"Kings of War - alternative to IGO-UGO?" Topic

I'm interested in looking at KoW – principally for Medieval historical games using the supplementary rules available on the web. However, one thing I would prefer is a simple command and control system which moves away from IGO-UGO.

Would moving to something as simple as the Bolt Action dice bag (merely to show who's unit activates) work – so that when your colour die is pulled you do a units turn sequence in full, then pull a die for a new unit – which could be yours or your opponents etc etc.

Number of dice = number of units.

Or pull dice (one colour each side again) in the same way as Sword and Spear – ie number of dice = number of units but pull 7 dice at a time. The side with the highest number of their dice goes first and activates that number of units, then the other player activates their number of units.

e.g. 4 red dice pulled and 3 blue dice means red player goes first and activates 4 units, then blue player activates 3 of his.

Repeat until all units activated.

Any thoughts on feasibility or other alternatives?

Many thanks

I enjoy random activation games, and for that reason was hesitant to get into KoW. But all my friends are playing, so I started. The game plays quickly, and is very neat (not a lot of special rules like warhammer). So I don't know that adding random activation would improve game-flow.

We have been playing Lion Rampant and using a variation of it's activation system. Instead of your entire turn being over if you don't activate a unit, we have been playing that the activation goes to the other player until he either activates all his units or fails an activation and then it comes back to the first player. Seems to work well for us and still provides a nice fog of war. We have had it bounce back and forth several times during a turn. You do need some way to mark units that have either activated/fail activation, because of the back and forth sequence.

Change the sequence of play as follows:

Best leader decides who moves first.

Side A moves.
Side B moves.

Resolve missile shooting (both sides).
Resolve Melee (both sides).

Morale.

Repeat.

You can also use an order chit system (see Johnny Reb or Command Decision or Combat Command).

TomT

The method you describe in the OP is similar to Piquet, in which the two sides roll a d20 and the winner gets as many "impetus points" as the difference between the two rolls with which to flip cards, move units, etc. The one thing I really like about this sort of random initiative is that you can move more than one unit at once, thereby creating combats with overlaps, etc. The criticism of Piquet in this regard is that the d20 roll produces too wide of swings, where one side could get a huge number of impetus points a few to several phases in a row. Many subsequent rules based on Piquet use variations to tone down this aspect. Yours seems a fair way to do so.

I don't see why you would want to use a very mediocre and generic fantasy rules set such as KoW for historical wargaming when there are so many fine historical sets out there.

Cheers

CW

we have been playing that the activation goes to the other player until he either activates all his units or fails an activation and then it comes back to the first player

That's the rules as they're written, no?

I think Thomas means that instead of starting a full round of activations (battered unit rallies, wild charges etc.) you can only attempt to activate the units that didn't activate earlier. A bit like breaking a turn into an unknown set of sub turns. Doesn't seem worth the effort to me but to each his own.

Many people just want to paint and push toy soldiers around on a ping pong table, and not consult a thick rulebook with questionable editing and weakly-supported historical assumptions about the nature of combat.

Nick B – The Sword and Spear ancient rules use a system that sounds somewhat like your proposal.

Buff – Oh I see. Yes, makes sense now.

Regarding Sword and Spear, a fantasy version is on the cards which might suit the OP.

Thanks for your input guys.

Actually I'm a dyed in the wool Impetus player but can get little or no traction at the club. There are a lot of KoW players so I am trying to think of a way of using my Impetus armies so I can engage the other guys in some ancients/medieval with rules they are comfortable with and then hopefully get a few to move over to Impetus.

Sword and Spear certainly has some interesting mechanisms but with the average sized game only having 12-15 elements its a bit small for my tastes.

"Look out boys! That there thick rulebook may contain questionable editing and weakly-supported historical assumptions! Billy-Bob, you get the torches, John-Boy you get the pitch forks!"

Thanks for reminding me – mediocrity will always win out.

cheers

CW

Get a deck of cards and use that.

Sword and Spear certainly has some interesting mechanisms but with the average sized game only having 12-15 elements its a bit small for my tastes.

You can of course play bigger games than this, but unless you are playing multi-player games, 15 units is normally plenty for one player to handle.

How many units do you normally use on each side in your KOW games ? Do you really use more than 15 units per side ?

Woodfield, if you have a better suggestion for the OP, give it. Don't jump in on a specific thread with generic and unsupported criticisms that are not relevant to the question asked.

"How do I solve Situation X in Game Y?"

"Game Y sucks and I don't know why anyone would play it."

Way to go.

I totally understand where you are coming from, as I enjoy deeper activation systems, like the dice bag in Sword & Spear, or the Chain of Command system, where you roll a number of dice, and a certain number activated a squad, another number a team, etc.

However, Kings of War turns go so fast that I do not mind the IGo-UGo in that particular game. I even enjoy playing with the chess clock like is requires in many KoW tournaments.

I think the 'pulling a die from a bag' or colored chips from the bag, i.e. the Bolt Action sys. seems one of the better solutions I have seen so far. And a great way to keep that fog of war to the game.
The 'impetus' system is interesting, however I dont particularly care for basing that on a D20 roll. The chance of giving one said 'Far Too Much' advantage is too great. If doing that, peronally I'd go with using D6 for the game.

Nick B
with the average sized game only having 12-15 elements its a bit small for my tastes.

I can only wonder;
First, w/ so many units, rules are you using KoW or Black Powder?
Second, what scale do you usually game? Even a dozen 28mm units can take up a fair amount of gaming space as it is.