Kings of War Demo - Ratkin vs. Kingdom of Men

Some days ago I gave a friend of mine a short demo of Kings of War. Labschi is the guy whom I played Warhammer Fantasy with and he has a complete Imperium army in his shelves which now settles dust. So moving to Kings of War is something I tried to convince him for a while now, but after seeing the last battle between me and NumbDice on Universal Battle, he finally had some interest again.

So we spontaneously met online and I created two armies just to show the rules and get a feel for the game I tried my best to get  all aspects into the game and not necessarily have balanced armies. He chose to play Kingdom of Men and I my Ratkin. The terrain was inspired by a tourney map, but nonetheless we have one rule for boards: NO hills in deployment zone.

Turn 1 was nothing fancy, some moving around and some shooting. Most of this round was spent on explaining rules and for Labschi getting used to Universal Battle.

Round 2 also involved lots of moving, some shooting and more rules explanations. The first wounds were inflicted and I was lucky with my roles.
He tried to sneak up his knights on my left flank but I felt pretty comfortable with the wood and swamp there to get only a hindered charge there so I just sat back and waited while my center moved forward.
His Scouts made a flank move on my right side, and to be honest: they where a problem for me because I was unlucky to get them wavered with my Lightning Bolts and I didn't want to get a flank charge.

Turn 3 got things going. Lots of charges here. I could prevent a charge by moving into the woods (jehaaa) but got then the Polearms into the front. Now stuff got bloody and we smashed on each other like there was no tomorrow ;)

Meanwhile he advanced his bowmen on his right side, to get some arrows into some of my units as support. And his scouts where luckily wavered now, so I hadn't the danger of a flank charge there (which would have routed my Rats, I have no doubt there).

Turn 4 was our last round because we started pretty late in the evening and both of us had to work on the next day.
I managed to rout the scouts and get a flank charge onto the Polearms. My Clawshots managed to inflict 4 wounds on the Knights and wavered them (lucky me).
The bashing continued and more wounds were inflicted. The Polearms were wavered, the Swordsmen got some wounds on them. Not looking good now for the Humans.

We called it a day here. It was clear that round 5 would have been the massacre point for the Kingdom and we wanted to share experiences after the game.

I think Labschi should have moved up much more brave with his Bowman and Knights to put more pressure on the flank. Or ignore the flank and move the Knights inwards to break the Blight unit. But since it was just a Demo to get the rules, it was really more important to get a good amount of rules going.

And it looks like this game convinced Labschi to dust off his Imperium, multibase and paint it and get it going as Kingdom of Men! He also has some pesky Elves, so maybe even those will see the battlefield in the future.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.:
If you wondered what Universal Battle is: It is a online tool to play games like KoW or 9th online. The basic version is free, but if you want to create your own armies or use the tool to its full potential you need a PRO account.
All my battles so far have been played with the free version.

KoW2 Batrep: Abyssal Dwarfs vs. Kingdom of Men

So finally I manged to get another tabletop game running. This time I had my first game of Kings of War 2Ed. Most of you know, that I am quite the Mantic Games fanboy but never got a game rolling. This changed now. And another premiere: We did this match in Universal Battle, a Flash based browser utility. NumbDice (which whom I also played my Warmachine/Horde games) lives a good 2.5h drive from me, so we decided to give it a try and used the Free version (with limited armies).

So after we figured out how UB works and setup a map, we placed our armies. To be honest, I didn't have the time to really make an army list, so while NumbDice placed the map, I went to EasyArmy and created one. First surprise: A 750pt army did only take 10 minutes to create, much faster than in WHFB. Scenario was Kill because we didn't want to go overboard on the first game.

Round 1

So after deployment we shuffled our units a bit around. The first Arquebusiers went in cover behind the wall and the flying general moved to the right flank.

I was not sure how strong everything is and moved slowly forward, completely forgetting, that my Decimators only have 12" reach BUT can move and shoot...
Shooting is irrelevant this turn and we both have (although not communicated) no mages in our lists (which made shambling a bit of a hindrance for me because of no surge).

