A Veteran Wargamer’s Journey Into Kings Of War Part 8: Road Trips And Retirement?

zoidpinhead is here for the grand finale of his Kings of War army project! This week he is on tour with a visit to Wayland Games for the Shroud of the Reaper one-day tournament and then off to Ireland to check out some stones and see whether or not Gerry managed to finish his halflings for filming!

Follow The Entire Getting Started In Kings Of War Series

In this final article, I go on a road trip and finally make it to gaming Nirvana, OTT HQ. First, though, there has been some excellent coverage of Clash that you might want to check out.  There is a review article from Mantic that features my army.

Tom, who I played with in game two, has a review on his channel that features some of the beautiful armies and display boards. I was also interviewed by Danny Graves for his podcast, but that hasn’t come out yet. [editor: pretty sure that it's the Mantic Universe Podcast]

Attending Shroud of the Reaper At Wayland Games HQ

Wayland is based in Brentwood, Essex.  Ben went to see the new shop and gaming hall and was most impressed by the food, which I can confirm is very good. They host lots of tournaments, several of which are Mantic-based.

Wayland Games // Ben's Site Visit

This Kings tournament was organised by the Reaper crew, who can be found on Facebook and their own website, Shroud Of The Reaper.

They allow armies to include an additional monster, “The Reaper”, which costs zero points and is added for a bit of fun.  In this case, it was supposed to be a giant turkey as the theme was Thanksgiving.  There was an “official” 3D print which at least one player was using, and there were some very creative interpretations of how to represent this.  Lists are to 2400 points, which is more than usual, and the clock time was 60 minutes per player, so that’s tighter than at Clash. With more stuff and less time, I’m going to have to play quickly.

The usual format for a single-day tournament like this is three games.  The ticket was £25 and covered entry only.  There were small prizes for First, Last, Best Reaper miniature and Best Army.

Game One: Salt The Earth

I’m up against Ryan’s Ogres.  A very thematic list which featured two regiments of Hunters for attacking impact and The Big Deal – a mammoth warlord. A Fantastic 3D-printed model and very nicely painted.  Players will soon be able to have their own Mantic mammoth very soon...
In this scenario, a token is placed in the centre of the board, and we take turns placing six other tokens. From Turn two, we can destroy any token in our possession, except for the centre one. Any remaining tokens are scored, one point each, at the end of the game. There is therefore a balance between taking and holding tokens you want to score and destroying tokens you feel you cannot score and your opponent might.

Getting Better At Turn 0

I’ve been reading up on deployment and the approach to “Turn 0”, the game before the game.  I found this article by Honest 4s very helpful. The article discusses projection of threat (i.e. how far deployed units can shoot/charge in the first turn) and how to analyse the terrain layout to spot areas of advantage and disadvantage to both armies.  To be honest, it is a bit advanced for newbie me, but I followed the gist and feel a bit less lost looking at the table before we start.

In this game, I got to choose sides and deployed on a reduced frontage across the central third of the table, targeting four of the tokens from the central token across the board to my right using blocking terrain to secure my flanks.  With a narrower frontage, I was able to create a second line of my best troops behind a front rank of Orc Hordes.

My opponent chose to deploy across the full width of the board and set up some strong attacking units on both flanks, the Hunters to my left and The Big Deal off on his own on the far right flank.

Game One: Battle Report

In the early game, the Ogres predictably charged and were soon munching through the Orc Hordes.  One had been hit by Hunters and a troop of Warriors and was in bad shape.  I had pulled my second line of Immortal Guards up tight behind and was able to successfully withdraw it to allow the Immortal Guard to charge in on the same movement phase.  A move like that will surprise some opponents.  Withdraw actions are uncommon, having only come into the game in 4th Edition, and I don’t think many established players have got used to using them yet.

The Big Deal had moved into charge range of the Decimators but had to take a round of shooting before coming in and took a fair bit of damage. The Decimators absorbed his charge, and after the following round of melee I rolled two high nerve checks, and he was routed.  Unlucky for my opponent but fortunate for me, as that cleared the right of the table and I had possession of two tokens there.  I had a chance at the centre one with my Immortal Guards grinding through Ogres, and there was a fourth token on the opponent’s side of the board within reach of my Gargoyles.  To put a bit more pressure on, I dropped a unit of Gargoyles onto the token ahead of my opponent’s advancing flank on my left and destroyed it, leaving him with just 2 tokens on that side of the board.

