2018 Summary - Part 2 - Mortem et Gloriam

Hello!

The second part of my 2018 Summary is dedicated to Mortem et Gloriam - historical system that I discovered at the beginning of the year and to which I committed some time in April.

I must admit that I did not initially plan to embark on such journey. In general, I prefer to focus on a single system as that allows me to divide spare time between gaming and painting models for a single army.

However, my brother convinced me to give it a go. I luckily had a collection of 10mm models I bought long time ago to play Warmaster Ancients. It has never happened, mainly due to lack of opponents. The collection was big enough to create a small army and try out the new game.

In the end I found myself fully committed to the new system, painting new units, playing games and attending tournaments. In this post I would like to share my experiences as I have really enjoyed the journey so far. 

Mortem et Gloriam - Game 19 - 2019/01/05

Hello!

In the last game of the tournament I played against the army of Early Arab Conquest commanded by Steve. I have already played against Steve a few times so far and I learned to be very careful! He is a very skilled player, no wonder he won the last event we both attended, WinterCon 2018.

For this event Steve brought Early Arab Conquest army that is a bit different to his usual force (at least from my point of view).  Visually, the army looked similar, however, although I was curious about the details. Here is the army list Steve used in the tournament:

Early Arab Conquest - Army List

Commanders

Army Commander - Talented Instinctive

Subordinate General 1 - Competent Instinctive

Subordinate General 2 - Competent Instinctive

Camp

Camp - Mobile, Average

TuG's

4 City Cavalry, Cavalry, Formed Loose, Superior, Protected, Long Spear  

4 Bedouin Cavalry, Cavalry, Formed Flexible, Average, Unprotected, Long Spear, Combat Shy

6 Warriors, Infantry, Tribal Close, Superior, Protected, Shieldwall, Integral Shooters

6 Warriors, Infantry, Tribal Close, Superior, Protected, Shieldwall, Integral Shooters
6 Warriors, Infantry, Tribal Close, Superior, Protected, Shieldwall, Integral Shooters
4 Warriors, Infantry, Tribal Close, Superior, Protected, Shieldwall, Integral Shooters
4 Warriors, Infantry, Tribal Close, Superior, Protected, Shieldwall, Integral Shooters
6 Bedouin Infantry, Infantry, Tribal Loose, Protected, Unskilled, Javelin, Short Spear

SuG's

4 Camel Mounted Scouts, Camelry,  Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

4 Skirmishing Archers, Infantry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

4 Skirmishing Archers, Infantry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

Mortem et Gloriam - Game 18 - 2019/01/03

Hello!

In the second game of the tournament I faced another historical opponent of the Seleucid army - Classical Indians. The army was commanded by Paul and I had a great pleasure to play against him a few months ago during WinterCon2018 tournament. It seemed that we had a perfect opportunity for a re-match!

Of course with 7000 points as opposed to 10,000 the conditions were not exactly the same. However, with Magna style rules for army compositions our respective forces kept their character and, in fact, were not that much smaller than before. At least that was my visual impression! Here are the details of the army that Paul brought to this event.

Classical Indian - Army List

Commanders

Army Commander - Talented Instinctive

Subordinate General 1 - Competent Instinctive

Subordinate General 2 - Competent Instinctive

Camp

Camp(C2) - Unfortified, Average

TuG's 

3 Elephants (E) - Elephants, Tribal Loose, Average, Protected, Shove

3 Elephants (EwF) - Elephants, Tribal Loose, Average, Protected, Experienced, Bow, Shove

4 Cavalry (C1) - Cavalry, Tribal Loose, Average, Protected, Unskilled, Javelin

3 Chariots (C3) - Battle Chariots, Formed Loose, Superior, Protected, Experienced, Bow 

6 Javelinmen (J) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Average, Protected, Unskilled, Javelinmen, Short Spear

6 Javelinmen (J2) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Average, Protected, Unskilled, Javelinmen, Short Spear

4 Archers (A1) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bows

4 Archers (A1) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bows

3 Spearmen & 3 Archers (SaA1) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Protected/Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Short Spear

3 Spearmen & 3 Archers (SaA2) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Protected/Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Short Spear

3 Spearmen & 3 Archers (SaA) - Infantry, Tribal Loose, Protected/Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Short Spear

SuG's

4 Skirmishers with Bow (SwB) - Infantry, Skirmisher, Poor, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

4 Skirmishers with Bow (SwB) - Infantry, Skirmisher, Poor, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

4 Skirmishers with Bow (SwB) - Infantry, Skirmisher, Poor, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Combat Shy

Mortem et Gloriam - Game 17 - 2019/01/01

Greetings!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great celebrations and that you are now ready to embark on a new journey through 2019!

