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Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

A while back I had sold off all of my Warhammer Fantasy stuff due to a lack of player base. However, I just moved to an area where I would have at least one opponent for Kings of War, and after reading the free PDF off the website I like what I see. Thinking of giving the game a go, and want to start with Elves. I did have a few questions though.

1. Is 2,000 points pretty much the standard game size?

2. What is a good starting point with Elves?

3. Are Hunters of the Wild and the Green Lady any good?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/11 04:00:32


 
   
Made in se
Longtime Dakkanaut






 NH Gunsmith wrote:
A while back I had sold off all of my Warhammer Fantasy stuff due to a lack of player base. However, I just moved to an area where I would have at least one opponent for Kings of War, and after reading the free PDF off the website I like what I see. Thinking of giving the game a go, and want to start with Elves. I did have a few questions though.

1. Is 2,000 points pretty much the standard game size?

2. What is a good starting point with Elves?

3. Are Hunters of the Wild and the Green Lady any good?

1. Yup. Most tournaments run 2000 or 2500 points. But the game scales better up and down in size than Warhammer did IMO, so even battles down at 1500 points and lower functions basically like bigger ones. 1000 point armies get a bit small but are a good size to play in order to get a feel for the system.

2. The best value is the Army and Mega army boxes so I'd look into getting one of those and go from there. Thankfully, the internal balance it rather good for most of the armies in KoW, so you can pretty much go for what you like most model and playstyle-wise.

3. Hunters of the wild seems pretty popular in elf armies I see online. Both vanguard and pathfinder is very useful rules, allowing you to move them up before the battle and take control of a forest and even the troop has an impressive number of attacks.

Also there's a lot of cheap 2nd hand GW dryad models around to use as hunters.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/11 07:33:54


   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




zywus already answered to your questions, I will simply add that there are many different ways to build a viable elven army, so whatever unit you want to use it can be effective.

Be aware however than spamming the same unit because it's effective is a good way to end with an unbalanced army easy to counter by a good player with a more balanced army.

For exemple you might find that a lord on dragon is a very effective hero and try to take two or even three of them, but you will soon find that there are disminishing returns as you end with an army that is too elite where you send your 350+ point hero do things like hunting war engines where a simple mounted prince would have been able to do the job almost has well for a fraction of the points.

In other words, try for something balanced, and if you want to specialize, do it later when you are more familiar with the game and understand the risks and sacrifices that you might make when building the army.

PS : if you have one, the elf hero on griffon from the Isle of Blood set make a very nice hero on Drakon in Kings of War, and it's a very nice hero, not as powerful as a dragon of course, but powerful enough to do many jobs and he can even hold objectives if needed.
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

Great, thanks for the responses guys. I keep reading that KoW is pretty casual on using official models or models from other sources (as long as they represent what it is you are using them as accurately). So I was thinking of using the Reaper Warlord elves, or the elves from the Celtos line.

Is an all infantry army viable with Elves, or am I seriously hindering myself by not taking any Warmachines or Cavalry units?

Been looking at units and artifacts of war in Battlescribe to try and get a sense of capabilities and ways to boost the powers of units.

Also watched a few battle reports on Youtube to get a feel for the Elves as an army. From what I saw, like in WHFB, Elves are generally outnumbered. So, it seems that horde units (especially archers) are a bit of a liability since they open you up to being easily tied up by a quick opponent. Although it seems that a horde of cheap melee dudes supported by the Green Lady with her large amount of healing could be tough to remove.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I understand that a lot of this game is player skill with deployment and picking your battles is key, but I am looking to build my army into something fairly competitive since my main opponent if I pick this game up plays has a fairly competitive style of play in everything else he does.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/11 17:09:20


 
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Lord of Change





Albany, NY

Pst: this is the builder for KOW, which is official enough that virtually all tournaments require your lists in their output format > http://kow2.easyarmy.com/clash-of-kings.aspx

(I preset it to Clash of Kings for you, which is the 2017 supplement that errata'd a few things and added / removed some items, that virtually every one uses, especially competitively.)