By Turn 5, he had possession of those 2, and I held 4.  With his strong right wing tied up fighting Golems, they couldn’t move across the table, and I finished up winning 4-2 with 1 destroyed.  You can see my units sitting on the three tokens from the middle across to the right.  The Orc Horde (bottom right corner) is on the fourth.  Attrition levels were high; I killed 1570, and Ogres killed 1305 points of mine.  A fun game and a very clean playing and polite opponent.

Game Two: Plunder

This was a much different affair as I came up against Grant’s Nightstalkers.  He’s a very experienced player who has qualified this faction for Masters before.  His list had 3 hordes of Scarecrows as tarpits and then lots of flyers; 3 troops of Soulflayers, the Voidtalon and a Void Lurker.  There were also 2 Terrors and 2 regiments of Butchers for some meaty punch.

Having seen the list, I thought about another maxim Honest 4s had covered for Turn 0, whether you are going to be the aggressor or defender in the match.  The prospect of flyers dropping in behind your army is scary, so I opted for defending.  In hindsight, this was an error.  I made another error in my deployment where I chose to start with my Golems lined up with the very edge of the table.  This created an issue as I couldn’t then pivot successfully.  I was advised after the game to always leave at least an inch of space between the table edge and your nearest unit.  To top it off, my opponent knew the measurements of the table and had lined up two units that would exactly fit through a gap between impassable terrain and the board edge on my right, whereas the two units I had put there did not fit through.

Having made significant errors, the game went as I expected.  I got mashed.  I at least managed to stop him dropping any flyers behind my lines, but with Wind Blast moving my units around annoyingly and his Soulflayers finding some nice angles of attack and flanks, I got battered.  It was only in the late game that I managed to focus damage onto units well enough to get them routed.

His units moved quicker than mine and took possession of all of the loot tokens and then kept them to the end of the game.  Already assured of the win, he focused on trying to do as much damage as possible, as attrition points also count in the final scores.  The game finished as a resounding loss 0-7, with 1630 points of damage taken and only 795 done.  It was a pretty intense game, and I forgot to take any pictures.

Game Three: Control

One of the more basic scenarios where the table is divided into six 2’x2’ squares with possession determined by the unit strength present in that square at the end.  Each square counts 1VP, and the opponent’s centre square is worth 2VP.  I was drawn against Seb’s Halflings.  These were a very beautifully painted and modelled army with the usual 2 Iron Beasts and a Harvester as the big, scary things.  There were also Wild Lancers, a regiment of Rifles, 2 regiments of Poachers, a Swamp Belcher and unusually 3 regiments of Spearspikes.  This was a very thematic list, and Seb really liked his spear regiments, which were very beautifully based.  I would normally expect Halflings to have flying units, but Seb didn’t use any.

Here we see the deployment (Halflings at the top, Abyssal Dwarfs at the bottom).  I’m going to push up hard on the right and withhold my left, anchoring the flank of the Orc Hordes on the impassable terrain piece (left centre).  I’ll end up diagonally across the board and pressure his centre from my right.

Being the third game, we were both flagging a bit so perhaps our play wasn’t the sharpest.  As planned, I pushed up the right, and he set up a gun line across the centre.  After taking a heavy round of fire (those Halflings can really dish it out!) I chose to push up again and encourage a charge, which he duly obliged.

In a canny move, he pushed his Reaper Turkey wide and turned it in to threaten the flank of my Decimators.  I dropped my emergency Gargoyles into it, which he failed to rout off in his melee round (getting the dreaded double 1s).  I was then able to get a Last Breath order onto it and then chose to withdraw it from combat.  As I hoped, I failed the Nerve checks, and it routed.  This meant it exploded and did 2D3 automatic hits with Crushing Strength 2 to the Reaper.  This also meant that he was left standing in front of the now pivoted Decimators and had to take a volley from them in the shooting phase.  He didn’t last much longer, and that cleared the right-hand side of the board.

In the centre, the inevitable mass scrum had developed with several complex combats.  My army is great at grinding with decent attacks and high defence, so I had the edge.  In the end, my Tunnel Runners on the right of the line beat their opposing unit and turned onto a flank.  From there I was able to roll up the centre, getting into flanks on the Beasts and Harvester, which gets around the De6+ it only has to its front facing.

With no flyers, his surviving units on the left didn’t have the movement necessary to spread across the board, and I used my other Gargoyles to distract them further by dropping behind his line.  At the end of Turn 6, I was very tight on the clock, only 42s left, but I rolled a 3, and there was no Turn 7.  Victory to me, 5-2, 1425 damage done and the Halflings did 1015.  Seb was an absolute gentleman, and it was a fun game.

