Rhodia regiments spam 2300

[BigBoy]

my idea is to have several units that are expendable but can do damage en masse.
Does it make sense as army or is it better to make a list with fewer hordes of infantry rather than many regiments?

Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment [115]

• Indomitable Will [10]
  Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment [115]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Foot Guard (Infantry) Regiment [145]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• Two-handed Weapons [0]
  Foot Guard (Infantry) Regiment [145]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• Two-handed Weapons [0]
  Knights (Cavalry) Regiment [215]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding [15]
  Cannon (War Engine) 1 [100]
  Cannon (War Engine) 1 [100]
  Mammoth (Monster (Chariot)) 1 [220]
  Battle Shrine [1] (Monster (Chariot)) 1 [150]
• Lightning Bolt (6) [0]
  Army Standard Bearer (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [50]
  Army Standard Bearer (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [50]
  Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez (Hero (Monster)) 1 [245]
• Aegis of the Elohi [15]

2300

[FredOslow]

Units might die quicker to a multi charge but then again, pikes giving the -1 to hit should prevent that. I think a regiment heavy list is more fun to play than a horde heavy one, because you get so much more manouvrability and flexibility.

[BigBoy]

they may die, but they will still outnumber the enemy’s units.
pike regiments are more resistant than they seem, the only doubt is the strength I can have in countercharge

[Sceleris]

Pike regiment heavy lists are definitely viable. I’d try to get a BC source in there to just add a bit of extra punch?

[BigBoy]

Could be good, but how?
Removing the mammoth and adding mages?

[Boss_Salvage]

I do enjoy regiment spam as a playing experience, more stuff to move around always feels better.

What about using Honor Guard regs as your counter-punch? Can swap the Foot Guard and Knights out for 3x regs of them w/ iWill, and have plenty of points to put the lute on an ASB and turn the other into an inspiring Wizard with bane chant. The Honor Guard height helps with combo-charges and Sp 7 helps open up more flanking options. Plus they can be used for being aggressive / scoring as the opportunity arises.

My take below if you’re interested:

League of Rhordia [2300]

Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment [115]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment [115]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
– Pikes [10]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
– Pikes [10]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
– Pikes [10]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
– Pikes [10]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
– Pikes [10]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Honour Guard (Large Cavalry) Regiment [155]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Honour Guard (Large Cavalry) Regiment [155]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Honour Guard (Large Cavalry) Regiment [155]
– Indomitable Will [10]
Cannon (War Engine) 1 [100]
Cannon (War Engine) 1 [100]
Mammoth (Monster (Chariot)) 1 [220]
Battle Shrine [1] (Monster (Chariot)) 1 [150]
– Lightning Bolt (6) [0]
Army Standard Bearer (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [75]
– Lute of Insatiable Darkness [25]
– Bane Chant (2)
Wizard (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [70]
– Inspiring Talisman [20]
– Bane Chant (2) [20]
Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez (Hero (Monster)) 1 [240]
– Pipes of Terror [10]

I’m actually not sure about the Wiz, I’d rather have another very inspiring with how wide the army is. 80 points (including the DAWA’s pipes) comes so close to a mounted Baron, but does get to a mounted ASB with war-bow (the mounted dude should probably have the lute?)

[BigBoy]

the idea of ​​beast regiments is very interesting, I’ll try it!
would this also work with knight troops?
I also see the need for more Very Inspiring.
What is the DAWA’s pipes?

[Boss_Salvage]

@BigBoy

What is the DAWA’s pipes?

I had given the Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez (DAWA) brutal in my list above, but dropping the item helps afford a mount for an ASB, which seems useful.

There are loads of reasons to take Honor Guard regs over Knight troops …

• cooler
• unique to Rhordia
• hit harder on the charge
• grind better
• score better
• tougher (Nv + iResolve)
• more versatile

… but Knights are more likely to be available in your model collection? And play a similar role in regards to hammer against the pike anvil. Arguably they’re better as chaff, tho the army is approaching a trash situation where everything is chaff / scenario pieces. I think there’s room in the list to swap 3x Guard regs + indomitable for 4x Knight troops (no indomitable), however I think the value is definitely with the triple indomitable large cav.

