Greetings again,
This is another post that deals with core concepts of the game. I assume you're somewhat familiar with the rulebook so I won't go through the exact rules, only their implications and some rationale that I see behind certain mechanics.
This post focuses on core concepts of army building and different roles for different units.
Army composition
In Kings of War, armies are put together using unlocks from regular regiments, hordes and legions.
Each regiment of infantry, chariots or cavalry can bring with it up to two troops and one of either a hero, a war engine, a monster or a titan.
A horde or a legion of infantry, chariots or cavalry can bring up to four troops and one of each a hero, a war engine and either one monster or one titan.
Regiments of large/monstrous infantry or large cavalry don't need to be unlocked, but neither do they unlock anything. A Horde/legion of large infantry unlocks two troops and two slots for either one hero, one war engine, one monster or one titan. No duplicate choices allowed here.
Some units are marked with * and are called irregular. That means they don't unlock anything
This is a big change for people used to playing WHFB or its derivatives. In that mentality, an army needs a core (which usually consists of mediocre units) that has to be a certain size and all the good stuff is capped points-wise by army composition rules. That leads, in my view, to a mentality of a "core tax" and also often manifests in balance issues as different armies suffer more from the effects of being forced to take "bad" units and having a limitation on how many "good" units you are allowed to bring.
In Kings of War you are allowed to bring as many of the "good" units as you like, or can fit in your army. You can build an all Vampire army, or you can bring all your infantry as the better variety. There is no core tax, and the abilities of units are all expressed in the point costs of units. That means that instead of being forced to operate within point brackets, you have more freedom in terms of how you want to spend your points.
Unit sizes
In Kings of War units come in three commen sizes: troops, regiments and hordes. I'm going to compare these with a (completely arbitrary) three tier system (I-III) in terms of Maneuverability, Power and Resilience
In addition there are single models (usually monsters or heroes) and Legions (which are just bigger hordes).
Troops are small units which are usually relatively frail and have the lowest offensive potential. They are also the cheapest units, and need unlocks from other units in order to be included in the army. Their roles vary from shooters to chaff to decoy deployment drops to token/counter cappers.
Maneuverability II
Power II
Resilience I
Regiments are the first unlockers. They have a larger footprint (usually they are the size of two troops back to back), a little more offensive power and a lot higher Nerve than troops. They cost a little more (usually 30-50% more than a troop). Some weak units do not come under regiment size and some powerful units do not come larger than regiments.
Maneuverability II
Power II
Resilience II
Hordes bring many unlocks, huge improvements to Attacks, Nerve and footprint, but they also cost a lot more and are clumsier than troops or regiments.
Maneuverability I
Power III
Resilience III
So why bring anything else than Hordes?
The logic behind this is, in my view, as follows:
A regiment is stronger than a troop, so it costs more.
Two troops are better than one regiment, so together they cost more.
A horde is stronger than a regiment, so it costs more.
Two regiments are better than one horde, so together they cost more.
One could also add that:
Three troops are better than one horde, so together they cost more.
Choosing what sizes to take your units in is a matter of army composition, as expensive hordes might hinder your army's ability to maneuver so much that it costs you the game, while stocking up on multiple small units might leave you overly vulnerable to enemy shooters and unable to contain their heavy hitters.
Anvil
An anvil is a unit that is used to take a punch and hold the attacking unit in place so that you can bring your own attacker in to kill it. Hammer-and-anvil combos are common and more often than not your opponent will know what you are striving for, and you'll end up trying to line up your units so you can catch your opponent between your anvil and your hammer.
Typically anvils are hordes with high defense and/or nerve.
Hammer
Hammers are your damage-dealers. They are units like knights or chariots that are good at giving a punch, but lose a lot of their effectiveness if they have to take one.
Some Hammers are very resilient, others are called "glass-hammers", which is to say that they are units that really can't take a punch at all.
Chaff
Chaff, in Kings of War slang, is often used to describe units that can't do anything properly and are only good for throwing in the way of your opponent's big units when you need to delay them a bit.
