Army Selection
The first thing we need to really discuss when building armies is unit types which. The game itself divides units into infantry, cavalry, large infantry, large cavalry, war engines, heroes, and monsters. Some of these divisions can be slightly misleading, as a swarm of height 0 is considered large infantry, or a monster can be height 2, or cavalry can be height 1. The base sizes remain, mostly, correct for these unit types, so we can maintain the unit sizes as a logical division, but there is more to this than just base size or unit height alone. For my purposes, I will include large infantry and regular infantry as a category, large cavalry and regular cavalry grouped together with flyers, then war engines, monsters, and various hero types.
We could also divide our forces into separate categories based on purpose (role.) For my purposes, I will accept some of the common roles: chaff, anvil, hammer, and ranged. We’ll take a look briefly at each, and then go into a discussion about different unit types and assigning their roles.
CHAFF
The first role we want to discuss is chaff. Chaff is simply put, disposable. A chaff unit is generally small, low cost, and can be lost without a moment’s hesitation. Some people refer to these units as cannon or arrow fodder, meat shields, speed bumps, or ablative armor. Chaff should still be used wisely because throwing them away without a purpose is just wasteful. Always have a purpose for every unit when placed on the table (think back to the MOOSEMUS chapter and Objective.) Chaff usage should also fit your overall strategy (Mission.)
The one drawback to most chaff units is that they often come with a low nerve value which can result in easy wavers and fouling up your lines. I will often put just enough effort into wavering a chaff unit rather than removing them outright. Sometimes you get a lucky shot and kill them, but if you calculate your firepower correctly, you should be able to achieve a waver on most turns. There was even a discussion on this in the forums not too long ago where one player felt he should be able to just kill his own chaff units if they get wavered when he doesn’t want them to be. He was shot down rather hard by multiple posters, including yours truly. The secret to wavering chaff is to put just enough fires into a unit that it will require a 6 on the nerve roll to waver. Statistically speaking, a 7 is an average roll, so a 6 or 7 gets a waver and an 8 gets a kill, but with an inspiring source nearby, the 8 or above will be re-rolled.
ANVILS
The anvil’s job is to take a hit and hold. That’s it. Some units are anvils because of their high defense values, some because of high nerve, some because of regeneration and/or life leech. Regardless, for a unit to really fit the anvil role they must have something that grants them survivability. It is also wise to keep an inspiring source near your anvil, since lucky dice do happen all too frequently in this game. It is not my purpose in this to tell you which units are anvils for each army, as most players can figure that out for themselves.
When you think back to chapter 2 and formations, the anvil’s position is fairly well defined. In an echelon formation, it will often be the slower unit closest to the flanking force. That is precisely where you want it. In a double envelopment, the anvil is frequently in the absolute center of the formation. In a wedge, the anvils are at the tail end and the outside units, unless they are intended as your tactical reserve, in which case, they are in the second wave, center.
Hammers:
Hammers come in 2 varieties: fast attack, and foot slogger. A fast attack hammer is usually heavy cavalry such as knights, large cavalry, chariots, and some flying infantry units. The foot slogger variety is often an elite infantry unit or large infantry type. Hammer units are frequently defined by having more than 1 of the following: significant attack numbers, melee value of 3 (sometimes 4,) crushing strength, thunderous charge, elite or vicious. Hammers are often kitted out with pathfinder or strider as well since you want them to hit, and hit hard. If you can’t break the unit you’re hitting with your hammer, you might want to reconsider committing them. Sometimes, you might want to bring your calculator or abacus along to a game.
Ranged Support
This is the only role I’m attaching the word “Support” to. While it is feasible to win a game using nothing but shooters, a canny opponent won’t allow that to happen. If you show up with an all shooting list against me, I am going to hide my units behind terrain, let you go first if I win the roll for turns, and just sit still for 5 turns then achieve victory on turn 6. It makes for a very boring game. With that said, ranged weapons, yes this is all of the shooting included, definitely has a purpose in the game. Massed shooting can waver or remove units in a turn or two, less focused shooting can waver chaff across a frontage, thereby stalling an attack. Some shooting can effectively remove other threats from the game such as the dreaded 4++ shooting war engines like the war trombone and the weapons team with storm of lead.