[BigBoy]

you’re right, Honor guards are better.
I can see the Troop Knights well, however, together with Duke Hetronburg with Rally2 instead of DAWA. But lose the flyer…i dont know.

further reasoning, is having 1 or 2 BC in a small unit army really useful?

[Boss_Salvage]

@BigBoy

further reasoning, is having 1 or 2 BC in a small unit army really useful?

I come and go on BC being an auto-include, and I think before I started adding Honor Guards having at least the lute made a lot of sense to me. Except HG add to really a good collection of counter attak hammers you’ve got going on, while BC probably best works for hordes that want to grind, which isn’t the plan here. Plus I really hate failing a BC roll when you really need it (and you probably aren’t casting it unless you really need it … and if it isn’t key, you could take something else).

At this point in my day of tinkering with League, I’m at this hero blend:

• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Baron on Horse w/ Blade of Slashing
• ASB w/ The Trickster’s Wand

Hex is to give the ASB something to do but really to counter the tall legendary casters kicking around (including the Battle Shrine, not that Rhordia is all that present any more).

[BigBoy]

Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment [115]

• Indomitable Will [10]
  Pole-Arms Block (Infantry) Regiment
• Indomitable Will
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment
• Pikes
• Indomitable Will
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment
• Pikes
• Indomitable Will
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment
• Pikes
• Indomitable Will
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment
• Pikes
• Indomitable Will
  Honour Guard Regiment
• Indomitable Will
  Honour Guard Regiment
• Indomitable Will
  Honour Guard Regiment
• Indomitable Will
  Cannon
  Cannon
  Mammoth
  Battle Shrine
  Army Standard Bearer (Hero (Infantry))
• Trickster’s Wand
• Hex
  Army Standard Bearer (Hero (Infantry))
• Lute of Insatiable Darkness
• Bane Chant
  Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez (Hero (Monster))
• Pipes of Terror

2300

Looks good to me.
perhaps there are few Very inspiring, but i’m not sure

[Sceleris]

If you’ve got lots of IW and are doing regiment spam, having lots of inspiring is less of a concern - you’ll want some near the heavier hitters in the list, but I’d worry less about keeping everything covered.

Worry with honour guard regiments is the comparatively low nerve v points spend? In Rhordia i do like the halfling knight troop - de5 & spellward makes then pretty hard to pick off with shooting, and nimble is nice.

[If you get a control mission, stick a pike reg at an angle in the corners of the table, so only an individual could get in the flank. US3, -2 to hit for pretty much anything that can reach it in combat and can pop IW if you need it]

[TastyBagel]

I’ve played a fair bit of Kingdoms of Men, which have a lot of overlap with the League, and I’ve had experience with a number of the units you are running. Those exploits can be found here in blog form and in a forum thread here as well.

While I also like the regimental approach, it can be very hard for the humans to pull off, since 1) given the non-linear price of units, it costs more to run two regiments of something over one horde of the same thing, and 2) our stats aren’t usually good enough justify paying this premium. If we changed nothing else to the original list, and just combined pairs of matching regiments, you’d save some 200 points. If you want to play this way, I think you need to lean into it more. Fortunately, the League has some great tools!

If you are just looking for tweaks to your original list:

• Cut the IW from most things. It’s a phenomenal rule, but you are spending 100 points on it currently, further exacerbating your points deficit in a given game. This also isn’t a great buy for things like Knights, since they have Headstrong innately. If you want cheap, expendable regiments, keep them as cheap as possible.
• Consider running more hammer units, like the Pole-Arms or knights (of the Honor Guard, like Boss suggests!). Pikes are indeed great at delaying, but you need harder-hitting units to take advantage of the time the Pikes are buying for you. Without hammers, your game is going to become “what is the fewest amount of units I can lose this turn?” and from experience, I can tell you this isn’t a lot of fun.

