Doc Rot wrote:
Are you gonna give KoW a go my friend?

It has knights fighting armies of monsters, why wouldn't I? (though my area is very low on tabletop players atm, so I'm just army building right now)

Christophe de Bastonne wrote:
I think I saw some Reaper Bones minis at the shop the other day that would look great for water elementals. Pretty cheap, too.

Those fellows never disappoint.

Ok, so battle update on last night 1500pts Empire of Dust (me) vs Orcs

Firstly we both ended up very elite specialised armies. Not bucket loads of models like you would normally expect when thinking of skeletons vs orcs.

Orcs

3 x 20 More Ax regiments. These guys are deadly. They are without a doubt one of the hardest hitting units out there. 20 guys dishing out 25 attacks, hitting on 3's, but no +'s to the "to wound" roll. The only downfall. TO put it into perspective, my Revenant unit of 20 (also elite), only have 12 attacks, hit on 4's, with no modifier to wound.

3 x 10 Skulkz (orc scouts)

5 x Gorebeast riders (boar boyz)

1 x wizard

1 x orc lord on winged beastie

1 x bsb

3 x trolls

Empire of Dust

20 Husks (elite hard hitting hard to kill bad boys, dishing out 20 attacks). These guys really are beasts but are super expensive

2 x 20 Revenants (foot troops, elite)

2 x 3 scavengers (carrion, but can march, which makes a MASSIVE difference)

3 chariots (regiment)

1 x Cursed Pharaoh on Chariot

1 x Soul Stealer (casket of souls) this was disappointing, but it's magi and magic is never reliable or very effective)

1 x Cursed priest (wizard)

1 x Bone Giant

So battle was as follows, chariots on the right flank with the Pharaoh and one unit of birdies flapping around, opposite were the Gorebeast riders and trolls. Centre was Husks, flanked on each side by Revenants, with the casket in there and also the wizard behind. Opposite was 2 x More Ax, 2 x skulkz, wizard and the big lord on moster . Another unit of birdies on the left flank. Opposite was 1x More Ax and Skulz, in an effort to try and outflank me.

First turn he moves entire line forward. My turn, birdies on the right land right in front of his Gorebeasts and trolls. Chariots and Pharaoh move up to charge next turn. My line moves forward, the one unit of husks being magically boosted forward to be right up in the face of his two units of skulkz to bait a double charge, one in the front and one in the flank. Birdies on the left move right up and pivot to face the flank of his big winged monster.

Turn 2.

Opponent takes the bait and charges birdies on the right with trolls and gorebeasts. Destroys them, rolls them forward a bit.

Centre, takes the big juicy bait and double charges the Husks. Has double attacks on one unit as in the flank, does a few wounds nothing serious husks are fine. His units move back 1" as failed to break. Big Monster flys over the field and engages my casket (didn't think he'd do that). Fails to break it. Both More Ax units move up, confident he can take the charges of the revenants. His right flank continues to press forward to roll round.

My charge, chariots crunch gorebeast riders. Pharoah spectactically fails to break the wizard, and is now in a prime position to e flank charged by trolls. Husks counter charge the skulkz that hit them in the flank kill them pivot on spot to face the big monster. Bone giant and Revenants on left centre, charge and fail to break the More Ax unit. Birdies fly and flank charge his unit of More Ax that just got charged by the revenants off right centre. The combined assault break them.

Turn 3

Big monster repositions himself away from the Husks. Counter charges the revenants, deals out a hell of a lot of damage but fails to break them (somehow). Trolls fail to kill Pharoah. Flanking More Ax come round but are now a little late as his centre is crumbling and not punching through mine.

Turn 4

My right flank kills his trolls

Centre breaks his last More Ax unit in the middle, Husk move forward to get into to position charge his flanking unit or his big monster. Writing is on the wall. Casket spectacularly fails again.

Opponent calls it after his big monster fails again.

Good fun

Very nice, a tactically rewarding game indeed! (Though it took me a bit longer to read it as I kept going to the lists to see who had what, unfamiliar with the names and all )

It kind of makes me think of heroes of might and magic being made for the table top, a strategically light and fulfilling game.

Thanks for posting this, it was very informative.

I still haven't had a chance to try KoW. How is the lack of breaking from combat and living to fight another day? I've often had games where a near-intact unit fled but subsequently rallied, and it being available when my opponent had written it off was very useful. With KoW, it seems the only way out of a close-quarters situation is to be wiped out.

Because units aren't locked in combat, it is conceivably possible for your unit that got attacked and damaged in the previous turn to move sideways or backwards, allowing a fresh unit to charge through.

Baragash wrote:
Because units aren't locked in combat, it is conceivably possible for your unit that got attacked and damaged in the previous turn to move sideways or backwards, allowing a fresh unit to charge through.

This is actually a great tactic. Really opens up for hold and counter attack tactics. I did it the other week. Had a screen of missile troops that stepped aside for the hard hitting infantry after taking the initial pain.

So last night in played my mate in a Pillage game (D3+4 objectuves) men vs basilea (the good guys). Was a brutal game. I took a very offensive in your face army using light cavalry and berserkers (which are infantry that hit hard but no defence). My opponent took the two Angel special characters, a unit of 3 angels and a combo of mounted heavy and light cavalry with 3 foot units. His bigger mistake was the characters as I outnumbered him and psychologically this put him on the back foot even though one on one his troops are better. He sat back and tries to hold his objectives where as I went for out manoeuvring and tried to smash his line. I abandoned the objectives in my deployment. Ended up smashing all but none of his scoring units with combined flank charges and picking my fights retreating where necessary etc. All round a great game. As I've said before characters really aren't like you use them in warhammer. Wizards and artillery a very much supporting and not overpowered. This game rewards tactics. Not what has the best wizard and who can 6 dice an uber spell without rolling double sixes. If you haven't tried it; give it a go. You'll find it a much better system than GeeDub. You just need to be brave enough to take the step. Rule book is only 10 quid!