Kings of War

While up in Christchurch for Andy's D-Day game the other week Martin was kind enough to put us up. Over the weekend we spent quite a bit of time discussing various rules and Martin mentioned that he was quite keen on Mantic Games Kings of war. Over the weekend I read the KoW Historical rules and quite liked what I saw and ended up buying myself a copy.

I've been looking for a fast play simple rules that doesn't tax the brain too much and am still searching for the holy grail. I've been tossing up between Dux Bellorum, Dragon Rampant and Hail Caesar as my go to rules, so was keen to see how KoW fared.

Over the past week or so Kent, Martin and I agreed to have a game at Kent's. I was up at Tekapo the last couple of days with my wife but popped back while Martin was nice enough to drive down from Christchurch for the day. I had planned to use the "Easterlings" force that I've been working on the past few weeks but alas left it down at the bach last weekend, grrrr. So instead I threw together a force of Black Numenoreans which I allied with Kent's Carthaginians to take on Martin's dwarves.

Kent hadn't seen the rules so I helped him sort out a list to run.

I'm going from memory here but Kent's 1000 pt Carthaginians consisted if:

• General
• Hero
• Sacred Band
• Med Cav
• Nellie the Ellie
• 2x Spears

My Black Numenoreans:

• General
• 1x Heavy Infantry regiment
• 1x Warrior regiment
• 1x Heavy Cavalry regiment
• 2x Light Horse troops
• Boris the Behomoth- beast of war

Martin's 2000 pt Dwarves were approximately:

• General
• Standard bearer
• Stone priest
• 6x Warrior Regiments
• 1x Shieldbreaker horde
• 2x Ironwatch Rifle Regiments
• 2x crossbow troops
• 1 Earth Elemental
• 2x organ guns
• 1x flame canon

Given the amount of shooting in the dwarves had I was expecting Kent and I to be slaughtered on our way across the board- basically I was expecting some of the old Warhammer defensive Dwarf list that blasted us to smithereens and was pleasantly surprised when that didn't happen. 

The game was a lot of fun. One of the strengths of this history light system was the fact that Martin ran his list from the standard Kings of War (fantasy) book while both Kent and my forces came from the Historical version of the ruleset and we were able to have a light heart fun game in which our forces were competitive.

A few pictures

Set up

 Martin's massed dwarves.

Turn 1. Boris and the light horse advance on our far left flank,

Kent studies his army list before figuring out what to do

I advance behind an archer screen while Kent double moves to get into contact.

Kent throws his cavalry forward in the centre while to the right Nellie decides its stomping time

A view from the other end of the table. 

Boris and the light cavalry trade blows with Martin's crossbows and thunder rifles.

Things hot up in the centre while Nellie has made short work of the dwarven warriors in front of her.

Boris the Behemoth and the Earth Elemental get stuck in.

The battle sways back and forward in the centre of the table.

The Black Numenorean heavy cavalry get stuck in.

The Black Numenorean cavalry punch through the dwarven line...

And swing in behind the shieldbreaker horde.

Having dealt with the elemental Boris attacks and eventually crushes the darf king.

End result?
Carnage on both sides but Kent and I came out on top. Nellie eventually died but boy dd she take a lot of stopping.

Thoughts
Well it certainly was a dice fest-  double dice when attacking from the flank, triple from the rear meant protecting flanks was important as was having reserves. As only the active player rolled dice was an interesting mechanic but helped ensured that the turns really flew along and the game was fast and furious.

Maybe not every historic gamers cup of tea but made for a light hearted and entertaining afternoon and at the end of the day that was all I was looking for so will definitely play it some more.

Craig