Round 2

NumbDice went on straight backwards in the center and moved up on the right flank a bit more. His shooting did really hurt and my Immortal Guard already had 8 wounds here. Ouch.

So for me it was a straight march forward if I wanted to do anything with my units. My Decimators crawled up the hill to gain sight on the general and my Lesser Obsidian Golems prepared for some action on the right flank here. The Decimators did hit nicely and to my horror I saw that I misread the magical item I gave them. 5pts wasted here but not so bad...

Round 3

The shooting continued and my Immortal Guard got a double charge from the winged general and the Spearman which resulted in a complete wipeout of them. Shooting took more casualties and slowly and steadily I get blown to smithereens.

So my Overmaster flank charged into his general (sadly individuals aren't allowed to double the attacks) and moving the LoG forward to either get charged or getting a charge next round. My Katsuchan Rocket Launcher hit for the first time but didn't cause a waver.

Round 4

Now it gets bloody. The two generals hack at each other, the LoG and the Warriors also and the ugly shooting continues. The Spearblock tries some advanced manouvereing so that I move back to not get a flank charge by them. 

Here we played the terrain rule for walls wrong, I could have moved through them and stopped my movement on top of them.

I put some pressure into the General, but he only wavers. I also put 7 wounds into the Shieldblock, but they stand. Points wise I am now very far in the back. The loss of my Immortal Guard still hurts. My shooting is again useless. Doesn't look good for me.

Round 5

More bloody carnage and some aha effects. My Blacksouls get all the fire ppossible straight into their face and luckily there is the Overmaster with inspiring to save them. The Spearman sidestep to get into position for a flank charge.

My Decimators and my Rocket Launcher fire and I am able to kill the General (which isn't bound in combat anymore), Launcher ineffective as usual.

My LoG kill the Swordman, my Overmaster makes a back charge and it doesn't look so bad anymore...

Round 6

So this turn again brings a surprise: The Spearman ignore my Overmaster and make a flank charge into my Blacksouls. Wow that is something I hadn't in my playbook. My Overmaster now exposed get's all the shooting straight into his face and even he cannot survive a canon shot... The Blacksouls are completely overwhelmed and get so much damage that only snake eyes would save them...

I move up with all I have and try again something with my rocket launcher... and I see something on the profile of it: He has freaking 3 attacks. I was so used that warmachines only have one, that I played it wrong the whole time... That is some change here and he immediately wipes them out.

We roll then if there is another turn but the game ends here.
The game is a Draw with none of us getting a bigger advance (I think it was something around 40pts).

For fun we played out Round 7 which didn't change much since we only get a round of shooting more.

Conclusio

Wow that was a game. All in all it took us nearly 3 hours with all the setup, army making and also some friendly chatting in between. In the end the rounds went so fast, because we got a grab on the rules. As said we both never played a game of KoW until now. We both where absolutely surprised how straight the rules are. There are some major differences to WHFB to which I have to get used to, but these are good changes. Next time we will increase to 1000pts and see how this works.

Some small feedback to Universal Battle: 

I was really surprised how good it works. Sure it is sometimes hard to measure everything on the milimeter exact or sometimes the syncing did not work correctly for us, e.g. when you move with the cursor (you have to nibble the unit then 1mm with the moving tray). But overall it is pretty awesome.

I highly recommend a voice chat though (be it on Skype, Discord, TeamSpeak), that helps to clarify stuff very fast.

So long,

Paradox0n

Warmachine/Hordes: Batrep Nr.3 - Legion vs. Khador

New day, new game, new opportunities. After my lucky win in the Claws & Fangs game the day before, we decided to play a bigger game this time. Since I only had the contents of the 2-Player-Box and a Spawning Vessel, we decided to play a ~25 points match. We also took another scenario from the rulebook, this time the Killing Fields scenario, where you have to conquer and hold 3 objectives on the map for victory points. And we decided to use a chess clock for timing our game, although not counting it as win condition by Deathclock. Just for information how long we use for turns and stuff. Nonetheless we set it to the standard tournament timer of 60 minutes per player.

