battle lines are drawn.
These are the bloody skirmishes before the
An introduction to Kings of War:
Vanguard
October 16, 2017 Rob Burman Uncategorized 24
Kings of War: Vanguard will be launching on Kickstarter
soon. Throughout this week, we’ll be exploring the game in
more detail and giving you a taste of the rules. In today’s
blog, we’re looking at the background behind the game.
Mantica is a world ravaged by war, a constant fight for land and
resources, or prestige and power. The borders of countries wax and
wane like the phases of the moon. The sound of mighty armies
marching to war echoes throughout the land.
But wars can be won before the first arrows have been fired, or sword
has smashed against sword. Small warbands of hardened warriors
clash in desperate struggles to gain the tactical advantage before the
war, where warriors become legends.
That’s the ‘fluffy’ introduction to Vanguard, however, it took us a
while to come up with that concept! A Kings of War skirmish game is
something that people have been asking for and talking about for a
while. The problem was, we didn’t just want to set it in an abandoned
city (or similar), as that’s something that’s been covered in numerous
other games.
Instead we wanted something that would compliment our existing
Kings of War range and also provide a starting point for those looking
to start their own Kings of War army. So during a long drive to
Belgium last year for Crisis, we began discussing an idea centred
round the scouting parties sent out ahead of the main force.
We particularly liked this idea as they’re likely to be some of the most
skilled warriors, along with a few supporting troops, rather than the
more typical rank and flank. As a result, the warband would contain a
grizzled sergeant or veteran captain, alongside specialists like magic
users and saboteurs. Their mission would be to scout ahead of the
main force in order to capture tactical locations, disrupt supply lines
or even take prisoners, etc.
The more we discussed the idea of the scouting parties, the more
obvious it became that we could generate some fun scenarios based
around this core concept, e.g. objectives might be beacons that need
to be lit or you might need to assassinate a key enemy ahead of the
main battle. We’re also still thinking of potential scenarios, so if
you’ve got some ideas let us know in the comments below!
 course, Vanguard can be played independently of Kings of War and
there will be a full campaign mode that we’ll detail later this week.

Another beauty of setting the game around the scouting parties is it

gives a reason for all armies to get involved! It isn’t just a Basilean city
that some forces would want to ransack. Instead, as mentioned
earlier, Mantica is a little like medieval Europe with battles happening
almost constantly. This means there’s always going to be a reason to
send out those warbands for a bloody good scrap!

What’s more, we were conscious that a lot of people have multi-

based their armies for KoW so the warbands idea is perfect because it
focuses on individuals. These can then become the heroes/unit
champions in your Kings of War armies too and, because the
poses/sculpts will be extremely dynamic, they’ll add plenty of
character to your army. There will be a small number of troops used
in Vanguard, however these will be optional.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that Vanguard will use square
bases. Again, we wanted to make sure that Vanguard miniatures
could easily crossover into Kings of War or even Dungeon Saga, so it
made sense to have them on the same bases. It also makes it much
easier for rules such as attacking miniatures from behind, as there’s a
clear facing with a square base.

In the next blog, we’ll be taking a closer look at the

Vanguard stat cards and what they mean for your character.
LINKS TO KINGS OF WAR

It was also clear how these battles could feed into larger games of
Kings of War too. So if you play a game of Vanguard in which the
objective is to light beacons to show the way, in Kings of War you’ll be
able to deploy your troops in a more advantageous position. Likewise,
the scenarios can go the other way too, so you start with a big battle
and then play a game of Vanguard in which you loot the corpses. Of

Kings of War: Vanguard –
Character Cards
A little like The Walking Dead: All Out War, Vanguard will feature
character cards that include all the stats you’ll need to play. Each of
the heroes, special characters and warriors will come with their own
cards, giving players a great reference during the game. When you’re
playing a campaign, we’ll also be making a roster sheet, so you can
track upgrades/new abilities/xp.
In today’s blog, we’re going to breakdown an example card to explain
all the various elements, which will also give you a brief insight into
some of the key mechanics of Vanguard. So, without further ado, let’s
crack on…
1. NAME – if they’re a named character, this will be their name, e.g.
Grekle Cacklemaster, or if they’re a standard miniature it’ll be the
name of the unit.
2. RACE/TYPE – first up you can see what Race the model is. The
model’s Race is also a keyword that may interact with other rules,
e.g. a unit could receive a bonus when attacking a Race they
particularly despise. Next, models will be one (or more) of the
following Types: Grunt, Warrior, Support, Command, Spellcaster,
and Large. Type is important when building a Warband and, once
again, the Type is a keyword that may interact with other rules.
3. POINTS – this is how many points it costs to add the model to your
warband.
4. STATS – this is where you can find all the stats for the model.
Speed (SP)
This value shows the distance the model can move in inches.
Ranged (Ra)
This is the target number the model needs to roll to hit a target when
using a Ranged attack, typically as part of a Shoot or Cast action.
Melee (Me)
This is the target number the model needs to roll to hit an opponent
when making a Melee attack.
Armour (Ar)
This is the target number a model needs to roll to avoid taking
damage and suffering wounds.
Nerve (Ne)
This is the target number for any Nerve tests the model needs to
take. This will come into play if the Warband is broken or if something
unnerving happens.
Wounds (Wn)
This shows the number of wounds the model can suffer before it is
removed from play as a casualty. The larger the number, the more
resilient (or stupid!) the model is.
Height (H)
The height of a model affects how it interacts with other models and
terrain for line of sight and visibility of targets.
5. SPECIAL RULES – here you can see any special rules the model has.
Some of these will be similar to those seen in Kings of War, while
others will be completely new.
get the chance to learn new spells from an advanced spellbook or
faction-specific magic.
10. SPECIAL ABILITIES and RULES – if the model has any special
abilities they’ll be listed here. Special Abilities use the Power Dice
mentioned earlier, so we’ll go into specifics in a future blog.
So, what do you reckon? The card breakdown has given you
a little tease of the rules so far and tomorrow we’ll jump
into the topic of Power Dice and how they work in
Vanguard.