Also welcome to Kings! And Elves are very good, though not in a GeeDub broken-and-hated-for-it way. It's just that in a game with superb balance they still feel like a pip above the other armies (global Elite is a thing).

- Salvage

KOW BATREPS: BLOODFIRE
INSTAGRAM: @boss_salvage 
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

Boss Salvage, thank you for that! I am real excited to get back to a rank and flank type of game. I like 40k, but Fantasy was the first game that captured my imagination.

I can't wait to play my first demo game, hopefully this week.
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

Here is what I have come up with for a list to build towards. Would love some feedback on what you think. Been watching a ton of battle reports to try and get a good feel for the game and how to approach list building. I apologize in advance, I used BattleScribe since it is very easy to use on my phone.


++ Standard [View Options: Minimal -> Full] (Elves 2E) [2000pts] ++

+ Regiments (1 War Engine/1 Monster/1 Hero per) +

Kindred Tallspears (20) [140pts]

Kindred Tallspears (20) [140pts]

Kindred Tallspears (20) [140pts]

Stormwind Cavalry (10) [235pts]
. Magic Artefact: Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar

+ Hordes & Legions (1 War Engine+1 Monster+1 Hero per) +

Kindred Archers (40) [285pts]
. Magic Artefact: Jar of the Four Winds

+ Troops & Irregular Units (2 per Regiment, 4 per Horde & Legion) +

Hunters of the Wild (10) [135pts]

Hunters of the Wild (10) [135pts]

Kindred Gladestalkers (10) [130pts]

Stormwind Cavalry (5) [140pts]

Stormwind Cavalry (5) [140pts]

+ Heroes (you MUST manually validate quantity) +

Army Standard Bearer [50pts]

Army Standard Bearer [80pts]
. Magic Artefact: Healing Charm [H]

Elven Mage [85pts]: Fireball (10)

Elven Mage [85pts]: Fireball (10)

Elven Prince [80pts]
. Magic Artefact: Inspiring Talisman [H]

++ Total: [2000pts] ++

Even though I read that hordes can be easily tied up and neutered for a few turns by fast moving characters, I figured with the extra range on their bows they will be able to stay fairly far back and cover my advance. The warmachines look to be pretty lackluster and would rather just go with more dice to attack with. Wanted to run Bane Chant on one of the Maves but couldn't find enough points unless I dropped Fireball off of one of the Mages and just used him as a source of healing. I also figured that the three units with Vanguard moves will be able to shuffle before the game begins to close any large holes that can allow a model to slip through, or be enough of a threat to keep enemy units from advancing too far forwards, and can easily be supported by the three units of cavalry.

I went with a just a single regiment of cavalry so that they would benefit more from their artefact, and two troops of cavalry to be a nuisance, direct my enemies movement and provide a few sources of longer ranged charges to support the Vanguard units in case I don't want to commit the regiment of cavalry to the fight yet.

People were also saying to try and shoot for 1 source of Inspiring per 500 points, I only have three but hope that should be enough. Let me know if my thinking is way off target, or something I took just doesn't make any sense. Thanks guys!
   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




The elven botl thrower is in fact not bad, much better than canons thanks to having two shots *and* hitting on 4+, meaning that you will get one hit (becoming 1d3 effective hits thanks to blast) on average per turn per war engine.

While this is not large damage, it's rather reliable *and* it's something that you can deliver with 48" range.

You don't use the bolt throwers to kill big hordes by themselves, you use them early game to target things that have low nerve but can be annoying like some chaff units or other war engines, usually even one or two point of damage has a change of routing one, and if you don't the next hit probably will.

You can also use them to soften big targets like some monsters (remember than height 4 get no cover from height 1, so you can target monsters without getting cover from normal infantry), so that when you finally charge them you have a good chance of rounting them before they can counter attack (even one or two point of damage can make a difference)

Also if you face something like a short ranged gunline, for exemple dwarves with organ guns (static 24" heavy shooting) and flame thrower (lots of attack and mobile, but only 12" range), a bolt thrower can force them to advance towards you else you will simply snipe the war engines from outside their own range.