An army without any ranged support is really setting itself up for difficult times. Sometimes, just a little bit of shooting is all it takes to force an opponent to commit to a fight sooner than he’d like. It can also irritate the heck out of some players. One of my fairly frequent opponents plays dwarfs. The two shooting attacks he hates the most are wind blast and Siren’s Song. The wind blast knocks his war engines, usually organ guns, backwards, and sometimes either out of range, or off a hill or out of the woods they were safely in. The siren can force a unit to advance and be disrupted, meaning it can’t shoot either. So remember when putting your list together, shooters are a support element, and one that should probably be included.
Now let’s take a look at the troop types and the roles they will likely fulfill.
Infantry:
Let’s take infantry (and large infantry) first as our topic. Within the infantry category you have several sub-divisions: static missile users, mobile missile users, basic infantry, specialized infantry, and elite infantry. I know some of you are asking, “What about flyers?” We will get to those as well.
Missile troops get divided into static and non-static, or mobile, based upon their weapon type and purpose. The general role of all these units is ranged support, but in troop sized elements can also serve quite effectively as chaff.
Crossbows and gunpowder weapons are a static troop type since they have the reload special rule. These units serve one purpose: kill things at range, or at least damage them. The static missile units are often taken at horde strength, or at bare minimum regiment. With static missile units, more shots are better, and higher piercing is also better. Static missile units benefit from certain arcane items more than other unit types. They do best with brew of Keen-eyed, Jar of the Four Winds, Blessing of the Gods, or Chant of Hate. The positive side to this unit type is the potential damage output, but the drawbacks are that they are often lightly armored, rarely move (so are often targeted for a flank or rear attack,) and are relatively easy targets for a fast, flying hero. Remember, it only takes 1 point of damage in close combat to disrupt a shooter. The static missile units are often a good choice of unit when playing a control, pillage, or kill scenario, but where they are sorely lacking is in a dominate, push, loot or invade scenario since they are basically unable to move forward and still fire.
Bows, firebolts, breath weapons, and thrown weapons make up the mobile missile units. Also included in this are light crossbows, and the odd unit with pistols. These units can at least move and shoot, making them a little harder to line up for a flank or rear charge. They also tend to lack much piercing, except for firebolts and pistols, which suffer from having shorter range. Several of these mobile shooters also have vanguard as a special rule. This means they are capable of firing on turn 1 by moving forward before the game starts. Bows can be taken in a horde, which increases their lethality due to number of shots, but, with the exception of elves, are more likely to be seen in troops or regiments. A troop of bows is actually a good chaff unit. Regiments and hordes of these missile troops benefit from the same arcane items as the static missile units, but they also often benefit from use of the Wine of Elvenkind, granting them nimble. One other shooting unit type that can be included here is the fireball/breath attack unit. The 2 most common of these are Abyssal Dwarf Devastators and Ogre Boomers, but any unit with the Diadem of Dragon Kind could be included here as well. Mobile missile units suffer the same drawbacks as static shooters, but can advance and fire at the same time, lending them a little more to scenarios such as invade, dominate, loot and push.
With either shooting type, it is usually beneficial to keep a magic user close by who can both inspire and bane chant them.
The next unit type to discuss is the basic infantry. These are generally a bit better armored than the missile units, and often come standard with a melee value of 4+. There are other basic infantry units that are Me 5+ such as goblins, Ratkin warriors, Brotherhood Villeins, etc. The purpose of this type of unit is to fight, and likely die in your service. They can be used as an anvil to hold a strong enemy unit for 1 turn, long enough to allow you to charge the unit with something better, preferably in the flank. They can be protection for a shooting unit if you prefer. For a long while I took a regiment of lower abyssal and always co-located them with a regiment of flame bearers and a harbinger. Rarely are basic infantry ever given an arcane item, since again the basic purpose is to hold a turn and die. I have given fleshlings (cheap abyssal infantry) the Diadem of Dragon Kind to protect another unit, but the points were almost totally wasted in that instance. Plus, adding items to basic infantry makes them into special purpose infantry.
