Last Saturday the final third edition tournament for Kings of War took place in Bristol. It’s been an absolutely fantastic few years and now the rules and army lists for fourth edition are out in the world it was great to give the edition a final send off. Having started to work through the new army lists I decided my rats would get the honour of playing the final games. There’s quite a lot changing, mechanics-wise, for rats in fourth edition so I wanted to savour the joys of plague pots and multiple sources of rally before it all disappears.
I took the same list I’ve used for most of this year it’s been that enjoyable. The one thing I did notice this time around was that it still included a white command dice, completely irrelevant now. There wasn’t much to be done with twenty points, so I added Sir Jesse’s Boots to one of my Shock Troop hordes (which I failed to use in the first two games as my elites were in the wrong places) and Fire Oil to my Scurriers (that actually managed to do one wound on a regenerating unit that I may have been far too excited about).
Playing this list has been really fun and through it I think I’ve found the sort of play style that works best for me. Having a mass of rats that push forward to claim objectives whilst around them nimble characters and war engine teams cause chaos has become the order of the day. I’m hoping it’s an approach I don’t have to change too much in the coming days.
The first game was against a classic third edition Elven shooting list. Shooting is changing quite a bit in fourth edition, and I get why. I haven’t played against loads of these types of lists, by when I do there’s always a feeling of trepidation. The match up feels a little one-sided, loads of mobile shooting against quite slow-moving infantry with short ranged guns. The scenario went in my favour though, we were playing Invade, which meant my opponent needed to move units forward, so couldn’t keep moving his archers backwards to keep my troops at arm’s length for as long as possible.
The game started predictably enough with the elves shooting off my warrior horde in the first turn! Not a great experience. I would go on to lose the Vermintide and a Brute Enforcer before I could get stuck into the Elves properly. I’d deployed all of my troops on my left flank, whilst the bulk of the Elves ranged from the centre to my right. Only the dragon and a regiment of Gladestalkers challenged me for the left. In the second turn the dragon charged my Mutant Rat Fiend, which resulted in the dragon getting flank charged and routed by Shock Troops, whilst my spear horde dealt with the Gladestalkers. It was a great moment to have a couple of units over the centre line and some safe space for them away from the main battle, but the bulk of the enemy still needed to be dealt with.
As my battleline crept forward towards the centre the surviving Brute Enforcer managed to stop one of the Sea Guard hordes shooting. As the Elves were also trying to get units across into my half of the table to score, their ranged attacks were watered down, allowing me to get more units into charge range. An attempt to slow my advance by the Drakon Riders was firmly rebuffed and combat started to be joined in earnest. One of the Sea Guard hordes went down, the two charioteers were both lost, and the Stormwind Cavalry were pulled apart by Shock Troops. Despite them retaining three of their units, Silverbreeze, Gladestalkers and Seaguard, the Elves weren’t able to do enough damage to the remaining blocks of rats or their Brood Mother resulting in a win for the rats.
Game two was against the Twilight Kin and the scenario was Fool’s Gold. This is quite a familiar match up for me and pretty much sums up 2024 where I was regularly playing against these fiends and found myself facing off against them no less than three times at Clash of Kings.
These Elves were the defensive sort, with a lot of ensnare and defence six. With a meagre defence of four and low melee stats rats really don’t like grinding with the kin. That meant having to be a bit cagey. Although I wouldn’t say I have a lot of shooting, what I have can be pretty reliably game changing, and since my opponent’s shooting was significantly less than mine, I decided to lead with the guns. Over the course of the first three turns the Scurriers and War Engine Teams wore down the enemy on my right flank, allowing me to secure four points worth of objectives and take a lead. However, the Impalers had formed a solid line across the centre, blocking access the objective that would make the game either a win or a draw for the rats.
Knowing how tough they can be I wasn’t keen on the idea of rushing into a straight fight with them, highly unratlike. The turns kept going though and eventually I knew I would have to face them. Fortunately, by then a cunning plan had been formulated and an opportunity was opening. Shooting had knocked a few wounds off one unit, whilst the other remained undamaged. Cunning manoeuvring managed to allow me to get a Shock Troop horde into the damaged unit and the War Engine Teams in a place where they could shoot into the side of the undamaged unit, avoiding their big shields. A bunch of dice rolls later and neither unit remained. My Shock Troops then ran forward to claim the objective the Impalers had been holding.
Now it was the Twilight Kin’s turn to unleash their own shenanigans. Pre-empting the carnage in the centre the remaining Soulflayers had made their way back in from my left flank and now unleashed a windblast to push my Shock Troops away from their scoring position. The sneaky tactic worked, but in their delight in their underhand strategy, the sort of thing that noble Ratkin would never stoop to, they overlooked an opportunity to move the Soulflayers onto the objective to claim it, denying them a chance at a draw and letting my Rats steal the win. Karma.
My final game of the day, and the edition, was against the cunning Jon Gunns and his menagerie of aberrations from the Abyss. I’ve played a couple of versions of this list (although not piloted by Jon) and know exactly how hard it can hit. It can clear out hordes of rats far too quickly, especially if the demons don’t get taken off quickly. Fortunately, the side of the table I ended up on had a reasonable amount of rough terrain, which is probably my best defence against this sort of army.
Unfortunately, the large piece of blocking terrain in the middle of my deployment zone created an immediate issue. My army likes to function as a single blob, making the most of its synergies and superior number of drops to swarm around opponents, wear them down and pick up cheeky flanks. Deployment forced me to split my troops, and it became apparent early on that I hadn’t got the split right.
In the centre Cryza, Shock Troops and the War Engine Teams stood with their backs against the terrain as demented entities encircled them, before tearing them apart. The battle group did manage to pull some of the creatures down with them, in particular the War Engine Teams that made a mess of any Bezerkers that got close to them. On my right things were a little more tentative, with the Succubus attempting to test my Scurriers and the spear warriors. They should up to her temptations and the Brood Mother drove her off with a nasty shot of Drain Life.
With so many speedy units aligned against me I didn’t quite know the best way to capture the loot counters despite starting out with some reasonable opportunities. Indecisiveness struck and rather than using one of my Brute Enforcers on the right to grab counters he wondered around aimlessly before getting rear charged by Ba’el. This lack of focus synergised perfectly with Jon’s careful play to craft a more than palatable win for The Forces of The Abyss. The rats certainly weren’t slouches and did manage to hold on to a couple of loot counters, but it was too little too late, and a brilliant game to end the day on.
Mulling over what worked and what didn’t seems a little redundant, although I will say now that I wouldn’t change my list for the world. It’s been an absolute blast playing Rats over the last few years, and the time feels right to move on to pastures new. Perhaps the most exciting part of the whole weekend was seeing my son’s finished Nightstalkers in action, this was his second event and he’s now contemplating life without Bloodworms and really isn’t sure which way to turn… Twilight Kin anyone?
That just leaves space for a massive thank you to Andy for organising the event and the great people I got to play against.
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