Shaking off the rust!

Played for the first times in months yesterday, was good to get back into it! Proxied Trident Realms (minis are still in the mail from miniature market’s most recent wrath of kings blowout) against my pal’s Undead. First game was Dominate, 2000pts, and my list was roughly:

  • Horde of Naiads with Brew of Strength
  • Regiment of Naiad Heartpiercers
  • The Hidden Ones (the character Thuul regiment)
  • Horde of Depth Horrors
  • Regiment of Tidal Swarm
  • Two hordes of Gigas in the King Crabs formation
  • Two Knuckers
  • One Coral Giant
  • Two Naiad Envoys, one with Heal and Shroud of the Saint, the other with Weakness and Banner of the Gryphon

My opponent’s Undead:

  • Two hordes of Skeletons and a Necromancer in the Army of Darkness formation
  • Two regiments of Soul Reavers and Lady Ilona in the Thirstful Coven formation
  • A regiment of Werewolves
  • Revenant King on Worm (no wings) with the surge artifact
  • Barrow Wights (the character Wight horde)

He got first turn, and advanced somewhat cautiously, apart from the Werewolves who went deep to threaten a flank. I moved up, keeping my Gigas safe while threatening the center of the board, but put my Hidden Ones a little too far forward and got them charged by Lady Ilona and one of the Soul Reavers, which popped them and left some real trouble on my right flank. From there it was a struggle to tread water, and I had real trouble concentrating my forces enough to overcome his healing and lifeleech. A Coral Giant made a heroic stand against Ilona, a horde of Skeletons, and the Werewolves, holding them off for two turns, but in the end it was just one unit of Gigas and the Heartpiercers, and I didn’t have nearly enough unit strength to contest the center.

Things performed fairly well, I had trouble getting the Gigas into position with their low speed and overextending the Hidden Ones was a critical error, but I was fairly impressed with most of the pieces. Ensnare in rough terrain is crazy strong, especially with Pathfinder or Strider, and I quite liked having the spell selection on my Inspiring pieces.

The second game was Ransack at 2250, fairly similar lists, but I added Eckter and Teleport on one of the Envoys, and my opponent added a regiment of Skeleton Spearmen and two troops of Skeleton Archers. I got a Knucker on the left flank killed (his Spears managed to do it a wound, stripping its nimble), but it cost him some time, so the Gigas had an easier time getting into the action. I also had better threat projection against his vampires, with Naiads, a Coral Giant, and a Knucker abusing rough terrain. My dice were cold in the first half of the game, but made a sharp turn on round three, when I managed to pop Ilona, overrun into Soul Reavers and rout them, and one of the hordes of Skeletons elsewhere on the board. I’m pretty bad for not thinking about objectives early enough, so by turn five I was quite far ahead on the board but in a pretty bad scenario position, but I managed to charge Eckter and two Coral Giants into his Barrow Wights which were contesting the central 3pt token, and my Naiads and Envoys made a tough enough screen to keep him off of it.

Obviously a better game for me, with the biggest factors being hindered ensnared charges really blunting my opponent’s offense, and that mid-game dice spike saving me from having to grind with his superior attrition pieces. I definitely got too greedy on the offensive end of things and didn’t play enough to the scenario, so that’s something I’ve got to watch for, as well as maybe looking at some smaller pieces to contest more widely. Troops of Heartpiercers perhaps?

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Always nice of hearing people getting back into it!

Suggestions on your list:

  • Personally one regiment of Heartpiercers I find not always worth it, if you want to take them, take the formation. The steady aim changes EVERYTHING for them. A regiment on its own doesn’t have long enough range to sit somewhere and really threat the targets it wants to, the steady aim helps a lot.
  • Also, giving the cent the wings of honeymaze gives you a really good tool for dealing with pesky flyers and or shooting hordes/warmachines
  • Sounds like your didn’t quite get the most out of your Knucker (if it engaged skeletons). I find the best use for Knuckers is taking on low nerve key pieces (like flying monsters or knights) that you can lock down, otherwise I feel their main value is in their threat. Their long range, and 'reliable damage if they get into a flank or rear, really forces your opponent to not ignore them. They are also fairly cheap for what they do. If you use them to play ‘ring around the rosie’ with an enemy giant/knights, then the Knucker has done his job, even if they didn’t do any damage.

Also, try out the siren, she is great.

Just my two cents

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Yeah, part of my list design was “what do I have in my case right now” so it’s a little bit ramshackle for sure. I’m hesitant to try out the Heartpiercers with Steady Aim until we see how 3rd shakes down, I don’t really see them keeping it.

I’ve never really given much thought to the Centurion, but I do see it in a few lists for sure. How do you get value out of it? I look at Eckter, and it seems like he just offers so much more.

I definitely need to work on my Knucker play. I’ve always had a habit of doing stupid things with fast pieces, so it’s no surprise that I’d hang them out to dry. In this case, it was a bit of a coin flip - a hindered charge from a regiment of skeleton spearmen does about 0.6 average wounds to the Knucker, and had he failed to damage it I’d have been able to corkscrew into a bunch of flanks. He did manage to do it a point of damage though, so I walked it sideways out of their arc of sight. However, I also used Krakenmaw on some Barrow Wights, pushing them closer to the poor Knucker, so he turned them around and surged into the flank. In retrospect I should probably have just sat still and taken another coin flip.

The other one charged a regiment of Werewolves on the other extreme flank to lock them in position so that the nearby Depth Horrors could follow up next turn, but he rolled well on the countercharge and broke them with an 11! I did still get the charge with the Depth Horrors, but I could have sure liked to keep that Knucker.

Definitely looking forward to getting the Siren on the table, one thing I’ve always wanted more of from Kings of War is unique, interesting abilities, and she certainly has that.

Yeah, I get the ramshackle list design, has happened to me multiple times!

Eckter is straight up better than the cent, I normally only have 2 reasons for fielding the cent:

  1. Formation needs him
  2. He can take wings (wich eckter can’t) which makes him really good at blocking enemy cav and or shooters.
    You can get around point 2 to a degree with the teleport spell though. Otherwise, Eckter is better.

Sounds like you are getting some decent use out of your Knuckers. But with such nimble units one has to remember that their threat is often times more valuable than their actual damage.

But sounds like you had an intense game! Good job!

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