Escalation

So what happens when you bring an overpowered army to a gaming club and steamroll everyone?

Everyone else starts bringing uber armies, too.

Now in my defense when I brought my all cavalry (save two cannons, which, erm, were mounted on donkeys or something) army to Koganei I wasn't sure what to expect. It was only my second Kings of War game at the time, and judging off of my experiences with the Deadzone forces I'd played against previously, I'd assumed that I'd be fighting power armies. This didn't turn out to be the case at all, and I ended up being that guy who ended up crushing everyone with a stinkiest, cheesiest army in the room. All cavalry... except for two cannons. Yep. Can you smell the fromage?

My Tomb Kings in action against the Bretonnians.

That was a couple of months ago now, and karma came back to bite me on the ass this time around when I squared off against Omata-San's Brotherhood army last Sunday at Nerima. He had an almost identical list, but instead he used the Brotherhood (I played Kingdoms of Men), which is the Kings of War equivalent of Warhammer's Bretonnia. He only had five units - one Horde of Knights (20 models); two Regiments of Knights (10 models apiece); and two Trebuchets. With this army he wiped the floor with me and Takatori-San. Both of us played undead forces - I was Empire of Dust (KoW's Tomb Kings equivalent) while Takatori-San was vanilla Undead (Vampire Counts in GW parlance). We had no answers for the fast, hard-hitting chargers, in particular his massive block of 20 knights. In KoW the larger the unit the more Nerve (Leadership) they have, and the harder they are to break. Couple that with the Knight's high Defense scores and you end up with a unit which is fast, hard-hitting and extremely durable. His Knights were also well supported by the Trebuchets. Artillery is a bit luck based in KoW, but when they hit they can decimate units. There's no rallying after a failed Panic test in KoW - if a unit fails a Nerve (i.e. Leadership test) they are removed from the board. That factor makes Nerve tests from artillery fire potentially devastating.

That's why I had cannons in my all cavalry list, by the way.

The thing is, I didn't think his army was unbeatable, and I had no problem with it. Low unit count means it was easy to outdeploy him, and the size of the Knight Horde was so large that it impeded its movement on the board. You could play a points denial game by just feeding it crap to occupy its time. Units in Warhammer and KoW usually only charge into combat twice on average, so it becomes all about managing what they charge. The unit also costs about a third of his army, and sacrificing small units while chopping up other parts of his army would allow you to get ahead. The biggest mistake is concentrating everything on it. The unit is actually a giant tar pit, and the best thing to do against tar pits is to avoid them entirely. The only problem is that despite this "incisive" analysis I still played like a gumby and lost. I suck.

My Skeleton Archer Horde was no match for Omata-San's Knight Horde unit. The Skeleton Regiment also didn't fare well against a Regiment of Knights.

Now again - in my defense - this was my first game with the Empire of Dust. I'd actually toned down my armies, and brought Twilight Kin (Dark Elves) and Empire of Dust (Tomb Kings) this time around after being racked with pangs of guilt the last time we played. Takatori-San brought the same army to the meet, but as stated above, Omata-San unleashed his all cavalry 2.0 list for this auspicious occasion. He had been ruminating on getting revenge for the curb stomping his Neritican army had received at the hands of my all cavalry army. I know because he told me so (in a friendly way), and his Brotherhood pounded Takatori-San and myself into the turf. Ouch. My head hurts.

All's fair in love and Warhammer though, and even though I got absolutely steamrolled I did learn a few valuable lessons. I really struggled with ranges when using the Empire of Dust forces, in particular with using the Surge spell which allows spellcasters to advance Shambling units. Next time around my core deployments need to be closer together to get those vital flanking moves. You can't contest the Magic phase in KoW, so you're guaranteed to get a Surge off with an average of 5" movement. My problem was that Surge has a range of 12", and I kept placing my High Priestess in bad positions. I also misused my Giant Scorpions by putting them on anti-war machine duty. They start off with a free 12" Vanguard move but then shamble 6 inches per turn (they can't march) unless I divert my caster to Surge them, which is a big waste of her time. A comical chase ensued in the backline of the Brotherhood army when my Scorpion moving at 6" chased a fleeing Trebuchet crew moving at 5". As long as they were more than 12" away they couldn't be charged, and so the chase degenerated into a long, painful farce in which my Scorpion would gain 1" on the fleeing Trebuchet per turn. The Scorpions could have been better used to support the bulk of my army, or to deny smaller Knight units avenues of advance by threatening their flanks. Another thing I learned today is that my Dust army needs something that can hurt high Defense targets. My Skeleton units were quite pathetic in close combat. They served their roles as tar pits, but couldn't cause enough damage to rout the Knight units on their own. I need a high damage unit or two to break the Knights once they were tied in combat. That's what the Scorpions should have been used for.

For all of that I still think that I could have won with my existing list. When you feel that way you can't really complain about someone else's army being "cheesy" or what not - it's just a failure of tactics on your part. When I played Warhammer over a decade ago I played in tournaments all the time, and for me, if it's allowed in the rules then it's perfectly fine. Theme and composition is so subjective that it's essentially meaningless. I am also not qualified to give an opinion on what is "cheesy" in KoW because I haven't played enough games in the system yet. Ask me again after I chalk up a few more games.

The problem with escalation comes when other players like Takatori-San keep bringing armies that look like they couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag, even to a KoW novice like myself. I know Takatori-San's composition well because it is composed of what comes out of the Mantic Undead starter box. It's not optimized for competitive play. I like Takatori-San - he's a lovely older man who has gone out of his way to welcome me to Koganei so I don't want to just steamroll him every time we play. But if he's going to keep bringing the same army every time then I just have to forget about the idea of bringing the strongest army I can muster, as patronizing as that sounds. I just thought that's what everyone did - from collectible card games to computer PvP builds I thought the aim of the game was to build the biggest, baddest combination you can muster, and if it was broken it was the developer's responsibility to balance the factions as best they can. But sometimes you just have to make sure everyone is having a good time, especially in a hobby as niche as ours. Players are a precious commodity, much more precious than winning or losing. This isn't Australia, where 50 player tournaments every couple of months are the norm, and the community is large, friendly and vibrant. I'm in Japan, I don't speak the language well, and mainstream Japanese regard the hobby as almost being on par as collecting maid dolls and autographed AKB48 posters. Everyone who plays is important.

What all this means is that in the future I will bring nice, fluffy armies against Takatori-San, and field my cheesiest, beardiest stuff for Omata-San. Everyone wins that way. It's all about expectations. I know what to expect from both players now, so it's just a matter of tailoring the army to the player. I also noticed that Omata-San toned down his army when he played Takatori-San, so maybe he's already got me pegged as a power gamer, and he's already extending the same kind of consideration to Takatori-San who he knows is not. That's totally cool, and something I'm OK with. Next time around I'll be bringing High Elves and Orcs. High Elves can counter Brotherhood because spears negate charge bonuses, so I'd like to create an anti-cavalry army for Omata-San to play against as part of our ongoing arms race. The Orcs are wacky, fun and infantry based, which should give Takatori-San's Undead forces a good straight up tussle. My Dark Elves just ran rings around his poor Undead army in the game we played at Nerima, so playing the Orcs should be a nice change. I would have loved to have played Omata-San's cavalry army with my Dark Elves - his uber unit of knights would have never seen combat, except perhaps against a throwaway unit of scouts or fast cavalry. Sadly we ran out of time, but we did collectively manage to get in three games in a round robin against each other so the day was well spent. Playing High Elves and Orcs will also allow me to say that all my Warhammer armies have seen action in Japan, and provide additional motivation to do some painting over the holidays.