Khador Epic Kommander Sorsha Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich Juggernaut Kodiak Battlemechaniks Winterguard with Bazookas, Officer and Standard

Legion of Everblight Lylyth, Herald of Everblight Carnivean 2 x Shredder Full Blighted Ogryn Warspears Small Spawning Vessel

My plan was to move one Shredder to the objective on the left, contest the middle one with my Ogryn and fight for the right one with the rest of my army.
In Turn One not too much happens, everything moves forward, my Ogyrns Assault the Winterguard, which is nearly unkillable through Tough, Bob&Weave and Iron Flesh. My left Shredder frenzies and runs to the Winterguard and my Carnivean contests the right objective and kills the Juggernaut. The Spawning Vessel spawns a Stinger but the spray does nothing.
That is already 2 victory points for Khador

Turn Two brings even more death. The Winterguard happily kills all of my Ogryn without me able to do anything against it. My left Shredder advances against the left objective and contesting it. The Spawning Vessel spawns another Stinger, and the Kodiak battles against my Carnivean. Everything pretty tough so far.

In Turn Three I decide to Feat because I see no other possibility to win the game as to go for a caster kill. The Winterguard is at the moment not killable for me and dominates the center of the field.

So I poke Sorscha with Lylyth to get the mark on her, but have not enough Fury to cast Parasite. Nonetheless I have to go all in.
After some rule clarification, I make an Assault with my Carnivean which allows him to spray onto Sorscha. Also my Stingers spray and try to do as much damage as possible. Not enough, but the Carnivean gets into contact and pumps himself up to its maximum fury and kills Sorscha.

If you say now: Uh the charge wasn't possible, that is because the right image is a bit misleading. It was taken AFTER the kill when we discussed who it could have been prevented. NumbDice made the error to move his Mechaniks because he thought his Kodiak needs the support. Otherwise I only could have sprayed which would not have been enough here.

Victory through caster kill (again). If this all or nothing wouldn't have worked, I would have lost the game through scenario. On the left you can see the remaining time (although we played no Deathclock) and the victory points.

Lessons learned this game:
- Again: Time your Feat correctly!
- Fury management -> Couldn't cast an important spell because of missing Fury
- You can wound yourself for Fury in your upkeep!
- Ogryn are no match for the Winterguard deathstar
- Play with enough points! I played with 4 points left as allowed (which I just realized while writing this down)

I also should have played some things differently. First I should have put my Ogryn on the left flank, completely contesting the objective. With no fury management needed, the would have been the much more stable option. Second: The only way in this setup to get the Winterguard is to kill Kovnik Jo. And/Or to bypass the armor (e.g. Spine Explosion on a Shredder).

Hope you enjoyed this battle report. The battle was fought some time ago, some things were only roughly in memory so I could have forgotten something. But in the main it should be OK. If something is unclear, please ask ;)


So long,
Paradox0n

Warmachine/Hordes: Batrep Nr.2 - Legion vs. Khador

Since my Legion of Everblight 2-Player-Box arrived some time ago, Numbdice and Me met for a gaming session and sent our wives on a party :) After scanning through the rulebook and all my stuff, we decided to start with a Mangled Metal match so that I can learn the rules a bit more and get a feeling for the Legion of Everblight.

We grabbed some terrain pieces from my board, got 4 pieces of my modular table and created a terrain which we thought would be nice to play on.

Since Mangled Metal is normally only played with the contents of a battle box, I played pLylyth, 4 Shredders and a Carnivean. My opponent had eSorsha, Juggernaut, Berserker and a Kodiak. Not exactly a battle box but in the points limit and so we played exactly that :)

First round wasn't really spectacular, everything moved forward and we stared each other into the eyes (or whatever Lylyth has). I had to be careful with my Fury since Lylyth can only soak 5 points so with running I was already at the limit.

The second round was a bit more interesting since I didn't run anymore but used the Animus of my lesser beasts to make tough Lylyth and the Carnivean a bit more durable. Lylyth moved into the woods do hide herself and get a bit of shooting into the Jacks.

