"Done with Kings of War bit of a rant" Topic

I now realize that I have grown past game systems that use points AND require über combos with in depth reading of blogs and forums on how to create that "winning army."

Last night at the local game store I had arrived to get in a couple of games. The first game was with an acquaintance and we had a fun game of Lion Rampant. My second game of the evening and my second time trying the rules was Kings of War. The fact I played Lion Rampant first as you will see serves as an excellent context and comparison to what transpired.

The Lion Rampant game ended up being the Sausages and Mustard scenario where the attacker has to burn four objectives plus any successful boasts in order to win. Of course my opponent and I had drawn up our lists prior to determination of the scenario and rolled our Warlord Skills. I ended up being the attacker which ultimately was bad for me as I had gone with a smaller aggressive retinue that was not able to effectively strike at all of the objects while my opponent has gone for a more jack of all trades type force and while I initially drove him back and caused one unit to completely rout I lost due to never having a chance to set fire to the objectives. It was a blast and my opponent and I had a good time and there were a number of humorous moments when units did not act when needed or did act when you did not want them to.

By contrast the Kings of War game was far from fun. I had told my opponent that this was my second game and I was planning on attending the Kings of War tournament that would be on the following week. At first my opponent seemed more than willing to accommodate me and we deployed for the game.

I had a Kingdoms of Men force made up of my old Dogs of War and Bretonnian armies and he had an elven force that once I saw it should have given me pause. His army was beautifully painted and presented but only consisted of two elven knight regiments, a treeman, an elven sorceress, a regiment of archers, a character on a drake and two regiments of drakes or some type of pterodactyls. My force consisted of three regiments of knights, one horde of heavy pike, one horde of berserkers, two troops of crossbowmen, one troop of handgunners, a regiment of footguard, and a regiment of ogre warriors plus my wizard, general and an army standard bearer. I had only take two magic items while my opponent I put some kind of magic on just about every unit in his army.

I deployed in typical Warhammer fashion in a long line across my deployment zone and that proved to be my ultimate undoing. I did not understand the flexibility that Kings of War has in regards moving units and my opponent knowing my inexperience with the game never offered to state why I might want to reconsider. It seems that you can effectively deploy in depth which I would have liked to have done but know from playing Warhammer that does not work too well as your units get in each other's way. Not so with Kings of War. So I had a large cheap force against an army tooled to the max and designed to wipe a novice like me off the table and that is exactly what my opponent proceeded to do. By the top of turn two half my army was destroyed and I called it at that point. The elven archers appeared to be armed with AK-74s not long bows and got tons of rerolls shooting out of a wooded area where I effectively could not hurt them. My one effective unit of shooting with my handgunners had put five wounds on the treeman only to have the elven sorceress completely heal all his wounds. The treeman than proceeded to crush all in its path.

Looking at my opponents face I could see the glee in which he was enjoying my destruction. I pretty much announced at that point I was done with Kings of War where upon my opponent now deemed to regale me with advice on how I could have better deployed, and oh you need to take this and that magic item and put it with this type of unit in order to have this winning combo. Several other players in the store also chimed in. Which thanks but right when you have been thoroughly spanked one is less than receptive. And where was all this good advice before I had set up? Perhaps I am asking too much here but it brings to face why I have set aside games like 40K, Warhammer, and now Kings of War.

While both Lion Rampant and Kings of War have points the forces in Lion Rampant do not have super combos and the emphasis is on fun. I thought Kings of War was going to be the same but clearly it too suffers from the min-max syndrome. At my age I do not have the patience nor the desire to pour hours upon hours of working and reading about how to beat "X"army. I want what little time I have to play miniature war games to be relaxing and enjoyable. Even a game system like Bolt Action which is points based has good limits on how one can design their force and really most armies in Bolt Action will be on some type of parity. In other words it is harder to create a broken force. I thought Kings of War was finally going to be the rules that got me back into doing fantasy gaming as at first glance it appeared to be balanced and had moved away from the hero hammer or monster hammer mentality. Sadly I was wrong. Well this will perhaps have me go ahead and buy Dragon Rampant and perhaps look into seeing if I can get folks interested in Warmaster.

Is the problem the opponent not the rules though?

I like both rules.

While I still play points based games sometimes I never pay attention to the points.

Firstly, I must admit I'm definitely not a fan of min/max points games like Kings of War, or Bolt Action or Warhammer. I've never played KoW, but have played Dragon Rampant.