If you are looking for theory crafting ideas or more substantial changes:

• Everything above still holds true.
• You are running the League, not the Kingdoms of Men. Make use of the roster! Halfling Braves are amazing little chaff pieces, and will trip up your opponent’s advance for a pittance. I think these should be your go-to unit with this army and playstyle.
• Barons on Aralez would also be amazing. Your opponents should get bogged down by your regiments, letting these nimble fliers hit their flanks, and multiplying their combat effectiveness. And these even Inspire! Consider running a bunch of these as well.

Regimental play with humans can be tough. Wishing you the best!

[Vince]

Second @TastyBagel

I’ve also tried (and failed, mostly) using human infantry as my main damage dealers. My main success using Kingdoms of Men is using a mounted-knights-plus-flying-heroes army. This worked quite well, but fears phalanx.

I do love the view of massed infantry. Recently, I did a battle against a good friend both using a Kingdoms of Men army. Here we are facing each other and it looks so bloody good!

My army was a hodgepodge of both my human armies as I wanted to try out two hordes of riflemen and three hordes of halberdiers, which I dont have in my main army. Here’s the view from my side of the board:

.
(Terraindisclaimer: the riflemen 2nd from the top are in a wood, I just removed the trees for easy gaming. The green area shows where it is.)

To come to my point: (I know, it took some time…) is that human infantry are lacking in the damage department. Granted, they don’t break the bank, but they fail to do he amount of damage needed to rout a serious hammer. This battle, I took hordes (as their damage output is much better), but still they fell short.

Some calculations to back this up:
-a horde of spearmen/pikemen (30 attacks) will do on average 5 wounds to a defense 5+ target (unhindered and without bane chant). With bane chant, this increases to 7,5.
-a horde of polearms (25 attacks, CS 1) will do 6-and-a-bit wounds to a defense 5+ unit, with bane chant, this increases to 8-and-a-bit.

For regiments, the numbers halve.

My “thresshold” for hammer units is 10 damage against defense 5+. (a 15/17 unit needs 10 wounds for a "7 " to rout it), but I prefer units that can do up to 12. This means, that even hordes need a double-charge to reliably rout most enemy hammers. For regiments, you’ll need a tripple-charge or even more.

For human infantry to pass this thresshold, you’ll need a foot guard horde with great weapons and bane chant. Fanatic-hordes reach this thresshold without.

This doesn’t mean that unit which don’t reach this thresshold (for instance, a unit of knights only reaches 8-two-thirds) are useless, but they need support, either from bane chant or (better) from support heroes. That’s where the brilliant general-on-winged-beast comes in. With his support (even without flanks) a horde from a unit of halberdiers becomes viable. Alternatively, one can try to field multiple small units (Fanatic troops come to mind) supported by the generals to create the same effect.

Much also depends on terrain. Our 4+ infantry loses a lot of effectivity in terrain and with hordes, these are hard to miss. That’s why I prefer hordes of pikemen in the front (these need to have IW since you dont want them wavered) supported by troops of fanatics or foot guard. If you need the unlocks, switch these out for regiments of fanatics or polearms.

A final observation: With the new update, our wizard-on-pegasus is a brilliant chaff piece. Most of the time, I “forget” to give him spells or I give him just a cheap hex. The role of these guys is to get in the way in a critical moment, preventing a double- or tripple charge against your key units.

I just remember I wrote a blog post about Kingdoms of Men in Clash 24. Here it is:

[BigBoy]

finally it seems to me that playing a few hordes is necessary.

both to maximize unit costs and for the efficiency.

because without serious hammers, the list doesn’t work.
but I still used the pike regiments to screen the hordes!

TastyBagel and Vince thank you for your precious advice! I will try it in the field and find a solution.

