Game of Kings of War

So I finally got my Varangur list sorted out for Kings of War and got in a game with one of the locals, David.  Below, a picture of the 2000 pts for my first game of Kings of War with my own list and only my second game of KoW:

Soooo many models

The list largely pulled from the models I already had painted (luckily).  The "sand worm" and the witch coven you may recall from a few posts ago rounded out my force serving as a Devourer and Magus Conclave (x2).  The sorcerer lord still needs to be assembled to serve as my model of choice for a lone Magus.

Here they are finally on the battlefield, right after deployment (the magus conclave off camera on left and right, and a 20 man unit of Sons of Korgaan off camera to the left):

I really want this mat

After a couple of rounds, a few things have gone right, more had gone wrong but still in it:

There is a unit of cavalry off camera left that is ruing my day

Things looking pretty good here near the end of the game, except when you look at the number of wounds (the dice behind my units) on each unit:

The two beat up units on the left side evaporated quickly

The last turn of the scenario.  Somehow the unit of Sons of Korgaan had survived (seriously they shouldn't have, waver on 16 break on 18 with 14 wounds.  Due to Gift of Korgaan, they finished off the knights that charged them and as the only unit in the center of the table (part of the scenario) it won me the game (secondary scoring didn't give David enough to overcome winning the scenario).

Yep, inspiring forced a reroll and kept those Sons of Korgaan on the table

The final score was 15 (me) to 9 (David).  The game really should have gone to him and would have had me pretty much wiped off the board, with a score that would have been about 5 (me) to 19 (David).

Anyway, I found the game fun and exciting.  David was a great opponent and really helped walk me through my first complete introduction with my own forces.  I am thoroughly impressed with how stream lined the rules are yet complete enough to tick almost all the boxes I want out of something like this.  This also led to the game being over in just under 2 hours, which is a big bonus to me.  That being said, if I was (which I am not) the type of person that only plays one game, I'm still not sure there is enough diversity to the game to keep me interested for game after game, week after week.  Especially since I have no interest in exploring diversity by purchasing, assembling and painting so many models for another army to play.

I learned a lot from this game too, in the usual way:  burned hand.  My initial positioning of my Magus Conclaves was horrendous.  My flanks collapsed badly due to poor support.  I over committed my Devourer to a target, leaving him too exposed afterwards.  And didn't do anything all game long about that pesky bow line in the back.  While I did a decent job of using units to screen, I see how I could have used them better.

Anyway, I look forward to getting another game in soon.