That said, your opponent in your KoW battle sounds like a right arse. I completely and totally fail to understand how anyone can take pleasure in beating someone who doesn't know the rules. May I suggest that perhaps that idiot has coloured your opinion of KoW?

I love DBA, for example. And yet, I've played against tournament morons who have exploited the rules to an incredibly stupid degree in the many version prior to 3.0. One jerk placed a grid of thin felt lines across the board, such that there was not a single spot of open ground larger than 39mm. Since base widths are 40mm, every single element would therefore be in bad going. The rules stipulated that no more than 25% of the board could be bad going, so mathematically it was legal.

Was it a terrible match? Oh yes, absolutely. Is DBA a terrible game? Absolutely not.

I do think Dragon Rampant is a lot of simple fun, but I suspect that if your opponents had been reversed, you would have had a lot of fun in KoW and not liked DR.

I also suspect that DR is indeed quite susceptible to min-maxing. Where I think it balances out are the scenarios, as you've implied. You can create killer combinations…but not for all the scenarios! I'd be wary of players that try to get you to agree to a scenario and then design an army.

Sorry your experience was harsh, but …

It seems you did not enter this game asking if you could be taught how to play, but instead to learn by playing . Given your limited experience, it should not be a surprise that you didn't win. Normally, if I were in a similar situation, I would spend the time recovering from the spanking by trying to learn from the mistakes I made.

Your opponent took joy in winning. Well …this isn't much of a surprise either. It takes a graceful opponent to win without gloating, and in the world of war gaming there are many who don't show much grace. Your opponent did offer to discuss strategies after the game, and this sounds fairly sportsmanlike, to me.

You can either take your loss as a reason to avoid the game in the future, or avoid that opponent, or as a chance to learn more about the intricacies of the game. Whether the game suits your own playing style is a personal choice. But losing shouldn't drive your decision.

I love 40K but only play friendly games with friends.

DM

Although I hate such types of games (points and tournament geared games) I'll agree with the others, the problem is not the game but your inexperience coupled with your opponent.

I like cake…….

if you liked the rules, than don't let the opponent ruin it for you! I hate that style of play, personally, but love good scenarios, mass fantasy battles, and fast play games. KOW, for me, is a great way to use my massive old warhammer undead army in a quick, tactically rewarding game. plus, mantic is now releasing campaigns and scenarios for even more variety.

I will say that leaning how the game rewards deployment and such is a good lesson though. but he should have talked about it as you were deploying! my group always plays KOW with small armies when showing new players, so they can learn the mechanics over the course of a couple learning games. then we bust out the big guns and duke it out.

KoW was created for tournament play, wasn't it? I'm not really surprised by what happened, although I feel bad for you.

I agree that a first impression of rules can ruin it for a player. You should maybe try a couple of games on your own and see how the rules work for you.

That said, many games with points systems are too fiddly. Many exception will invariably lead to many ways to exploit the rules in a way they never were intended. It sounds like KoW may fall into that trap. I read them and rather like the "look" of them but playing with like minded opponents may be the answer.

I do think Dragon Rampant is a lot of simple fun, but I suspect that if your opponents had been reversed, you would have had a lot of fun in KoW and not liked DR.

I think he said he was playing Lion Rampant, not Dragon Rampant.

I too dislike games where one can lose in the army selection.
Lion Rampant is much more straight forward.

While I agree with what many of stated above that the opponent was the problem; the experience brought into focus for me that I just do not want to expend the time to learn all the nuances of Kings of War. While Kings of War does not have the myriad of magic items and unit combos of say Warhammer, as stated I have rare opportunities to actually get to play miniature war games. Perhaps I should see the silver lining here and thank my opponent for helping me realize that by destroying my army in such short order. It means I will not expend effort on trying to create a winning army or trying to find better players. I've already found decent players for Lion Rampant and yes many of them want to give Dragon Rampant a go. Neither Lion or Dragon Rampant is a mass battle game but I am fine with that. I wanted to like Kings of War but perhaps it is best to move on. It is not as if my models will not find use with other games that I do enjoy.

I agree, time is a very rare thing that we have to enjoy gaming. I want to have fun. My days of compiling armies via points lists are long gone. I know that rules still have them and I do like those, but I have struggled through too many bad rules in the past, that I don't branch out as much as I used to with my variety of rules for a given era.