But don't feel required to take bolt throwers, many players use other options, like wizards with lightning bolts, even the hunter elf hero (often underestimated), or simply using many mobile units to compensate from a lack of shooting (mounted heroes, as well as flying ones are great options to counter ennemy shooting, and cavalry can also be used to close the distance fast)
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

jtrowell,

Thanks for that feedback, that was one thing I noticed, Elf shooting is pretty solid with Elite. If it makes sense, that's why I wanted to take advantage of a horde of archers.

What do you think of that list? I ended up tweaking it a bit and going with Bane Chant on one of the Mages, and just using the other as a healer to keep my heavy hitters in the game. With the 5 extra points I put a magic bow on the other Standard Bearer just to give him something to do and to try and force Nerve tests by plinking wounds.

Edit. So now, the choice is what models do I want to go with? I have pretty much narrowed it down to two lines;

-Black Tree
-Mirliton

Black Tree looks a lot like old GW High Elves, which I like, but their Spearmen are a bit lacking. They aren't bad, they just don't look like they will be good looking as a cohesive unit. Two of the six sculpts don't match the others, since one has a spear that looks like it came off a Dark Elf, and the other has a halberd. They are lacking a bit in the Mage department though.

Mirliton's miniatures look a bit dated, but in all honesty I like the way they look, and they have great command groups to use as leaders and standard bearers. They are lacking Mage models as well. But I don't see why I couldn't use some of the command group models as Mages with a bit of tweaking since the command groups come with a handful of models.

I did consider Gamezone Elves, but that looks to be the most expensive route by a wide margin. They are gorgeous though.
[Thumb - fa03307_large.jpeg]
Black Tree

[Thumb - fa0374_large.jpeg]
Black Tree

[Thumb - HE001.jpg]
Mirliton

[Thumb - HE002.jpg]
Mirliton

[Thumb - HE006.jpg]
Mirliton

[Thumb - HE013.jpg]
Mirliton

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/09/12 20:27:11


 
   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




You can also mix models from different ranges, some might not do well when put in the same units, but will still fit the global design of the army when used separatly, especially with an appropriate coherent paintjob

About the bolt throwers, one use that I forgot is later in the game to finish off heavily damaged units without having to invest other units yourself.

For exemple an ennemy horde that just killed one of your other units but at the cost of heavy damage to itself might just need one point of damage to force a nerve check and hopefully rout the unit.

That's also something very useful to do with simple archer troops, they don't inflict much damage (even the elven ones), but they can occupy objectives, move and fire if needed, and do this small damage that force nerve checks later in the game if they survive until then.

About your list, it's not too bad, you are maybe lacking in cheap chaff, but at the same tiem you have a lots of medium unit that are not too expensive, the archer horde being the only trully (very) expensive one, but your heroes options can be improved :

1- remove the elven prince with inspiring talisman, and give the talisman instead to an elven mage, the mage will then be able to serve as an additionnal inspiring source while hidding behing other units and healing them (plus maybe the occasionnal fireball when the ennemy is close)

2- your army standard with healing charm is a classic, but your should probably give an artefact to the other too so he has something to do.

Popular options are the boomstick (less powerful but much cheaper lignthing bolt platform that the normal mage, and you still have inspiring), the lute of darkness (from the Clash of Kings supplement, give Bane chant(2) to the hero), or maybe the diadem of dragon king (breath attack(10), so equivalent to a fireball mage, but as the diadem can be equipped on any units and not only heroes, I usually use on nont heroes)

If you don't have the points, then the cheaper options are the war bow of kaba (ony one shot, but sometimes it's the one wound that force a nerve check and rout an ennemy) or the flying hammer (more powerful, but due to the short range, this one is usually prefered for mounted fighting heroes that have the mobility to get closer to )

