Conquering Kings of War XLBS – Dwarfs Vs Undead: The Rematch
July 24, 2015 by dignity
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Never seen KoW played but it does look very fluid and fast paced, this is what wfb should’ve been like.
I´ll have to start by commenting that the King does not doubble/trebble his attacks as he is an individual, unless you had articfact or other that contradict this. Well, did remember Dissorder this game 😛
Great fun to watch you playing this awesome game! 😀
I know….and I hang my head in shame. 🙂
“These things.. They happen” 😀
Got a great undead horde 2000+ points from 1st ed and 1000+ Ogers and about the same in goblins – the sad part is the I gotten way too few games in
Rich was kind to call that a draw! Justin was about to be wiped out LOL Good game guys!
Justin you lost. If you are using points or units…either way Rich beat you.
Thanks for the bat reps, it helped me to see in action some of the issues I have with Kings of War. 1) A double 6 always routes, why? So if on the top of the first turn I shoot and do 1 point of damage and role a double 6 the unit runs away. That makes no sense… not even Soviet conscripts at Stalingrad would run away. 2) The fact that units do not get worse because of damage also makes no sense. Fine don’t remove models, but if I have done 39 points of damage to a zombie horde of 40 how do they still get 30 attacks with 1 guy. These are just 2 of the big issues I saw while watching this bat rep, but I have more issues with Kings of War just being a little to simple and bland. If and when I do start to play I will most likely make alot of house rules to fix the things that do not make sense.
The fact of the matter is that I will very likely pick the 2nd ed rulebook when it comes out and play the game. This is not because I think Kings of War is the best mass battle fantasy game out, but is instead due to the fact that now that Warhammer Fantasy is gone there really is no other game that has the support or player base.
One finally thought, I do think that many former fanatsy players, like myself, will check out Kings of War, but I do not think that many will stay because Kings of War being a little to simple, blandness, and many rules (see points 1 and 2 above) just not making sense. In the end Mantic will see a quick rise in Kings of War that will taper off as former fantasy players return back to warhammer and play a house rules 8.5 ed.
willmill5, haven’t watched the video yet and I’m not an expert, but rules as written double 6’s are supposed to be a wavered result if it’s not enough to break an enemy. Sort of a critical success/critical failure, I suppose.
I understand what you mean about units not getting weaker as they are wounded. It bugged me at first, but I think I like the tradeoff in ‘realism’ (however that works in a fantasy game) for speed is worth it. I have considered trying out a rule that wounded units get ‘downgraded’ from Horde, to Regiment, to Troop. Might be an easy way to model loss of effectiveness without really changing much of the rules, but I’m not sure it’d add enough fun to be worth the complication.
It sounds like you already have an unfavorable opinion of KoW, which I get…if it was your cup of tea you probably would have already been playing it. Speaking as a long time gamer (board games and RPGs, only recently got the wargame bug), maybe you shouldn’t bother with a game that you don’t think you’ll enjoy. In my experience, going into a system expecting to have to fix it because it’s broken, not fun, or not to your taste never seems to work out. If it were me, I’d probably just expend the effort to get a group of players together to do just what you said and work up a house rules version of WFB. To be honest, I don’t know if that’s a realistic option, as what may work for a few friends playing an RPG may not work with a wargame, but from what I hear, it’s worked out with Blood Bowl.
I enjoy working on rules and settings and it takes up a lot of my free time, but I wouldn’t put the effort into something I wasn’t enthusiastic about in the first place. Gaming should be fun, not a second job!
Brand the double 6 thing makes more sense to me now that if it would not route a unit it just becomes wavered. In the video it was said the double 6 always cause a route, but they might have been trying to keep it simple.
Downgrading from a horde to a regiment to troop does sound like an interesting way to “track damage.” I will have to give it a try.
To be honest I am enthusiastic about somethings and not about others. For example, pivoting instead of wheeling makes movement alot easier than in WFB. I also like the simplier stat lines and no or very few charts, which make KoW a much faster game than WFB. I would say I am 70% positive on KoW, but wont really know until I can give it a full try.
I had originally been thinking something like taking damage equal to 1/2 of nerve (the rout number) downgrades a unit. Troops, war engines, heroes, and monsters would not be affected. This would make heroes and monsters seem a bit tougher (which it seems a lot of WFB players might prefer), and it wouldn’t matter with war engines as they are pretty much toast when hit with a charge anyway. Troops would still have to routed the usual way, as you can’t downgrade further (otherwise you’re just implementing hit points). I’d probably also say that when a unit downgrades, it loses any accumulated wounds up to that point. Would definitely slow down the game, but might be fun for a long game on a weekend with friends.
If you do try it, let us know how it goes. This really all theorycraft of course, since I’ve only played a few demo games of KoW and no other mass battle games (that weren’t on a PC), but I’m curious how it would work.
There are a lot of errors in these videos…my fault!
I am heading over again soon so it might be worth doing another batrep with the correct rules 🙂
Looking forward to that-but never mind the details it give the jist of the game
Would always welcome another bat rep!
Just do another game, it was a blast to watch the two of you play!
I forgot to reply to this one, sorry.
No points, we gathered a force of units to show different things off.
I played a drinking game and took a shot for every time I heard “Yep” during these two games. Now I need a liver transplant.
As a big Warhammer Fantasy player, I’m interested in this, it looks simple and fun, but still allows me to use big units unlike that new skirmish game.
charging war machines – triple dice?
BTW: despite some rule mistakes (which is quite interesting giving the small rulebook :)) this have been 2 great batreps. Please make more of them. This keeps me absolutely interested in BoW.
If you download the try it out rules you can play ‘Spot Armstrong’s errors’ bingo’
It was damned good fun to film this, even with so many mistakes and I am heading over soon to do some more filming and hopefully get my revenge.
