Paws for thought: refining the dog list and thoughts on THOSE dice

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve played another couple of games with the dogs of Kings of War, and there’s a theme emerging. In fairness it was present in previous games with similar lists but now it’s really starting to be born out, and I just can’t ignore it anymore.

That theme is nerve. It’s something I hadn’t given a huge amount of concern to, the lack of crushing strength and Banechant in the army just seemed more of an issue. In addition to this I was hoping recruiting a fifth regiment of Juggers would sort of address the nerve situation by having more hard-hitting units to throw into the enemy. The hope being that if one was wavered there would be enough to pick up the slack. In my first game, against Kingdoms of Men, this sort of worked, however because there was no real shooting in my opponent’s force the irritating wavers generally occurred in combat, which is immeasurably more useful when the units are locking opponents in place to receive flank charges in the following turn. Consequently, the waver issue was more than made up for by the resulting carnage of the flank charges.

Despite this I decided to try something a little different for the next game, against the wonderful Steve Hil. On a whim I decided to give a Jugger horde a go. Partly this was serendipity and partly I think concerns about nerves were starting to get under my skin. I’m not going to say too much about the game because it’s been recorded for a future Death By Dragons release (I figured it was only fair following the great Twilight Kin debacle of Clash 2021 {and yes there is a tournament report of it on DBD} where my rats had an absolute field day, that in our next meeting I let him pit the army he’d been playing all this year against a list I’m still very much testing out).

So once again I found myself facing a Kingdoms of Men list. This list presented more direct challenges to mine in the form of a pike horde (phalanx and ensnare) and a reasonable amount of shooting. This absolutely put the cats amongst the flying aralezes. From the first turn shooting resulted in wavers cropping up amongst my troops, and then there was the small matter of a redeployable pike horde that was effectively invincible to most of my army.

All in all, it turned out to be a massively enjoyable game with the takeaways being that nerve is definitely a problem, and I think I need some shooting to deal with ensnare, phalanx and other shooting! So, with that in mind the list moves on… the horde will remain (although I’m really not sure what to do with it, it looks mega), I will be dropping one of the jugger regiments, and I’ll be putting some forest troll gunners in their place.

I think the gunners will compliment the list quite nicely as their pathfinder makes them pretty mobile, whilst their regeneration will hopefully mean they stick around for a while. A bit of crushing strength will also not go amiss! The aim will be to field this army at the New Moon tournament in Bristol on 4^th of January 2025. There’s a fair bit of painting to be done and no more test games as it’s back to the rats for a bit.

Now for the dice

With the first couple of games under my belt I’m finding myself considering the dice in two distinct ways. The first is the actual mechanic, by this I mean the rolling of the dice, the points accrued and that the abilities can happen anywhere on the table. The second is the abilities themselves.

My position going into this is that Kings of War does need a new rules avenue to explore. Over third edition we’ve seen more and more auras applied to the armies and I think there’s only so far this can be taken, and we must be pretty near to the edge of it. I want to see another way that armies can be differentiated, so the arrival of command dice are welcome if only because they indicate a new direction of travel for force development.

Having played with them I think the mechanism is pretty unobtrusive and really easy to get to grips with. I know there are concerns that this could introduce more complexity, but I don’t think the current format does – roll dice, count points, spend points. In that respect I think it’s very Kings of War. Furthermore, the decision to not tie the use of a command to a character, e.g. a unit must be within six inches of a hero to use the command, makes them distinct from an aura and adds to the simplicity. As a Ratkin and Halfling player the last thing I really want are more bubbles that need to be considered to make my armies work. So, on that basis I’m really happy with the general mechanic, it’s quick and easy to get your head around.

However, as with all things, balance is key, and this is where I have slightly more than mild concerns. As has been discussed quite widely, there are some value issues with some of the abilities, and I would go as far as to say these might be as much to do with the general commands (depending on the army using them) as the faction specific ones. My first game against Kingdoms of Men saw my Juggers slaughter everything they touched with an extra point of thunderous charge and a strider aura, even the EJ grenadiers reliably grounded defence five fliers. It wasn’t the best experience for the Kingdoms of Men player whose abilities were limited by terrain and had no mitigation in their list.

On the bright side though Endurance saw Lifeleech played far more by the Saucerors as combined with Iron Resolve it meant a unit could potentially heal back up to five wounds per turn. No small feat. I definitely think my second game with Steve was a great example of just how much fun the dice can be. The nature of our armies meant the abilities didn’t enhance anything to a troubling amount (thunderous charge is irrelevant against phalanx and furious charge is very manageable when applied to melee 5 troops), but they absolutely contributed to the game overall, making it massively enjoyable. I will absolutely be playing the dice going forward casually, but I’m not sure I’ll be overly excited about seeing them at tournaments this year. All that being said I’m excited for the future.

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