Specialized infantry do one thing, usually fairly well, or are occasionally a dual purpose unit. Many of you will disagree with me on this point, but I feel spearmen are the first of several specialized infantry we will discuss. Spears generally get more attacks than their non-specialized counterparts, thus making them a slightly better unit choice when it comes down to it. Spears also have phalanx, which many players will tell you is basically worthless. I disagree. A bunch of sharp, pointy sticks will still make a cavalry unit hesitate, and losing thunderous charge can be a significant emotional experience. The argument that phalanx is useless is because of the number of cavalry units that have CS1. Well, I counter that the majority of cavalry in the game do not have CS1, but nearly all have TC 1 or 2. An example using theory is that a Kingdoms of men knights regiment charges a goblin sharpstick horde. This is a 195 point unit charging a 155 point unit. If the knights are not hindered, they hit 11 to 12 of 16 attacks. If the goblins didn’t have phalanx, the knights would score, on average, 10 damage, and have a chance of breaking or wavering the gobbos. With phalanx, the damage output from this same regiment goes down to 6 damage, and the horde’s nerve of 19/21 is very likely going to keep them in the fight since a natural 12 is needed to even waver them.
If we take the sharp pointy sticks and elongate them even further, now we have phalanx and ensnare. Pikes are great, but they are limited to Kingdoms of Men and League of Rhordia armies only. Another specialized infantry force would be a dual purpose unit. Dwarfs have rangers which both shoot and fight, elves have seaguard with spears and bows. Even equipping a basic infantry unit with the Diadem of Dragon Kind creates a hybrid unit. The main point about specialized infantry is they are still basic grunts, but they have something specific to do. Make sure you have a reason to include them, be it as an anvil unit, or something else.
Regardless of if they are basic or specialized grunts, they are still grunts. The mission of these units, when we go back to principle of objective, is to Grab and hold an objective, defend another unit, or become a speed bump that sets an enemy unit up for destruction. Basic infantry are a solid unit for claiming objectives or tokens in loot, push, and pillage scenarios. They are mobile, and thus very useful in control, invade, and dominate scenarios as well. The ubiquitous grunt is the bog standard for most armies.
That brings us to elite infantry. Most of the army lists have some form of elite infantry, usually highlighted by a significant number of attacks, usually at Me 3+, high defense, and/or high CS. The purpose of these units is to take a hit, if necessary, and come back swinging. Remembering the principle of Offensive, though, we should be looking to deal out the hit with the elite infantry, rather than taking it. Elite, vicious, and CS are the special rules you usually will find associated with elite infantry, but there are some who defy this. The Succubi from the Forces of the Abyss and the Blade Dancers from Twilight Kin are 2 such exceptions. Where they fall short of this designation is in their defense values, both being only De 3+, and both lack CS, but both make up for it with other special rules. Both armies also have a second unit type who falls strongly into the elite infantry realm.
I am an Abyssals player, myself, and generally have 2 regiments of Succubi as my only infantry type. They can only be taken in troops or regiments, and in my army they work in pairs. If you look back to the other chapters of this treatise, you’ll find that I believe in combat teams and wingmen. Thus the infantry combat team in my army is 2 regiments of succubi and a temptress, usually with bane chant. Other infantry pairs could be a basic infantry as an anvil and an elite infantry as a hammer, include a basic inspiring character and you are set. Infantry can also be paired with cavalry, etc.
Cavalry:
Now let’s discuss cavalry, large cavalry and flyers. To my mind there are 3 flavors of cavalry: light, medium, and heavy. In the Kingdoms of Men army list, the three are very distinctly represented. Kingdoms of Men have mounted scouts with options for bows, pistols, or carbines. The medium cavalry is represented by mounted sergeants, and the heavy cavalry by knights. If you look at the 3 entries, the light cav is defense 3+, me 5+ and no thunderous charge. The medium cavalry is defense 4+, Me 4+ and TC(1). The list also has a medium variety large cavalry unit in the form of chariots with the same basic stat line except more attacks, TC(2) and ranged attacks. Then we come to the knights who are De 5+, Me 3+, TC(2) Sp 8 and no nimble. Also notice the number of attacks also increases.