I dropped out of the local Warhammer scene years ago because all the local players were like your KoW opponent. It just sucked all the fun out of a game I had previously enjoyed.

Life is too short to play games that aren't fun.

It sounds like KoW is not the sort of game I am looking for either, but DR might be.

You know Age of Sigmar doesn't have points at all. We've been having a blast with it.

I think he said he was playing Lion Rampant, not Dragon Rampant.

Quite right. My mistake. That said, Dragon Rampant is identical to Lion Rampant, just with a layer of deliciously simple magic spread over top.

Sorry to hear about your bad experience.
But any set of rules is easily spoiled by a win at all costs type player.
We've been playing the heck out of Lion Rampant and KoW, and it's been a blast. But we also don't play tournaments have a very friendly, 'I'm here to have fun core' of players.

I just started collecting Warhammer Chaos Dwarfs, am I coming it late to the game. ;-)

IMO playing games with friends is usually more enjoyable than playing with complete strangers, especially if you don't have a handle on the rules.

Oh and I am really collecting GW Chaos Dwarfs with the big hats.

I thought they would make the perfect army to attack Santa and his gnomes. :-)

I agree with the comments that the problem was your opponent, not the rules. Had a lot of fun games with KOW…

Mike

Every game is what you make of it, and KOW is no excetion to that rule.
That said do I really feel for you. Especially since I had some serious fun with KOW.

I've been lucky that my KoW games have been enjoyable but each one has provided a lesson. Like the OP I have an army based on Bretonnians and one thing I have realised is that I need to deploy in a manner that allows me to counter flying units.

Kingdoms of men are strong on cavalry but the monsters/war engines options are weak. My next general will be on a Gryphon or something like it. Allies are useful to broaden your options. Give it another go with someone who is a bit less intent on crushing you.

So is KOW basically the new not-Warhammer?

The problem is that knowing how to play Warhammer isn't the same as knowing how to play Kings of War. In generally I'd argue that realistic tactics work better in Kings of War and that special units and characters are significantly less powerful. But either way understanding how units move on the table is essential, as is gaining a feel for how a unit is best used.

But combos, well, combos can be really powerful in Kings of War. There's a reason they went from a very loose, use allies tournament system to a very rigid one.

@Pictors--the irony is that the Internet boards are full of ex-Warhammer players, many to most like the KoW player the OP played--who blast and moan because Age of Sigmar does NOT have points. Too many of that crowd WANT to min/max and exploit rules. Oh well. I agree with you that AoS on its face is a decent game if people would give it a chance. Hate the new Sigmarines, though.

I appreciate all the comments and the reasonable approach everyone has taken on the topic. I realize part of the issue is with me. I've just come to a point in life where if it is not enjoyable why do it? As I have stated I do not want to expend the time and energy attempting to learn all the best combos for a particular army. One reason I moved into historical games and more genre based games such as pulp or VSF is that most cases those games are geared toward a scenario. Even with Bolt Action which has a strong tourney base I have chosen to not engage in that activity. Instead I have pushed scenarios and friendly games.

With Kings of War I was going to participate in a tourney this coming weekend and there is where I set myself up for disappointment. The other issue is now that I am living in Dallas I am not around my long time game group which had a similar mindset about scenario games. Here in Dallas it seems almost all the gaming is geared toward tourneys. So part of my discouragement is related to that aspect. I could attempt to push for friendly games of Kings of War but I am afraid I am not going to find that with my local gaming stores.

That said I have been successful with getting folks to try and enjoy Lion Rampant and I think that it is in part because there are some war gamers in the area that are looking for something that is not geared toward the tourney mentality. It is the first success I've had in that regard since coming to Dallas as trying to get anyone to try anything other than 40K, Flames of War, Bolt Action, Malifaux or Warmahordes has been impossible.

Now I realize when in Rome one must do as the Romans do. Which I have been attempting. I have set aside Battlegroup, Fireball Forward and Force on Force in order to start collecting and playing Flames of War and Bolt Action. I have given Kings of War a go as many of the former Warhammer players do not like Age of Sigmar and alas Pictor I am one of those turned off by the change.

Anyway I have to thank my Kings of War opponent I suppose. I will now not waste my coming Saturday all day in a tournament that most likely would of had me enduring more the same experience. Instead I can put my free time to better use and redirect my efforts else where. There is the silver lining.