6. POWER DICE – this indicates how many Power Dice the model
generates. The Power Dice work a little like the Command Dice in
Deadzone and we’ll have a closer look at Power Dice in a future blog.

7. RANGED & MELEE – this shows how many D8s the model rolls
during combat. That’s right, we’ll be using D8s for Vanguard, rather
than standard D6s. Even better we’ve got exploding D8s during
combat to help create some crazy cinematic moments.

8. EQUIPMENT – equipment will play a large part in Vanguard, as

warbands uncover and buy new items during a campaign. Some
models will come equipped with weapons/items as standard and
they’ll be listed here.

9. SPELLS – spellcasters will have their spells listed here. We’ll be

expanding the number of spells available, compared to Kings of War.
Also, you may notice it says (short) after the spell name. Just like
Deadzone, models will be able to perform two short actions or one
long action. Some spells will be long actions, while others will be
short. What’s more you’ll be able to boost spells to make them more
powerful. As spellcasters gain experience in a campaign, they will also
Kings of War: Vanguard – what
are Power Dice?
When it came to writing the rules for Vanguard we knew that we
wanted to bring over some elements from the excellent Deadzone
2.0… without making it a complete clone. With that in mind, one of
our favourite aspects from Deadzone is the concept of Command
Dice.

Just in case you’ve never played Deadzone before, Command Dice are
six-sided dice you roll before each round. Each face has a symbol on,
which represents a special move you can pull off during the game,
e.g. moving an extra character, adding an extra dice to combat rolls,
etc. The reason we like the Command Dice is that they represent the
chaos of battle. Sometimes orders simply don’t get through properly
so no one is clear what they should be doing but then the next
minute your commander can be rallying the troops with their Initially we were actually using the same Command Dice in Vanguard
inspirational leadership. but the results were mixed. The problem is that although we could
give different warband leaders different amounts of dice, ultimately
you would occasionally roll a result that was completely useless in the
game.

Another issue is that special abilities are tied to the use of Power
Dice, so if you rolled the wrong result at the start of the turn, you
might not be able to use your ability. Finally, it meant we were
restricted on the cost of special abilities because you couldn’t have
more powerful ones that required two or more command icons to be
‘spent’ in order to use them.

YOU’VE GOT THE POWER

Somewhat ironically, the answer was almost staring us in the face.

The Walking Dead: All Out War comes with three differently coloured
dice that are used for combat (red – weakest, white – slightly better
and blue –best). These dice come with differing amounts of stars on POWER PLAYER
(up to a maximum of three) to represent the amount of successes
rolled. So, now that you understand how we came up with the concept of
Power Dice, how will you spend them during the game?

1. Extra model activation – Vanguard has alternating activations

but you can spend power to activate an extra model
2. Extra dice – you can add an extra dice to Shoot, Cast, Armour
Save or Melee rolls
3. Forcing/clearing Fatigue – this is something we’ll be covering
in the blog tomorrow…
4. Group actions – oooh, another tease for a mechanic that we’ll
be covering in a future blog
5. Use special abilities – power is required to use a model’s
special ability or the wider Warband special ability. The
amount of power required is shown in brackets after the
ability, e.g. Cackle! (1)

The Power Dice are an integral part of Vanguard that really

During one of our playtest sessions we started to use the Walking
Dead dice and they were much better than the original Deadzone
dice. But why?
help to create those cinematic and exciting moments you
expect to see in a skirmish game. What do you reckon? Are
you feeling the power?

1. Leaders/support characters actually generate the power dice

during the course of the game, so having three different
colours gives us more options for having powerful characters
that generate one blue dice, compared to weaker characters
that only generate one red dice, for example
2. Different abilities can now cost more than one power to use,
as you’ll potentially be rolling a lot more successes
3. During a campaign characters can level up their dice from red
to white and then blue or gain more dice to roll
4. You’ll always be able to use your power and should never
have a ‘wasted’ result that you can’t spend during your turn
Kings of War: Vanguard – what is
Fatigue?
By now we hope you’re getting a good idea of how Vanguard will
play, what with the cards, power dice and the general theme. The
overall aim was to create a fast, brutal and action-packed skirmish
game with room for campaign play and links to larger games of Kings
of War. Today we’ll focus on that fast and action-packed element of
the rules!