On more general terms, Chaff means units that are often fast, agile and fragile. They typically don't have a lot of punching power and so even a flank charge from a chaff unit is rarely decisive. Light chaff is more of an interfering unit, while heavy chaff can be a middle ground between a throwaway and a serious combat threat.
However, chaff can fulfill a variety or roles. They can indeed interfere with your opponent's Hammers, but they can also go after war engines, casters, support heroes and claim objectives. You will typically want to have some units that can fulfill the role of chaff.
Shooters
In Kings of War shooting is rarely (though in no means "never") able to win the battle alone. Shooters, in my view can fulfill three roles.
Firstly, shooters are a pressure unit. You can use shooters to force your opponent to move to break stalemates, provided that your shooting is more powerful than theirs. It's not very comfortable to sit ildly by while your opponent's war egines are lobbing rocks at you!
Secondly, shooters are Chaff killers. Small shooter units are often able to take out chaff units, given a turn or two to finish the job. You might be able to deprive your opponent of his charge-blockers if you shoot them off the board.
Thirdly, shooters can be area control units. Many spells and "breath weapony" weapons have short ranges, but they hit easily, so they are good for controlling an area and for discouraging your opponent from landing flyers or bringing their chaff to the area, where you can line up a few shooting attacks at it.
Support
Some units, mainly Individual Heroes, fall into the category of Support. These are units whose main role is to augment other units. These can be in the form of melee heroes who bring in that little extra damage to Rout the enemy unit, or they can be spellcasters who Banechant your spearmen or then the simple battle standard to Inspire the units.
If you're coming in from WHFB, you'll notice that most heroes are quite a bit weaker in Kings of War, and they can't take units head on without risk. However, as support units, their role is invaluable in turning the battle to your favour.
Sole Grinder
Some units are tough like Anvils, but also dish out a fair bit of damage. These units are sometimes called Sole Grinders. That means that they are able to take a punch and then grind the opposing unit down alone.
Typically these are units with a combination of good melee power, high nerve and high defense.
--
That's all for this post, hope you enjoyed it and feel welcome to leave more ideas of core concepts in the comments!
AoW
Showing posts with label core concepts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label core concepts. Show all posts
Monday, 27 August 2018
Sunday, 12 August 2018
Kings of War - Core Concepts for beginners I
Greetings,
In this entry I will go through the main concepts that a player will encounter and need to understand while playing Kings of War. This entry will be slightly encyclopedic, with me listing and explaining most of the main concepts and how they work.
Unit
In Kings of war, everything that is on the battlefield is called a unit. Units can be composed of more than forty models or they can be a single monster. In Kings of War everything mounted on a single base is a single unit, regardless of how many models it contains.
Every unit has certain elements that they share, such as arcs, a leader point and footprint.
Footprint
Every unti has a footprint. That means the external dimension of the base the unit should be based on. Most units have a fixed footprint that is the exact size the unit needs to be. As movement and distances are a big part of the game, this is relatively important.
Units such as heroes and monsters may have exceptional base sizes, namely larger than the minimum listed in the rulebook, if they need one to properly fit on the base.
A unit is never allowed to have a smaller base as the one listed.
Arcs
Every unit has four arcs. A front arc, two flanks and a rear arc. These are used to determine things like Line of Sight (from the front arc) and the facings that need to be contacted when charging.
Leader point
Every unit has a command point in the exact center of its front arc. This is used to determine Line of Sight and for centering chargers.
Line of Sight
Line of Sight in Kings of War is drawn according to the rules, not as true line of sight.
In Kings of War Line of Sight is drawn from the leader point of the unit in a 180 degree arc. If a direct line can be drawn from the leader point to any point of the target and that line is not intersected by units with the same height or greater than either the target or the unit itself.
Note that many actions such as shooting, casting spells and charging also require the target to be in the front arc of the unit trying to draw LoS, but that is a separate requirement, not a part of LoS itself.
Orders
In Kings of War units perform action on orders.
