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Finally got myself a game in for Conquest. It was rough and rocky with the pace of things and going through rules since I'd never played, only read the book a few times and watched some batreps, and my buddy was even less knowledgable than that. But, we managed to get through it.

It was fun, and interesting to play. Little 800pt game, Spires vs Wardruhn. For the first 2-3 rounds we barely even made contact with each other, just working on positioning and moving up the board, trying to get set up, etc.

Reinforcement rolls were not on my side, as my Marksmen clones didn't hit the table until round 4, but by that point, they got tied up by Raptor Riders. Realized later on that his Apex Predator was played wrong, and that it shouldn't have benefitted from Chants. Even with the chants being used when they shouldn't have, a Regiment of Avatara and the Lineage Highborne nearly wiped it.

So far, I like the movement and the tactical play aspects. And the lethality of the game feels at an appropriate level. Centaur Avatara charging in to some regular infantry nearly wiping them (really flubbed the Impact attacks...) felt right to me. I hit my opponent with Turn the Tides Supremacy, but it wasn't quite enough to, well, Turn the Tides enough.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, excited to get in more games of Conquest and get a better grasp of everything.

 Thadin wrote:
Finally got myself a game in for Conquest. It was rough and rocky with the pace of things and going through rules since I'd never played, only read the book a few times and watched some batreps, and my buddy was even less knowledgable than that. But, we managed to get through it.

It was fun, and interesting to play. Little 800pt game, Spires vs Wardruhn. For the first 2-3 rounds we barely even made contact with each other, just working on positioning and moving up the board, trying to get set up, etc.

Reinforcement rolls were not on my side, as my Marksmen clones didn't hit the table until round 4, but by that point, they got tied up by Raptor Riders. Realized later on that his Apex Predator was played wrong, and that it shouldn't have benefitted from Chants. Even with the chants being used when they shouldn't have, a Regiment of Avatara and the Lineage Highborne nearly wiped it.

So far, I like the movement and the tactical play aspects. And the lethality of the game feels at an appropriate level. Centaur Avatara charging in to some regular infantry nearly wiping them (really flubbed the Impact attacks...) felt right to me. I hit my opponent with Turn the Tides Supremacy, but it wasn't quite enough to, well, Turn the Tides enough.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, excited to get in more games of Conquest and get a better grasp of everything.

Do you feel the apparent randomness of being able to bring in reinforcements will ever be a bit disheartening or unenjoyable?

I would need to get more games under my belt to say for certain my feelings on it.

I've been iffy on the idea since I'd first heard of it, but also understanding the role it plays in the game and the theme. I don't feel like I lost my first game because of it, I chalk that up to a major misstep in the rules where the Apex Predator survived due to playing the Chants wrong... And who knows how else the dice may have settled.

Off the top of my head the order of Reinforcements was...

1 - Force-grown Drones + High Clone Executor. Raptor Riders
2 - Blooded + Matriarch Queen
3 - Braves + Predator, Warbred. Avatara + Lineage Highborne.
4 - Centaur Avatara, Marksmen Clones. Apex Predator.

The reinforcements element is handled pretty artfully. A big piece is that at higher points levels there are more dice being rolled. One or two medium units I could roll badly and get screwed, but with four of them that doesn't really happen. I can also choose which ones I bring on, so situations where I have, say, two big units and two small I can get the majority of a category (points wise) onto the board with two successes.

The other big factor is the reinforcement line; coming in later gives a great opportunity to move the reinforcement line forward. I've had scenarios where I would prefer to fail in order to give myself a chance to push that line up while seeing where my opponent put their units down.

Finally, you only have to roll twice for a given category before it comes in automatically so there is some built in bad luck protection.


I would also say there is a 'hidden' element; do NOT use the scenarios in the core rules. They are mechanically broken by their thresholds and are not used for any of the playtesting* use the Organized Play scenarios (found on their website) instead.

*Why are they there then? No idea--for every smart idea PB seems to also push through something mind-numbingly stupid.

Thus far, we've been playing without a scenario. Basically, just fightin straight up, so we get a handle of the core rules and mechanics before adding on scenario play. I think we'll try to add Scenarios in for the third game.

Last weekend, I played my second game. 1000ish points. We worked out more of the core rules and things are running along more smoothly.

I had a stock unit of Vanguard Clones Burnout, Charge in, and turn the Apex Predator in to little dino-steaks. That was... surprising.

And again, the Reinforcement rolls were mostly fine still I think.

Marksmen clones managed to get on the board early. They dominated my left flank, nearly wiping two units of Braves(reinforced on different turns) and finishing them off in melee. I kept them mostly protected with a 6-stand unit of Force-grown Drones and a Biomancer.

Now with Chant Rules being played properly, we've sort of run in to what seems to be a well-known balance issue that'll be solved once we build up to 1.5k and up games, where Wardruhn are actually on the backfoot compared to some other armies, because they can't make as much use out of their Army mechanic.

Funnily enough I started having a more fun experience/winning more when I started building lists to completely ignore the chant mechanic.