If you want to take a prince, I recommand strongly taking the mount opmtion, for 75 points this will give you a very small unit with 360° manoeuvrability thanks to the individual rule, he can serve many roles, like hunter war engines or weak heroes, sarce as chaff by putting itself in the way of the ennemy trying to charge a more important unit like your archers (but remember that individuals can be overrun 1d6", so keep enought margin between the prince and the unit that he would try to screen), and of course they can try to disorder ennemy shooting hordes by charging them (it's the kind of things that might be used to counter your big archer horde)

Used like that, the pirnce doesn't need inspiring, as he will usually eitheir escort a group of units with its own inspiring source or later go alone far from other units

The flying hammer or the pussycat option can be decent options to give the prince a ranged attack to use while he gets into position or if you are playing more defensively and waiting for your opponent to advance while you shot his units.

If you want a fighting hero that will be more defensive and escort other units, then an elven king will be a better option, with much more nerve, inspiring included, but the king will be less useful as chafff due to hiss additionnal cost

A mounted king could for exemple escort a cavalry detachment (maybe one cavalry regiment and one cavalry troop as a screen), bringing inspiring to the group, and later eitheir charge in combo with one of the units to add some additionnal punch, or separatate to go against targets of opportunités like war engines or heroes as needed.

But of course a mounter army standard is another options if you want the inspiring and don't need the survivability nor the fighting prowess (don't forget however to give him a ranged attack like the cheap flying hammer at worst so the standard is not simply sitting doing nothing and can contribute more actively)

Finally, I would maybe replace fireball on one of the mage with lighting bolt or take the boomstick on an army standard, the lighting bolt(5) one the mage is expensive so the LB(3) from the boostick might be enough, the point behing to have some small additionnag medium/long shooting option other than your archer horde, because the horde will only be able to fire at one thing per turn, so multiple fragile but cheap mobile units might be a pain to handle (you don't want to waste the horde shooting on cheap units like gargoyles or cheap mounted heroes, but those are exactly the kind of unit that can neutralize your horde, the lightning bolt can be used to try to kill at least some of them before they reach you, fireball being too short ranged for that against such fast units)
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

Okay, so I took your advice into consideration when I made some changes to my list;

Spoiler:


++ Standard [View Options: Minimal -> Full] (Elves 2E) [2000pts] ++

+ Regiments (1 War Engine/1 Monster/1 Hero per) +

Palace Guard (20) [150pts]

Palace Guard (20) [150pts]

Palace Guard (20) [150pts]

Stormwind Cavalry (10) [235pts]
. Magic Artefact: Maccwar's Potion of the Caterpillar

+ Hordes & Legions (1 War Engine+1 Monster+1 Hero per) +

Kindred Archers (40) [285pts]
. Magic Artefact: Jar of the Four Winds

+ Troops & Irregular Units (2 per Regiment, 4 per Horde & Legion) +

Hunters of the Wild (10) [135pts]

Hunters of the Wild (10) [135pts]

Kindred Gladestalkers (10) [130pts]: Magic Artefact

Stormwind Cavalry (5) [140pts]

Stormwind Cavalry (5) [140pts]

+ Heroes (you MUST manually validate quantity) +

Army Standard Bearer [80pts]
. Magic Artefact: Healing Charm [H]

Army Standard Bearer [70pts]: Mounted
. Magic Artefact: Kevinar's Flying Hammer

Elven Mage [110pts]: Bane Chant (2)
. Magic Artefact: Inspiring Talisman [H]

Elven Mage [90pts]: Fireball (10)
. Magic Artefact: War-bow of Kaba

++ Total: [2000pts] ++



-I ended up dropping the Prince, I think that me wanting to take him was just a habit from playing Fantasy.
-Put the Inspiring Talisman on the Mage with Bane Chant. He will be fairly far back handing out Bane Chant or using Heal.
-I couldn't afford The Boomstick or Lightning Bolt, so I put the War Bow on the other Mage for longer range plinking, and Fireball for shorter range blasting when he isn't healing.
-I liked your idea of a mounted Standard Bearer. With the three Vanguard and three cavalry units it makes sense to keep a source of Inspiring mobile and able to reach them while still being effective. The Flying Hammer makes sense on a mounted standard escorting those units.
-I changed out the Spearmen for Palace Guard, they seem like a no-brainer for just 10 more points. Better Nerve and Attacks? Heck yeah.