The role of each cavalry type is very specific. The light cavalry is used for harassment, baiting, and dying. In other words, some are ranged support, but all are generally chaff. Light cavalry units can be used to claim objectives/loot counters/points for being in if they are still alive in the late game. Light cavalry is generally offered only in troop sized units, and has relatively low morale. A single wound can sometimes waver them. This being said, if an opponent is shooting at them, then he is not shooting at something more valuable. I include in the light cavalry heading gargoyles (available specifically for 3 separate armies) and harpies.
Medium cavalry start to get on the more expensive side. They are often better at melee, do not have a ranged option, usually have thunderous charge 1 or crushing strength one, and may, or may not, be nimble. Mounted sergeants, lancers such as Basilean panther lancers, lighter chariots, and flying infantry units like wraiths and phantoms generally could be considered medium cavalry. These units serve a more significant role in battle. While they might not be traditional Hammer units, they don’t make good anvils, and are considered a bit expensive to serve as pure chaff. One thing they do well is threat projection. Being at speeds 8, 9 or 10 means they have some reach out and touch someone capability. Getting these units in the flank or rear does hurt. There are some who would argue that tortured souls and hell hounds from the Abyss list fall into this category as well. This is a point of contention, and you will have to formulate your own opinion on it. To me, I consider the hell hounds light cavalry, and thus a chaff role and tortured souls as actual hammers, thus belonging in the heavy cavalry.
So let’s talk heavy cavalry. Knights, flying and ground based large cavalry, heavy chariots, and some flying large infantry fulfill the role of hammers. These units need to punch through an enemy line at a weak point, and then run roughshod over the enemy from the flanks or rear. That is what they are designed to do. One thing they don’t do well (with a few exceptions) is prolonged combats. You need to get these fighters into the fight and rout the enemy on the charge, or you end up risking a lot of points, and potential mission failure. A key thing to consider with your heavy cavalry is will they be enough force (Mass) to do the job, and consider this before committing them.
Monsters and War Engines:
It is sometimes hard to separate these two. Some monsters function as war engines, such as the living artillery in the Salamanders’ list, the death engine with vile sorcery from the Ratkin, or the screamers and mind screeches from Night Stalkers. The majority of monsters add something to your list that may not exist otherwise. Orcs, Goblins and Ogres, for instance, have access to the giant. A giant has the special rule of strider which means he can charge through anything unhindered. The giant also has crushing strength 3 and fury. Orcs and ogres both have special characters capable of dealing with a defense 6 enemy, but the goblins have nothing. Thus the giant may be the selected choice.
Some armies lack decent dedicated ranged support, which makes war engines or shooting monsters an ideal choice for a list. Some monsters are great fighters, and some have the added options of becoming dual purpose with a ranged support addition. Beasts of nature, for instance, are respectable fighters in their own right, but have the options to fly, shoot lightning or breath weapons. The Kingdoms of Men beast of war is a very respectable fighter, who also has the option to become a shooter. Slashers for goblins get the same option. Then there is the steel behemoth for Dwarfs, death engine for Ratkin, Firedrakes, Lekelidons and komodons for salamanders. The list goes on. The point being, this is a fantasy game, so monsters should be included, and they should do something useful.
War engines also serve a purpose; they do a lot of damage from far away, if they hit. Some of the scariest war engines in the game right now are those that have breath attacks (high number of shots) and piercing. There are direct fire and indirect fire war engines. Indirect doesn’t suffer a penalty for cover, but cannot shoot at enemies within 12 inches of them. Direct fire weapons suffer the cover penalty, but can shoot someone in the face up close and personal. The dwarfs have the only war engine that can do both. Some war engines don’t shoot at all, but do other things for their armies such as the portal of despair for Night Stalkers, the great totem for the Herd and the monolith for Empire of Dust. I can recall one game I played against the EoD where a liche priest had effective access to surge (21) which came as a bit of a shock when a unit of guardians effectively flank charged from 16 inches away at the start of the turn.
