The CoK Tournament Pack - Why It Matters!

A lot of "noise" in the online KoW world has been about the recently released players pack for Clash of Kings tournament in the UK.


Why is this pack so important? Well, it has a quasi "official" status as it has been put together by Mantic's Rules Committee and released by the Company. And of course "Clash of Kings" is Mantic's flagship KoW event.


The pack contains a number of rules tweaks that have been tested by the Rules Committee in their playtesting sessions. They can be broken down into five clear groups:

• Re-balancing of Cursed Pharoah
• Clipping the wings of Flyers
• Changing the victory conditions for some scenarios
• Limiting potential for spam
• Addressing common Allies choices

Personally I think all the changes probably improve the game - and I'm willing to trust the Rules Committee's efforts. However I have a problem....they are not Official.


When I say that I mean they are neither errata or part of a Mantic Games Official Tournament Pack. Instead they are a set of rules for a specific event. With rules changes - both as a TO and a player - I prefer the stamp of approval.


I do think our local community should adopt them for events - and I'd like to use them as routine from here both for tournament and pick up games. Why?

• The Rules Committee believe these tweaks are necessary
• They are likely to be part of an eventual official tournament pack
• They are independent of the local community and so they can be no charge of bias against a TO by individual players

It would be great as an NZ (or greater Wellington) community that we could agree whether we want to use these so called "Tournament Tweaks". I think it needs to be an All or Nothing approach - both in terms of the full suite of changes and using them for foreseeable future events.


I have asked the Rules Committee whether they can release them with an "Official" stamp on them but that is a decision for Mantic.

Weekend Hobby Update

Sorry for the lateness this week - real life intervened.


It was a quiet weekend hobbywise for me with no games - makes Peter a sad boy. I've had my in-laws move to our city and so have been tied up getting them into their own place. Unfortunately that means last weekend and parts of the upcoming two have been spent on that "project".


However that doesn't mean all is lost! I have been able to spend the evening putting models together for the Herd. That means 30 resin wolves and a box of Mantic Gargoyles are now all assembled, cleaned up and ready for spraying.


I was dreading putting the Gargoyles together. Apart from their Zombies I have not had good experiences with Mantic models. I do not like the less rigid plastic that they are made of. However the box of gargoyles I got were not at all bad. Obviously recent GW models have spoiled hobbyists with lack of mould lines but I found the biggest problem with the gargoyles was sprue tags. Mould lines were present on some models but not as pronounced as I feared.


I now have two boxes of Centaurs plus the Centaur hero to put together. These are metal - and are the first Mantic metals I've seen - and so far the most obvious characteristic is the softness of the pewter. That means they are easy to clean up but I do have some concerns on the strength of the horse legs. I'll report back over the next few days.


My army load of MDF bases arrived from Sarissa Precision. I know I've sung their praises before but they truly provide exceptional service. My bases had travelled across the globe and were with me within 7 days. They never make a mistake and the bases are exact and precision cut. On top of that they are very affordable. I got 3000 points worth of bases for Herd for USD28 including post.


Launched registration for Warlords Super Series "Winter" and in the first couple of days have 10 signups. That means the event will attract ranking points. I'm hopeful we'll get to 20 participants. The tournament was shifted from mid July and is now the week before I leave for a month's holiday in the USA, so I was able to Umpire.


Speaking of events - Panzershreck Ninth Age tournament is on 16/17 July in Palmerston North while Call to Arms Kings of War is on 6/7 August in Wellington. Please support these events if at all possible. This weekend Southcon in Dunedin is on and there is a KoW competition. If you are in Dunedin please get along.

Printable Scenery - New Kickstarter "Apocalypse Ruins"

This week Printable Scenery launched their third crowdfunding campaign (this time on Kickstarter).




This one is also likely to be widely successful as it has WW2 and Gothic Sci Fi as well as Fantasy. Included with buildings and ruins are trench systems.

The stretch goals look great as well.

Already it has blown thrown funding goals.

Good luck to Matt and the team.

Warlords Super Series "Winter" - Kings of War Tournament

The third of the the Warlords Super Series KoW tournaments, "WINTER", will be held on 2nd July at Warlords, Ganges Road, Khandallah.

You can find the Players Pack here

Event is $25 or free if you've signed up to be a Warlords member.

Four rounds of 2000 points using rulebook scenarios.

Hope to see you along.

Clash of Kings Pack

So Mantic has released their Clash of Kings Pack which likely foreshadows the Rules Committee's Tournament Pack - and it has a number of rules changes.

Unit Entry Changes

Cursed Pharaoh – This unit has Defence 5 not 6. The points value remains the same.
Ahmunite Pharaoh– This unit has Defence 5 not 6. The points value remains the same.

Special Rules

Note the amendments to the following special rule: Fly

The unit can move over anything (blocking terrain, enemy units, friendly units when charging, etc.), but still cannot land on top of them. The unit does not suffer hindered charges for moving over difficult terrain or obstacles, unless it ends the move within or touching them. The unit also has the Nimble special rule.
While Disordered, units lose Fly. Note that this also means they lose the Nimble that Fly provides too, unless they have it by another means (such as Individuals).

Army Selection

Within your main force, you cannot select the same unit entry of type War Engine, Hero or Monster more than 3 times. For example, in a goblin army, you could take a maximum of 3 War Trombones and a maximum of 3 Wiz heroes. You could still then take up to 3 Biggits of course.