Lol. 9+5=13. Brilliant.
Even though I feel the rules might be a bit too simple, it looks loads of fun. Even though a lot of the rules were fluffed, it still looked loads of fun. Very fluid and not interupted by having to refer to the rule book all the time ala wfb 8th. I’ll be getting a copy of 2nd edition without a doubt.
It is a really simple game to get the basics of (I’ve played a few more games since then) but the more you play the more you start to get to grips with the tactics you can deploy.
I am loving playing it..to the point where my PC gaming has ground to a halt.
I have seen dozens of zombie movies and there wasn’t one where the protaganists ran into an alley and the 10,000 pursuing zombies chose to stand in the street because they could not all fit in at once.
Films are a little different from the abstraction of tabletop games.
These are clearly well drilled zombies. I agree the rule is a bit bizarre but the way the game work doesn’t allow for changing the formation to keep things quick and simple. It makes the game simplistic and i think it’ll make for a few strange situations in games.
I did start to collect a “Dwarf” force from when they where first released, after watching the two game`s i think it`s time to dig them out and get them done. Also see what else i can add, one thing comes to mind…………….Mounted Dwarves, seen the pics of them and like them a lot.
System looks pretty good, free flowing but with enough nuance to keep it interesting.
The absence of some kind of offensive ability degradation when taking wounds looks as if it could be a serious limitation to tactical choices. I don”t know how finalised the 2nd Ed rules are but an optional rule along these lines would likely be a big swaying point for many.
Similarly I can see that the inability to change frontage could lead to some vaguely ridiculous situations. Not an issue for friendly games, but could be a significant problem should a competitive tournament scene arise.
I vaguely feel that templates for war machines would make them more interesting to play with, as it stands they appear to simply be an archer with an explosive bolt with some extra disadvantages piled on top. But I may be wrong.
It will be interesting to see how much strategic and tactical difference there actually is between the different armies.
Overall it appears there is a lot of potential… More barrels please, and lots of ’em 🙂
As far as I understand it, there’s been a tournament scene going for years. The fixed frontage can take some getting used to if someone is coming from different games, but that’s how KoW was designed – add in unit reforming and you break the game.
I can’t see how war machine templates would work, due to the block nature of units.
I like there no templates – no waste of time counting how many goblins just happened to be under an abitarry shape
No problems with the tournament scene from what I have heard and it is growing,
There has been a very large uptake recently from various tournament organisers.
Despite simplicity/abstraction it looks like a fun game that’s quick to pick up. And I guess you could always dream up some veteran house rules if you want to give the game a bit more tactical depth.
I haven’t read the rules or played KoW yet, but I might rebase one of my Warhammer armies to have a go at it. Added benefit being that the army could finally get finished.
You don’t even need to rebase as the size of the base – fit with the old warhammer for some reason 😉
So an old movement tray will do just fine
YES!!!
Dead easy to house rule.
I’ve always been a fan of house ruling something between mates when you’re not happy with a couple of easily changeable elements.
C est pour cela que j aime kow. Que du fun. Encore des demo…
While in Warhammer a group of 20 Skaven represent in fact 20 Skaven, in KoW they use abstract measurements like Troop, Regiment, Horde and Legion. Despite the fact that we can see on the table 10 models, when we call them a troop it represents a dozens of warriors. The same with regiments (formed by hundreds of soldiers) and Legion (a unit formed by a THOUSAND men). As their advertisement says KoW is a massive fantasy battles system.
I think that is a great explanation regarding the permanent attack value, but I must confess that I love the “Downgrade” idea given by our fellow mate. 🙂
I also play Warhammer Fantasy, but all the book keeping pushes people away from the game, while with KoW I manage to bring to the hobby my wife and two friends. They were able to learn the basic rules in 15 minutes and each time we play the strategy becomes more and more determinant to decide who will be the winner, instead of the “power” of this or that unity.
I have to say that despite the fact that I love Warhammer Fantasy Lore, it is really hard to find people to play it, while with KoW I am playing a couple times every week…
Sorry for the mistakes, I am not a native speaker. 🙂
Looking forward to watching these when I get home. KoW is my favourite game and KoW2 has been polished to a gleam by the rules committee. Great to see it get a good airing on BoW.
Another great battle report / demo video. I really like how you guys aren’t playing with points (as Justin says at 2:10). Points and lists have always annoyed me in wargames.
Some people are saying KoW is “too simple,” and I can **kind of** understand that and agree to a certain extent. In these videos I’ve seen some mechanics and rules demonstrated that seem very odd . . . at first.
1) Units are able to charge without a minimum distance?
2) Single heroes are able to attack enemy UNITS?
3) Pivoting instead of wheeling for movement?
4) Targeting individual heroes by unit missile troops?
5) The 1” “bounce back”? Wow, this must be nice.
The game like this I’ve used to play in my younger days was TSR’s Battlesystem (which we usually used for medieval or ancients). This game had some much more “realistic” rules (where NONE of the above things were allowed), but was also more cumbersome and complicated because of it.
These KoW rules may SEEM like over-simplifications, but it feels as if these have been written in to ease and streamline game play. After all, I may have a more “realistic” game in in Battlesystem, but no one to play it with because it takes four-six hours to play, and maneuvering large units in combat is excruciatingly, “realistically” difficult. In contrast, I could probably get people to actually play Kings of War.
So which game is “superior?” People are actually **playing** Kings of War, so I think the answer is there. 😀
Brilliant, if only I had an opponent another game to buy!
i still havent found a game i want to play since 40k back in the day, KoW is up there with WWX.
i think KoW is gonna win due to the speed of playing and ease of rules.
loved the battle report guys :).