With the changes, I have a few more sources of longer range attacks, the Archer Horde, the Gladestalkers and the War Bow, and mounted standard with hammer.

Is this a step in the right direction? I want to try and fine tune this before I buy it, since I plan on buying it all at once. Mirliton gives a discount based off of your order size, so it would be the most cost effective to save both on cost and shipping.
   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




Palace guard are good, but sometimes even 10 points can make the difference elsewhere, and the spearmen can often do the job if what you need is simply a small anvil.

Note that the spearmen have slightly more attacks (15 instead of 12 at the regiment level, and 30 as a horde instead of the default 25). Sure, the better Me value of the palace guard means than on average the spearmen won't get more *hits*, but this make the difference between them less a no brainer than it might seem.

Also as a regiment, Phalanx can make them much more likely to survive a cavalry charge from the front than the palace guard. Vanilla knight with no CS are not as popular as they should be (or it's more than monsters and large cavalry are more popular), so it's less useful as it might seems, but it's still something that can be very useful if you deploy correctly, a well placed spearmen regiment can dissuade a heavy cav from charging.

Another popular option for spearmen thansk to their additionnal attacks is taking them as a horde with the hammer of inevitable force that make them always wound on 4+, this compensate their lack of CS and make them a threath to anything.

The hammer is also a decent option on a regiment of hunters of the wild as they have a hug number of attacks for their unit size, but this usually means ignoring their vanguard ability and using them as a reserve hidden behind other units.

Anyways, both spearmen and palace guard are viable, it depends on your play stile and personnal tastes and tactics.

Back to the list, it's not too bad and decently balanced, the main potential vulnerability is the lack of CS so high def targets might be difficult to handle sometimes.

In theory you have the tools, you still have a decent amoung of CS(1) with the palace guard, and the heavy cavalry can provide TC(2), but be aware that a good opponent might try to neutralise them, the knights lose TC when disordered, so chaff suicide charging them for exemple might give their high def elite units the time to engage.
Your bane chant will be invaluable in this case, and correctly used I think that the list can still work in those situations, but it will take more finesse.

In a tournament setting, you would probably see people advising you to use drakon and a drakon hero and/or a dragon hero, as they have both the best speed and manoeuvrability, as well as some CS that allow them to keep strength in proloànged fights, but of course they are expensive in points, so if you use correctly your cheaper cavalry you can in theory win against them (the "if" being the important part here)

Still, the list is a very good start, but you will probably want to add at least one drakon hero or dragon hero sooner or later.

For learning the bases however, playing without a big flier can be better, at least for a few games until you learn the ropes.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Some additionnal reading that might be useful to you :

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?419097-How-to-build-an-effective-kings-of-War-army

https://manticblog.com/2016/11/14/kings-of-war-tactics-charging/

Also useful if you plan to face undeads or other armies with surge so you know what to except from them : http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?419052-How-to-use-Surge

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/09/14 08:06:36


 
   
Made in us
Charing Cold One Knight





Sticksville, Texas

Wow, thank you for the great information! It was a tough choice between keeping the Spearmen and taking Lightning Bolt on the Mage with Fireball, or the Palace Guard.

I see your point with the Spearmen, and it make sense what you said about having an anvil. It would probably be better to take charges with them versus the Palace Guard. They would be great for baiting charges or forcing people to deal with them. I think I might actually go that route, and take the Spearmen. The Hunters of the Wild can also bait opponents, but I would much rather the Spearmen get hit hard than the Hunters, and try to use them to get flank charges.

