A Veteran Wargamer’s Journey Into Kings Of War Part 7: Parties, Tours & A Tournament

Zoidpinhead returns for the penultimate instalment of his Kings of War army project, and this week he has six whole after-action reports on his first foray into a Kings of War tournament with the massive Clash of Kings, the world's biggest Kings of War tournament! No pressure there, zoid.

Follow The Entire Getting Started In Kings Of War Series

This time you can see how I got on at Clash of Kings and what Mantic HQ is like. But first, my final preparation involved trying to find another way of learning the rules.

Kings Of War Quick Reference Sheet

There is evidence that shows humans remember between ⅓ and ½ more of what they write than what they read or watch. So I thought I’d write down all the important rules.

As a newbie, I was surprised that there isn’t an official Quick Reference Sheet. I can only assume Mantic and the writers feel it is an easy system to learn. It is certainly less complex than some I’ve played over the years (WRG from the 1970s and 80s, get in the bin). However, there are a lot of things to remember in Kings of War, and the order they happen in is very important. For me, Kings of War falls into the ‘deceptively simple’ category. “Easy to learn, hard to master” is the phrase the community is fond of. I’m told the new edition was partly written to reduce complexity, which is great, but I didn’t play earlier editions. As a new learner, I’d rather the overall impression was less thinking about process and more outcome analysis; so asking myself “Am I doing the best tactical move?” rather than, “Have I remembered all the steps needed to do this move right?”

I looked online, and there isn’t a Quick Reference Sheet available. If you know of one, do comment with a link below; I’d love to read it. There is an outline one that I found on Facepage, but nothing on any of the community sites for 4th Edition. I therefore wrote my own, focussing heavily on the process for each part of a turn. I think writing it has made a few things stick in my memory, and I’ll have it as a mental prop if I’m feeling a bit nervous at the tournament.

Off To Nottingham

I went to the pre-Clash event at Mantic HQ, and we were treated to a guided tour of the facility. There isn’t much on-site manufacturing, just a resin casting room and a 3D printer farm.

Mantic HQ Pre-Clash Party

We did meet the team in the design studio, the master moulder, and look at the warehouse. I got to look at all of the studio-painted armies, including their Abyssal Dwarfs:

We were treated to a preview of new studio-painted models for Warpath and the new champion for Empire of Dust (which is superb). No photos of that allowed, unfortunately. Mostly it was a chance to meet a few of the players, and a couple of games even got played among the chat. Bottles of Mantic’s “Goblin Blaster” rum may or may not have been purchased.

Kings Of War Announcement At The Clash Of Kings

Ronnie and Alex gave a talk about the new models and the “Arrogance” update book after the first day of the tournament.  This had some great new model announcements and, best of all, Abyssal Dwarfs are getting some new units, models, and finally some heavy mortar models again. [editor: you can see them all in the article linked above]

Clash Of Kings - Day One

I’m here to meet some fellow players and have six fun games, not be super competitive. If I play well in a few games, that will be a bonus. If I can come out with a win or two, that would be amazing. The army might be the best it can be, but it is narrative-heavy and very far from a finely tuned tournament list.

Match One -  Abyssal Dwarfs versus Ratkin

I’m up against a Ratkin horde swarm list. Wretch hordes backed by Shock Troop hordes and Warrior hordes too, 6 in all (my list has 3); Mother Cryza, the best hero in the game [editor: she's a spellcaster and a tank all rolled into one, if that no good low down dirty rat doesn't get hit with the nerf bat in Arrogance then I'm a son-of-an elf!], and 4 war engines! It also has the highest Unit Strength in the entire tournament (39). I’m doomed. I will, of course, go down fighting, but attrition points are going to be my best option, as he’ll have plenty of units left to clean up on scenario objectives by Turn 6. I spoke to Steve Hildrew on the Friday, and he said he had helped Jimmy put this list together. It is based on the US Masters winning list, having asked the reigning US Master Sean Troy to help refine it. No pressure then.

Scenario 8: Control. Points are awarded for the player who controls each of the six 2’x2’ squares the board divides up into, 1VP per zone except it's 2 VP for the centre zone on the opponent’s side.