That also enabled to me to start shuffling my command stack which shortens game length considerably (I used to take a long time strenuously deciding exact order of my cards but now I don't need to worry at all! hooray!)

Bah, just be like me, with terrible short-term memory. Carefully plan your stack, place it down, then immediatly forget the order when you go to draw. Makes every round a surprise!

I think the ability the Drum Beast gives in LAoK (don't have to trigger chants at 3 stacks) should be baseline. Right now as an army mechanic it requires too much planning to be viable with multiple cults, and even single-cult plans can get screwed by a unit dying.

Scenarios do make ranged bunkers a bit less viable, because you need to move forward to capture the objectives.

Went through the Bottleneck Scenario on Tuesday. Wardruhn on Spires, once again. Game felt good. I wasn't able to hold the middle of the board well enough. Expected too much damage output from 6-stand unit of Bound Clones and 3 Avatara.

I buffed the Bound Clones to high hell with Unstable Enhancement and Burnout... but, I think next time around I'm going to take them with the Assault Preceptor. Double their attacks over an extra +1 Clash/+2 movement, probably for the best? Too much quality Clash, not enough attack count.

I think we also played with too much terrain. It was very, very tight on my side of the board. Wardruhn being super fast let him have much more space to Reinforce on compared to me being more hampered by the terrain. We're both still used to AoS/40k.

One sort of question I'm toying around with myself... Buffs or more bodies? I don't have all my things built, so I had to pay for loads of upgrades. Loaded up the Biomancer in my army to buff and heal a lot, and he did well for me I think. Just, the time I wanted the buffs to perform, it wasn't enough due to having Ward Preceptor instead of Assault when I ran the 6 stands of Bound Clones in to the Apex predator. They hit 90% of their attacks, but it was only 16 hits or something.

I wasn't terribly impressed by the Incarnate Sentinels performance. Board space issues + Heavy meant I felt like they had come on too late and did too little. Not sure on them, but it was a proxy. Not like I dropped 100USD on them yet.

I generally play with 5 pieces of terrain. A forest, a lake, and a hill along the center line with gaps for 2 stands and 3 stands between them, and then an impassible in opposite corners 2-3 stands away from the board edges.

Sometimes I put a forest on the hill because a hill itself doesn't do much.

I've calibrated this setup across most of my games of Conquest and find it to be the most interesting for army building and matchups. But I also play almost exclusively the Maelstrom mission so your mileage may vary with different objective layouts.

For buffs vs more bodies - can't say for Spires because they're the one faction I don't look into much. For my W'adrhun I generally like to take bigger units and take unit upgrades that give Flank or Movement. Not a fan of things that just give Bastion or Fury or the like with them.

Spires tend to have lots of bodies. Big thing for them right now is a biomancer kitted out for healing consistently outperforms other support characters.

Tha is for that tidbit Rihgu, useful to hear other's experiences given the utter lack of official guidance for terrain.

Buying in to a list of things I find cool for Dweghom...

CC appreciated, mostly from a standpoint of not trying to make things too powerful.

1945pts. Some room for changes shifts and upgrades. I'm not too sure on including the Steelshaper. Maybe just combine the two Fireforged units in to one? Load up on upgrades elsewhere? No clue!

Hold Raegh - 120pts
- Draegbhrud relic

Hold Ballistae - 135pts 3 stands
Hold Warriors - 120pts 3 stands
Hold Thanes - 210pts 3 Stands
- Herald of Fire
Dragonslayers - 240pts 3 stands

Tempered Sorceror - 115pts - Warlord
-Fireball, Coruscation
-Hellbringer Sorceror
Hellbringer Drake - 180pts
Inferno Automata - 180pts 3 stands
Fireforged - 220pts 3 stands
- Flamecaster
Hold Warriors - 120pts 3 stands

Tempered Steelshaper - 110pts
- Unmake Armor
Fireforged - 195pts 3 stands

4-5 stands of fireforged in one unit should do most jobs quite nicely. Lay them all out in one rank. Would also let you get a 4th stand of Dragonslayers and some upgrades across the other units (standards come to mind, and a herald of stone can make ballistae or hold warriors truly nasty to dislodge)

With that advice, and the advice from other locations, I've got this now. Not sure who to have the Raegh stomping around with.

Hold Raegh - 120pts
- Draegbhrud relic
Hold Ballistae - 205ts 4 stands
-Herald of Stone
Hold Warriors - 160pts 4 stands
Hold Thanes - 210pts 3 Stands
- Herald of Fire
Dragonslayers - 310pts 4 stands

Tempered Sorceror - 115pts - Warlord
-Fireball, Coruscation
-Hellbringer Sorceror
Hellbringer Drake - 180pts
Inferno Automata - 180pts 3 stands
Fireforged - 350pts 5 stands
- Flamecaster
Hold Warriors - 160pts 4 stands

Probably with the Thanes, although from what I remember there's also definite merit to putting him with one of the Warriors units, too. I'd no put him into the Dragonslayers as they can certainly hold their own offensively. You'll basically want to put him in a unit that's got good defense but not so good offense, imho.