The Berserker moved in direction of the woods, the other two Jacks charged my Shredders (exactly what I hoped they would do).
On the picture you can see my selfmade tokens in action :)

In the third round the fighting really began, the Berserker battled against my Carnivean, the Kodiak and Juggernaut killed my Shredders and Lylyth bushwacked into safety. At the end of the round, the Berserker exploded and left a pile of garbage in the woods.

All in all I was pretty lucky that nothing more happened to me and the bit of damage I got could be either mitigated or soaked.

So I prepared for the last round of battle, because my Lylyth stood in a good shooting position on Sorsha. And with an Assault order I could also spray on her with my Carnivean. And exactly that I did. The result of: 2 boosted shots on her -> Witch Blood and Parasite and a Carnivean spray you can see on the left picture :)

Win through caster kill. I was really happy with the result, because if that wouldn't have worked, I would have been dead in this or the next round. All my Shredders were killed and my Carnivean can not stand up against 2 Jacks. So it was all or nothing at this point.

Lessons learned in this game:

- Don't forget when to Feat!
- Shredders are nice cannon fodder and can annoy but will not win you a game. Take one for the Animus on your caster
- Lylyth's ability to shoot and move out of the way and THEN cast her stuff is great
- Carnivean is not so bad as thought. Spraying and then close combat is quite effective, especially on feat turn

And we had some spectators on the game. Loki, one of my cats, took a seat and had a suspicious look what we are doing :)

Was a really nice evening, with lots of talking and beer drinking and stuff. Sadly I couldn't convince Labschi from the game. Otherwise I would have playing mate directly in reach.
The second game awaited us then on the next day.

Hope you enjoyed this short battle report. The game was already some time ago, so I also could have forgotten something. But in the main it should be OK. If something is unclear, please ask ;)


So long,
Paradox0n

First Warmachine/Hordes game

So Saturday I had my first game of Warmachine/Hordes. A friend of mine plays both games and invited me to a introduction game of the gaming system. So we met for a standard game and he gave me a brief crash course in the rules and stuff. But theory isn't the only thing, so we started a 25 points game where he gave me his Khador Winterguard troops and he used his Blindwater Congregation crocodiles (which he never played before). I tried to make some pictures while we played but please don't expect a fully fledged battle report because most likely I can't tell you what exactly we did, because it was really lots of stuff to think to learn and to do (and to drink!).

But it was enough to get me very interested in the game and I ordered the Hordes 2-player starter box yesterday. And already found some people in my area who play Warmachine/Hordes instead of WHFB/40K. Pretty interesting. Don't want to spend too much money on the game so I will try to boost the both starter troops with the least money effort possible.

FFotW - The Battle of Finuval Plain

Battle of Finuval Plain from Hoodling

Today again something more hoby related. Perhaps some of you remember the last massive battlereport from Hoodling (The Battle of Hel Fenn) I posted a while ago. And he and his mad crew did it again: An unbelievable battle(report) of 25.000 points forces clashing into each other! Stand wide-eyed (or drooling) and read the madness of The Battle of Finuval Plain.

The Battle of Finuval Plain was a turning point in The Great War against Chaos in 2301 IC. The Dark Elves and their Chaos allies conquered the Blighted Isle and Nagarythe and started their raiding camapign on Ulthuan. After long fights favoring the Dark Elves and pushing the High Elves into some kind of geruilla war Teclis and Tyrion gathered a huge force and gathered on the Finuval Plain for a last stand fight to turn the tide of the war.

Take some time and read those many posts on his blog and enjoy the awesome (and pictured!) documentation how this battle went. Did the history books really tell the truth? At least you can read one version of this story today.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.


So long,
Paradox0n

P.S.: Welcome abroad to The Lord of Excess. Hope you found some interesting stuff here.

How to Play/BatRep - Flames of War on BoW

Normally I am not into historical wargaming. My time when I played with tanks and build those fantastic Revell kits is looong ago. I even had some trenches and bunkers then.