Allies

If you include allies, you cannot select the same allied unit entry of type War Engine, Hero (all types) or Monster more than once. For example, in a goblin allied contingent, you could take a maximum of 1 War Trombone and a maximum of 1 Wiz hero.
In addition, magic artefacts cannot be given to any allied units you take.

Scenarios

Invade! and Dominate!
In games using the Invade! and Dominate! scenarios, only count half the points value of units with the Individual special rule and/or War Engines that are in the defined scoring area at the end of the
game.

Loot! and Push!
While carrying one or more loot counters, units cannot use the Fly or Nimble special rules.

Pillage!
War Engines cannot capture/control objectives in this scenario

So what do people think? Are the changes needed? Will they make KoW a better game?

More importantly will you use them in your casual games? Do you want to see them used at events? Some? All?

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Weekend Hobby Update

With the move into wintry weather here I managed to get a few things done over the weekend.

As per my previous blog post I had a game against Night Stalkers down at Warlords on Saturday. It was the first time I had played Luke and the Night Stalkers and was a very enjoyable battle. I have been tossing up building Night Stalkers - post Herd - and having faced them on the table I'm certainly not dissuaded from that.

I also finished building and prepping the Herd figures I have. From there I moved on to priming them. Last night I started painting the Lycanthropes and I'm hopeful that I'll get them done this week.

My final piece of work was to strip down my airbrush and give it a thorough clean. It is amazing how much better it works having all the crap removed and the parts oiled.

The other piece of work slated for this week is to start painting the Winterdale Tavern that I printed recently. Once that is done I can print some more pieces.....discipline Peter, discipline.

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"Herd" Progressing

Over the past week I've put together the Herd figures I had available - removing mold lines and green stuffing gaps. Last evening I primed them all black ready for painting.

Ready for paint are:

• 2x Stampede
• 2x Guardian Brutes
• Brutox
• Avatar of the Father (Ungor)
• Totem (Mierce Giant with Obelisk)
• Horde of Lycantrophes
• 2x Tribal Hunters
• Various characters

Still to arrive in the mail are two boxes of Centaur, Centaur Chief and Gargoyles (Mantic), 30 Wolves (China) and MDF bases from Sarissa.

 

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Battle Report - Ratkin v Night Stalkers in Loot

This morning I wandered down to my local club, the Wellington Warlords, where I had organised a game against Luke Forrest. Luke has a Night Stalkers army and I had not played either them or him before.

The terrain was set up and we rolled up Loot. In the end Luke decided to compress the counters by concentrating them all on the flank with the tower. I was happy with this as I believed he had far more mobility than I had.

I got the first turn and jumped up on the Loot counters. One is with a Horde of Tunnel Slaves beyond the impassable at the top of the picture below. The second is with the Slaves by the Death Engine and the third has been passed to the Brutes in the bottom left.

Luke has got his Nightmares up from behind the tower however they are about to wear two Death Engines, a Weapons Team and a Lightning Bolt. As you'd expect this was fatal. In the bottom of the pic are a Horde of Fiends and behind them a Void Lurker. A unit of Slaves has charged a Troop of Reapers - to try and chip some wounds off.

At this stage my plan is to back away with the counters while dealing with the Night Stalker threat unit by unit.

In the picture below the first unit of Reapers has been shot off. The Void Lurker had charged the Blight doing 4 wounds. This let my Daemonspawn charge his flank and remove him. The Death Engines were largely ineffective with their shooting on the Fiends.

MSlaves are backing off with the Loot Counter while tha Horde in top left corner have passed to Shock Troops. In the bottom the Brutes are backing away from the Fiends with the third counter.

In the centre two Shadow Hulks and a Horde of Butchers have got into the Tunnel Slave Horde. I have been putting wounds onto the rightmost Shadow Hulk from the Weapons Team. The Slaves evaporate leaving the Shock Troops facing the three units.

The Weapons Team finishes off the woundedHulk, while I charge the second with the Shock Troops and Bane Chant them. This is effective in removing him. The Reapers have taken out a Death Engine but the combined Blight, Daemonspawn and second Death Engine have seen off the Fiends with the Blight picking up the Loot Counter. I have also put the Weapons Team between the Slaves and Reapers to buy a turn.

 

The Butchers charge the Shock Troops who hold but are in return countercharged and bane chanted. This removes them leaving the way free for the Legion of Blood Worms to charge and break the Shock Troops and claim one counter.

My Daemonspawn and Death Engine remove the second Reapers allowing the Slaves and Blight to sneak away with the two other counters securing the win for the Ratkin.

It was a good game and I learned a lot about the Night Stalkers. I felt Luke erred in not spreading the counters out as that allowed me to concentrate my heavy hitters. The other thing I felt would have helped him was putting the Blood Worms nearer the centre. While they got a counter they had minimal influence on the game allowing me to ignore them until I had the game secure.

 

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Hedge Score

Played KoW down at the club this morning and there was a series of boxes from an ex-member.

I managed to pick up a lot of hedges at a cheap price. Love these for the boundaries on my building terrain pieces. I had run out and hadn't been able to find a new source.

Score!!!

 

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More "Herd" Roll In

Arrived home from work this afternoon and there was a parcel waiting in the letterbox from Arcane Miniatures in the UK.

In the package were three boxes of Malifaux "Wild Boars", a new plastic kit they have released.

They are very nice sculpts and I expect that I will use them as part of my Stampedes.

Just a word about Arcane Miniatures. The service was very fast - less than a week from order to delivery on the other side of the world. They all carried good stock. I certainly wouldn't hesitate using them again.

 

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