Kings of War 3rd Edition First Impressions: Northern Alliance

Today we have a guest article submitted by Ryan Munsell. Ryan is an accomplished gamer, hobbyist, and T.O. from the Pacific Northwest. He also earned the 3rd place Paragon award at Masters, meaning he knows what he’s talking about!

I’m back again with another army review.  Since I had played Salamanders at the last two masters, I decided to switch it up this year and go with the new fancy Northern Alliance.  The reason I picked them was that I have some cool polar bear and walrus models and figured that Northern Alliance makes perfect sense for those models.  Also, I dabbled in Herd and Varangur in 2^nd Edition and there is a lot of crossover opportunities with models I had already painted.  I am pretty happy with how the list performed. I went 3-2-1, finished 17^th in battle and 3^rd in Paragon.

Time to get into the nitty-gritty!

Infantry/Heavy Infantry

Lots of options here.  Dwarves, humans, naiads, and half-elves pick your flavor.  My personal favorites are the dwarf clansmen for the basic infantry.  115 points for a defense 5, 14/16 nerve regiment with fury is a great deal.  With all the elite units in the army, these guys are great for getting some cheap, durable unit strength.    I don’t have any dwarves painted so I haven’t tried these out on the table, but I plan on picking some dwarf models up to try them out.

 Another one I really like is the ice naiads in a horde.  They are the same as naiad ensnarers but are defense 4 instead of 3, 5+ regen instead of 4+ regen, and wild charge 1 instead of pathfinder.  They are an incredible anvil/objective/loot carrier. 

I also like the Huscarls.  Some of the best infantry in the game.  Melee 3+, crushing strength 2, twenty attacks, defense 5, 15/17 nerve with fury.  They are great candidates for magic items since they get cheaper costs as a regiment.  Sharpness is a great deal and really makes these guys a threat.

For ranged infantry northern alliance have Ice Kin Hunters and Pack Hunters.  I like the Pack Hunters a lot but have found they only work if you take multiple units.  Great shooting support to clear chaff. With stealthy and pathfinder, you park them in terrain, and they can do some serious work.  I have only run them with short bows because I like to have a larger effective range. They also fight well. With melee 4+ and thunderous charge 1, they are great for combo charging.  If you are looking for a swiss army knife of a unit, these guys are for you. I haven’t tried the Ice Kin Hunters yet. They look good, but I just don’t know if they are worth the extra point cost over the Pack Hunters.  Points are at a premium in Northern Alliance.

Large/Monstrous Infantry/Swarms

Some cool options here for sure.  Most people think the ice elementals are the best option here, but I prefer the Snow Trolls.  Defense 5 15/18 nerve with regen 5+ is tough, especially when you have a Thegn nearby with Talanaar’s Standard (which I will talk about later).  They hit decently hard with 18 attacks, 4+ melee, crushing strength 2, and vicious. With a charge range of 13 inches from speed 6 and wild charge 1, they can get the jump on a lot of other units in the same category as them.  All of that for just 220 pts. These are a bargain in my opinion. With the three-point gap between waver and route nerve values I always take these guys with the chalice of wrath to give them fury. It has come into play in almost every game.

Onto what seems to be what everyone (at least the people I have talked to) thinks is one of the best units in the army, the Ice Elementals.  These are a nice tool to have, but I have found that they require some finesse to get the most out of them. 18 attacks with melee 4+ and crushing strength 1 are not that good for 240 points.  To get your money’s worth with these guys you need to get the most out of their shooting attack. To do this it requires chaff as their range is only 10 inches and a lot of units will be able to charge them after getting shot.  A regiment of snow fox works well to block those charges. 

Speaking of snow fox, these are some of the best chaff in the game in my opinion.  Their damage output is not very good, but speed 8, nimble, and pathfinder lets you get to where you need to be to help you determine when and where the combats will happen.

Large Cavalry

Just one unit to talk about here and that’s Frostfang Cavalry.  These are the fast hammer in the army. With 30 attacks, crushing strength 2, and melee 4+ they can dish it out.  Speed 7 with wild charge 1 is good, but I think haste and mead of madness are great items for these. Bumping their charge range up to 17 inches really helps project a lot of threat since they can see over hills.  These will most likely be target priority number one for your opponent so you will have to give them some chaff and healing to support them.