I hear a lot of good stuff about the Drakon Riders, and Dragons themselves, I probably will stay away from them though just as a matter of personal taste. Plus, unless I kit bash something, I haven't really found any models that fit in well with the Mirliton line. As long as this looks like it could hold it's own competitively that works for me.

Thanks again for the good links, been good trying to learn as much as possible before jumping in.
   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




One more thing : if you need so save a few points, an army standard with the lute of ertenal darkness will give you an alternative your your mage with bane chant and the talisman of inspiration.

You will lose the nice heal option, but bane chant should occupy the army standard most of the time anyway, and this will free the talisman of inspiration for your other mage so you get one additionnal source of inspiration (the war bow is much less useful on a mage, as at worst outside the first turn, the mage should be able to simply cast heal on a friendly damaged unit)

Note that fireball is often prefered for mages with more mobility, usually you want to have the speed to both get close and get in blind spots so you are not too exposed, so a mount is a must.

However fireball or breath attacks can also be used in a more static defensive way, but then you usually want a lots to have a massive number of attacks able to focus on a target.

For this role, elves have the nice dragon breath war engine with Breath Attack(15), so as a pure fireball/breath attack *defensive* unit, the dragon breath war engine is better (of course, that's why the fireball(10) option is so cheap on the elven mage)
Just remember that war engines cannot move at the double (so they are less useful if you play more agressively as they will lag behing the rest of the army).

Model wise, a classic convertion for dragon breath war engine is using small wyrmlings/baby dragons (Reaper has a few very nice ones in Bones, so cheap) with an elven model to serve as their handler/keeper.

Just put the models together on an appropriate base, and it will look nice and fit the look of your army if you use a model from the same range(s) as the dragonling(s) handler/tamer/keeper.

Anyway, please note that those are just options you are not required to use them to be competitive, just take what you like while trying to keep some balance on the whole (it's easier to specialise later, and as multiple different builds are perfectly possibles, you might want to try several different versions of the army by simply switching a few units)

My advice is to not spam anything except maybe base infantry units (and even then ...) unless you have experience with the game and the army and know what you want to do.
Base spearmens and archers can be however used in several ways (both in the same unit will make a sea guard, archers can also serve as Gladestalkers (for exemple by multibasing the models in a skirmish like formation rather that as a ranked unit to make them clearly different from the normal archers), so for those you can somewhat buy several units without remorse if you like infantry)
   
Made in us
Omnipotent Lord of Change





Albany, NY

Just tossing this in, if you want to read some great batreps that happen to be about MSU Elves in KOW, check out Swordmaster's blog: https://swordmasterofhoeth.blogspot.com.au/p/reports-kings-of-war.html



- Salvage

KOW BATREPS: BLOODFIRE
INSTAGRAM: @boss_salvage 
   
Made in us
Grisly Ghost Ark Driver






You may want to try a Sea Guard Horde as they can shoot and melee. Points-wise they are only 30pts more than a Kindred Archer Horde.

Kings of War: Abyssal Dwarves, Dwarves, Elves, Undead, Northern Alliance [WiP], Nightstalkers [WiP]
Dropzone Commander: PHR
Kill Team: Deathwatch AdMech Necron

 
   
Made in fr
Regular Dakkanaut




Well, note that the sea guard have a lower Ranged value that the archers, only the "average" 5+ and not the veteran 4+ value of the archers.

They do have however slightly more attacks, so more shots, so when you fire without modifier you still get close (but once you move and fire or the target had cover you lose much more).

This means that the sea guard is probably better for you if you play defensively waiting for your ennemy to advance while still wanting to be a severe melee threath when they do.

Giving them vicious is also a nice option, as it will benefit both melee and ranged attacks (the flame oil can also be a cheap effective update if you often face unit with regeneration)

Or you can give them the brew of strength or the hammer of inevitable force to make their large number of attacks a severe threath to anythin, but beware putting too many eggs in the same basket.
   
 
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