Battle Report - 02 May 2016 - Kings of War

My first KoW game ever, and not with the still-unpainted elves either.

This was a Kingdoms of Men army with a lot of scout cavalry, a horde of Knights and a bunch of infantry and chariots. Blog regulars will probably figure out that it was a combination of my Parthian and Roman armies with some chariots from my Brigantes :D

Initial impressions?

You have to discard a few preconceived ideas from other rulesets. Specifically, three things:

• Nerve tests are the crux of things: you pile damage on a unit, which keeps adding on, but it remains in full fighting fitness until it fails a test (2d6 + hits taken >= nerve value). Some people, I know, had real difficulty with this one.
• if you charge into combat, ONLY you attack. The opponents don't get to fight back - if they pass a nerve test, you fall back 1" and they get to counter attack next turn if they want to.
• You roll all the dice in your turn for everything. This takes a bit of getting used to, but it does mean that time-limit games (chess clocks are, I gather, popular in tournaments) much fairer

With these in mind, you do have to think very carefully about movement, as you don't want to charge someone and leave a flank exposed. And you really do want to invest in movement trays! (hohum. More War-bases orders!)

Also? Magic items are well worth investing in.

That said? I beat Carl quite handily, apart from losing my general in melée near the end :D We made a couple of mistakes, but noting too hard to fix. I need more practice for the scout cavalry to be useful, but I may well trade the ballistae and a unit of foot for another heavy cavalry horde.