Having played a few games at the club and practice games at home, I've come to like the simplicity of the rules and the game dynamic it produces.
No more HeroHammer or huge tomes to look through to see what the rules subsection states, and easy to get a game done in a short space of time.
Unfortunately, in there eagerness to get rules out to use their models, Alessio did a fine job but I do wonder about the costing of some of the units.
Lets take for example a Simple Regiment from the Undead and the Elves (20 strong unit with no Standard Bearer or Musician).
Skeleton Regiment (20)
Sp 5, Me 5+, De 4+, At 10, Ne 6 with Evil Dead, Shambling Horde and Phalanx rules @95pts
Elven Spearmen Regiment (20)
Sp 6, Me 4+, De 4+, At 10, Ne 6 with Elite and Phalanx rules @110pts
Some stats can be ignored as they will have no difference between the effectiveness of each unit.
So the main differences are:
1) Speed - Elves will likely get the charge in as they have a 2" advantage
2) Melee - Elves have a 1/6th better return on hitting their opponent
3) Elite - Elves get to re-roll 1 dice to hit and damage in each combat
4) Shambling Horde - Undead treat 'Wavering' results as 'Steady' when testing Nerve
5) Evil Dead - any damage points caused by the Undead remove a damage point from the ones currently affecting them
So is the 15pts difference balanced?
On a single unit vs single unit - probably close but with the Elves charging 1st they will likely win (I won't go into the MathHammer - so this is just based on my findings on rolling dice and the games I've played).
The real big difference in KoW is the impact Flank Charges have - the unit gains 2 X number of basic attacks, so the above units would get 25 aatacks on the flank (10 x 2 +5 for Phalanx).
But to get a flank charge on an even sized game, you would need to have 6 units of Elves (660pts) vs 7 units of Skeletons (665pts), then with Movement difference the Elves will still be in the better position.
Now I don't want this to sound as if the game needs a radical recalculation, it just needs some understanding of the points cost for each attribute and bonus to see if it can be balanced.
So now comes the maths.
If we take a Basic Stat Line to be Sp 5, Me 4+, De 4+, At 10, Ne 6 and cost that at 3pts
Then have the following modifiers:
Increase Speed by 1: +1pt
Decrease Me from 4+ to 5+: -1pt
Elite Rule: +1pt
Evil Dead Rule: +1pt
Shambling Horde: +1pt
Phalanx Rule: +1pt
So re-calculated unit costs would be
Skeleton Regiment (20) with Phalanx = 100pts (increase of 5pts)
Base - Me + Evil Dead + Shambling Horde + Phalanx = 3-1+1+1+1 =5pts each
Elven Spearmen Regiment (20) with Phalanx = 120pts (increase of 10pts)
Base + Sp + Elite + Phalanx = 3+1+1+1 = 6pts each
NOTE: A basic Skeleton Regiment (20) without Phalanx would cost 80pts (4pts each), same as original cost.
Well what do people think?
Comments and opinions welcome?
Next Blog: plan to work through points for all the regiments in Undead & Elven list and see how they vary; understand the points break/cost of Troops and Hordes vs Regiments
Long Term Goal: Work out points cost for other armies especially Night Goblins, Skaven, Ogre Kingdom and Warriors of Chaos