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So, I'm bored at work today and I thought I'd start up a KoW tactics thread. I guess the easiest way to start is with this: which army do you run? Branching from that, do you utilize allies? What about special characters? Do you run many small units, or fewer, but huge hordes? I will, of course, start the ball rolling.

I play dwarves currently, but snagged Basileans and Ogres in the Kickstarter. I can't really comment on the last two, other than plans, but Basileans will involve hordes of pike/spearmen with phalanx and elite units of paladins, both mounted and on foot, with hard hitting elohi rushing up the flanks to smash opponents in the sides. Mages for healing are also a must.
My ogres will utilize allies, as I want a monster mash with ogres, trolls and werewolves.
Dwarves include small berzerker units to suffer charges, die honorably, and stop opponents from reaching the lines until I get a charge (or another cannon shot off) first. They are backed up by dwarves with HW/S or hammers to smash the opponents that previously charged, as well as a plethora of cannons with warsmiths standing nearby. Standard bearers are also in the list, to keep units from breaking sooner.

Okay all, share your intents, and maybe we can liven this place up, yeah?

I currently have an Orc army and a Goblin army assembled and painted. I also have a giant Elf, Dwarf, and Undead army still on sprue. Non-Mantic, I have a Greek Hoplite (kingdoms of men) army, and my WHFB armies (Tomb Kings, High Elves, Empire)

I am also working on a combined Helsvakt and Mierce army - all Red Box Games Helsvakt and Mierce Fomoraic (Tarvax, Sronax, etc) that I plan to paint exceptionally well as I'd like it to be my Best Painted Army Ever.

I do not use allies (except for the Helsvakt with is a counts-as Orcs with KoM list).

My Orc horde does have Wip, as he's a shaman, and you can only take one, which I feel fits my army's theme quite well.

For my Orcs, I have two regiments of Morax and three regiments of Gore Riders - everything else is honestly filler; these guys do the most amount of damage. The Morax are screened by Ax and Greatax, the Gore Riders tend to flank around with a Krudger on Gore. I recently got my KS 2nd wave so I'll be adding some Chariots and Fight Wagons to see how I like them, and I just converted/painted up a Mierce Wyvern w/ a Gamezone Orc rider as a Krudger on Winged Slasher who hasn't seen gameplay yet.

For my goblins - shooting shooting shooting! Goblins are excellent at shooting - super cheap and lots of shots. I have two bow hordes and 5 regiments of spear or rabble. The 7 solid units allow me to take 3 war trombones and 4 catapults. I also love their fleabag riders as they are the most maneouverable in the game - 10" move AND nimble? hell yes. They are perfect for flying around a flank and if they can get a flank or rear charge they can annihilate any enemy unit in the game. I also take 1 goblin big git and 4 wiz - the goblin wiz with zap is the best points in the game, imho.

Kingdoms of Men Greek Hoplites - this is a very themed army and is actually my Hail Caesar greeks, but they are multibased and work for KoW already. I take 4 x Hoplite spear regiments, and one Spartan regiment, which are allied Twilight Kin spear regiment - they are vicious and have one higher nerve, so that makes sense to me. A few troops of archers (and slingers, counts-as-archers) for psiloi and peltasts, and some light cav (Sergeants troops) for support. Then I add in some fantasy elements - I have a Cyclops throwing a rock which is a catapult, a classic 54mm minotaur as an Ogre Captain, Medusa as a wizard (her gaze is the zap, etc) The Twilight Kin "Spartan" allies allows me to take the Mierce TALOS using the Death Stalker Simulacre rules.


[edit - added some pictures. need to take better pics, not from my camera phone)

I have two forces I run for Kingdoms of Men:

The first was a cavalry heavy army, with as many Hordes of Knights as I can cram in, with an approximately equal number of Cannons and whichever hero KoM had that granted Elite to the Cannons, topped off with The Captain (This was a last-edition of the rules army, so bits may have changed since then. It could absolutely crush smaller units regardless of where it hit them, and due to the sheer number of cavalry getting off a flank charge on a larger unit was relatively easy to crumble them too. Only issue was shooting, getting tied up by several small units so they could drop a flank charge on me, and stupid flying vampires getting rear charges on them and mulching them easily.