What better start for the new content of the blog for 2019 than a battle report? Fortunately, I still have three games to write about from the one-day event I participated in at the beginning of December. 

This event was organized by Dean from Olympian Games and was aimed, much as the first event of that type in April 2018, to help potential new players to learn the rules. This time, however, we were going to use Magna version for Mortem et Gloriam. If you are interested in the details, here is the link to the document with the rules modifications:

Mortem Et Gloriam - Magna

This version of the rules was designed to allow for quicker and more decisive games. Hence, the idea for the event was that we would aim to complete three games in one day, with two hours allocated per battle. That would allow for more interaction between the participants and help the newcomers in particular in gaining as much experience as possible.

The event attracted a lot of attention and we had 14 participants, including players coming out of Canberra, just for that event. It was really great because in just a few months one could see how much Mortem et Gloriam gained in terms of popularity. I really hope this trend will continue, especially that there were a few spectators, actively looking for more information on the system. 

The first round was organized in a way that would allow more experienced players to play against  newcomers. In this way new players should have been able to learn the rules quicker. And wherever possible, the first round matched armies from the similar historical periods.

I had an honor and great pleasure to play against Dean himself and his beautifully painted Parthians! As expected, it was fully mounted army, with half of it being Horse Archers and the other half fully armored Cataphracts! Here are the details:

Parthians - Army List

Commanders

Army Commander - Talented Instinctive

Subordinate General 1 - Competent Instinctive

Subordinate General 2 - Competent Instinctive

Subordinate General 3 - Competent Instinctive

Camp

Camp - Mobile, Poor 

TuG's

4 Royal Guard Cataphracts - Cavalry, Tribal Close, Superior, Fully Armored, Long Spear, Devastating Chargers, Shove

4 Royal Guard Cataphracts - Cavalry, Tribal Close, Superior, Fully Armored, Long Spear, Devastating Chargers, Shove

4 Cataphracts - Cavalry, Tribal Close, Average, Fully Armored, Long Spear, Devastating Chargers, Shove

4 Cataphracts - Cavalry, Tribal Close, Average, Fully Armored, Long Spear, Devastating Chargers, Shove

4 Cataphracts - Cavalry, Tribal Close, Average, Fully Armored, Long Spear, Devastating Chargers, Shove

SuG's

4 Horse Archers - Cavalry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Cantabrian 

4 Horse Archers - Cavalry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Cantabrian

4 Horse Archers - Cavalry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Cantabrian

4 Horse Archers - Cavalry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Cantabrian

4 Horse Archers - Cavalry, Skirmisher, Average, Unprotected, Experienced, Bow, Cantabrian

2018 Summary - Part 1 - Kings of War

Greetings!

The end of the year is always a good opportunity to look back and reflect upon the plans and goals made 365 days ago. There are a few hours left of 2018 and I am very happy to say that by all means it was a good year. Also for the hobby!

I find it quite interesting to see what I planned and achieved in the last year but also to notice that there were some surprised and unexpected turns of events. However, these were not bad experiences, quite the contrary. It simply reminds me that one should be always prepared to seize the moment when new opportunity arises. Even it may often mean rearrangement of the initial plans. 

2018 was certainly such a year for me and for that reason I titled this post: 2018 - Part 1. It is because there was a little unexpected development of my hobby interests. But that will be covered in Part 2. First post it dedicated to Kings of War, the game I greatly enjoyed playing this year. And I by all means I want to invest even more into in  2019!

There are a few aspects I would like to cover that are related to Kings of War as a system, so let's start with the games!

Game 105 - Night Stalkers - 2018/12/27

Greetings!

Last few months I played regular games against Jeff using Universal Battle 2.  It was a great series of battles and it seemed quite fitting that the very last game of 2018 for me would be against Jeff and his Night Stalkers army.

It was also another great opportunity to play under new Clash of Kings 2019 updated rules. There is quite a lot to consider now, I must admit, so to resist the temptation to change too many things at the same time, I followed my own rule and tried to stick to the same army I played with last time. 

