Lich War (Kings of War)

'Lich War' is a Kings of War narrative scenario I made to go along with two custom terrain pieces.  The story background is that for untold years, two ancient liches have perched atop their towers locked in magical combat. As they cast spells of untold power at each other, arcane artifacts of great value are strewn across the land between and around the two towers.  Armies frequently end up in battle at the Liches' Towers to retrieve these artifacts, but are also at risk to being exposed to side effects of the Lich magic coursing between the two towers.

Functionally, this means the game is a 'Loot' scenario played with five tokens instead of the usual three.  The two towers are impassable terrain and there are two hills, two woods, and two obstacle pieces terrain as well. Starting at the beginning of the second turn, one of five effect cards is drawn randomly, and the instructions carried out.

These effect cards reflect the influence of the Liches' sorcery on the battle. Effects include the random redeployment of loot, units, and even terrain, as well as other effects reflecting the madness which befalls those who spend too much time around the towers.

 

 

Jared and Dan were able to play test this scenario with me observing, taking notes, and clarifying. Jared was running his Twilight Kin army and Dan ran Imperial Dwarfs. The Twilight Kin won on the last turn, and the effect cards were able to change the course of the game but without taking away player agency.

The towers are foamcore to which I applied joint compound and then "carved" the alchemy symbols into the surface while still wet.  After the joint compound dried I sanded the surface down, and a series of layers and washes of paint. The lich miniatures are Reaper Dark Heavens, and I was mainly just really pleased they had TWO liches on thrones.

Ambush in Bredale Wood (Kings of War)

The Royalist northern army marches through the woods of Bredale, and is ambushed by a Scots-Parliamentarian armies laying in wait. The Royalists successfully route the Parliamentarian cavalry, but continuous musket fire from the woods is too much, and the Scots-Parliamentarians carry the day.

Gabe's friend from Argentina, Maro, turned out to be a tabletop battles player (One Page Rules, mostly), so we used this forest ambush scenario from the Kings of War Historical book. The attacker has 2,000 pts and the defender 1,500 (so we divided the attacker into two smaller forces of 1,000 each).  The defender deploys in the middle facing all towards one long edge or the other, and the attackers deploy in huge wooded spaces on the short sides of the table. 

I played the Royalists and overthought on deployment, setting up my units in a single column in order to try and avoid being charged right away. What this instead accomplished was making it very easy for the Scots-Parliamentarians to shoot the same units from both flanks. If I played this again I would deploy in double columns which statistically reduces the number of casualties on a given unit from shooting by half, if that makes sense.

The other thing I would do differently is probably attack one side or the other with all pikes and cavalry and try to defeat one side in detail (because then I have a slight advantage of 1,500 vs. 1,000 points worth of troops).  This would also probably move most of the army out of musket range from the opposite flank and draw shotte units out of the woods on that side. As noted above, by deploying thinly along the middle, the Royalist army was subjected to fire from both flanks, resulting in unequal transactions like a pike unit routing from shooting without ever even being in charge range of anything.

 

TurnipDay6

Had another grand day playing this wonderful game. I built a rootshrine and two accompanying toadies to be able to play the Procession of Woe cult, but as we had an odd number of players and several new players I mostly helped teach the rules and the Procession only saw the table at the end in a short and silly three-way battle.

Unofficial results: Grand Bombard beat Knights of Shellwood. Slugs Lament beat St. Alamei's Battery, St. Alamei beat Shellwood.  Slugs Lament beat Grand Bombard. Procession of Woe beat St. Alamei's and Shellwood in 3-player match.