Heroes:
You knew I had to touch on these as well. A high fantasy game has to include heroes who hold the army together and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the direst of circumstances. Heroes can be infantry, cavalry, or monsters. They can be inspiring, or not. They can be spell casters or shooters in some cases. Some heroes are just annoying. A mounted standard bearer with the Crystal Pendant of Retribution, or jihadi as I normally call him, is a particular annoyance, but it has to be mounted because most units can just charge around such a hero on foot.
Combat heroes get out into the fight and do great things: disrupting shooting, hurting units, or crushing war engines. My definition of a combat hero is one who has a lot of attacks, usually 5 or more, is highly mobile either because of wings or a mount, and can deal damage effectively. Some combat characters can also add a shooting aspect through judicious use of either breath weapons or spells.
Non-combat heroes serve to enhance the line through either inspiration or spells, or sometimes both. Many is the spell chucker you will find kitted out with the Inspiring Talisman since it is a relatively low cost item, and allows a spell caster to serve in that dual role.
When it comes to selecting heroes, my theory is a fewer characters with dual purpose are often better than more single purpose ones. It is also important to consider the estimate of 1 source of inspiring for each 500 points of army. With the exception of the aforementioned mounted standard with crystal pendant, it is best not to consider your characters as chaff unless there is no other option.
Putting it all Together
There are many threads about army assembly scattered across the internet, Mantic’s forums, the Facebook groups, ad naseum. Each is focused on making that one perfect army to win every game. One of the great things about Kings of War is that there is no perfect army; no perfect list. Every unit has some functionality; it is more a matter of how you employ your list than the list itself. One of the flaws of the now dead Warhammer Fantasy Battles was that there were net lists that equated to a game of rock, paper, and scissors. If you had a rock army you beat the scissors army, but lost to the paper army. There was no tactics involved, and no thought required. The net lists were pretty much auto play lists that anyone with enough money could build and win. Of course this created an arms race for GW to build more and better units to allow you to keep buying your wins.
Kings of War attempted to balance against the arms race and net list. The rules committee ran open beta testing for both the original book and for the follow on Uncharted Empires. They have since identified some auto includes that slipped through the cracks, which, in general has made the game even more tactical in nature. Last year’s and this year’s Clash of Kings rules packs have endeavored to keep the game fresh by eliminating some of the perceived balance issues, which I feel has significantly improved the game, and forced a shift in the meta. When an item or unit combination becomes an auto include, there is an issue that needs fixing.
Selecting your force becomes a thought process rather than an exercise in Google. My Abyssal army has been called many things, but unbalanced is never one of them. The key to me winning with my army is not the list itself, but the synergy I use to make the entire list function as I want it to. I recall reading a comment one time that the most balanced list in Kings of War is the one that Dan King takes to, and doesn’t win, a tournament. If that is a true statement then the most balanced army in the game right now is the Herd. But, I digress.
If we think back to MOOSEMUS and METT-T, we can start designing an army. KoW is a game of maneuver, therefore mobility is one key to consider. When I am designing an army, the first two principles are the ones I consider first, how mobile am I, and will I be able to gain and maintain the initiative. Objectives/Missions are my next thought. Can this army win any of the 6(8) scenarios?
JMcfarland, aka Dolomyte and I played a game strictly for giggles and grins in which we each took the most lopsided army we could consider to face off. Each army was pretty much 1 dimensional. In his case he took 3 rabble hordes and 11 maw beast regiments, where I took an all shooting Abyssal gun line. The game is referred to as the MawBeQue. The one reason I lost the game was because of the scenario we rolled: Loot. My static forces had to stay put and kill 2-3 regiments per turn, while his were free to move up and grab the counters. He simply had more units and better maneuver than I did.