Jeff usually has the opposite approach and he tries to test as many things as possible. However, he kept the same faction, Night Stalkers and it seemed to me that the core of the army remained the same. It is all about those additional heroes and units he incorporates in his force that make the difference in the end. Here are the details of his army for this game:

Night Stalkers - Army List

40 Scarecrows, Infantry, Horde, Shambling

- Dread-Fiend, Hero, Large Cavalry,  Crushing Strength (2), Vicious, Nimble
- 10 Phantoms, Infantry, Troop, Crushing Strength (1), Fly, Shambling
- 10 Phantoms, Infantry, Troop, Crushing Strength (1), Fly, Shambling
- Shadow Hulk,  Monster, Crushing Strength (3), Strider, This unit is not Stealthy

40 Scarecrows, Infantry, Horde, Shambling
- Dread-Fiend, Hero, Large Cavalry,  Crushing Strength (2), Vicious, Nimble
- 10 Phantoms, Infantry, Troop, Crushing Strength (1), Fly, Shambling
- 10 Phantoms, Infantry, Troop, Crushing Strength (1), Fly, Shambling
- Shadow Hulk,  Monster, Crushing Strength (3), Strider, This unit is not Stealthy

40 Scarecrows, Infantry, Horde, Shambling
- Butcher Fleshripper, Hero, Large Infantry, Crushing Strength (2), Nimble, Stealthy, Mindthirst, Surge (3)
- Shadow Hulk,  Monster, Crushing Strength (3), Strider, This unit is not Stealthy 

20 Scarecrows, Infantry, Regiment, Shambling
- Butcher Fleshripper, Hero, Large Infantry, Crushing Strength (2), Nimble, Stealthy, Mindthirst, Surge (3) 

20 Scarecrows, Infantry, Regiment, Shambling
- Butcher Fleshripper, Hero, Large Infantry, Crushing Strength (2), Nimble, Stealthy, Mindthirst, Surge (3)

Game 104 - League of Rhordia - 2018/12/26

Greetings!

It seems to me that Universal Battle 2 platform gains more and more popularity among Kings of War players. Thanks to that I had a great pleasure to have a game against a player I have never played before. Although I bet we attended some tournaments together, it just happened that we did not end up playing against each other then.

Jeff wanted to use this opportunity to get more familiar with Universal Battle as well. But what better way than to play the game and simply discuss subtleties of the platform during the battle? 

I am always happy to share what I know about it. The more players embark on it - the better! What is more Jeff is also playing with not that popular faction among Kings of War players - League of Rhordia. This faction seem to have quite a lot of options in terms of army composition so I was very curious what are the units Jeff likes the most. 

On top of that we have just received our copies of CoK2019 and were very keen to try out new options and implement changes as soon as possible. 

Here are the details of the army list Jeff brought to our game:

League of Rhordia - Army List

6 Honor Guard, Horde, Large Cavalry, Crushing Strength (1), Thunderous Charge (2), Iron Resolve, Maccwar’s Potion of the Caterpillar

- Halfling Volley Gun, War Engine, Piercing (2), Range 24", Reload!

- Halfling Iron Beast, Monster, Breath Attack (10), Crushing Strength (2), Thunderous Charge (1), Strider

- Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez, Hero, Monster, Crushing Strength (2), Fly, Heal (4), Thunderous Charge (1), Very Inspiring, Mind Fog (1), Healing Brew

 40 Halfling Archers, Horde, Infantry, Bows, Stealthy

- Halfling Volley Gun, Piercing (2), Range 24", Reload!

- Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez, Hero, Monster, Crushing Strength (2), Fly, Heal (4), Thunderous Charge (1), Very Inspiring, Mind Fog (1), Blade of Slashing

Household Knights, Regiment, Cavalry, Fury, Thunderous Charge (2), Brew of Haste

- Battle Shrine, Hero, Large Cavalry, Lightning Bolt (5), Rallying! (2) 

We've Had Second Breakfast - Formation

40 Halfling Spearlings, Horde, Infantry, Phalanx, Stealthy, Ensnare, Defense 4+

- Master Seargeant, Hero, Cavalry, Elite, Individual, Stealthy, Ensnare, Thunderous Charge (1), Very Inspiring (Halflings Only)

20 Halfling Spearlings, Regiment, Infantry, Phalanx, Stealthy, Ensnare, Defense 4+

- Wizard, Hero, Cavalry, Individual, Blizzard (2), Fireball (6), Inspiring Talisman

20 Halfling Spearlings, Regiment, Infantry, Phalanx, Stealthy, Ensnare, Defense 4+