Regnum Aeternum - Written Battle Reports for KoW 3rd Edition

Kings of War Battle Reports / Games
405

Oh, no fear, @Darkblack! I totally agree with the tangent. The revamp last year had a few gems but did very little for me in total. I was not a fan of the hit to Lower Abyssals either (could have just dropped the Ghouls entirely, I don’t remember seeing anyone run them previously, and I was surprised when I saw the unit entry last year before the revamp); nor the Nagarri (bad fluff, weird stats, and an overall awkward unit despite a cool premise).

I know I am missing some background fluff, but from my surface-level understanding of the lore, I do not like their approach with the Abyssals overall. GW has the mutations and Chaos angle covered, and I wish Mantic would have gone in a more orderly direction here: the malevolent force from the Abyss trying to rewrite Panithor’s reality with its own machinations, drawing from deeper and deeper Circles as the lore progresses and needs new stuff from them.

Overall, I definitely agree with your brief rant. If there is a design guide for the Abyssals, it needs some revisiting, as we’re getting a mismatch of ideas, resulting in what feels like a lot of swings and misses for the Abyssals lately. We’ll see what 4th has in store for them…

And then cheers, @Boss_Salvage. I’m playing to relax, so anytime is a good time to get a game in, incoming edition change or no! I’m your Huckleberry, and have two more reports against @Cartwright 's Basilean dalliance that are up and ready to be read, to help make it to the weekend:

Battle 148 was High US Undead vs Basileans in Salt the Earth

I had a few tokens in my starting zone or near it. I realized that I could move up and still hold all the tokens near me in Round 1, and so I decided to burn them all and just be aggressive. That actually worked well, as I think my opponent decided to play more defensive with the Elohi. The pressure was on, and almost everything bounced my way for what ended up being a rather one-sided game.

Battle 149 was High US Undead vs Basileans in Protect and Raze

I have very much enjoyed the upgrade to Raze. It has been a bit rare to actually defend a token at the end, but I do like that holding or pushing is part of the calculus in-game. I clearly had some deployment errors with several of my infantry hordes, and those are still proving to be tricky for me at times. Overall though, I got within one die roll of victory, so played a pretty darn good game here too to come back from the early errors.

My Undead adventures veered pretty hard towards MMU when I realized they only really use their hero slots as an army. The last handful of games doubled down on taking nifty heroes, but I struggled a bit in those games as the unit-trading kicked into gear, as noted in Battle 146. The unit-centric approach felt far stronger and safer here. You are left with a pretty straightforward approach of just moving ahead and eventually charging, but filling the board with units helped prevent flanks for the most part, and the better charge range of the Trolls and Cavalry relative to normal infantry was ok, with Surge also giving me the occasional tricky move too.

The Undead are a lot of fun. Despite the uncertainty with the nuances of Fearless, I’m probably most hyped to see them in 4th Edition. Between rolling theme lists back up and then new limits on fewer big toys and such, I think all of my other armies are going to have seismic changes in style and builds. The Undead don’t have a lot of toys, so an approach more like in these recent games, with an over-emphasis on units (regiments or otherwise!) should be fun, viable, and pretty strong.

…but we’re not quite to 4th yet. Our club has a one-day event coming up this weekend, and then I probably one more meetup against the Halflings in some form as they prep for their final tournament in late November. So, a few more reports to come from me in November before we close the door on 3rd.

4 Likes
406

One More Rules Thing: Dread and Brutal don’t stack, re: Mhorgoth zipping over to help the wights push combats over with the extra pip …

2 Likes
407

Very true! I know this lack of overlap came up earlier in the day and we did play it correctly.. i must’ve slipped on the details extrapolating things for the report. I’ll tidy up those sections in the reports. Thanks!

Edit: pretty sure we just forgot the Wights have Brutal. :sweat_smile:

3 Likes
408

Always a blast getting a game in with you–thanks again for for the write-ups!

I was definitely caught off guard in Game 1 when you burned the tokens early. I didn’t have a real plan for that and was already on the back foot before dice even mattered. I needed a little luck to swing things back and didn’t get it, so you snowballed the position well.

