"Orcs is Orcs" - even in KOW

Third 'Kings of War' game in 3 weeks, this time against Adrian. Adrian had dragged out a little used Orc army now many years old, and as usual my Dwarves took to the field, keen as ever to seek redress for any wrong doing, imagined or real!! The game was a 'Kill and Pillage' scenario with 1100 points per side.

The Dwarves adopted a defensive positon (now that was a surprise), seen here on the left, as the Orc hordes swarmed forward.

The Orc army was led by a Krudger on a flyer (sounds like something that would make your eyes water, and in this particular case it did!!!)

After inflicting several turns of artillery fire on the Orcs as they advanced, thr Dwarves then launched an attack against the advancing hordes .. SPLAT!!!

The initial assaults routed one unit of Orcs, but bounced off the remainder.

Foolishly (I'm a slow learner) I had yet again placed the Dwarf Berserkers on a flank. They attacked an Orc unit, but were then in turn hit front and flank by Orc units, and routed. They dish out the attacks on the charge, but are not too hardy when the enemy strikes back.

Meanwhile the combats continued in the centre, while an Orc Horde routed on the Orc left flank, after taking too many hits from Dwarf cannon and rifle fire.

The Dwarf Horde of warriors was then hit in the flank and front, and... ouch!! the first Dwarf rout!!
The Dwarf King meanwhile was busily engaged holding back the Orc riders.

The Orc Krudger swooped in and attacked a unit of Dwarves in the flank.. another Dwarf route!!

And the game was over - 6 turns for each side, and a solid Orc victory.

This was interesting. The Orcs (as with other game systems) dish out the punishment, but are also relatively fragile. Their low Nerve value means that they tend to route relatively more easily, but when they get into contact.. ouch. And the Dwarven toughness makes them relatively more resilient.

The Orc Krudger costs a lot of points, but is well worth it.. he dished out a lot of Dwarven pain!!!

The game ebbed and flowed nicely. In the early stages of contact the Dwarfs grabbed the initiative and several Orc units were routed. After 4 turns it was looking like a Dwarf victory. But this is a game of flanks, and it was the ability of the Orc riders to get on to the flank that caused the Dwarf collapse.
At 1100 points these are still small games in KoW terms we think. On the one hand the larger games will allow more resilience for both sides. On the other hand the games may possibly have a feeling of sameness about them (and that's after only 3 games). I'll reserve my opinion on that until we have played more games. Certainly for the Dwarves the Orcs presented a different set of challenges to those met when facing the Humans.

Dwarven revenge ...

They were back! Across the valley - another human horde, apparently intent on destroying the Dwarf hold. Well, if that was what they wanted, the Dwarves were only too willing to offer battle; after all there was the large matter of the grudge borne of the earlier Human invasion.

This was our second 'Kings of War' game (Mantic Games), a 'Kill' scenario. The Dwarves deployed much more tightly than previously, wary of the Humamn heavy cavalry that had been so devastating when last they had met on the field of battle. Their battle line was enhanced by more artillery, and the army's special standard bearer had come to support the army. Meanwhile the Humans had recruited some of their border Pistolliers to support them.

The Dwarf general did push some of his key units forward in response to some annoying archery fire from the woods to their front (but realised his error, and eventaully withdrew them back to the battle line).

The Pistolliers sat tucked behind the Human centre, looking for opportunities.

Meanwhile a unit of Knights had swung onto the Dwarf left flank, and attacked a badly deployed unit of Berserkers who had been softened up with archery fire.

After initally bouncing back, the knights went in a second time and routed the Berserkers.

They then rolled on into the Dwarf Organ gun battery.. this was going to make someone's eyes water!!!

... and then on into a unit of Ironguard... oh oh!! And now the King is in on the act!!!

Meanwhile the Human Pistolliers had pushed forward into the centre and, after inflicting some casualties on an Ironclad Regiment,  were eliminated by a devastating cross-fire.

It took a couple of turns but the Knights on the Dwarf left couldn't take the casualties, and fled the field.

On the other flank, the other unit of Knights hit a Dwarven Ironwatch Regiment, and it should have been all over.

Mother Luck is a fickle lady. Despite the casualties, the Ironwatch passed their first Nerve test. The Knights went in a second time, and again inflicted casualties. This time, the Ironwatch failed their Nerve test, but, with the Army Standard Bearer to hand, Andy had to re-roll the Nerve test, with... 'snake eyes'.. and the Ironwatch held!!

The Knights were then hit in the flank by an Ironclad Horde.. it bounced off the first time, but finally destroyed the Knight regiment, and the field belonged to the Dwarves.

And so it was that at least some of the grudge had been paid off.

And what a great game of 'Kings of War' it had been, all in two hours (the time limit set for the game)..

'Kings of War' - trial game.

Andy has been on the  look out for a set of fantasy rules for a while. He'd tried WFB, and we had played HotT together numerous times, but I suspect that these hadn't quite 'hit the spot'. So last week he mailed me with the Mantic Games rules set 'Kings of War' by Alessio Cavatore. So 'Kings of War' it was, last night. My Dwarves came out of early retirement (I hadn't actually managed to do anything WFB'ish with them in the finish), and out came Andy's 'Humans' (GW Brettonians) .. one of his 'I'll get those painted one day' projects (it's the artist's temperament you know .. he paints divinely!!).

We fielded 1000 points each, and off we set.