The other army is an arabian/French Foreign Legion theme, using lots of Zvezda models, consisting of two arquebusier (sp?) Hordes backed up by two Archer regiments, and two blocks of Foot Guard Regiments and Spear Phalanx Hordes. Topping it all off were a trio of Cannons, two big stompy elephants that had been originally been a General on something big, but will now probably be Ogre Troops, and a dune worm that is now the General on Winged Beast.

Two forces of dwarfs - one run by my girlfriend (now working on painting her own army).

One force of Undead - I win more often as the dwarfs, but enjoy playing the undead more.

Planning a Kingdoms of Men army... and am running into option paralysis. (Sooo many choices...!)

The Auld Grump

To revitalize, I have my new Ogre army list built. It contains hard hitting elite melee (Ogre warriors with two-handed weapons) and equally hard hitting but less skilled melee warriors (berzerkers with added strength), long range shooting (extended Ogre crossbows), chaff (Red Gobbos), a noble Ogre Captain riding on a chariot with increased armor, a flying Ogre Warlock, and my personal favorite...explosively amazing Blasters. Here it is. Enjoy, people, and feel free to poach.

Ogre Captain (125) 185pts
Chariot (30)
Ensorcelled Armor (30)

Ogre Warlock (130) 175pts
Wings of Honeymaze (45)

Berzerkers x6 (225) 250pts
Brew of Strength (25)

Ogre Chariots x3 (140) 155pts
Brew of Haste (15)

Ogre Warriors x6 (190) 195pts
Two-Handed Weapons
Fire Oil (5)

Ogre Warriors x6 (190) 195pts
Two-Handed Weapons
Mace of Crushing (5)

Ogre Shooters x6 (225) 255pts
Crossbows
Jar of the 4 Winds (30)

Red Goblins x20 95pts

Red Goblins x20 95pts

Blaster 50pts

Blaster 50pts

Blaster 50pts

I don't currently have a KoW army, but I love the Undead range so I'm going to convince Mrs monders to get the Orc and Undead starter set. She can have the Orcs, and I have a basis for a VC army and KoW undead force. Or the Dwarf set, whichever she likes the look of!

I might pick up the hard back rules first, to get some idea of the world Mantica before delving in.

Not strictly on topic, so my apologies, but I'm eager to start KoW and so figure joining in here is a good start.

KoW is the best fantasy tabletop game I've had the pleasure to play! Ok, so I really only have WHFB to compare it too, but I wanted to hype it up a bit. Lol. Join the fold, brother. You won't be disappointed.

Not sure I like that list.. lol.

I think it will put the beats down, and has decent enough mobility to get to anyone fast.

If you took on the Abyssal Dwarves it might suffer, or another Ogre list.

Ogres vs Ogres just may come down to who gets in the first charge..

Ah, but Porkus, you'll probably be the first to see me play it in person. Soon as I find out when I'm getting back to Columbus, that is. Should be a month or so.

And yeah, I think Ogres vs Ogres will be painful. The blasters are gonna leave unit sized craters...

 timetowaste85 wrote:

Join the fold, brother. You won't be disappointed.

Cheers! I'll bring the starter set up again over dinner this evening.

Or maybe wait until we're in Rome on a romantic city break next week, ha haa

Kings of War tactics;
- Overkill, overkill, overkill. It's fairly easy to quickly and roughly work out how much damage you'll do with an average roll and aim for that magic 7 needed on the nerve test to break (where it's more than a 50% chance of wiping the unit out). Aim to do twice the number of wounds that you think you need to break. It's better to overkill by charging two of your units on a single unit than bounce off two.

- Don't play attrition unless you're Undead. You can't control the outcome of a fight of attrition unless you're Undead. By all means tarpit an enemy unit, but make sure you've got a plan to flank it and swing the combat your way.

