KoW - Empire of Dust vs. Varangur

[Jimmy]

Hey guys

I've been meaning to have a game of Kings of War for a long time now. I have a deep warhammer background and have posted over 100 battle reports over various forums on the net at one time or another but recently have been paying attention to X-wing as my primary game.

I managed to have a free weekend with my brother and we decided to have a game at 1000 points. Now a few things to point out, none of us have played and please correct us if any of the rules we've picked up were incorrect as this is what we're after to help improve. We quickly picked 1000 points of forces based on more or less what models and in my brothers case what movement trays were available at the time.

Without further ado please read away my first battle report for Kings of War.

Lists:

Empire of Dust vs. Varangur
===========================

Overview
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Date played: Sunday, 23 August 2015

Empire of Dust
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(CHP) Cursed High Priest
- w/Mount, Heal
(SAH) Skeleton Archer Horde
- Jar of the Four Winds
(BC) Balefire Catapult
(BG) Bone Giant
(WRR) Worm Rider Regiment
(MR) Mummies Regiment
- Pipes of Terror
(UASB) Undead Army Standard Bearer


Looks great but can it perform?

Varangur
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(WR1) Warband Regiment
(SH) Spearwall Horde
(SoK) Sons of Korgaan Regiment
(NRT) Night Raiders Troop
(MwM) Magnus w/Mount
- Famulus
(KoC) King on Chimera


Deployment
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Refused flank.

Basically I was after the hill to anchor my shooting and if I could inflict some damage onto my brother units before they hit combat. The Spear Wall worried me as Undead have a habit of not being awesome in combat so I wander if the Empire of Dust would change my opinion? Worm Riders and Mummies formed the supporting security force.




Naughty dudes running up the flank....

Brosef wins the roll off and starts.

Turn 1 - Varangur
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Units advance, Spearwall moves at the double to close with the archers. The Magus launches a lightning bolt doing 2 damage onto the Worm riders.


The grey tide advances...with some green.

Turn 1 - Empire of Dust
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The Bone Giant wanders up 7" towards the spear wall to put a body between the Archers. The priest moves to stay in Surge range of the monster. The Balefire dishes out 4 wounds onto the Spear wall whilst Archers back it up with 5 more wounds. The Priest casts surge onto the Bone Giant however it only stumbles 4" forward missing out on the charge (needed 6).


My crowning achievement of failed surges....

Turn 2 - Varangur
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The Spearwall charge into the Bone Giant. The Sons run at the double, the Magus casts bane chant onto the Spearwall for +1 Crushing Strength. The Spearwall do 14 hits to the Bone Giant for a total of 6 damage.




Turn 2 - Empire of Dust
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The Worms move 1" up just outside of charge range with the Mummies in close support. The Bone Giant charges into the Spearwall intent on revenge (only now did I realise I'm needing 5's to hit - oh dear). The Catapult misses this turn and the archers target the Magus putting 2 damage onto him. The Cursed Priest heals the Bone Giant for 3 damage. In combat the Bone Giant does a massive 3 hits from 14 attacks (go averages!) resulting in an extra 2 damage (healing him a little). Not the position I wanted to be in.

Turn 3 - Varangur
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The Spearwall return the charge whilst the King on the Chimera hits the flank of the Bone Giant. Bane chant fails to cast. The Night Raiders drop two mummies with throwing axes whilst between the King and Spearwall the Bone giant turns to dust. The Spearwall drops back 2 inches whilst the King pivots to face the Archers.

Turn 3 - Empire of Dust
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The Worm riders and Mummies (regenerating a single wound) charge into the Sons. Catapult launches a volley into the air crashing down into the ranks of the Spearwall for 5 damage. The Archers also lose a volley matching the damage.

In combat I was excited to see what the Mummies could do. Out of 12 attacks I produce...3 hits. My god. No damage is done. It's ok, I've got these awesome Worm riders over here. They only manage 6 hits and eventuates into 5 damage and there is no waiver/rout for the Sons of random angry god. Time to get punished.



Turn 4 - Varangur
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The King launches a fresh assault into the Archers opening the door for the Spearwall to hit the flank of the Worm riders. The nearby Sons join the fight into the Worms whilst the Warband hits the Mummies and the Night Raiders go to get them some evil characters sitting on the hill. The magus boosts the Sons with CS1.

