Kings of War Official Errata and FAQ v1.4

The newest Errata and FAQ for Kings of War is out. If you are interested you can find the document here.

It is pretty compact and not so many changes are in, if you are only interested in the difference to the last one, I have the changes (which are marked red in the document) for your convenience:

Errata

Core Rulebook
Undead Armies, Touch of Darkness may only be given to a unit with the Shambling special rule.

Destiny of Kings
Rordin the Dwarf, change to Inspiring (Dwarf Army List only). He will only inspire units from the Dwarf army list.

Demon Lord Ba’el, Bane of the Mortal Kingdoms, He has Thunderous Charge (2) rather than Thunderous, and Charge (2).

Historical
Slings are range 30”.

FAQ

Q: In the Loot scenario, if one of my units is routed by shooting can the loot marker be placed outside the units footprint?
A: No it should be placed entirely within the footprint of the unit.

Q: Can the Crystal Pendant of Retribution trigger multiple times?
A: No it will only work the once, when the unit actually routs. So if a unit is saved by Inspiring or Herja’s Judgement of Korgaan for example, the Crystal Pendant will not take effect.

Not so much isn't it? Happy gaming to you all!

So long,

Paradox0n

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.

Review: Kings of War counter set

© Mantic Games

As you all know, I am a big fan of Mantic Games and their attitude towards our hobby. So I was also on board when the second Kickstarter for Kings of War went off. One of the many things I got there is the two player counter set.

At first I thought: What a rip off. It is made from plastic and the looks aren't very appealing. And even more annoying: There was no explanation what the different symbols and colors mean. The only useful thing I saw was the Arc of Sight template and also the round counter is quite nice. The ruler is "OK"ish but I have a very good measuring tape.

In my last game I gave them a try, but since there was no clear explanation what the symbols mean, I just made something up.

© The nice forum guy who made it

Oh if I had found a forum thread earlier. Someone also had these questions and some while ago put down a chart of the symbol and their meanings. Sadly I cannot find the thread anymore because it is more than a year old... It would have made my live so much easier. That is why I have to share it here. Twitter followers may have seen it already yesterday.

So I now have to revise my opinion on those counters quite a bit: As part of my pledge they are pretty cool. You get enough tokens for 2 players, 6 objective markers a Arc of Sight template (which you can also use in other games), a turn counter and a 6" plastic ruler (which most likely is only interesting for new players who don't own their measuring tape yet).

I don't know if I would buy the set though. With 15£ (or 25$/25€) this is not really cheap and is in direct competition with a lots of other sets out there (even Mantic selling one which looks much better). But if you can get your hands on one with a discount I think it is worth thinking of (that is if you are into Kings of War).

Ok, so this mutated to a review. In the beginning I just wanted to share the chart. But more content is always good, no? Hope you enjoyed it.


So long,
Paradox0n

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

Painted Abyssal Dwarf Mortars

There are really signs and wonders around. I finally painted up something! Seems like an eternity since I painted and thus it also feeled when I struggled with the paints and brushes again. One thing I recognized pretty fast: Next time I paint with a wet palette again. The whole time the paint just didn't feel right, especially since I paint now with longer bristle brushes (reason why, see here) which really struggle if the paint is too thick.
Nonetheless I painted and I will show you the results: An Abyssal Dwarf Angkor Heavy Mortar and an Abyssal Dwarf G’rog Light Mortar for my upcoming Kings of War army.

Nothing fancy or so, but since they got me back to painting I am really happy with them. The Heavy Mortar was quite a miscast sadly but I tried to do the best and cover that a bit with the paint. I think from a distance it is OK so far and that's what these two are about: Being painted for the battlefield :)


One thing I experienced through the process was that it seems that one of my Spray Primers got bad. It sprayed and everything but when it was dry, the paint didn't stick to it but dripped off of it. Like it had some strange Lotus Effect or something. Never had that before, but I was not happy with it before and now I think I just throw it away (12€ for the bin :( ).

Some more stuff is already on my table and I hope I find enough time and motivation to paint even more.


So long,
Paradox0n


P.S.: I think I will experience with showing WIP pictures and stuff also through Instagram and Twitter. Maybe that helps me to stay a bit more motivated. I hope that feedback turnaround is much faster there, because the comment section is mostly not used here :(

Kings of War 2nd Edition is out

Mantica

Mantic Games continue their more aggressive promotion of the new Kings of War edition and released the core rules and the nine base army lists as free download.

If you didn't follow the massive amount of blog posts they did and are not sure if Kings of War is something for you, you should risk a look. The articles are really great and have lots and lots of information in them:

Everything You Need To Know About Kings of War… But Were Too Afraid To Ask! P1

Explains what the game is about and the basics of gameplay.

Everything You Need To Know About Kings of War… But Were Too Afraid To Ask! P2

Tells you a bit about the different armies and their style of play.