Orders for movement include Halt, Advance, Change Facing and At The Double. Some movement orders have effects on what the unit can do later in the turn. A unit may only be ordered to shoot if it did not move At The Double, some weapons require the unit to stay absolutely still in order to be used in the shooting face. A unit moving At The Double also cannot normally move into or through difficult terrain.
In the Shooting Phase a unit that can shoot can be given the Shoot order. Casting spells is done with the same order.
Pivot
In KoW units turn by pivoting on the spot. This is done as a "virtual pivot", meaning that the unit is picked up, pivoted around its exact center (NOT the leader point) and then placed back down. Units may move through enemy units and blocking terrain during their pivot, as long as they can be placed on the battlefield and clear of other units once they are done.
It is important to make sure that the unit's central point stays put. It's fairly easy to slip half an inch this way or that, and it's a good idea to mark one corner of the unit with a few D6's before you pick it up. This way you can always put the unit back to the initial position should the pivot be unclear.
Pivots can be done at any point during the move, and they are limited to 90 degree shifts per pivot during Advance and Charge orders, but can be towards any direction with the Change Facing order.
Charge!
Charging is done in the movement phase by giving a unit an order to charge.
The unit must be able to draw LoS to some point of the target unit (it doesn't have to be the point you are going to contact), and the unit must be at least partially within within your unit's front arc (the visible point can be off your front arc, as you can draw LoS from the leader point in a 180 degree arc).
The distance between the closest point of the target unit must be withing the charging distance from the closest part of your unit's front arc (your unit's speed times two).
The facing you are charging (rear, flank or front) is determined by your unit's leader point. You must make contact with the facing that your leader point is in when you give the charge order.
During your charge, you're allowed on pivot before you make contact, and after your unit comes into contact, you pick it up and place it down flush with the facing you are charging.
Damage and Nerve
Units taking damage and suffering from it is highly abstracted in Kings of War. Damage is simply marked (usually with easily recognizable dice or damage counters next to the unit) and it usually builds up over a couple of turns before it has any effect on the unit.
The effects of taking casualties is represented by taking Nerve checks.
Units have two values for Nerve, shown as x/x. A small, fragile unit might have a Nerve of 10/12, while a tough elite regiment might have a Nerve of 15/17. A brainless Zombie legion has a staggering -/28! High nerve usually means either a large unit (many warriors) or particularly tough warriors, so it's an abstraction of all the ways a unit can be hard to budge.
The first number is the units Waver value. Once the Nerve check, which is a 2d6 roll plus the amount of damage taken is equal to or higher than the units Waver value, the unit is Wavered. It cannot advance or charge or shoot, only move backwards or change facing. This represents the unit loosing cohesion as casualties mount, or simply panicking at the sudden onset of violence. Maybe their leader got a crossbow bolt through the neck and now it takes a few moments before the next in line gets the troops back in order...
Some units have a - instead of a Waver value. That means that the unit can't be wavered and functions normally until it is Routed.
Once a Nerve check equals or exceeds a units Rout value (the second value after the dash) the unit is removed as casualty. The troops break and run or are simply burnt to death by a dragon.
--
That's it for Core Concepts I, I'll be back with more later.
Cheers,
Aow
In this entry I will go through the main concepts that a player will encounter and need to understand while playing Kings of War. This entry will be slightly encyclopedic, with me listing and explaining most of the main concepts and how they work.
Unit
In Kings of war, everything that is on the battlefield is called a unit. Units can be composed of more than forty models or they can be a single monster. In Kings of War everything mounted on a single base is a single unit, regardless of how many models it contains.
Every unit has certain elements that they share, such as arcs, a leader point and footprint.
Footprint
Every unti has a footprint. That means the external dimension of the base the unit should be based on. Most units have a fixed footprint that is the exact size the unit needs to be. As movement and distances are a big part of the game, this is relatively important.
Units such as heroes and monsters may have exceptional base sizes, namely larger than the minimum listed in the rulebook, if they need one to properly fit on the base.
A unit is never allowed to have a smaller base as the one listed.