Kallman:

You have butted up aganist a currently all too common problem in miniature wargaming: games that are won not on the table top by manuver but by spending hours creating a super rule exploiting army list.

The problem though lies not with your opponent or even tournaments but the rules. I assume your opponent did nothing illegal and his army list was correct in content and cost. He simply applied rule/army lists as they forced/lead him to do. There is nothing wrong with trying to win as long as you stick by the rules. What's wrong is the rules have impelled him to do so by exploiting rules and power lists rather than using clever on table tactics.

The correct solution is to use (or write) rules that reward manuver, in this case, as your playing a medeival fantasy game, manuver appropriate to the period. What ever method of used for balancing (points, unit construction etc.) should produce a fair battle even if you use a more historically based army against a more fantasy oriented army – the two sides just have to use different tactical approaches during the game.

We spent a long time on DBA 3.0 development getting these concepts to work (and then I spent a long time getting the fantasy version of DBA to work in this manner). I just played a DBA 3.0 tounament with a wide variety of armies and we had great play balance – games were won on the table top by manuver (and luck). I then ran a Big Battle tournament using the fantasy DBA based around the Game of Thrones armies. We had three connected battles all decided by player decisions made on the table top. So it is possible. (Though its only fair to point out that many DBA tournament players resist converting to DBA 3.0 because of the toning down of the old super terrian set ups and the geometic ploys.)

I spent a great deal of time working on this problem in my WWII game Combat Command. Especially comming up with a way to create Battlegroups that were balanced, resembled historical forces and were fun to play – but still had some player input as to composition. If I can do it so can the big price game companies. Though I suspect the problem is that such levels of development and playtesting aren't considered cost effective.

It can be done but will not be done until the wargaming market rewards design work over rule books stuffed with pictures of profesionally painted miniatures.

I spend a lot of time running and organizing games as I just did at Siege of Augusta and have found many players who appreciate the design effort – so I know such players are out there. I suggest running the games you like and seeing if you can recruit some players off the Flames/Bolt tournament super army buy more stuff treadmill.

TomT

Actually- KOW DOES reward proper battlefield tactics and maneuvers. Well, for a given value of "proper" anyway, much more so than it rewards List-hammering (the art of trying to win a battle in the "write the army list" phase) . In truth looking at the two lists I'd say there was nothing particularly unkillable in his list and none of the magic artefacts in KOW can make a unit invincible.

What I note about your opponents list is that it was fairly small in numbers but quite fast, and hits hard on the charge. Thats all its got; a nasty lightning fast right hook, and a glass jaw. And theres ways of dealing with that- defence in depth, not letting your units get isolated and picked off one at a time, tarpitting the fast stuff so it cant escape when you envelop his weedy bunch of tree huggers and tear them to pieces from all sides.

But YOU know all that, because you said as much in your 6th paragraph yourself!
So your tactics were off, its not the end of the world, happens to everyone. The real tragedy would be to not to learn from the error, and make sure you do better next time.

Ignore that bumf about magic item combos- this isnt warhammer where a magic sword can wipe out all life on a continent with a single wiggle, whilst turning all the buildings into custard- one of the best KOW artefacts makes you slightly less likely to fall over when running through the undergrowth. Most of the rest hardly do anything at all.
They have their uses, but you're almost always better off spending the points on troops.

Sounds like chess might be your game.

Play the rules and opponents you like. If KOW does not offer enjoyable games, thats it. ANY ruleset can offer enjoyable games with the right opponent, but if a certain ruleset attracts a kind of players with a "competetive" style, then avoid it. Its your time.

I'd offer that you should continue to play KOW. While you don't enjoy tweaking your armies with gear and what-not, I feel that you may finds nice balance once you've better learned the game. I prefer themed armies and build on those themes rather than min-maxing, but sometimes a unit will be mini-maxed because it needs to fit it's theme.
That said, DR is going to be my choice for skirmish games due to simplicity of collecting and building your warbands. Good luck with whatever direction your gaming takes you.

I think you should give KoW another try. Think of it like this: just because you get a bad pizza somewhere doesn't necessarily mean all pizza is terrible. It was that one pizza maker that made a bad pie. Now if after several more plays you feel the same then you can honestly state you gave it it a real chance ans it wasn't for you.

Try Hail Caesar or Pike & Shotte both by Warlord Games and both easily adaptable to fantasy gaming

The problem isn't the game.

Rabbit