I think a couples hordes of pikes, double regiments of knights and the rest of the points in support/chaff!

[Vince]

Yesterday I tried out a “newish” list that I didn’t try before. The 2300 list was this:

-3x horde pikes with indomitable will
-bowmen horde
-2x knight regiment
-3x general on winged beast, (one with blade of slashing because 5 points)
-2 wizard on pegasus. one has the conjurer’s staff and scorched earth (2)*, the other has a war bow of kaba.
-2x siege artillery
-2x balista
-Army standard, lute of bane chant.

*if I were to rebuild this army, I’d switch this wizard’s spell for veil of shadows and conjurerer’s staff. The other wizard loses the war bow then, since I need 35 points instead of 30.

The four war machines and the bowmen create quite a bit of pressure. While they tend to either hit or miss, the threat of them working is enough. Iin the six turns I had, there were 4 turns they didn’t do that much (a few wounds here and there, routing an already wounded unit) but in the two turns they were on fire, they killed a slasher (turn 2) and ancient phoenix (turn 4) in one go.

This pressure has one purpose: force your opponent to come towards your pike wall. The pike hordes can withstand a lot of damage in melee (be wary for heavy shooting, though), especially if your wizards can sacrifice themselves to prevent tripple-charges. Then, your knights and generals come into play, looking for flanks and charging through the gaps whenever the pikemen inevitably fall.

The pikemen’s damage was more than I’d expected. Sometimes they did very little (that one time they fluffed a hindered flank on a unit of shooters and failed to rout it), but they also killed another slasher in one turn. The fact that they can reliably withstand a turn of combat, makes them wonderful!

This list worked quite well. I need more battles to see if I can get it to work better than average, but my first battle was promising.

[BigBoy]

same principle but with the hordes, too much?

[Vince]

Try it out and keep me informed!

I find multiple hordes difficult to manouvre as they get in each other’s way, but maybe you can do this right and learn me how to do it!

Vince

[Sceleris]

So I ran a pike heavy Rhordia list at an event last November, the weekend of the CoK24 update.

Just due to the price drop with Phalanx (and wiz losing default lightning bolt) it’s now 130pts under the limit

Barring game 1, when i got tabled without killing anything by a fly/shoot NA list [the de5 DoW horde with rally got shot off turn 2, the pike horde turn 3, four turns of lb from altar and wiz didn’t kill an archer unit, the honour guard not killing a berserker troop on the charge …] it’s nasty in the right match up.

The razors unit was mental! Didn’t get lower than 28 hits in a combat (and a couple of flank charges were 60/60)

Now, I’d drop the pike horde and get a flying duke (and a ‘free’ pike Regiment)

David M - Warfare [1865 / 1995 (130 Remaining)]
~ List Valid ~

League of Rhordia [1865]

Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]

• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Regiment [130]
• Pikes [10]
• Indomitable Will [10]
  Spear Phalanx (Infantry) Horde [230]
• Pikes [20]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• Hammer of Measured Force [20]
  Dogs of War (Infantry) Horde [290]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• The Shields of Hetronburg [65]
• Brew of Strength [40]
  Dogs of War (Infantry) Horde [290]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• The Razors of Berlonviche [60]
• Brew of Sharpness [45]
  Halfling Knights (Cavalry) Troop [120]
  Honour Guard (Large Cavalry) Horde [265]
• Indomitable Will [10]
• Sir Jesse’s Boots of Striding [15]
  Battle Shrine [1] (Monster (Chariot)) 1 [150]
• Lightning Bolt (6) [0]
  Baron (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [90]
• Horse Mount [25]
• Mace of Crushing [5]
  Halfling Master Sergeant (Hero (Cavalry)) 1 [100]
• War Pony [25]
• Loyalist Standard [15]
• Blade of Slashing [5]
  Wizard (Hero (Infantry)) 1 [70]
• Inspiring Talisman [20]
• Bane Chant (2) [20]