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Wrath of Kings Battle Report 3: Part 2

By January 27, 2017July 26th, 2019Battle Reports, Miniatures Games, Videos

I am the Wrath of God! Who else is with me?

Here it is, the conclusion to the third Wrath of Kings battle report! Who will be the victor?

It got off to a slightly frustrating start, but many enjoyable hours were spent pitting the forces of Nasier and Teknes against each other. I enjoy the game, but I do find the motivations system a bit … well, dry. And obviously some combinations are better than others, as evidenced by the initial mucking about in evidence here. Personally, I wish CMON would release some interesting story-based scenarios with objectives that players can care about a bit more, and which enrich the world-building background.

But in the meantime, let’s see who won!

19 Comments

  • CK Lai says:

    Ah. This was the game where you had lots of questions over at the CMON WoK forum.

    The thing is, Nasier is a straight-up hammer and tongs faction. Using a tricksier faction like Goritsi or Hadross that can pull models out of formation and shape the flow of the battlefield would’ve been better.

    But that doesn’t help you with your problem in this game.

    All I can say is: that’s the meta of WoK, I guess. Bringing your army list and motivation to the table and this time round they were a bit of a mis-match.

    Another suggestion is (since you’re playing for fun and not a tournament) is to agree on the Motivations beforehand with a gentleman’s handshake 😉

  • Soulsorcerer says:

    I really like the way you are playing…just watching you two have fun…is fun 🙂

    Now…if I might make a request…I really would love to see some clear close up´s of your two armies you take into battle…during the game its really hard to get a good look….and I think they do deserve to be seen properly 🙂

    My friends and I have a similar problem with our TT games…too many of them…not enough time…and not only getting the rules right between long stretches of not playing…but also to know what your and your opponents troops can and cannot do is really hard. So you have just found your footing after one or two games…and then do not play for one year or so. Most likely you fall back to basics from other games you played more of…and they do not fit the playstyle of that particular game…and you only realise that afterwards….a bit frustrating…but in a way our own fault with trying to juggle to many balls at once I presume. But so many great games with great minis…..can not resist….*sigh*

    For other games your summeries are a great help to minimize the time you need to “get back into the game”…and thanks for them btw..but with TT game its different…maybe keeping a small log about the games and your findings about tactics ect. could help…need to test that one time.

  • The8thPagan says:

    In the post battle you said it had taken 6-7 hours to play that, including setup. Didn’t look that big a skirmish as you had maybe 20-30 figures in each army. Is Wrath a really slow game?

    • Will says:

      Hey 8th Pagan, I suspect a lot of the slowness is due to our unfamiliarity with the rules. If you played a game with fewer figures and knew what you were doing you could get to through it much more quickly. We’re so busy trying to work out the special abilities of our units and what tactics to apply that time just passes!

  • Soulsorcerer says:

    Revisiting your battle report after seeing the Beast of War 2-player starter box game. In your report the lines of the standard troops always looked “intact”…so not seeing the actual movement I would assume that you activated all (up to 10?) at once? If I remember correctly from the demo there is a limit of how many you can do a combined activation with. Did that stand-off maybe come..in part..from too many minis activating at once and therfore not generating an opening to exploit? Or was the size of the game large enough to move that many in a combined activation?

    I think that you had the damage on your Lonhorn wrong…the critical blow from the Cage only turns the upper most hit into an overpower…so a 10 or 9 do 2 hits…not a 7 and 10…and with resilince 2 the Longhorn would have gotten only 1 wound from 3 hits….and maybe could have gone wild another round. He also seems to be a good unit to get rid of larg amounts of infantry with hitting up to 3 models in 2” range.

    For the problem with the motivations…how many moral where the 2 Forces…and how many could you loose max due to Wills motivation?
    Maybe it was kinda an overreact to that threat making you worry to much about it and neglecting other aspects of the game like movement, own motivation ect.? Does happen to me when not familiar with the game…I easily overestimate my units and underestimate my opponents units 🙂

    On another note to game flow….maybe it would be better to start playing 2-3 smaller sized games in the same time to get to know the units, mechanics and abilitys better. A system that you are not that familiar with…combined with lots of different units and even more special abilitys tend to slow you down a lot…and you forget lots of things….because they are all new. I know…ist a shame to not use all those beautifull minis…but maybe it helps game flow. And if one match-up would then turn out to be a bad one it would not have such an impact on having fun with the game.

    I have not played the game…but am interested to get into it. Aside from the minis and the fluff I find the defense chart intruiging. From what I gather the defense chart seems to be a clerver combination to resolve hit,miss,save and special abilitys of units in just one die. 10 alway hits for 2 wounds…8-9 for 1 wound..6-7 also 1 wound depending on unit and ability…all else fails…but depending on the type of attack may trigger a counter. On paper reads more fluid than the typical…I throw lots of dice to hit…than again to wound…then opponent takes armor saves. And all those roles with different modifiers….turns into work with lots of math…and possible mistakes. What is your thoughts on that having played some?