Think too, of the roles we discussed earlier in this chapter. If you can fit all of the roles into your list, you stand a solid chance of winning the game. It’s as simple as that. While one dimensional lists have won tournaments in the past, it’s mostly been because of the scenarios selected by the tournament organizers. Jayden, aka Swastakowey, once told me of a tournament where Kill, and Kill and Pillage were 2 of the 3 scenarios for the tournament, and that each table had height 4 hills in the deployment zones. This TO clearly gave the advantage to a single type of army: shooting. If you didn’t have a gun line of some sort, you weren’t going to win.
The replacement scenarios of Push and Control were sprouted from just such a mindset. When I am assembling an army, I want some good infantry, either to serve as an Anvil or Hammer, I want some chaff, I want some hammers, preferably highly mobile ones with either nimble or pathfinder. I want some ranged support. I want my forces grouped into wingman formations or battle groups, and I want to not violate any of the principles discussed in other chapters.
Using my current list as an example I have my infantry, in the form of 2 regiments of succubi. These can be both hammer and anvil units because they have ensnare and a high number of attacks. To make this a complete battle group, I add a temptress who is a solid combat character, who is also inspiring to Succubi only, but I grant her the spell bane chant to make her a dual role character. The next thing I want to include in my list is some chaff. Though some might disagree, I consider hell hounds as a chaff unit since they are only available in troops. I take one troop of hounds, and 2 troops of gargoyles; arguably the best chaff unit in the game.
The next thing I need is some high mobility and a hammer unit or two. For me, this just screams abyssal horsemen and tortured souls. I add a regiment of horsemen and a horde of souls. Now, remember what I said about making your hammers nimble or pathfinder? Just so, I add Maccwar’s Potion to the horsemen, and brew of haste to the otherwise shambling souls. Now one has nimble and a 22 inch charge range, the other has a 16 inch charge range through most terrain. Now I need some more dual purpose characters that will enhance my mobility. I go with an arch fiend with wings, and give it lightning bolt (5). I also love the Lord of Lies as a special character. That I have the perfect model for it helps, so I slap in those 2. I am starting to run low on points, so it’s time to enhance. I’m 1 hero short of my inspiring ratio, so I select a harbinger. He does have a single shot of range, but if I give him the Boom Stick, it increases his range, and triples his attacks. I am now down to 45 points. There is nothing in the list for this cost, so it’s items instead. 10 points goes to a succubus regiment for Dwarf Ale just in case they get hit in shooting, the other regiment will get an enhancement of the Brew of Strength to make them CS1. (Note originally, this 35 points went to Ensorcelled Armor for the arch fiend, but with the new Clash book in the offing, I made the switch.) The last 5 points goes to a nice little item called the Slashing Blade for the arch fiend.
So let’s run the check list:
- Do I have a highly maneuverable force? Yes.
- Is this an Offensive based force? Yep.
- Can I accomplish multiple scenarios? Yes, but with some hesitation. I have 11 units, 9 of which can claim objectives, loot counters, and count full points for Invade, Control, and Dominate. Where I have a short fall is on Loot and Push. Either of those scenarios can reduce my mobility when the tokens are added. The army can still accomplish both missions, but must accept a slight slowing of at least 1 unit.
- Do I have designated chaff? Yes
- Do I have both hammers and anvils? Yes
- Do I have some form of ranged support? Yes
- Do I have infantry and cavalry? Yes
These are the questions I set for myself when building a list. To my mind there is no absolute science to creating lists, it is more of an art. It is okay to ask yourself, can I build this force? Is it okay to limit yourself to models you have on hand? Absolutely. The real trick to getting the perfect army is getting the perfect army for you. The best advice I can give on creating an army, aside from what I have written out above, is play. Any army can be great if you find the synergy within it. If you find the tactics that work best with your army, it is then the right army for you. Don’t just throw something together and if it gets crushed, decide it’s not worth it. A friend and I played a game last weekend, he was trying out something completely new to him, and going from an idea, to testing, to tweaking, and then to fielding. This is how you do it. I massacred him in 4 turns, but he recognizes that he made some mistakes. The next time I play against that list, I expect it to give me a real challenge, because he will have learned from those errors and fine-tuned the list to do better.
Go to Chapter VI
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