Game 2 felt a lot more even once I settled into the army a bit—well played on pulling it back to a draw. The Elohi are still a learning curve for me, but the Phoenixes absolutely earned their spot again in scenario play.

Still figuring out how to run this style of Basileans, but always enjoy the reps. Looking forward to the 4E rematch.

2 Likes
409

As promised, I still have a few 3rd Edition reports left in me. This weekend had the Northwoods Melee, a smaller, 8 player, 1-day event at 1500 points. The TO is a leatherworker, and he did up a set of one-of-a-kind set of Bracers instead of a trophy, which was really neat.

20251108_102258
20251108_1022581920×1440 214 KB

The Wisconsinites were hosting, and our various “Northwoods” events have evolved over the last year to sport a nifty roll-off into “veto/pick” approach to scenarios, as well as a third forest on the battlefield, replacing a piece of flat, difficult terrain. Given the terrain, I opted to bring the Varangur for their last time on the table, featuring a lot of striding and pathfinding, my list and the thinking behind it can be found here.

Game 1 was against Ogres in Hold the Line.
Game 2 was against Basileans in Invade.
Game 3 was against Trevor’s newish Basileans in Dominate.

I did not come close to taking the bracers home, but had a pretty respectable showing (don’t know the exact results/standings though, and don’t particularly care to) and pretty good day rolling dice and moving little dudes around the table. A big thanks goes out to Joe the TO for all his efforts to make this a great event to help us see 3rd Edition out in style.

3 Likes
410

Not the approach I would have taken and I usually run like units together. Hard to argue with this result though!

What a game!
That undead list is really solid.
I agree on the skeleton regiments. The hordes didn’t get into position to attack much and zombies would have done as well for cheaper.

My main take away is that I should get myself some cavalry. :sweat_smile:
I’ll wait to see what Mantic have to offer when they refresh the Undead minis, though.

Having listened to undead review, it sounds like undead will be solid in 4th.
The bump to werewolves is great.
Though the warlord options all seem like major investments. Even with the more expensive heroes for 4th in general.
I’m not sure the revenant king will keep being the cost effective and versatile pick that seems to be working for both of us (I took 2 to a Halloween themed 1 day).
Though it’s hard to judge the value of heroes in 4th from what we know so far.

411

On the Northwoods Melee games;

I’ll rather not comment on the first two.

The last game looked like a great punch up!
Your plan of loading up on strider paid off nicely.

1 Like
413

This is an MMU lesson for me, I guess. If something is not the biggest unit it can be, I am paying a premium for it. For me (and it could user-error), two regiments side-by-side rarely perform better than the cheaper horde, even if the horde can be a bit unwieldy. It’s just hard to make regiments work like Roman Maniples. So, if I am taking regiments of things, I want them spread around and not neighbors together. If you are maxing out the available unit sizes (Zombie Troll Hordes; Abyssal Horsemen Regiments, etc) than like-with-like can more sense.

I have not been following the podcast trickles, but I have been checking back on the Forum thread occasionally, and did see Boss’s Undead breakdown. (Among others. Thanks for doing that!) No CS Skellies is a big bummer for me personally, but the new Werewolves do look like fun, and rest of the changes have me excited! I don’t think I’ll get my Werewolves on the table for 3rd the way things are going, so we’ll have to give them first dibs in the Undead’s first game of 4th.

Yeah. For the Northwoods games… One-sided games are not really fun. No matter the reasons. I’m not dwelling on either of those myself, and Game 3 was the highlight of the day for me with a good clash of styles, grace freely given on both sides, and just an all around good time had. :heart:

2 Likes
414

Re game 3: as always, fun game against Brian.

He made a bunch of good choices early, outplayed me, and deserved the win. I was happy to claw my way back and make it a game at the end, but I was on the back foot. I like the idea of spear hordes, but they don’t do anything offensively, so when they’re getting triple-charged and wavering, they’re as good as dead. Keeping his units out of range/arc of the elohi didn’t let me close the trap in time (like I did in an earlier game), leading to the W.