Dwarf Berserkers attack a poor unit of Human archers. ouch.. cut through them, like a hot knife through butter.

A head-on clash in the centre, with Dwarves attacking Swordsmen and Spearmen.

Andy managed to get his two units of Knights around the flanks, and first attacked the Dwarven artillery.

Then they took on the Dwarf regiments.

One of the Dwarf units was a 'horde'.. a 40 strong unit. Andy attacked it with both units of Knights and the victory was his.

So, what did we think?

We picked up the rules very quickly (there are only 12 pages in total) , and they played very cleanly. The mechanisms didn't appear to create super units. We had simple armies, so there was little in the way of magic. The specific army rules (and there aren't too many of them) created some character in the armies, and is clearly an area that can be developed and exploited to create 'characterful' play.
We liked the fact that we weren't ploughing through 100+ pages of rules plus army books, trying  to mentally collate across numerous pages -- this has always seemed like too much effort for us.

The rules seem to be so simple that  we feel that we will be able to pick up a game only every now and then and still find the rules 'accessible' or 'playable'. I also suspect however that they have some subtly that will reward clever play.

These definitley get the thumbs up from us. Adrian will be getting his long held fantasy forces out of a prolonged retirement, and my Dwarfs will now take to the field of battle; that has to be a good thing too.

Bashin' dose sissie hoomies

Yeah, dat's wot we luvz doin', bashin sissie hoomies.. er well, bashin any hoomies..  well, achually bashin anyone.. so let's doooooo it!!

Friday night, and it's 40K time with Andy and Adrian, since it has been a wee while since we pushed the GW (am I meant to say that no challenge to copyright is intended by using these two letters?) plastic around the table top.

Anyway, out came the Orks again, and they faced off against Adrian's Sisters of Battle in an objectives based game with Spearhead deployment. Andy ran the battle for the Orks and I joined in at totally inappropriate moments (it's a gift I have, really!!), while Adrian commanded his Sisters.

Andy deployed first and managed to keep first turn, so started with a mobile left of bikes, acccompanied by a truck loaded with Nobz. His intention was to strike behind the Sisters and attack them from front and rear around the objective on his left.

Adrian had deployed  Inquisitor Lord Karamazov on his own right flank, and the Lord Inquisitor soon moved to head off the fast Ork attack coming in from his right.

The Sisters had a unit of three Penitent Engines in the centre, and the Ork looted wagon with boom gun spotted these and had a crack straight away, with a shot that was bang on target .. one Engine exploded, but nothing else was quite close enough to be taken down in th resulting explosion.

Meanwhile on the Sisters' left a squad of Sisters, supported by their Exorcist and two squads of Seraphim, moved out to claim the objective on that flank.

The Looted Wagon fell to fire from the Exorcist in turn 2..  before a single Ork had managed to fail his 'Don't touch dat' roll.. bother!!! We were looking forward to yet another laugh (the game had already been filled with quite a number!)

The Sisters advanced their centre against the other objective ...

which was held by a unit of Grotz hunkered down in the ruins.

After a couple of rounds of fire there were too few Grotz left, they failed their leadership test and fell back.

Meanwhile Karamazov was having fun playing with the Bikes who kept passing their saves... much to his annoyance.

The second of the three Penitient Engines then fell to rocket fire from the two Killer Kans, and the war buggy, leaving one Engine, which then proceeded to assault a unit of boyz supporting the Grotz. Adrian then assaulted the war bugy with a unit of Seraphim and.. yep, destroyed it comletely!! Damm!!!

In all fairness to the Sisters, in their next turn they hit the Killer Kanz with a barrage from the Exorcist, and both were destroyed.. one blew up, quite spectacular as it took several boyz with it).

Meanwhile Karamazov was still tied down in combat with the bikes... gahhh!!!

The truk borne Nobz were now within range of the Sisters Squad on the Sisters' right flank, and Gazghull declared a Waaaagh, allowing them to make the assault.

... and Gazghull charged into combat with the Penitent Engine (would you believe that we forgot that he had a power claw?) so he made hard work of this combat.. he was locked there for the remaining turns of the game.

The boyz mob on the Ork right flank used the Waaagh to charge into contact with one of the units of Seraphim (before they got shot away!!).

Adrian pulled them out of the combat hoping to eliminate the unbti with massed fire. There were still a few left though (and they still passed their leadership test) and next turn Andy pushed what was left of the mob into a squad of Sisters. This was ugly (for the sisters). Despite their low numbers (yep, they'd managed to pass every leadership test.. whew!! I wasn't used to this with Orks) they inflicted enough casualties to win the combat. The sisters failed their leadership test, and were run down by the boyz.

The Nobz were still slugging it out with the other Sisters squad.

A unit of Burna Boyz had meanwhile been trying to creep up on a third unti of Sisters (mwahahahahahahaha). They took fire, and these were their saving throws!!.. Don't see that very often.. since they needed 6's!! Yep, there are only two 4's, the rest were their saving 6's!!

However this same unit of Burna Boyz then took fire from the Exorcist, which proceeded to wipe out the unit... an ignominious end and such poor reward after their deft avoidance of bolter rounds from the Sisters squad.

The game ended after 5 turns, with a hard fought draw.

Interviewed after the match, Gazghull could only say "Wot a bashin' .. yeah right.. sissie girlies, come on den bring 'em on, eh!"