The Game: Despite only fighting for 2/3 of the board, there were just too many rats to deal with. They were very well played by Jimmy, who kept his two Warlords close together and was able to keep units in the fight for longer despite the damage I was putting out. The war engines were devastating when they hit well but had quite a few rounds where they did very little. As expected, he had hordes to spare in the late game and managed to get the unit strength advantage in his centre, where I had been trying to put pressure. 2-4 was the score in the scenario, and I lost about 1,000 points more in attrition. Here’s the sorry sight at the end with my left flank having been disintegrated:

Match Two - Abyssal Dwarfs versus Ratkin (Again!)

Scenario 4: Protect and Raze. A complex scenario that involves defending 3 objectives on your side of the board whilst trying to take 3 objectives on the opposite side plus contesting a joint central objective. If you hold an objective in the opposition half at the end of your turn, it is removed from play, and you score 1VP (Raze). Any remaining objectives on your side that you control at the end score 1VP (Protect), and there is 1VP for controlling the centre objective.

The Game: As tokens are close to the board centre, I was tempted to go for a more open deployment but in the end refused my left against Scud and some nasty combat units. I planned to advance onto 2 markers with a Ratkin Horde and the Devastators and then hope to push my Immortal Guard onto the central marker.

I got an early opportunity to dart a couple of quick, small-footprint units onto the tokens on his side (visible in the picture above), and I got ahead 2 Razes to 1. I had my Hordes sat on the 2 remaining objectives on my side and parked my Immortal Guard on the centre one. Ultimately he couldn’t shift them. Tom dropped Scud into a nasty spot right behind my line but had forgotten my Golems could be Surged (despite the fact I’d reminded him at the start of the turn), and I got my Greater Golem into his flank and eventually routed him. This time his Ratkin weren’t strong enough to shift my stubborn units, and I held on for the win. 5-2 in tokens and relatively even in attrition.

Game Three - Abyssal Dwarfs versus Empire of Dust

Scenario 20: Pieces of Eight. This uses bluff counters that each player places face down before play starts. You place 4 each: one worth 2VP, two worth 1VP, and one bluff token worth 0VP. At the end of Round 3, all the tokens are flipped, and the controlling player scores the points shown at the end of the game.

The Game: By this point, there wasn’t much of a plan; my brain was fried. Deploy as usual and see what happens was all I’d got left. I instantly forgot where I’d put the big scoring marker. Then more ended up on one side of the table, and Kris won the roll and took that side. Here we are at deployment. Nasty stuff at the bottom of the picture.

I went second, and despite getting my toys kicked in by his fast flank led by a Pharaoh on chariot, I was in a decent position by the end of Turn 4, 5-2 up with 1 uncontested. Then it all slipped away. I had my first double 1 Nerve test on a devastated unit [editor: double 1s mean the unit holds its ground despite all the odds and fights on; it is either the best rule in the game or the worst depending on who rolls it!], which held my best combat units up for one turn too many. Meanwhile, he had turned his nasty flanking hammers around and covered 3 points worth of objective markers. Suddenly I’m 5-3 down, and that’s how it finished. It was a pleasure watching someone so good pilot a difficult faction so skilfully. Kris was also an absolute gentleman. Close game on attrition, he did about 100 points more damage than me.

Clash of Kings - Day Two

We’ll draw a veil over the specifics of Sunday’s games. Basically, I got smashed in the first two games. It was Elves [editor: racist racist elves pfft!] in match 4, a list with only three unit types and six Hordes of Palace Guard. Not very interesting to play against, and they dish out huge amounts of damage with 25 Att on Me3+ (Crush 1) and are too tough for my low Crush army to damage with De5+ and Ne25. A mismatch, but my opponent was very pleasant, so it was still fun.

Game Five - Abyssal Dwarfs versus Basileans

In game five, I met the lesser-spotted Basileans. I was happy to play a different faction but not happy that newbie errors cost me the game. I deployed too wide and had to spend most of the game marching my best combat units across the table rather than doing anything useful. To compound that error, on Turn 2 I left a flank poking out on a unit placed next to a piece of blocking terrain. My opponent found 2mm of flank to hit with his Elohi, and that was that. I couldn’t damage them enough to get moving toward the objectives. For those of you thinking that move sounds a bit “gamey,” that is very much how this game is played. It was my mistake to not be more precise with my unit placement. From my side of the table, they looked like they were safely lined up with the building, but from his side it was an open flank [editor: when playing against an opponent, a good way to get around this is to state your intent, “I’ve moved these here so you can’t get a flank,” most will then point out that they can still get hit, and you can shuffle back]. Here we are at the end after I’ve picked up nearly all my toys for the second game in a row:

Game Six - Abyssal Dwarfs versus Halflings

Game six was a much nicer experience. It was Halflings and my opponent Christof was also a relatively inexperienced player from Germany. He was good fun to play, and neither of us was taking it too seriously as we were on the third table from the bottom. Here we are at deployment:

We were both careful to explain what we were doing [editor: I'm glad you took my advice from the last game] and the dice went this way and that. He managed to absorb my fast attack flank with troops of squishy halfling infantry and then ran his Iron Beasts onto two of the three contestable objectives, smashing my Ratkin off the board in the process, and I was sunk. I’d like to say it was close, but it wasn’t really. I was probably another turn away from my Golems finally shifting his Forest Troll regiment off the third objective, but at the end of Turn 6 there was only 1:30 left on the round master clock, and I had 1:40 left on my clock. That would have meant that if we had rolled for and played Turn 7, I could have had my turn, but his would have been timed out. I didn’t feel that was fair, and we stopped the game [editor: Kings tourneys are played on a chess clock, and if you time out then it is dice down and your opponent can use their remaining time to pummel you! I think it’s a lovely gesture that you both decided to call it then.]

What Were The Results?

I finished 151st out of 160. That’s a fair reflection of how things went and shows what happens when a newbie takes a narrative list build to the biggest tournament in the world. Fortunately, it was about more than the placing. I actually did much better than I expected, as I didn’t lose every game. During the final game, Steve Hildrew wandered over and presented me with an “Outstanding Hobby” badge.

The TOs have a small number of these, which they award to armies that they feel stood out. Given my limited time, speedy methods, and the last-minute nature of my display board, I was very pleased to get one. [editor: you also got more than one mention on the live stream, far more than some of the top table players for some unknown reason ;)]

Clash 2026 - Final Results

Up at the sharp end of the tournament, it was a victory for the Spanish who took the top three places, a Varangur themed Northern Alliance came first and second, with Dwarfs third. There was a good showing from Forces of Nature (4th & 9th) and Trident Realms (5th & 7th), but there were twelve different factions in the top twenty. A full analysis is available here at Data and Dice.

The best army prizes are as hotly contested as the tournament games. People can spend the whole year painting their army to display standard, and some create huge dioramas as a display board. The Bane Chat podcast lads did well with two highly commended, and Glen, Mantic's Studio painter, came second. Display boards were terrific, with notable examples including a ship on a river that was four feet long, a cutaway castle with multiple levels, and a three-foot-tall giant. Amazing stuff.

Take Aways

• Clash is incredibly well organised. Steve Hildrew, his team, and the whole community are friendly and welcoming.
• The game is fun, even when you lose.
• As a newbie, I can’t run a narrative-focussed list. This game is hard enough already. I’ll need to make some adjustments.
• I need to understand what is happening in the pre-game actions and deployment (Turn 0). I’m getting outplayed before we even start.

Going Forward

I’ve spent some time working on my list and, without making wholesale changes, have tweaked it:

• I’ve dropped the Death Engine (sad times, beautiful model) and some artefacts and replaced them with another regiment of Immortal Guard. Opponents were frightened of these, and they stuck around well in most games.
• My leaders did nothing too often. The Iron-caster has swapped Bane Chant for Heal to make use of Enhance, which gives Heal rerolls for 1s on Elementals. He also gets Crown of the Wizard King to boost his spell range to 18”. His little legs can’t keep up once the Golems get Surged.
• My tar pit Hordes are too fragile, so I’ve swapped Ratkin for Orcs. I worked out this was better using the Mantic Companion Math Hammer tool. [editor: Mathhammer doesn't work!]

The Orcs have one better De (4+ rather than 3+). Feeding in the profile of my Immortal Guard as the attacker, I was told that the Ratkin take two more damage per round of combat than the Orcs.

So after two rounds, they are likely to rout more than 50% of the time, whereas the Orcs typically only rout 7% of the time. This means each Orc Horde should last at least 3 combat rounds; that’s half the game. Hypothetically, if attacked by the same enemy from the start, there would most likely still be Orcs on the table at the end of Turn 6, whereas the Ratkin might be gone in Turn 4.

Next time…

I journey to the mystical and far-away lands of Ireland and Essex. I’ll work on figuring out a better plan for the pre-game actions. Mostly, though, I need to paint lots and lots of Orcs.

Article by zoidpinhead