In combat the Mummies take a total of 12 damage but don't shift. However the Worm riders eat dust as they collapse under the force from the Spear wall and friends. The King crushes 6 little archers between his toes.



Turn 4 - Empire of Dust
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Mummies charge the Sons regenerating some damage. The Archers target something (Spearwall I'm sure) and inflict 7 damage routing them from the table. Priest casts Heal onto the mummies for 3 wounds. The Mummies attack and after 6 hits and 3 damage I'm again annoyed at my awesome custom dice from Cheesex.

Turn 5 - Varangur
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The Sons and Warband clean house and hit the Mummies like a freight train. The King goes for round 2 into the Archers. The Night Lords get into throw choppy choppy range on the Cursed High Priest and get to work doing 3 damage meaning I'd need a high roll to make him rout. Naturally I roll an 11. All good I have an inspiring Undead Standard Bearer next to me. Take that. I re-roll and box cars comes up. Oh dear. Dead. The King does a further 5 damage to the Archers whilst the 9 damage done to the Mummies makes them go pop. At this point I concede as there isn't a great deal that I can do.

Conclusion:

Well getting my back side handed to me aside it was a fast and fun game. I can't say my list wasn't good or bad because I simply don't know enough about the army lists to make comments so I won't/can't until I have more games with the Empire of Dust under my belt. My brother absolutely wrecked me. I would think if I had a re-match using the same lists I'd have to completely focus fire on a unit and delete until moving on which is a lot easier in theory than practice but in saying that he'd at the double everything up and be on me in a few turns pretty quick.

I didn't gain a single flank charge and that seemed to be the key to my defeat as they understandably churned out the damage. So in that aspect I can't help but feel a valid strategy would be for a gun line type force to sit back and feed cheap cavalry units whilst the majority of the heavy lifting is done through shooting attacks. Could work depending on the opponent. Someone said they through the Ogres make a suitable gun line so I'd like to see this.

So I certainly didn't come out of the game with an awesome experience as I was hoping to showcase my awesome skills as a general. Rather I hope people can see past my blatant butt whipping and see a well produced and documented battle report.

[Loriel]

Really good report. I cannot say much on tactical side either, still so green player Surge is great spell, and sadly it didn't this time

Hope to see new reports from you soon!

[Swordmaster of Hoeth]

Hi Jimmy,

Great to see you reporting again and as a Tomb King too! Your great miniatures and table really need to be featured more often!

I had only a single game myself so my comments will be brief this time as I am still learning the game too. However, I know we can both gain from some discussion about that new system (at least for us!).

I find small games much harder to play because they tend to go well for one side quickly and it is hard to come back if you suffer a strong hit. At the same time I understand it can be great to learn the rules faster. As yourself I don't comment on the army list as things are new to me and it is, at the moment, hard to evaluate each choice well. However, I know already that Giants are tough and can hit hard. Their small footprint allows them to move to the flanks easier where they can hit even harder.

I see you deployed in your trademark castle and it is not a surprise as you have shooting advantage. The army your brother chose looks tough on paper as equivalent of Chaos Warriors should. So it is very reasonable plan to shoot at them and wait until they come.

Having said that I think you moved your giant too early or too far. I would wait because your brother sent that horde unsupported. I would even tempt him to charge your giant but move it just into charge range. That would mean that if your brother took the bait you would be able to draw him out of formation even further.

Now with Surge you have a great tool to do the following. He charges your giant, bounces off as he did. Now, you charge with the giant to the front but move Warms to the flank of the horde and in the shooting phase cast Surge. Now you add double attacks to the flank and whatever giant does to the front. Spear horde have 21/23 nerve meaning you need to do some significant damage. But with 24 attacks from the warms themselves you should inflict double digit damage. Who knows, it might be even good to add Archers horde to the front as well since in KoW there are no attacks back.

With no inspiring character nearby you could have broken them in one go. If not, they would be heavily damaged for sure and some of the units coming for help were too far away.

It does not mean winning the game already but at least you would have destroyed big enemy unit and had a chance to counter again because the enemy was not necessary facing to the right direction (with the exception of the general on chimera).

Just some first ideas based on what I experienced myself, hopefully the game was fun to play and you would pick it up again!

Cheers!