Onslaught in Oamaru- Kings of War Report

 

Onslaught in Oamaru 2021

 After several ears of non-tournament gaming I helped organise a small kins of War event in Oamaru. Well more accurately, one of the local players Gordon, has moved down from Auckland and was keen to try to get an event up and running. I just happen to know a few gamers… So long story short, I asked a few gamers I know if they’d be interested and Gordan ran with it and organised a fantastic event. In the past I’ve tended to do the bulk of the  organising of our local Flames of War events so know how much effort goes in to getting things up and running.

Gordon really went above and beyond an ensured that everyone had a great time. I ran my kingdoms of men list with a list minute tweak. Many of us were newbies to the game so the idea was to have a couple more straight forward games on day 1 and more complex ones on day 2.

 I ran my Kingdoms of Men, Easterling, list with a couple of last minute tweaks.

·       1x horde of shield wall with the diadem of dragonkind- I wanted these guys to simply hold the centre and not advance too much so thought aa fireball (8) option would give them a little more versatility.

·       3x knight regiments- to do the heavy lifting, enough said.

·       2x mounted sergeant regiments- I’m not sure why. I’d never tried them but figured +1 crushing strength was your friend.

·       2x mounted scout troops- to provide some missile support and harassing duties. These were at the expense of the ogres I had been taking.

·       2x giants- versatile, not very reliable but a handy unit for supporting charges- and good in rough terrain.

·       1x general on a fell beast- aka the flying chicken. My mission- to figure out this flying thing!

·       1x wizard with lighting bolt and a boomstick- again my version of a sniper rifle.

 

Game 1 vs Ken- Kingdoms of men

Ken ran a kingdoms of men list with a giant, mammoth, 2x knight regiments, pike block, a couple of foot guard regiments, and some elves in support.

We played each other a few weeks back.

I deployed my knights in a 2up, 1 reserve formation. Ken got the first turn and his silverbreeze support shot one of my mounted scouts troops off the table. The turning point came in turn 3 when two of his charges vs my knihts failed to rout my units and Ken was left to et flank attacks from my own knights and I rolled up his army.

Lesson learned by me: Concentration of force is really useful!

The wizard held of the charge of a hero on a pegasus

Double teaming iant and knights had just destoryed a unit of knights.

The pvitoal turn- Ken failed to destroy the giant or the knihts (he attacked with his knihts and giant) and this set up a nasty flanka ttack which crsuehd the centre of his army. 

Two units of knihts in reserve. 

Ken ended up with a unit of elven bows and not much else on table. 

Game 2 vs Nigel- Kingdoms of Men

I was looking forward to this game. One of our most talented painters had been painting Nigel’s Samurai army of the past year or more, no one had seen it, not even Nigel. The theme being a Samurai with abyssal allies force and it is truly beautifully painted.

The game started well for me till a rash charge by my giants (who forgot that they had strider) ended up with them bogged in a forest for 3 turns trin to hack their way though the succubi regiments. Nigel fed more reserve in and soon I was in trouble,, while on the flanks I too got bogged. Going into turn 4 I still felt confident. By the end of turn 4 it was a different story and Nigel overcame my troops for a well deserved final victory.

The previous game had been Nigel’s first and he had learned- he deployed his 4-5 heroes before his main units so I was out deployed and then had the audacity of using my own feigned flight tactics of mounted scouts against me. For most of the game I felt in wiht a chance but in the end was outplayed and it was a well deserved victory to Nigel.

Lesson Learned: Don’t charge giants into the forest full of succubi! But my bigest mistake was praobly trying to inore and not destoryhis pike block. 

Game 3 vs Mark's Trident Realms

Mark has just built and painted a beautiful frog themed trident realms force and I really didn't have a clue how to fight it going into the game and quickly got a lesson on how not to deploy, how not to attempt to redeploy and how not to fight fros

 

I started badly by getting my shieldwall charged by 3 units on turn 1 and from there things went down hill, by turn 3 I really didn't see me last till turn 5 as all my knights had been taken out piecemeal but somehow managed to claw back a bit of respct- once I finally remembered to use my lighter cavalry units out wide on the flanks.

A lesson in how to play the game given by a very capable player.

Lesson learned: Concentration of forces, have a clear plan and stick to it!

Game 4 vs Martin's dwarf hordes- literally

I wasn't looking forward to this as I'd watch Martin with a rock solid wall of dwarves (6x hordes) all weekend but hoped to be able to get a horde or two. As it turned out my dpeloyment stretched him and  managed to hit both ends of his line- having learned my lesson from the last game I attacked with 1x scout troop, 2x mounted sergeant regiments and followed up with 2 knight regiments on the far right flank. That left 2x giants and 1x regiment of knights on the far left flank and I left the centre the hell alone as there was too much dwarven shooting so attempted to avoid it.

I managed to roll up most the the dwarven units and take the victory for a 2-2 record for the weekend.

Overall I was happy with the force but lack of inspiring really hindered me. In future I'd look at adding a second general of some type, revert the sergants to regiments scouts (though the sergeants hit pretty hard on the flanks) but the rest I  am pretty happy with. I am still getting the hang of combining my attacks properly and a second flying unit to get behind enemy front lines would have really helped in a number of games. Still I didn't disgrace myself and had 4 fun games over the weekend and am keen for more in future.  

Craig