Kings of War: International Campaign

This weekend Mantic games are running an international campaign with players encouraged to have a game (or more) and then upload the results. These games are a chance for the community to shape the future lore of the game and of course to play some games.

We took a break from our current Deadzone games to fight out a battle on the Empyrean (angelic) plane with Mr T taking charge of the Kingdoms of Men and I fielded the Undead. The battle was played using the Halpi's Rift extra rules and even though we'd played a campaign with them before we still ended up forgetting most of the extra rules, I blame that on our advanced years. We fielded 2000 points a side.

The KoM went with

3 * Regiments of Knights

2 * Troops of Mounted Scouts

1 * Giant

1 * Troop Berserkers

1 * Regiment of Pikes

1 * Horde Pole-arms

2 * Wizards

1 * General on Winged Beast

1 * The Captain

The Undead went with

1 * Horde Skeleton Spearmen

2 * Hordes Zombie Trolls

2 * Troops Wraiths

2 * Troops Revenant Cav

1 * Regiment Revenant Cav

1 * Goreblight

2 * Revenant Kings

1 * Necromancer

1 * Vampire on Undead Pegasus

The scenario was Invade in which the victor is the player with the greatest unit strength over the halfway line at the end of the game. We both opted for a narrow setup so the action was sure to be intense and that proved to be the case. 

The KoM moved first and having made a mistake with moving my Revenant Cav on T1 they promptly got charged on T2. Mr T made a mistake in not charging the second Mounted Scout Troop into the Wraiths in their front which would hurt him after the Knights didn't roll so well and failed to rout the Revenant Cav.

On the Undead turn 2 I was able to pile the Skeleton Spearmen into the flank of the Knights and take them off, had the Wraiths been pinned in place then this wouldn't have happened.

On the right of the battle the two line met with the Pole-arms holding against 2 Hordes of Zombie Trolls

but being wavered in the process.

One of those Hordes was then removed by a unit of Knights.

Back on the left in Undead T3 the Skeletons got another flank charge (60 dice is gonna hurt) and stabilised the flank.

On the right the remaining Zombie Troll unit put more wounds on the Pole-arms and wavered them again, the Revenant King also put a wound on the Knights but it wasn't enough to stop them killing him in the next turn.

Turn 4 saw the KoM do a little more damage but the Undead picked up enough units to leave them with a very low unit strength, as the night was wearing on the KoM then conceded the field to the Undead.

 

We'd not played Kings of War for a little but as always it's a fun game, in fact Mr T even mentioned being motivated to get back to painting his Abyssal Dwarfs, only time will tell if that bears any fruit or not.

Halpi's Rift: Finale. Part 2

Picking up from last week the state of play was as below, the Undead had the Kingdom of Men pinned back with the initiative laying with them after the Men missed a couple of potentially crucial nerve rolls.

Turn 4 for the Undead started well with the Revenant Cavalry and King on Wyrm removing a Sergeants Regiment and a Troop of Mounted Scouts and Archer Regiment also being removed, the Giant however survived a double charge and was largely untouched. The Vampire on Pegasus did manage to waver one of the Generals on Winged Beast.

In the centre one of the KoM Foot Guard Hordes was removed in one turn with the flank charging Zombie Trolls doing the work.

On the left the other Sergeant Regiment was removed as was the Wizard on Pegasus.

During the KoM Turn 4 they managed to remove the Vampire on Pegasus and a Skeleton Spearmen Horde to even the odds a little.

In the centre two Troops of Wraiths were removed to leave just the fighting units left.

On the left the KoM pulled the Knights back a little but caused no damage.

In what was to prove the final turn of the game the Undead pushed home their advantage by pinning the Knights in place whilst removing the Sergeant Troop and also moving troops back to secure the rear left section of the table.

In the centre the Undead removed a Knight Regiment and a Foot Guard Regiment and straightened up the lines.

On the right the Giant fell to the Soul Reaver Infantry and the two Generals on Winged Beasts fell to the Soul Reaver Cavalry and the Revenant King on Flying Wyrm.

With this the Men conceded defeat as they would not be able to wrestle control of the table back from the Undead with the forces remaining to them.

As is often the case in Kings of War, once things start to go wrong then the flank charges which open up lead to a snow-balling effect with units being removed very quickly. It could have been a different outcome if the KoM had removed the Skeleton Spearmen and Vampire on Pegasus during Turn 3 rather than them staying on.

That concludes the Halpi's Rift campaign which was a lot of fun, certainly something to take our minds off the ongoing pandemic.

Next up will be some Age of Hannibal SAGA.

Halpi's Rift: Finale. Part 1

 

This week we started the final battle of the Halpi's Rift campaign, this being the climatic battle we went all out and fielded 5,000 points a side. Due to this being such a large clash and our love of chatting the battle will be fought over two sessions.

The final scenario is control which sees the table divided into 6 sections with the person who has the most unit strength in a section at the end of the game controlling the section and earning 1 Victory Point. An additional VP is awarded if you control the central section in you opponents half of the table.

I setup the extra table length to give us 8 foot in total of which 7 is playable area, this gave me a reason to get out the town walls I had built a little while ago.