But yesterday the second part of a introduction of Flames of War was uploaded from Beasts of War and I really enjoyed this one. Therefore I put the parts together in a playlist and want to share them with you. As soon as they put up part III I will add it to the playlist.

So watch Warren & Dave play a game of Flames of War:

Important note: These videos completely belong to Beasts of War. I just share them for easy access and enjoyment.


So long,
Paradox0n

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs. Empire: Battle Two

The forces ready themselves for battle

As promised in my last battle report there is another battle we did on our "Warhammer Battleday". As said, Labschi had only one army list ready, so we decided to give it another try and didn't change our setup for the gaming table. I just picked up my second list and we fielded our armies. This time I had some minor changes and swapped the Cold Ones against the Black Guard.
The Empire stood much better after deployment so I had to think a bit what to do this time. For magic I again was very lucky and had some strong spells. My Shades deployed in the small village, just outside reach and sight to get a fast charge on the cannon and my Dark Riders were setup on the far left to flank the empire army.

The game lies some days in the past so I have to try to remember everything with my pictures. It could be possible that I miss one small thing or another, but in the big scheme it should be alright. That is why I decided to not do a turnwise report but to give a bigger summary of the battle this time.

Battle Report - Dark Elves vs Empire: Battle One

I smell a battle coming

Lord Xanthus looked at his small warband and grinned: The small human village would bring him enough slaves to refill the flock in his mines. The only thing between him and his slaves were those pesky human soldiers who readied there weapons. He could also see some knights and even those blackpowder warmaschines he hated so much. Nonetheless he needed those slaves. Silent he gestured his Knights to trod aside his unit of crossbowmen. With the spearman and his shades blocking the right flank he didn't worry too much about the knights and artillery there, he just had to get grip of this human who chanted some blessings and prayers to this fool god the humans worship. As he felt the muscle tension of his Cold One he grinned and with a relieving: ATTAAAAAAACK! he sent his forces to slaughter.

Picking up the gauntlet

Finally! The next battle(s) between my Dark Elves and the Empire Army from Labschi looms on the horizon. Today we will have a smaller battle (maybe two) of 1250 points. We had the thing planned to be a massive game with the ETC comp but decided to play a smaller game (maybe two) for updating our rule knowledge and doing some testing with our armies. So we decided to use a german comp called "Kleiner Horus" (follow the link to german comp) which is made for games of 1250 points. The only thing we left out is the allowance for special character models.

Friday Finding of the Week - Epic battle report

Battle of Hel Fenn from Hoodling

This week just passed by in flight and therefore its time for another Friday Finding of the Week (FFotW). This time I have found some really epic battle reports I want to share with you. Ever wondered how the Battle of Hel Fenn, where Mannfred Von Carstein was cornered by an alliance of men of the Empire and Dwarfs could have looked on the battlefield? Then jump over to Hoodling's Hole and read this epic and unbelievable insane battlereport with 20.000 points (each side) of warhammer madness.

But if this wouldn't be enough, he also has some very nice summarization of the different magic lores, some tournament battlereports, insights into his Warhammer thinking and even more epic battlereports. I think I lost some hours there with only reading these fantastic narrated battles. Big thanks for putting this much effort into this!

And since Hoodling also joined the journey a hearty: Welcome aboard!


So long,
Paradox0n

Chaos Dwarfs Battle Report from MiniWargaming

Since I know that some of you are Chaos Dwarf fans (like me) I thought I should post this battle report from MiniWargaming in case you missed it:

Cya,
Paradox0n

[Update] Battlereport - Skaven gainst The Empire

I will try the first time to give a short battlereport of a 2400 points game of warhammer fantasy battle. It was held at my place following the actual ETC (European Team Championship) draft at this moment. The opposing armies where my Skaven Warhost and The Empire Army from Talabheim (with the rules of the old Empire book). Since the game was held some time ago, I can only recapture the match and will therefore sum up the battle. I only shot a few pictures because my camera went insane on this day and messed the pictures.

The battle begins

[Update]: I just found my played Skaven List and put it in the post down below. Perhaps this makes the battle a bit clearer than before.