    Sorry for the long post…I am obviously quite fascinated with that game…not my fault…you posted the battle report ;-P

  • Sorry I haven’t replied to any of these comments lads, they got under the radar. You’re correct Soulsorceror, the problem is the long gap between games, and it also adds a lot to the playtime (and encourages mistakes) because we’re getting comfortable with the system all over again. Also filming, breaks for lunch etc really stretch out our game times 8thP.

    I’ve also noticed that sometimes one can use the ‘generic tabletop rules’ in one’s head rather than using the proper rules for the game being played! I especially tend to do that with AT-43. A perfect example here is that we often forget the option for individual activations with figures in a unit, saving that option for just leaders and specialists. It’s an old habit to just activate an entire unit with a combined activation (though we do remember to only combine activate a number equal to the leader’s Leadership value, which in a Battle-sized game is 7).

    This was a Battle-sized game, but I agree with you S that the next few times we play we should take it back to Skirmish size and concentrate on the tactics and unit ability combos a bit more.

    I have no idea why I turned the 7 against the Greathorn into a double hit. Bizarre! And as someone else pointed out as well, I should have thrown him into the infantry. The temptation with big models is always to throw them against big models, I suppose.

    The defence chart system is good, but the only thing I don’t like about it is that your opponent has to tell you the results of your dice throw, instead of knowing what you want to roll for ahead of time. It’s a subtle psychological shift from normal ‘to hit’ rolls which is slightly less fun, I think. As for GW’s system of roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save, I’ve always thought that was a complete joke! Way too much dice rolling – when I look at Age of Sigmar battle reports, for example, I’m amazed that anyone can be bothered, it’s just a dicefest.

    I’m going to watch that Beasts of War report tonight and study it, though I must admit I find their reports a little tedious to watch. 🙂

    Long posts are always welcome Soulsorceror!

  • Soulsorcerer says:

    So…what did you think about the BoW coverage of WoK?

    • The coverage seems to have been pretty much paid promotion so there’s no critical eye, but it’s just good to see the game being in the news a bit finally. CMON has done so little to get the game out to gamers beyond the Kickstarter backers. And it’s always good to see other battle reports to make sure you’re playing the game correctly.

      • Soulsorcerer says:

        Now that Dave and Brian have also taken over WoK after Dark Age…great game also btw…maybe there will be battle Reports on there YouTube channel like with Darke Age…that would be nice. And although there is no critical eye and BoW pretty much only gives CMON a marketing platform…I think those two showed that they really love what they do and had fun…and the presentation was informative and you get to see the minis quite nice…so I liked it and am confident that WoK has a future…and that is good news. Now they really need a european distribiutor…although they do not charge crazy amounts of shipping like FFG does…but the taxes do make it a bit pricey to import…and there are currently few seller with limited stock of mostly old stuff 🙁

        • Distribution needs to be improved all round. Getting the new book and cards took me ages and was a complete pain in the neck. Miniature Market is out of stock of the new stuff and I can’t find anywhere else selling it. It’s ridiculous.

  • The8thPagan says:

    Cmon all interested in the fast sell of KS, but don’t support much after release. KS is safe and easy money for them, whereas selling at retail could result in them having unsold stock and that’s a risk cmoney seem unwilling to take.

    • Perhaps, but if that were completely so, why not just run a ‘Wrath of Kings: The Next Wave’ Kickstarter instead?

    • Soulsorcerer says:

      I have not followed many of the CMON KS and follow ups on retail so can´t say anything on that topic…but with my interest in WoK right now I read that the new stuff for both WoK and DA had a huge setback due to several things in the last 6-9 months or so. I read that the shipping company going bankrupt had delayed much of the products and they even flew some extra stuff in to show at least something at GenCon. They had not antisipated the great success of some of those products…WoK starter and DA faction starters for example…and finally they had several different casters for different minis…and some where less reliable then others..resulting in restock problems. They wrote that now they have one caster…Big Child in Spain…and they seam to have had a good relationship in the past with them…so there is hope that all those things are in the past now. I really think that such events had most likely killed smaller companys right away…and it sure made a bad impression in the retailer market resulting in clearences all over. They have to earn back a lot of trust for WoK…thats for sure. But they constanly support DA with great new stuff…and the same guys now are in charge for WoK…so I am positive for the future. But they have to find a european distributor soon or the momentum is lost again.

  • The8thPagan: Ancient King – 5 Faction Starters, a hardback rulebook, and a huge amount of stretch goal extras, US$240.

  • Soulsorcerer says:

    I missed out on the KS and was on the fence that time…and I am sad for it. I am not sure…but I think around that time it was still rumored to have a new Confrontation from CMON…and as a friend has near all models…and I jumped on with the prepainted…I was waiting on that then…..and still do. Shoould have gone for WoK in hindsite 🙂

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