Monsters/Titans

Just two entries in this category.  One I really like, and one that I don’t think is that great.  Let’s start with the one I like. The Cavern Dweller is one beast of a monster.  Its essentially a variation of a giant with life leach 3, yes you read that right life leach 3!  This guy can grind like no other. It should do three damage vs pretty much whatever it’s facing and since it’s on a 50 mm base it’s quite easy to not allow it to get multi charged.  I personally like to use it in tandem with my snow trolls. When charging with them, there isn’t much that will survive. Now for the one, I’m not a huge fan of (mainly because I think the legendary version is just way better) the frost giant.  I just don’t see a reason to spend 20 more points to get this guy when the cavern dweller is just better in my opinion. The frost giant has a higher nerve and picks up an icy breath attack, but it hits on 4’s instead of 3’s and doesn’t have the all-important life leach 3.

War Engines

Just one entry here and that’s the ice kin bolt thrower.  I haven’t tried this one out yet. I can see it being useful with an ice queen with blizzard.  Bolt thrower can freeze the target, which gives the ice queen the ability to reroll one miss with blizzard.  That could be huge. Something I want to try in the future. A more shooting heavy Northern Alliance army is intriguing to me.

Cavalry

Yet another category with just a single entry and that is the tundra wolves.  If I have the extra points, I prefer troops of these over the snow fox for chaff.  The reason being they can put out some hurt. Snow fox charge and typically don’t do enough damage to even waver, but with 9 attacks, melee 3+, and thunderous charge 1 tundra wolf troops can reliably kill cheap opposing chaff like gur panthers, gargoyles, harpies, etc.  For a while, I didn’t even look at the regiments as they don’t unlock, but I ended up taking a regiment in my masters’ list, and I’m glad I did. These guys were great all tournament. Something I didn’t even realize until the end of game 5 is that they are unit strength 3, which was the difference between a loss and a draw for me.

Heroes

This is by far the category with the most options are a plethora of good ones.  The struggle is how to get enough unlocks to take everything you want. Since there are so many I will just go over my favorites for the sake of time.

I don’t think I have ever played without a thegn on foot with talanaar’s standard and the inspiriting talisman.  For 85 points you get an inspiring, rallying (1) hero that can also add a couple of wounds in combat in a pinch. That is a bargain. 

Another favorite of mine is the Lord on Frostfang.  This hits as hard as a lot of dragons in the game, especially if you give him a snow fox.  Get him into the flank of a unit and watch it disappear. To top it off he’s also very inspiring, which matters with a lot of the units in Northern alliance being 150mm wide. 

The lone mage in northern alliance is the ice queen.  She has quite a few options for spells and gets pricey fast.  If I have ice elementals in the list, I always take surge and typically replace icy breath to save points.  As discussed earlier she makes a good blizzard caster if you have a way to freeze the enemy. I always take heal on her as keeping your units at full health in an elite army is every important.  She is great at that as she can get up to heal 8 with the shroud of the saint.

The Lord on Chimaera is pretty much your standard dragon, but with icy breath (10), very inspiring, and elite(melee).  Expensive, but I have found that it’s worth every point. Flying up a flank and forcing your opponent to divide their attention against your elite list is good, especially if you run a unit with it as support.

The Lord on foot is one I think I pass on unless I’m running a list with a lot of infantry/heavy infantry and I take the wild charge +1 aura.  Even then it’s still expensive.

There are so many heroes, but the last one I will go over is Hrimm the Legendary Ice Giant.  For 30 extra points he gets fearless, two attacks, four icy breath, and very inspiring (frost-bound) over the regular frost giant.  Barring a lack of hero unlocks there is no reason to take the regular one when Hrimm is available. I’ve run him quite a bit and he almost always performs well on the battlefield.

That wraps up all the units.  To close it out here is the 2300 point list I ran at Masters.  I hope you enjoyed the article and thanks for reading!

Army: Northern Alliance

Ally: Forces of Nature

Points: 2300

Unit Strength: 20

275, Frostfang Cavalry Horde

— Mead of Madness

240, Ice Elemental Horde

235, Snow Troll Horde

— Chalice of Wrath

180, Tundra Wolf Regiment

320, Lord on Chimera

210, Cavern Dweller

80, Snow Fox Regiment

80, Snow Fox Regiment

115, Ice-Queen

— Surge (8) to replace Icy Breath

— Heal (5)

85, Thegn

— Inspiring Talisman

— Talanaar’s Standard

220, Earth Elemental Horde

260, Tree Herder