Discover the World of Kings of War

Tells you a bit of the background of Mantica (the world of Kings of War).

To be honest, I am quite excited and can't wait for the rulebook and all the stuff to arrive. With the demise of Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Age of Sigmar not really being and alternative for me so far, this really comes to the right time. Especially since I already backed the first Kickstarter of Mantic Games and thought the first edition was quite nice and on the right track.

The only thing which I think one shouldn't do is to try to compare the game to the old Warhammer Fantasy or Age of Sigmar. They are different games, with a different focus. Kings of War is clearly based around armies with units and not so much on the single heroes which could kill nearly everything on the field on themselves. And to be honest: I prefer the first variant (why I started to like WHFB 8th edition). So let's see what the future brings for Mantic Games and especially Kings of War.

So long,

Paradox0n

Hobby Magazines: Ironwatch Issue #32

Issue #32 of Ironwatch Magazine, the Mantic Games Fanzine has arrived in the beginning of April. I nearly missed it so with a bit delay my post.

Ironwatch Issue #32

As usual it contains a nice mixture of Kings of War, Warpath and all Mantic related topics like:

• Iron Forge
• The Battle of Gawick Upon Tibble
• The Bloodstone of Cerillion
• Tutorial: How to Paint Dreadball Xtreme Convicts
• Building it Up for Those Damn Martians to Tear Down
• and many more

I especially like the Mars Attacks tutorial from Terrain Tutor, since I also followed the process on his Youtube channel.

If you haven't checked already, take a look, its free and fanmade and totally supported by Mantic. I like this pretty much therefore I to spread the word as usual :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Milestone reached: 60.000 hits

So its another milestone which this blog breached: 60.000 hits since I am tracking. Maybe you ask yourself why I am not waiting for the 100k mark for making a happy dance. That's easily explained: I just count this mark more like 50.000 hits because recently I have lots of search engine traffic (but no exact values sadly) so I have to give a best guess.

It seems to pay off that I tried to be a bit more present in Social Media (please check them out if you don't habe already) and in blog/community rolls of big hobby sites (like BoLS or Faeit).

And I was lucky and just hit the blog and was greeted with the perfect number ;-)

So what are the plans for the future? Most likely there will be more Warmachine/Hordes content (as soon as I got my stuff) and also a bit more of Shadows of Brimstone. If everything works fine I may also have a bit more time and I can play some bigger games of Kings of War which my system of choice will most likely be since ATM I see my future not with Warhammer Fantasy. But who knows, maybe the new edition will be excellent.

I also hope that I find more time to paint there are many many miniatures waiting. But that also depends a bit in which games I will play the next months.

I wish you all a food time and thanks for reading this blog!


So long,
Paradox0n

Hobby Magazines: Ironwatch Issue #30

Ironwatch Magazine Issue #30

Issue #30 of Ironwatch Magazine, the Mantic Games Fanzine has arrived.

As usual it contains a nice mixture of Kings of War, Deadzone and all Mantic related topics like:

• Q&A with Chris Palmer
• Humans in the Endless Keep, a Dwarf Kings Hold scenario
• The Trouble at Gawick upon Tibble, a Kings of War scenario
• The Battle for Goat Sector 58, a Deadzone batrep
• and many more

If you haven't checked already, take a look, its free and fanmade and totally supported by Mantic. I like this pretty much therefore I try to spread the word :)


So long,
Paradox0n

A kind of review: My 2014

2014 has ended some days ago, I came over those bridge days where I had to work and slowly I am getting in the hobby mood again (besides needing some vacation). Therefore I thought a view back to last year would be something nice to do on the blog and a somehow nice thing to start the hobby season with.

2014 started really slow concerning blogging. My real life kept me from doing anything fancy on the blog. First Papa Nurgle put his arms around me and afterwards I had a pretty tough project on work which kept my complete attention. Lots to learn and test out. But in the end this trouble paid off and we delivered a great product and among others are now listed 2nd place on a pretty relevant listing in our  field after a very very big company (starting from place 5). So lots of happy faces here :)

It is this time of the year again...

Fitting to all the Nurgle stuff in the End Times I jumped forward and "volunteered" for a cold this week... Therefore no Monday Morning Music/Musings and no progress in painting at all. At the moment I am happy that I can sit at my tablet and read all your blogs and take some time in between to write this blogpost now. A friend of mine already calls me "Papa Nurgle" which is... somewhat fitting at the moment ;)

But enough chatter about my illness, this week was full of stuff so I think I should stop ranting and start posting more interesting stuff for you :)

First off all the Mantic Games kickstarter for the 2nd edition rulebook (and 2 new armies, Abyssals and Armies of Nature) was funded. Pretty successfully for that, I think the overachieved by over 10 times. OK we all know now the guys from Mantic plan these kickstarters to work like that but still this gives me personally a good feeling if Warhammer Fantasy really goes down the tubes. For me this was the new rulebooks, all the freebies and some new dice and especially the new abyssal dwarf hero on winged beast and the obsidian golem. So in the end they got me as usual.