From the start of development on Vanguard we liked the idea of

having some kind of ‘fatigue’ mechanic. In other words, we wanted to
create a rule where characters could push themselves a little more in
order to perform one last action before they collapse in a heap due to
exhaustion.

Initially we had a concept for each model to be given command

points and each unit would have a limit to the amount of command
points they could be given. If you went over this amount, then the
character would become fatigued and you could only give them one
command in the next turn. However, it quickly became clear that
command points were a little fiddly and didn’t bring much to the
game.
After dropping the command points, we looked at the Deadzone
mechanic of short and long actions. Each model can be given two
short actions or one long action. This was a much simpler way to
handle activations and ensures you don’t require lots of tokens to
indicate the number of command points a unit has been given. If it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
INTRIGUED ABOUT FATIGUE?
It also made the fatigue system much easier to handle because now
characters could be given an extra short action after they’ve
performed their two short actions or one long action. If you choose to
perform the extra short action, it will then fatigue the model and
during the next turn you can only perform a short action.
As a result there’s a fantastic sense of risk versus reward because you
can really push your characters to the limit (often in the hope that
you’ll capture that objective or take out a key enemy) but next turn
you could be hampered. Thankfully you can clear fatigue at the end of
the turn by using the Power Dice but that means you’ll need to keep
some power in reserve just in case, and can’t use it for extra dice in
combat rolls or special abilities.

Fatigue also allows us to have some fun with other elements of the
game too and here are a few examples:

1. The Dwarf’s special warband ability is Headstrong, which

allows them to clear Fatigue at the start of their activation on
a 6+, so you don’t have to spend power to clear Fatigue…
although it’s not guaranteed
2. The Goblin’s special warband ability is Flee!, which allows
them to run away from combat if they haven’t already been
activated but they will be Fatigued afterwards. This costs one
power, however so you’ll need to choose carefully when you
want to run away screaming
3. Some spells or special abilities will fatigue an enemy model

Finally, it’s worth noting that while models can be given a fatigue
action as part of their normal activation for free, it is possible to
return to a model that has already been activated later in the turn
and spend power to fatigue them. Again, this helps to create the
chaos of combat and keeps your enemy on their toes because you
can never quite be sure if a model has completely finished activating.

So, there you have the basics of fatigue. Will you be pushing
your heroes to the limit?
Kings of War Vanguard: Using
Group Actions
So far in our Vanguard blogs we’ve covered the background,
character cards, power dice and fatigue. If you haven’t already taken
a look at those blogs, now’s probably a good time… go on, have a
read, we’ll be here when you get back. Finished? Good, then we’ll
carry on…

Today we’re going to talk about Group Actions. You see, although
Vanguard is about the individuals of Mantica fighting for tactical
advantage or prestige and power, occasionally going into a scrap as a
small gang can have its benefits! Thank goodness then for Group
Actions.

As well as activating individual characters, you can also spend power

to activate multiple models at once. The idea behind this was so that
the warbands can break off into smaller groups led by a specialist or
support unit that’s backed up by two grunts.

In order to use a Group Action, you must pay the appropriate power
and can then activate a group of models together. All the models in
the group must not have already been activated in the current turn.
First you nominate a model to be the leader and then up to two more
models within three inches of the first model can also perform the
same action. Some models even have Special Abilities that are Group
Actions… such as the Dwarf Rangers, which have a special Group
Shoot action.
KEEPING IT TOGETHER
Participating in a Group Action replaces a model’s normal activation
for the Turn. You cannot activate a single model, move it to join a
group and then attempt a Group Action involving the model, for
example. The common Group Actions available include:
So, will you be going it alone or working together? Hope
you’ve enjoyed Vanguard Week so far. In fact, we’ve
enjoyed it so much we’ll be extending the blogs into next
week and looking at a few more aspects, such as combat,
facing and the campaign rules.

GROUP DEFENCE – the members of the group each make a Walk and
then a Brace action. Just in case you’re wondering what a Brace
action is, it increases the model’s armour value by one and is
normally a long action.

GROUP SHOOT – the group members all either Walk then Shoot, or
Shoot then Walk. If Shooting is a long action for any model in the
group, that model may not Walk as part of the Group Action. All
members of the group must have a ranged weapon or spell to use.

GROUP CHARGE – spend the Power to nominate a group and activate

them together. Models in the group may already be engaged (in
which case they will not move, nor get any charge bonuses). Only the
group leader needs to have LOS to the initial charge target. Models
charging after the first has made contact, must charge either the
same model another member of the group already has (or is already
engaged with), or a target within 3” of a model a group member has
engaged. Declare the targets and then move all the attacking models
first, before resolving their Melee attacks in the order you wish.

So, there you have the basics behind Group Actions. Tactically they’re
very useful during the game for giving you bonuses in combat
(something we’ll cover in a future blog) but also for mixing up the
order of activations. Just like Deadzone, the player who finished
activating first in a round, gets to activate first in the following round.
By using Group Actions you can actually have more models than your
opponent but still finish your activations first. This can give you the
tactical advantage of going first in the following round.