With such a high points game it meant that not many models got left in the boxes for these armies and the lists look like this:

Undead:

1 * Zombie Legion

2 * Skeleton Spearmen Horde

1 * Revenant Regiment

4 * Wraith Troop

2 * Soul Reaver Infantry Regiment

2 * Revenant Cavalry Troop

1 * Revenant Cavalry Regiment

2 * Soul Reaver Cavalry Regiment

2 * Zombie Troll Horde

1 * Wights Horde

1 * Balefire Catapult

2 * Goreblight

1 * Vampire on Undead Pegasus

3 * Revenant King on Horse

1 * Revenant King on Great Flying Worm (Toad)

1 * Liche Queen

1 * Necromancer

Kingdoms of Men:

1 * Foot Guard Regiment

2 * Foot Guard Horde

3 * Fanatics Troop

2 * Bowmen Regiment

4 * Knights Regiment

2 * Troop Mounted Sergeants

2 * Regiment Mounted Sergeants

1 * Troop Mounted Scouts

2 * Regiment Mounted Scouts

2 * Giants

2 * General on Horse

3 * General on Winged Beast

1 * Assassin

2 * Wizard on Horse

1 * Wizard on Pegasus

1 * The Captain

The KoM won the roll for first turn and opted to let the Undead start so I pushed everything forwards to close the range. The KoM have a lot more shooting than the Undead (all the Wizards have Lightning Bolt as well) so I couldn't really sit back. I did however have one catapult and the Liche Queen with Blizzard who combined in a display of pretty much max rolling to remove the Mounted Scouts Regiment in the centre of the KoM lines.

The KoM didn't move forwards in the centre and pushed a bit on the flanks opting to let their superior ranged attacks take a toll on the Undead.

This lead to the loss of both Revenant Cavalry Troops (one on each flank), so honours pretty much even after Turn 1.

The Undead Turn 2 saw them continue to push forwards along the line, this time the Catapult & Liche Queen combo pretty much fluffed all their rolls only causing light damage.

Somehow I managed to forget to take any pictures at the end of the KoM T2 but I did remember to take one at the start of Undead T3 before the combats. T2 the KoM again pushed forwards a little and let the shooting do the work, this time with no units being removed. One KoM Sergeants Troop on their extreme left did rush forwards to try and tempt the Undead flyers out.

The Undead on Turn 3 committed to some charges on their right (see above) and took off a Knights Regiment and the Sergeants Troop.

Otherwise they continued to push forwards along the line.

The Liche Queen & Balefire combo once again bore fruit with the 2nd Mounted Scouts Regiment being removed.

During the KoM 3rd turn the fight on the Undead right intensified with the KoM committing multiple units into the fray. Unfortunately for them some good damage rolls were let down by some poor nerve test rolls and the Vampire on Pegasus and Skeleton Spearmen who should have been removed stayed on the table.

The KoM also started to push forwards more along the rest of the line so it looks like Turn 4 will see much more close combat.

So that's the half way point with the Undead probably slightly ahead on kills but with territory control being the name of the game and the KoM still having the edge in faster scoring units they are still well in the game.

Halpi's Rift: Portal

Last night we played out the last Vanguard game in our Halpi's Rift campaign. The aim was to score points by being in contact with the portal at the end of the turn. An element of peril was present in the form of a D8 roll for each model in contact at the end of each turn, on a 7 or 8 the model was sucked into the portal and removed from the game.

Both sides pushed up towards the portal during Turn 1 with the Undead having two models in contact and the Men one at the end of the turn. Some 'good' rolling by the Undead meant that the Revenant Turner was lost to the void. Strike one for the void. Necromancer Hare realised that disposable bodies were the key to victory so raised an additional skeleton. The Men had gone for a more elite force with no Grunts so didn't have the bodies to throw at the portal that the Undead could muster.

Turn 2 saw an exchange of ranged fire and as the Men pulled back into a line behind the hill Pascal the Soul Reaver charged the only Man in contact with the portal, his swings went astray and failed to kill the Foot Guard. A few more of the Undead made contact with the portal and the Undead scored an additional 3 points to the 1 of the Men. Unfortunately some more high rolls by the Undead saw both Pascal and Leonard (Revenant) disappear from the field. This meant the Undead had lost three good and experienced fighters to the portal and the Men none. Hare the Necromancer again raised another replacement Skeleton to try and keep the numbers up.

Turn 3 saw some intense combat in and around the portal with the Men's Ogre charging in to kill a Skeleton and then in turn being removed by Radolf the Undying (Werewolf) and Tasha (Revenant) in combination. One of the Men's Foot Guards also took out Akatasos (Skeleton Archer) who had been raised from amongst the Men's dead several weeks before. 

The Men again only scored 1 victory point with the Undead scoring a couple more.

Turn 4 sealed the Undead victory with the Men's Leader of Men charging Radolf who he failed to kill which was unfortunate as it only upset the Werewolf who disembowelled him in a furious round of combat. The Undead had by this point opened up enough of a lead that the Men could not even hope for a draw and the Men had also lost over half their Warband.

So a resounding if costly victory for the Undead with multiple casualties taken, mostly from the Portal.

Both Warbands now need to reform and join their main armies in time for the big battle which will round off the campaign.