New scenarios are released, and at a glance I like a lot about them
https://www.para-bellum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/LAST-ARGUMENTOF-KINGS_ADDITIONAL-SCENARIOS.pdf

1 - no ending the game early by scoring max points*. The one I'm least positive on, but I think I'm still positive on it.
2 - no whacky "only lights score" or "you need 2 heavies to score" missions
3 - all scenarios allowing the destruction of enemy objectives is... interesting?

What do y'all think?

edit:
*earlier I hadn't seen that there is a universal rule that you lose if you're tabled and mentioned tabling.

Also read through more thoroughly, and I think it's a little weird that Objective Markers aren't the size of the Objective Markers they've sold/included in the starter, and are also height 2.
On one hand, gives cool opportunity to convert baggage trains to represent these markers. On the other hand, having to point at that weird Spires fetus thing in the middle of a stand and saying "yea, that's Height 2..." is a little odd

What would be a good point level to start learning the game? I have the 2p starter box and 1x Marksman clones and 1x Men at arms boxes. Is the 2p starter a good way to learn the game? Or I should build to around 1000~ or more?

Game plays a bit awkwardly under 1000, honestly. Even up to ~1500 it doesn't quite give the full picture.

I'd recommend building to 1000 for your learning games. Anything less than that I would suggest First Blood which is a radically different game, anyways.

Thank you. And around what point the game gives a full experience? 2000 points is what I should aim to build?

Another question regarding terrain - how much terrain heavy is this game? Do I need lots, or just a few pieces? And about the scale - I have terrain from other games (some Azyrite ruins from AoS) - can I use it in Conquest, or the scale is too off? And where do you guys purchase terrain for Conquest? (if regular terrain doesn't work?)?

2000 points is the usual game size, although people do say it was (at least originally, been a lot of updates since then) for 2400/2500 points.

The latest mission pack has terrain guidelines. The most relevant bit here I think is that there should be 6-8 pieces of terrain, none larger than 9x6. 2 should Obscure LoS (not totally block, just make missile weapons less powerful), 2 should Obstruct (block LoS entirely), and no more than 2 should be garrisonable.

The AoS terrain will work perfectly fine, imho, but I'm not much a stickler for keeping minis and terrain in scale.

I learned this game existed on Friday, I ordered 1600 points of City States on Monday.

Impulse control! I haz it!!!

The only thing I can think of to criticize is that Broken is sitting right there as a mechanism to make units less effective, but you don't get to Broken by failing Resolve tests. That seems like an error.

Well, you sort of do. You get to Broken by taking damage in general, and failing resolve tests leads to damage. So you can lose 1 of 4 stands to a Clash, then another stand to Resolve tests, and become Broken for losing 2 of 4 stands that way.

"Sort of" seems like the operative word there, but you're not wrong.

Now I just have to hope there's enough enthusiasm to get a regular group going locally.

 Thadin wrote:
Finally got myself a game in for Conquest. It was rough and rocky with the pace of things and going through rules since I'd never played, only read the book a few times and watched some batreps, and my buddy was even less knowledgable than that. But, we managed to get through it.

It was fun, and interesting to play. Little 800pt game, Spires vs Wardruhn.

Reinforcement rolls were not on my side, as my Marksmen clones didn't hit the table until round 4, but by that point, they got tied up by Raptor Riders. Realized later on that his Apex Predator was played wrong, and that it shouldn't have benefitted from Chants. Even with the chants being used when they shouldn't have, a Regiment of Avatara and the Lineage Highborne nearly wiped it.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, excited to get in more games of Conquest and get a better grasp of everything.

question -- do you find the reinforcement mechanic (roll) a bit too random for the game? I know some people are turned off by it. What are your thoughts?

It received a massive change in the 2.0 update that resolved the issue--one unit per turn auto-passes without rolling.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It received a massive change in the 2.0 update that resolved the issue--one unit per turn auto-passes without rolling.

Got it -- that works for me. Thanks.

I'm happy to say that Conquest is taking off locally all the sudden, we have about 6-9 players committing this month. Excited to try it. My son is going Old Dominion, I'm opting for City States.

I don't know what to buy beyond the one player army box, however. City states has limited unit selection and I'm afraid I will regret getting too much of one troop type in six months.

Info added to my post above...

Such is the plight of Conquest. One can look at the army list and see how their list will change in the future, but that may be years in the future.

Puts players in an awkward position where they can collect for now, and get a playable force, or wait until their playable force is purchaseable.

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:
I'm happy to say that Conquest is taking off locally all the sudden, we have about 6-9 players committing this month. Excited to try it. My son is going Old Dominion, I'm opting for City States.

I don't know what to buy beyond the one player army box, however. City states has limited unit selection and I'm afraid I will regret getting too much of one troop type in six months.

The starter box should have come with a little 'What's Next?' pamphlet outlining several directions in which you can build your army. If not, it's probably free online.