Second there was my decision last week to go for a PBA membership at Panting Buddha. In the end I was mistaken and a bit confused (too much alcohol that evening)  and only opted for a Big Bruddah but mixed it with the Golden Brick Brick itself which would be the next "grade". So sorry for the "wrong" title of the post. I already wrote about the why and the arguments are the same no matter if Big Bruddah or Golden Brick.
Since I now also have access to the Vimeo group (sorry Michael for the confusion) I am eagerly watching the videos and the exclusive content. So far I am not disappointed. And if the continue their DVD series I will be even more happy :) Love the stuff standing in my shelf.

And last but not least I am playing around with my Nikon and slowly getting a grip on it. First I thought I will need a special macro lens for making nice miniature shots. But as far as I tried around it could also work with the normal kit lens. Better to edit it in Photoshop and cutting out all the unnecessary parts than moving too close to the miniature. That perfectly fits to the experiences the Apes from Massive Voodoo write about in their tutorial. Maybe I will dig a bit more into it and write my own experiences down, for example everyone tells you not to use a flash, but my last tests where pretty nice (for a short WIP at least).


So long,
Paradox0n

Kings of War - Kickstarter madness

The Kings of War 2nd edition kickstarter is hitting the home stretch. After breaking through a huge amount of strech goals, Mantic Games presented us now the second and final addons Wednesday with not only even more miniatures but some nice terrain pieces from 4Ground and a modular gaming table from Secret Weapon. So this kickstarter runs as we are used from Mantic, low target but insane success in the end.

Am I completely happy with the kickstarter so far? Hm.. depends. I think for guys like me who only pledged for the rulebook itself it still is not so good as the previous ones. But for those backers who pledge for armies and stuff out there it is pretty interesting. Those really get a big saving and stuff. Even more if Mantic decides to go for bulk army pledges.

But as usual it is very difficult to find nothing to pledge on. Lots of interesting stuff to find and I most likely cannot resist to pledge for some of those new special miniatures although it means that I have to pay the bigger shipping price :)

So if you are interested in Kings of War, you still have 4 days to hop on the hype train :)


So long,
Paradox0n

MMM - Pump it up!

So I am back from my trip to Romania and had the muddiest hiking trip I ever had yesterday. Sometimes I nearly lost my hiking sticks/shoes in the mud... Nonetheless: I am back again!
And I will start this week with some Monday Morning Music: Danzel with Pump it up! I think this song is somehow fitting to the stuff I am writing about today.
So start the music and continue reading... :)

Kings of War Second Edition

Mantic Games just announced the details to their new kickstarter for the Kings of War Second Edition rulebook.

Kings of War Kickstarter is launching on Friday 14th November at 1:30pm GMT!

Since I already backed the first one (and got a lots of stuff out of it, especially my Abyssal Dwarfs) I will most likely join this one too. Don't know how deep I will jump into but at least I will help to support the rulebook and hopefully the main translations. For me a translated version doesn't matter, but I know that for many people the entry to a system is much easier if the rules are written in their mothertongue.

More details about it you will find in the official announcement and on the Mantic Blog.

So let's see how it is rolling out on Friday :)


So long,
Paradox0n

Orctober - First WIP: Mantic Orcs

A while ago I read a nice article on Sean's Wargames Corner about the Orctober.  The original post comes from Erny's Place and as I read it, the Orctober is also a giveaway contest.
As I have a lots of stuff in various packages I pillaged through the stuff and found some Orcs I wanted to try out some time ago and now seems a pretty good time.
As you can see, the Crazy Christmas Box contained (among lots of other stuff) some fantasy orcs which I wanted to test out because in the Kickstarter Armydeal there are lots more and they are part of the Abyssal Dwarves army from Kings of War. This small sprue contains three Orcs with axes & shields and two minions (which I will use for something different).

I chose to build one with two axes (he could also be build with axe & shield like the other ones) and the other two with axe & shield as there is no other option for it. As you can see in the picture there is one head, one shield, one arm and the two minions left from the sprue which will happily wander into my bits box :) Already freed from molding lines but not completely glued together because than some places would be pretty difficult to paint.

So lets see if I am able to paint them up. A short vacation is also waiting for me and I will do a short trip to Majorca next week :) Stay tuned.


So long,
Paradox0n

Review: Kings of War - Rulebook

As I was one of the backers of the Mantic Kings of War Kickstarter I got a nice package a few days ago. In there where the first part of my Abyssal Dwarfs (more of them later) and the printed version of the Kings of War Rulebook. I thought I'll do a short review about it so here it comes!

Front view of the cover

Back view of the cover