Hi all! I am (on and off) gradually putting together a FoN army for my daughter, made predominantly of elementals because she likes the models and I can print them easily! However, being melee 4+ with 9/18 attacks (regiment or horde) I am thinking that they may struggle against spammy armies of goblins or undead etc. due to a lack of pure volume of attacks. Maybe I am wrong on this of course! I have ogres and goblins, and the ogres work out ok due to 3+ Melee, or taking some berserkers (or goblin chaff). Goblins donât struggle for number of attacks (hitting a barn door howeverâŚ).
Any advice for a FoN army coming up against something like hordes/legions of goblins or waves of undead zombies?
Naiad heartpiercers - bring two (or even three) regiments and youâll have a very strong shooting base that will melt low-defense units like zombies in a turn or two.
Alternatively, bringing a regiment of earth elementals against thrash armies is hugely fun. The amount of turns a me5+/no CS unitis going to need to break through that defense 6+ is insane. If your battle plan involves shooting (greater fire elementals + scorchwings) from behind this batle line, this works fine. To add insult to injury, a cheap heal on a druid can heal that few points of damage that does come through.
You could also opt for forest shamblers. They are slightly less durable (due to def 5+ instead of 6+) but they are cheaper and do scout.
other option: bringing a pair of surge casters to do surge-tricks. Finding a flank with a greater fire or greater air is very rewarding. (though not the most easy play, so maybe this is not optimal)
Finally: fire elementals have more offensive power due to CS(2) and vicious. The greater fire is an absolute monster with CS (3), melee 3+ and vicious. Find a flank with one of these with a surge trick on your 50x50 base and youâre looking at 12-ish wounds against most units.
Vince has covered pretty much the options for dealing with loads of poor infantry.
The key with an elemental heavy list is to tie the enemy up from the front and surge stuff into the flanks and rear. Should probably look to have at least 3 sources of surge to help facilitate this.
With me3 air elementals are pretty decent at butchering hordes of low de units with 18/36 attacks in the flank or 27/54 from behind.
Itâs very common to see a Fire Elemental horde with sharpness, which answers part of your question (how do Me 3+), but obviously that seems like an over-investment, applying a top tier can opener to a horde of trash. An Air Elemental horde gets you to Me 3+ (usually in the flank), however youâll often take them with the hammer of measured force, which is ironically boosting those zombiesâ survivability So the most common elemental hammer hordes might run into some awkward interactions.
Apart from putting greater elementals into the flank (or rear) while you hold in the front with rocks or water, have you considered Wyrmriders? Theyâre overqualified for trash duties but a combo charge into the front of a horde will put a dent in it, and their grind capability isnât bad.
Just an aside, but itâs interesting that your daughter liked the look of the elemental models.
Both my kids are drawn to Forces of Nature, itâll be a future project. I do wonder if thereâs something archetypical about the idea of the army that appeals to them⌠I wondered is it the relatability of something to do with the natural world, versus armies that are more abstract or rooted in lore/books/culture that they arenât as immersed in as older players might be.
Me, as a 40 something, thinks of a whole lot of things when I see an elf or orc army⌠As compared to them⌠Who have never read Tolkien, Feist, whateverâŚ
(I strongly agree and have never taken it. I love shoving Me 3+ trash into hammer units! Air hordes just always seem to have it, or did when they were taken.)
I also think Hunters of the Wild regiments are worth considering. They were very mediocre at the start of the edition, but I think theyâre in a good place now. Solid value for points, decent stats, nice unit strength, and can accompany Wiltfather / Treemom up the table in a more meaningful way. They also do ~8 damage into the front of a zombie horde (or 9-10 if dad is around)
I have read her the hobbit (and her brother LotR too), but yes your point stands and it will be interesting to see how younger players choose their armies in the future. My son plays night stalkers in KoW and plague in firefight/deadzone, but recently asked about starting an Asterian list. None of these would be my first choice, so his tastes are very different.
I think she just likes the look of them and they are less âwarlikeâ than things like orcs etc. She is very much not your typical gamer! For a start she is pretty young (I help her play the game), secondly sheâs female, and thirdly she insists on everything having ârun awayâ rather than having been killed
Super helpful, thanks! Your post and those that followed give lots of great ideas to firm up the list a bit.
Sheâs currently quite young and I tend to play either on her side or to help her a lot playing against her. I just want to make sure the list is future proofed so that when she is playing me or her brother (or maybe someone else at a games club) she doesnât have an army with a massive flaw in it. I think that actually air elementals combined with some earth elementals as road blocks might do the job nicely. Just need the earth elementals to be added to the vault!
Thatâs the way! Also, remember that sheâs pretty spot on on the ârunning awayâ part. Kow is pretty particular, I think, about the abstraction of deleting a unit. Its called routing for a reason. Some may die, sure, but most of the units historically werenât killed but fled and broke ranks. So it is for KoW as well.
It doesnât have to be a game of brutalism, even if it is a game of warfare and winning and losing.
Long wait Iâm afraid as the earth elementals are really old pvc sculpts - which arenât the things that mantic are getting into the vault.
The ârunning awayâ thing was pretty much how lots of european dark age/early medieval battles finished. It wasnât until later mass casualties racked up (and boy did people make up for it!!)
Totally agree with your point above, units which were broken in combat being killed to the last man seems to have been far from the norm in historical warfare.
Indeed if we look at historical treatises you find warnings that trapping an enemy so that they cannot retreat or flee is not always desirable, because of the fierce resistance it could create.
Thereâs a bit of this in Sun Tzu, I thinkâŚ
"If there be no alternative but death, the soldiers exert themselves to the utmost.
In desperate places, soldiers lose the sense of fear.
If there be no place of refuge, there will be no wavering."
So he says, on âdeath groundâ, you âfightâ.
In terms of the actual mechanics of how close order combat occurred, thereâs another aspect to this as well:-
I know the ârankedâ units in KOW are more abstract representations than warriors actually forming phalanxes or maniples, but thatâs the way they look. And thereâs a long debate among students of classical warfare, in particular, about whether phalanxes colliding actually did much outright killing of the other side, or whether it was more of a pushing match (âothismosâ). Proponents of the side that believe it was more of a pushing and shoving match, after the first engagement of spears, tend to say then that the side which broke was most at risk of suffering causalities. You leave the protection of the line, you turn your back, you get stabbed or run down, etc. (Although we also find in the histories references to unencumbered soldiers leaving the battlefield at greater speed than those who remain under arms could move after them).
So the most common elemental hammer hordes might run into some awkward interactions.
(or 9-10 if dad is around)