Valley of Kings 4 - Introduction - 2017/10/29

Greetings!

After a month or so of a break in playing after the Edge of the Abyss campaign I was eager to get back to some games. Fortunately for me, local tournament organizers, Matt and Tas, planned another of their fantastic events in the series known as The Valley of Kings.  As usual, the great crew of Three D6 store hosted a group of 12 Kings of War enthusiasts.

This time things were a bit different. First of all, we played with 1200 points armies and that immediately looked a bit of a challenge for me as I have never played this size of the game. However, I managed to downsize my current 2000 points force and was set to participate. 

Second change, which was more of a consequence of the first one, is that we played on 4 x 4 feet tables. It is understandable and recommended for smaller battles but it also meant that the battle fields were narrower. To the player who needs space for maneuver it was another thing to quickly adapt to.

However, the most intriguing and discussed modification as compared to Clash of Kings standard for tournaments was an introduction of a new scoring system - BlackJack. For details, please, follow the link:

Black Jack - scoring system for Kings of War

In short, the aim is to shift the focus to the scenarios and decrease the impact of the attrition on the overall result the player can achieve. It means that under BlackJack system a player may earn more points if he can fulfill the scenario requirements in a more decisive way. For example, one may earn more points if he gets all the loot tokens rather than just one more than his opponent that is required to win the scenario. At the same time the brackets for getting a significant shift in the scoring due to attrition were increased and the player can no longer claim up to 5 extra points in this way. 

I must say I was intrigued but at the same time a little concerned that checking all these tables to get the result may be a bit time consuming. However, to help with that special score sheets were prepared for each player and it turned out to be faster than I expected. 

The aim for the organizers was to collect data about the new system and ask participants for the feedback. Did the new system affect their decision making at any stage (including army design)? Did it reward playing for the scenario conditions more and did it entourage them to do so? Did they like it (simple but important!)? etc.

I decided I am going to scale down my usual army without taking into account the new scoring system. What would be ideal is 2000 points size games with exactly the same army. I could then better assess what was the impact of the new system on my decisions during the games. However, with the army that had all the units I usually have in my 2000 force that was as close as I could get.

I also decided to approach the scenarios in a similar way as before. It means that I wanted to focus on the scenario conditions first. Destroying enemy units is important but my assumption was that if I were to make a decision between destroying more units or getting more scenario points I should go for the scenario. Unless destroying the enemy units allowed to do both and/or was the safest option. I would leave more detailed considerations on that matter for the battle reports :)

Here is the army list I brought to this event:

1200 version of the Outcasts.

Outcasts - Army List

3 Drakon Riders, Regiment - 175
- 5 Silverbreeze, Troop - 145
- 5 Silverbreeze, Troop - 145
- Drakon Rider Lord, Hero, Large Cavalry - 160

3 Drakon Riders, Regiment - 175
- 10 Palace Guard, Troop - 105

- 10 Palace Guard, Troop - 105

 - Army Standard, Hero - 50

3 War Chariots, Regiment  - 140
 

Here are the photos and diagrams from the deployments in each game as well as army lists of my opponents. As always I am very curious about your predictions :)

Game 1 - Pillage - Elves - Mark

Elves vs Elves - good start!

Deployment of the armies and pillage tokens.

40 Archers, Heart-seeking Chant

- Army Standard, Lute, Hero

6 Drakon Riders, Horde

- Dragon Kindred Lord, Hero

 

6 Drakon Riders, Horde

Please, note that two pillage tokens (they are indicated by blue-green circles) are under Drakon Riders DR2 and Archers, respectively.

Game 2 - Dominate - The Forces of the Abyss - Damian

Edge of the Abyss - the fight continues

Deployment of the armies.

40 Lower Abyssals, Horde

- 5 Gargoyles, Troops

- 5 Hellhounds, Troops

- Abyssal Chmpion with Wings, Hero

20 Succubi, Regiment

20 Succubi, Regiment

6 Tortured Souls, Horde

Game 3 - Loot - Undead - Chris

Elves are to try and snatch the coffins before the Vampires are woken up.

Deployment of the armies - and loot tokens.

40 Zombies, Horde

- 10 Skeleton Warriors, Troops

- 5 Soul Reaver Cavalry, Troops

- 5 Revenant Cavalry, Troops

- Liche King, Hero

6 Barrow Wights, Horde

- Army Standard, Mounted

20 Wraiths, Regiment

Game 4 - Control - Night Stalkers - Sean

Back to the Twilight Glades.

Deployment of the armies.

20 Soul Reavers,Regiment

- 10 Spectres, Troops

- 10 Spectres, Troops

- Horror, Hero

20 Dopplegangers, Regiment

- 10 Phantoms, Troop

- Plannar Apparition, Monster

3 Nightmares, Regiment

Game 5 - Eliminate - Elves - Craig

Elves vs Elves again!

Deployment of the armies.

6 Drakon Riders, Horde

- 10 Archers

- Drakon Lord, Hero 

10 Storm Wind, Pathfinder, Regiment

- Mage, Lightning Bolts, Hero

Basilean Allies

6 Elohi, Horde

I will do my best to prepare the reports as quickly as possible. In the discussion about the games I will also try to compare BlackJack scoring system to Win-Draw-Lose and to Clash of Kings 2016 systems. As well as discuss the possibilities of making different decisions depending under which system I would be playing. 

Thanks for reading!