- Bait the enemy. I run my Knight regiments paired with a troop of Mounted Sergeants, I've seen Orcs do similar with Sniffs and lots of other armies that can manage this. If your enemy is faster than your heavy hitters and is likely to get first charge, then ram your screen down their throats. If you do it right then you'll block them from being able to charge your heavy hitter, and might even get a couple of wounds using your bait. When they do kill the bait then you've got an open charge from your heavy hitters.

- Command is often overpriced. This is a pity since units look so much better with command. But those 25 points per unit command soon add up, and often the 30 points for an Army Standard Bearer with Inspiring is worth far more. I generally ignore command altogether, but will take musicians on my heavy hitters.

- Speaking of Army Standard Bearers, stick them on a horse. Every time. You can very quickly relocate that army standard as needed.

- Speaking of Army Standard Bearers on horses, they're great for shutting down enemy magic users (or any other shooters too including artillery). Magic users can't cast the turn after they're charged. While your main units engage the enemies main units, your ASBs have free reign to charge enemy magic users in range. Being on 25mm wide bases, they can also fit through the 1" gap between units (since you ignore the 1" gap when charging) that your bigger units don't. Doesn't matter if you kill the shooter, or even wound it. Charging it is enough to put it out of action the next turn. Of course make sure that you don't leave your main units without inspiring, but being 35 points they're fairly cheap and disposable.

- Similarly, magic items are often overpriced, deliberately so. They allow a level of customisation that you don't normally get and you pay a premium for that. Just look at the magic item which has the same effect as a musician, but for +50% points. Use them sparingly and make sure they're needed. I use The Fog on my Winged Beast General since it makes him almost immune to artillery and massively increases his threat. It has a specific use but I don't go throwing magic items on every unit.

- Flying beasts in general are often nice to have. Once they're behind enemy lines there's pretty much only artillery which can stop them getting a rear charge every turn. The Orc one is absolutely disgustingly good and will destroy pretty much anything with a rear charge.

- Dark Surge is dirty, dirty, dirty. Most of the time I see people using it to make Undead units move At The Double and nothing else. Bad players. Bad, bad bad. Fly wraiths over the top of a unit, pivot to face their rear and dark surge them in. Are you able to charge the front of an enemy unit? Why bother, move forward and pivot 90 degrees so you're facing their flank. Dark surge them in. Don't forget you can shuffle a unit sideways at half speed. And then dark surge them into a flank. My regular opponent constantly pulls off ridiculous tricks with Dark Surge every time I play him. It's more than just an option to move forward a bit faster.

Dark Surge is the best magic spell in the game (currently), hands down. Anyone disagreeing simply hasn't played against it.

Totally agree that lots of magical stuff is over costed, but there are a few nice gems: putting flying on a mage, extended range on heavy ogre crossbows, +1 crushing, and a 5pt ire weapon add on are all awesome. 30pts for +1 armor isn't too bad, if your hero isn't cheap (if he is cheap, just take a second).

And I also fully agree that command is largely unnecessary-spend those points on more killing toys! Best defense is a good offense.

I have had a lot of fun with this list. I do a lot of variations of this list, switching out the infantry and such. But something about this list brings out my inner undead overlord and makes me feel very happy. I have only lost with this list once, and that was to inexperience against dragons...

undead 1250

Revenants regiment with banner and musician 135
Revenants regiment with banner and musician 135
Revenants regiment with banner and musician 135
Revenants regiment with banner and musician 135

Balefire catapult 65
Balefire catapult 65
Balefire catapult 65
Balefire catapult 65

Undead army standard bearer on horse 30
Necromancer 110
Necromancer 110
Liche king on horse 200

Avoid head on charges, try for a sneaky flank attack, fly over the unit infront turn and get that elusive x3 attacks for rear charge you may lose a turn of combat but the extra dice are usually worth it as well as making your opposition think about turning to face the new threat.