Arcs
Every unit has four arcs. A front arc, two flanks and a rear arc. These are used to determine things like Line of Sight (from the front arc) and the facings that need to be contacted when charging.
Leader point
Every unit has a command point in the exact center of its front arc. This is used to determine Line of Sight and for centering chargers.
Line of Sight
Line of Sight in Kings of War is drawn according to the rules, not as true line of sight.
In Kings of War Line of Sight is drawn from the leader point of the unit in a 180 degree arc. If a direct line can be drawn from the leader point to any point of the target and that line is not intersected by units with the same height or greater than either the target or the unit itself.
Note that many actions such as shooting, casting spells and charging also require the target to be in the front arc of the unit trying to draw LoS, but that is a separate requirement, not a part of LoS itself.
Orders
In Kings of War units perform action on orders.
Orders for movement include Halt, Advance, Change Facing and At The Double. Some movement orders have effects on what the unit can do later in the turn. A unit may only be ordered to shoot if it did not move At The Double, some weapons require the unit to stay absolutely still in order to be used in the shooting face. A unit moving At The Double also cannot normally move into or through difficult terrain.
In the Shooting Phase a unit that can shoot can be given the Shoot order. Casting spells is done with the same order.
Pivot
In KoW units turn by pivoting on the spot. This is done as a "virtual pivot", meaning that the unit is picked up, pivoted around its exact center (NOT the leader point) and then placed back down. Units may move through enemy units and blocking terrain during their pivot, as long as they can be placed on the battlefield and clear of other units once they are done.
It is important to make sure that the unit's central point stays put. It's fairly easy to slip half an inch this way or that, and it's a good idea to mark one corner of the unit with a few D6's before you pick it up. This way you can always put the unit back to the initial position should the pivot be unclear.
Pivots can be done at any point during the move, and they are limited to 90 degree shifts per pivot during Advance and Charge orders, but can be towards any direction with the Change Facing order.
Charge!
Charging is done in the movement phase by giving a unit an order to charge.
The unit must be able to draw LoS to some point of the target unit (it doesn't have to be the point you are going to contact), and the unit must be at least partially within within your unit's front arc (the visible point can be off your front arc, as you can draw LoS from the leader point in a 180 degree arc).
The distance between the closest point of the target unit must be withing the charging distance from the closest part of your unit's front arc (your unit's speed times two).
The facing you are charging (rear, flank or front) is determined by your unit's leader point. You must make contact with the facing that your leader point is in when you give the charge order.
During your charge, you're allowed on pivot before you make contact, and after your unit comes into contact, you pick it up and place it down flush with the facing you are charging.
Damage and Nerve
Units taking damage and suffering from it is highly abstracted in Kings of War. Damage is simply marked (usually with easily recognizable dice or damage counters next to the unit) and it usually builds up over a couple of turns before it has any effect on the unit.
The effects of taking casualties is represented by taking Nerve checks.
Units have two values for Nerve, shown as x/x. A small, fragile unit might have a Nerve of 10/12, while a tough elite regiment might have a Nerve of 15/17. A brainless Zombie legion has a staggering -/28! High nerve usually means either a large unit (many warriors) or particularly tough warriors, so it's an abstraction of all the ways a unit can be hard to budge.
The first number is the units Waver value. Once the Nerve check, which is a 2d6 roll plus the amount of damage taken is equal to or higher than the units Waver value, the unit is Wavered. It cannot advance or charge or shoot, only move backwards or change facing. This represents the unit loosing cohesion as casualties mount, or simply panicking at the sudden onset of violence. Maybe their leader got a crossbow bolt through the neck and now it takes a few moments before the next in line gets the troops back in order...
Some units have a - instead of a Waver value. That means that the unit can't be wavered and functions normally until it is Routed.
Once a Nerve check equals or exceeds a units Rout value (the second value after the dash) the unit is removed as casualty. The troops break and run or are simply burnt to death by a dragon.
--
That's it for Core Concepts I, I'll be back with more later.
Cheers,
Aow
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)