Overall, I finished 7th out of 16 with a record of 2 wins and 1 loss.  The loss came to Grant, who finished 2nd.  Ian, who came first, is the chairman of the UK Masters committee, so there were some excellent players present.

A Trip To OTT HQ

The day after the Reaper tournament, I drove across the country to Holyhead and took the ferry to Dublin.

After an overnight stay in the Republic, and a morning excursion to Newgrange (Accurate Neolithic reconstruction or 1960s car park – you decide [editor: you're just jealous cause it's older than the pyramids and Stonehenge!]), I drove on to Coleraine.

OnTableTop HQ

The room the games are filmed in is called “The Cage”, and the walls are lined with all the armies that OTT own, including many familiar to regular viewers and painted by John.

They look even better in real life.  Once Gerry and the team had set up the cameras and sound, we were ready to go.

Halflings VS Abyssal Dwarfs - Control

Gerry had brought his Halflings.  A well-balanced force with some of all of the good stuff Halflings have to offer: an Iron Beast, Taran Bligh, Rifles mounted on Trolls, two regiments of Juggers (armoured cavalry), 2 Hordes of squishy Halflings and 2 troops of both nasty flyers, Ej Grenadiers with their Brutal D3 and the horrid Aeronauts whose grenade attacks are Blast D3 hits (Ouch!).  The Juggers were core choices as the Warlord is Aeron Cadwallader.  Finally, a Sauceror rounded out the command options. [editor: Fluffy! It was a fluffy list!!]

We deployed like this:

I’m planning on pivoting around the building centre left and using the Orc Hordes to absorb the inevitable shooting early in the game.  Hopefully I can get my Immortal Guard and Golems into the fight in the mid-game and gain control of the centre and then spread out to pick up an extra zone for a scenario point or two if I’ve enough units left by the final turn.  Holding both centre squares will net me 3VP, and I’ll only need one more for a win.

Looking at Gerry’s deployment, he has refused his left flank and put the speedy hammers on the right where he’ll hope to overpower the Tunnel Runners and Gore Riders and then sweep round behind my centre. No spoilers as to what happened.  You’ll have to watch the video.

Tournament Outcomes

If you play tournaments in the UK, your results are tracked by Ian at the Kings of War Masters site. I’ve played two tournaments that score for the 2026 season and have a current ranking of 148th out of 239 players. Only the top 20 qualify for Masters by right, so I’ve got a way to go before I have to worry about that. [editor: I expect you in the top 50 by this time next year!]

Overall Impression

As wargames go, Kings of War is right up my street.  High fantasy setting and my beloved mass battle.  Big blocks of troops are the foundation for any good Kings army.  The way list-building synergies translate to a tabletop army that is so much more than the sum of its parts intrigues me.  There is no ultimate meta list that all players of a particular faction auto-include.

Twiglets v Dorfs It's A Zoidpinhead Face Off!

The game is well balanced, and this creates an effective sandbox for players to test themselves and their armies in.  Player skill becomes a deciding factor in list building, deployment and gameplay.  The community is welcoming, and tournament players know how to have fun.  Whilst good or poor dice still happen, they aren’t going to ruin your day. If you lose, it wasn’t the dice. Your opponent played well, and you probably made some mistakes.  You always go into the next game knowing the result can be better.

I’m not a newbie now.  I know the rules and am comfortable playing the game on the clock.  I’ve enjoyed reading up on the lore and know a fair bit about the factions and units they have.  I’ve played ten competitive games, and I’ve even won a few.

Next Steps...

I’ve decided to make a more tournament-focused list to play next season, and I’m picking out some tournaments to enter.  I’ll wait for the Arrogance book to come out and mull over the options.  The easiest would be to stick with Abyssal Dwarfs and add in some of the new units that are coming soon.  Their issue is lack of speed, which requires a more defensive style against many opponents.

I may change faction.  I don’t feel as comfortable defending; my natural inclination is to attack.  Twilight Kin are a strong possibility [editor: filthy racist elves].  To be aggressive in Kings, you need speed across the whole force, and they are mostly SP 6 or better.  I love the Goredrake; it’s my favourite Mantic miniature.  I have treated myself to one alongside some Twilight Kin and Nightstalker army boxes.  They are also getting upgraded units in Arrogance, so there should be even more options.

Opening the Mantic List Builder starts the fun.  Perhaps this one will be the winning list.  The journey continues. I look forward to seeing you across the table.

Article by zoidpinhead