You Can Do That? Kings of War Gotcha Moves and How to Prevent Them

“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.”

-James Joyce

It is my opinion that Kings of War is a pretty great little wargame. This should come as no surprise to anyone reading this site as the writers here are a group of individuals bound together by our love of this game, and are semi-consistently pouring our blood, sweat and tears (okay, maybe free time, whiskey and a single tear) into creating stuff for folks to enjoy. One of the items at the top of my list for what makes the game great is how very straightforward, simple, and rational the ruleset is. This allows the game to be fast, intense, and cordial with both sides of the board understanding the interactions clearly and really highlighting tactical decisions made in the moment to determine the winner. Good players in Kings of War aren’t usually defined by their ability to find game-breaking combos or have an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure interactions and how to best leverage these hundreds of odd little loopholes to their best advantage. Instead, it is about using the same set of limited tools and interactions better than an opponent, and that is something I think is damn amazing to play in a wargame.

There does remain in Kings of War however a number of odd interactions that if you’re not already knowledgeable about them, can feel like gotcha moments. Moments where something entirely unexpected happens that catches a player out because they simply didn’t know the maneuver being performed was possible. Secret moves whispered about on Facebook groups with odd nicknames like “The Corkscrew.” And let’s be frank, when you’re on the receiving end of something you didn’t think was legal until it was done to you, especially in a pivotal moment in an important game, it can feel pretty damn bad. Most everyone doesn’t like being on the bad side of a gotcha, and though it is possible to take it as a learning moment and accept it in stride, it can also leave players with a bad taste in their mouths. While these gotcha moves are few and far between in Kings of War, they can still turn away players of the game especially if they’re not fully understood or explained.

This brings us to the goal of this article which is basically to shine a light onto some potential gotcha moments, those awkward secretive interactions that don’t always pop up in every game and can blindside unexpecting opponents. To be clear, this is not a call to fix or eliminate these maneuvers, as some of them I think are actually interesting and add to the technical depth of the game. Sure, some of them are a bit awkward or odd, but I’m leaving the game design aspects of this up to the much smarter folks on the Rules Committee and at Mantic. This is about democratizing information. If we all know the tricky maneuvers, and there aren’t so many of them to overwhelm us (like certain other games), then they’re back to just being a tool for generals to use in their struggle to outwit their opponents.

So what even qualifies as a gotcha? Well, this is different for every player and drastically depends on their gaming group and familiarity with the more technical aspects of the game. For some, exposed to highly exacting and tactical play from the get-go, these were never really all that surprising. For others, they might have been caught out by one in a tourney or been first exposed in a convoluted online argument. I generally qualify a gotcha as something that isn’t first understood from reading and playing the rules but requires the mashing together of consequences that create a situation that feels weird at first but is also totally within legal play. This isn’t about grey areas but instead about an application of the rules in a way that gives an advantage, but isn’t necessarily called out in the rules. Again, I think Kings of War has very few real gotchas in it, and some of these I’m about to talk about barely qualify, but I figure I’d go through each of the ones I could think of to help players of all skill levels understand (and look out for) these plays. If you’re a new player, this should help you level up some of your skills and learn how to perform (or defend against) these maneuvers. For experienced players who already know all this, let the warm glow of superiority wash over you as you read about plays you’ve been crushing folks with for years secure in your Kings of War awesomeness.

Nimble Charges

Let’s start off by delving into the exciting world of nimble charges, but before I dive into the boring but useful rules bit, a short story about Dwarves (see what I did there). I was playing the stumpy legged fellas against my regular opponent who had brought Undead. Like many of our games it was coming down to final turn scenario shenanigans and I had a horde of damaged Earth Elementals in the dominate circle along with some other nonsense and was doing my best to keep his Werewolves out. These of course weren’t normal Werewolves, but the ones tooled up with a Brew of Strength and some dickhead on a horse lurking nearby ready to cast Bane Chant, which all made my Defense 6 look a lot less of a sure thing. I took a troop of infantry and they did their best job sprinting into the path of the filthy beasts to block their inevitable charge. I had totally forgotten about their Nimble special rule and the flea-bitten dog bros quite easily danced around my little roadblock and made their potentially game-winning charge. I was bummed until they fluffed some rolls and I think I snuck out of that one with a win. It did, however, sear the lesson into my brain and was then I learned the futility of trying to block Werewolves when instead, you can just wait for the rest of the Undead army to get so good, nobody really plays Werewolves as much anymore and you don’t have to worry about them. But really, it taught me a valuable lesson and one I’d like to share with all of you, nimble charges can be a pain in the ass.

