one? I keep lowball bidding for them on eBay to get one for LotR) and a box of Vargheists

No large fell bats, black coach.

Also, I have a ton of werewolves. Mantic ones, Reaper ones, and what would be an army's worth of Rackham Wolfen (since I have a Wolfen Army). If there was any point to an army of werewolves in KoW, since they'd best proxy as Ogres, which I already have. And Ogres are pretty limited for troop types as it is...

You could probably make a wet and a dry army with what I have there, I guess.

Ogres aren't limited, dude! We have three different Gobbo units (including Blaster), a chariot unit, a shaman and captain, and three different units, two having two different ways to equip, so really 5 units. Meaning there are a total of 11 varying options in the army. That's not too bad. Basileans, for comparison, have the following: MaAs (2 ways), sisters (3 types), paladins (2 types), fanatics, priest, captain, special characters. That's 12. And I forgot the Ogre SC, Grakagamok, so that's a lot more even. They're in good shape.

Huh. I have a ton (or maybe a couple dozen) of the wolfen prepaints. I never thought to try them as KoW ogres.


But if I have to rebase them then the whole deal's off.

Yeah, been considering it too, as my Lion/Basilean army worked really well with little effort.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Ogres aren't limited, dude! We have three different Gobbo units (including Blaster), a chariot unit, a shaman and captain, and three different units, two having two different ways to equip, so really 5 units. Meaning there are a total of 11 varying options in the army. That's not too bad. Basileans, for comparison, have the following: MaAs (2 ways), sisters (3 types), paladins (2 types), fanatics, priest, captain, special characters. That's 12. And I forgot the Ogre SC, Grakagamok, so that's a lot more even. They're in good shape.

I guess my issue is that I don't really like the goblin/gnoblar aspect of the army. I'd like to see some cavalry options etc, similar to the OK in WFB (aside from cavalry counts-as chariots)


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 judgedoug wrote:
Yeah, been considering it too, as my Lion/Basilean army worked really well with little effort.

What's the list you used, and which figures proxying for what? I've got a few Lions, and a couple of the Lions starter boxes.

 Azazelx wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Ogres aren't limited, dude! We have three different Gobbo units (including Blaster), a chariot unit, a shaman and captain, and three different units, two having two different ways to equip, so really 5 units. Meaning there are a total of 11 varying options in the army. That's not too bad. Basileans, for comparison, have the following: MaAs (2 ways), sisters (3 types), paladins (2 types), fanatics, priest, captain, special characters. That's 12. And I forgot the Ogre SC, Grakagamok, so that's a lot more even. They're in good shape.

I guess my issue is that I don't really like the goblin/gnoblar aspect of the army. I'd like to see some cavalry options etc, similar to the OK in WFB (aside from cavalry counts-as chariots)

What specific style units do you want to see? Remember a lot of time you can customize your units by giving them magic items.

For instance, in the Helsvakt/Fomoraic army I'm making, I have two regiments of Ogres- one of Mierce Tarvax (minotaurs) and one of Mierce Sronax (rhino men). The Tarvax is an Ogre regiment, so Melee 3+, Defense 5+, Crushing Strength 1. The Sronax are significantly larger and beefier looking... so I wanted to make them hit harder but still have good Defense. Making them double-handed weapon Ogres lowers their Defense to 4+ to get the Crushing Strength 2, so I didn't want to go that route. So to make them hit harder and be just as beefy, I used the "Brew of Strength" magic item combined with the normal Ogre regiment stats to keep them at Defense 5+ but to increase their Crushing Strength from 1 to 2. Now they are just as defensive but hit harder than the Tarvax.

Another example, my brother has a large WHFB Dogs of War army, and most of that fits into the Kingdoms of Men list. But some things like the Birdmen of Catrazza don't fit... a flying unit with small crossbows? Well, we figured a unit of allied Gargoyles with the Diadem of Dragon Kind to give them a Breath Attack (10). So they fly and are able to land and blast people with their shooty weapons.

 Azazelx wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 judgedoug wrote:
Yeah, been considering it too, as my Lion/Basilean army worked really well with little effort.

What's the list you used, and which figures proxying for what? I've got a few Lions, and a couple of the Lions starter boxes.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/558282.page

My brother and I are also working on converting the Scorpion list to Twilight Kin/Dark Elves w/ Abyssals. And then of course using Wolfen as Ogre army with Undead(Werewolves) allies