Duchy of Cheddar 2, vile skeletal hordes 0

Way back in 2011-2012 I put together a force of late 17th century ratmen - the army of the Grand Duchy of Cheddar. They won me a couple of prizes in the Pendraken painting competition, and I led them to one glorious game of Hordes of the Things. Then I moved country, and found a deficit in 15mm HotT players. Unable to part with the wee furry beggars, they have lived in their box ever since. That is, until this weekend, when they returned to service in my first ever game of Kings of War.

It seems that while I have been distracted with my 6mm Minoans, some of the lads have been exploring 10mm fantasy ranges and experimenting with Kings of War. I happily took the opportunity to be shown the ropes, and the chance to get my ratties back on the table. Turns out I already have around 1600 points worth of forces (we used the Dwarf list). My foes, once more, turned out to be skeletons. Fousands of 'em.

I was more concerned with learning the rules and readjusting, so I didn't keep a very good account of the battle itself unfortunately.

 My rat dragoons savage some skeletal cavalry.

A skeletal horde charges Roquefort's Guard regiment. In the background, the Ducal Dirigible floats along. We stated it up as a flying magic user.
   

The steamtank/behemoth takes on some more skellie horsemen .

My fairly conservative tactics involved holding the line and shooting. The undead tactics involved a steady is macabre advance, with a few units surging forward thanks to necromantic magic.

Although I was taking a few hits, my stand and shoot approach was taking its toll on the skellies.

At the end of turn seven we agreed that the day had gone the way of the rats. Cheddar had lost three troops of shot and a gun battery, while the undead had lost a bone giant, a horde and two regiments of skeletons, two troops of horse, one troop of archers and a catapult.

My overall thoughts? 

Pros: KoW gives a pretty decent game, it is certainly fast, easy enough to pick up after a couple of turns, and allowed me to put a favourite and underutilised army on the table.

Cons: None really. After only one game I can't really say that many things stood out as 'wrong' with the rules as such. However, KoW is so very different to the large battle games I normally enjoy so much and it is those differences that I really noticed. There is no command and control friction and it seems to use an unnecessarily vast number of dice. I used to think Hail Caesar was guilty of this, but KoW is in a whole different league. In one particularly savage charge (my wolf riders against the undead artillery piece) I was required to roll 76 attack dice. Suffice to say I didn't, and we just removed the catapult.

Would I play again? I have already statted up my army properly (using the Kingdom of Men list) and am preparing to put in a small Pendraken order to flesh out my Cheddar forces, so I suppose I will. 😎

We finished the evening with a wee game of Cousins' War, from Surprised Stare Games. Great little game in which the unfortunate Lancastrians came out ahead at the end of turn five.