Re display board: I don’t want to take undue credit for it. I was complaining to a good friend/local artist about my lack of painting ability, and she offered to help me with it. So for the past six months, I’ve been painting and then having her critique/fix my work. I’m glad it turned out as well as it did!

Re approach to the game in general:

I’ve played 50+ games against Brian. He always plays to win, but he’s a great sportsman who doesn’t try to exploit loopholes to secure advantage. While we occasionally have bumped units or moved without marking and tried to walk back, etc., and we’ve had a handful of times over the past few years where we couldn’t agree on a flank or line of sight and rolled for it, there’s literally never been a single instance where I felt he did anything deceptive or dishonest–he’s the sort of person I love bumping into at tournaments because I know it will be a good, clean, hard-fought game. From my perspective, it’s much better to be known as someone who plays honestly and fairly and prioritizes the social contract over someone who exploits loopholes for advantage. I’ll leave it at that.

2 Likes
415

As relayed elsewhere, thank you, and I feel the exact same way about you. Third Edition has been a lot fun, and I’m greatly looking forward to exploring 4th with you as well.

I think the board could use a little more credit lol. I’m certainly not hand-painting rocks onto a flat board! Even with a little mentoring that is still a lot of work and it turned out really spiffy, and is again really cool to go with the magnetization of your army. And giving you another opportunity to boast, was it Connor you beat where the spears healed some ridiculous amount? I thought I heard a good-natured gripe about 20+ damage being healed throughout a game here.

For our game, I expected one unit of Elohi to be on your left / my right near the building and that open lane, to keep my Wolves honest and slow me down. Having all the angels on one side of the board really limited the pressure they could actually apply. In a roundabout way, this brings us back to the “like with like” stuff Darkblack and I were discussing. All three were basically doing the same thing and threatening the same area, so I think they should have been spread around more, especially as the Elohi are so sturdy and independent as units. We’ll see what the lists / spoilers are, but I think this Basilean approach should transition nicely to 4th.

2 Likes
416

I should add that my army design is different too. That approach makes sense with that kind of list.
Rather than groups with a mix of units, I tend to have groups that fill a role.
For example, my dwarfs have 3 ironclad regiments that form the line and 2 ranger regiments that control terrain that go next to each other. My brock rider troops spread out though.

Especially for the main attack, I find that similar units concentrate force and support each other. They can also share other support, like a blocking unit, rather than each using their own.

2 Likes
417

…and here are very likely my final battle reports for 3rd Edition.

Battle 153 was Kingdoms of Men (chariot legions) vs Northern Alliance in Compass Points.

I had some good early shooting, and amazing Nerve Checks all game. The Nerve Checks really controlled the tempo, and the stunned Northern Alliance hammers struggled to do the work they needed to, and could not clear me out.

Battle 154 was Kingdoms of Men (chariot hordes) vs Forces of Nature in Control.

I was up against mass Scout, and was expecting a beating. However, I got even luckier here, and flying Generals were able to take control of the game through pressure and threats as the game went on. I hate to say it, but it felt like my opponent threw the game starting in Round 3, with a super-duper over commitment to a single combat, and things turning in odd directions and running away instead of trying to brawl. If his units were just a little more assertive, I think he crushes me with ease this game, and I was lucky he took his foot off the gas in Round 3.

The final other two battles were secret games, played a while back. The Renegade GT, happening now, features a Friday Speed Tournament, with three games. Scoring is determined by wins, plus any time remaining on your clock, with games having less time to play as the night goes on, with something like 30, 20, and 15 minutes to play each game, respectively. Thankfully, games are smaller, at 1200 points, but this is still some high-pressure gaming! Lists have traditionally been very elite, focused on alpha strikes and speed. Rob was attending, and wanted to prep in secret, trying to build something to exploit the elite meta.

Battle 155 was Undead MMU vs Kingdoms of Men in Loot
I threw together a list on the fly from what I had at the time, to help Rob test out his deployment ideas. [We liked his approach, but that’s about all we accomplished. My last minute list engaged well-enough, but struggled to make real headway, and with the time pressure, I made some costly mistakes, and a Round 7 gave me a loss. Oh well.

Battle 156 was Varangur vs Kingdoms of Men in Control
I put this together thinking it was a decent mix of speed / aggression that might threaten Rob’s humans better … but would also help me test out my ideas for the Northwoods Melee. Unfortunately, it did not get tested until the night before my tournament, after we had set everything up. Fortunately, the game made the trip worthwhile! It was a tie, but a good game for me personally, given my mistakes, and confirmed that I indeed had some good ideas for the Northwoods Melee.

I had hoped to squeeze in one more secret speed game in, maybe with some accursed Abyssal Berserker spam, as that seemed more like the lists he’d be facing at the event, and would let us get him a game at every time limit as well, which would have been nice for “completeness”. Alas, we were not able to connect a third time before the event, so we must end this on an unresolved note. I did read this morning that Rob went 3-0 at the event, and was the only one to do so, so his strategy worked,

I debated not reporting on these speed games, but ultimately decided to, if only so that I could say that I did report on every game I played of 3rd Edition, good or bad, errors or no. This felt important to me because it is very likely not going to be the case in 4th Edition. I bit the bullet and am going to be a Mantic Pathfinder for a bit, to try and grow our local group some more, and I don’t think demo days and the new player experience is compatible with reporting in any detail like this.

So, this batch of reports brings us current, and is probably the last batch for 3rd Edition! Excited to see what 4th brings us. There will be soooo many things to test and share and discuss!

2 Likes
418

Strong finish with the Kingdoms of Men! When you posted these, I made some guesses as to how the list might fare in the edition swap:

image1-02
image1-02387×1600 247 KB

The jury is very out on whether wizards will keep their pegasus rides, but if crossbows are core and if you split that horde in half, I feel like you’ve still got a double battalion that wedges just about everything in. Everything except, of course, that third GOWB, which is almost assuredly going away outside of dedicating a third battalion to it. I would expect they move beast cavalary from support to specialist, so wouldn’t help themselves unlock, although the 10 core needed for triple battalion isn’t out of the question for MMU Men like yours?

I also realize that talking about the state of the Kingdom of Men is a weird one, as we don’t really even have Mantic models to fall back on to make educated guesses :confused: I hope they stick around and aren’t wrapped into Basilea, that feels like a bad move for a faction designed to use other companies’ models (positive connotation).

2 Likes
419

Thanks Boss! It’s definitely been nice to have some wins and good showings to close out 3rd.

I was trying to wait out all the rabid discussions online as Pathfinders were supposed to get rules and army info in early November, but the date keeps getting pushed out and we’re now over a week past the most recently promised date for our info… the rollout thus far for 4th has been particularly rough and disjointed, it seems…

I haven’t followed spoilers or discussions closely, but I have been following the army roster breakdowns you’ve been providing in your blog and in the 4th Ed thread. So, thanks for summarizing those. But man, it’s been a wild ride for my armies. Even if we can make some inferences, it is still stunning to me to have so many important armies (Basilea and themes, FoN, Dwarves, Elves, and KoM) all still untouched and largely unmentioned. KoM isn’t that important to the fluff, but being known as the baseline army, I feel like it would have made a lot of sense to have them covered first in some detail, imo.

The scuttlebutt I heard was that KoM was rolling up into Rhordia with our optional Halfling friends, with Basilea distinct, and that Militia was Core but our amazing Pikes were going away? No clue, and that all might be wrong or outdated. Still, I’d agree, and if things don’t drastically change for them, it seems like KoM should be able to really flood the board with units and multiple battalions, even if we’re losing some of our playthings. Ultimately, I should be able to throw something fun together, and the buffs to light / skirmish cavalry also sounded neat to explore, as it has been a unit I tried to make work in the army for years. Hopefully we’ll get more details on 4th soon.

2 Likes