Before going into the specifics of these charges though, let’s refresh ourselves on the charge rules in Kings of War. While the actual charge movement has a couple of pages devoted to it, it’s really important to know the initial 4 bullet points that define an eligible charge. They’re as follows…

• The target is at least partially in your unit’s front arc;
• The unit can draw LoS to the target from its leader point;
• The distance between any point on your unit’s front-facing and the closest point on the target unit’s base is less than or equal to double your unit’s Speed stat;
• There is enough space for your unit to be physically placed into contact with the target by moving as described below; (authors note, I’m not describing all of that below)

So for a charge to be good, it is simple. They have to be in your front arc, you have to see them, they have to be in range and you have to fit. Within those simple criteria, there is plenty of room for maneuver though so let’s get into it.  

Classic Nimble Charge – Here it is, the smelly fur beast charge that almost lost a game. Using both pivots, a nimble unit can easily maneuver around a single blocking unit. Keep an eye out for these charges and block the path the unit needs to take to hit the right facing. Maintaining a solid battle line can help prevent units from slipping through but sometimes, even when you think they’re actually blocked they find a way to slip through.

During an exhibition match between Tom Robinson and Patrick Zoro Allen it looked like Pat’s Soul Reaver Cavalry (with Wine of Elven Kind) were trapped in the top right corner with only bad options for trades. Any of the units Tom had offered him to charge would have ended up meaning a counter charge from a very angry Knight horde (V.A.K.H.) which wanted to do very unfriendly things to those Vampires. Pat luckily spotted the very back of a flank offered up by a Battle Shrine and was able to pull off a slightly more advanced move and nimble charge his way out of trouble.      

The Corkscrew – Look there is some controversy around what actually is a corkscrew charge. Some folks apply the term to a hard 90-degree pivot and charge, which I think is nonsense. We’ll cover that charge in detail further into this article but I think everyone needs to stop calling that a corkscrew. I don’t know how folks using that term are opening their wine (I personally exclusively use a battle axe), but a corkscrew looks nothing like a single hard right or left turn. I’ve never seen someone just stick an allen wrench from Ikea into their wine cork and make it work so using the term corkscrew seems straight-up wrong. The nimble charge shown above I think could work as being labeled corkscrew, but I’m still not totally convinced. For me, the real corkscrew is a nimble charge using both pivots and starting off-center to get that classic corkscrew type shape. These come up pretty rarely in games but are a good example of just how strange a charge a nimble unit can make through traffic to hit an opposing unit. Here our nimble unit (in blue) sneaks its way through an entire enemy army to slam into its target unit in the back lines, and even if they destroy them, they’ve already won by pulling off this absolutely boss maneuver to get there.

90 Degree Charge (not a corkscrew)

This is a very common maneuver in high-level play and something I’ve personally seen catch several newer players out when they have had it done to them. Now I know some people hate that this play exists, but I’m not here to argue whether it should be possible or try and game design a way around this situation, I’m just here to clearly explain it so everyone knows what it is when it can happen and how it works so they can both exploit it when available and defend it within their own movements.

The charge in essence is very simple. A player can choose to withdraw up to an inch and then declare a new charge. Once the withdraw is done, a player can use the above charge criteria to have an opposing unit in their front arc (often just the back corner of that unit) and see them from their leader point. If this is true, they can, if they’re the right-sized unit (more on this in a moment) they can pivot 90 degrees and slam into an unprotected flank of a unit adjacent to it in the battle line.

Wait, that looks impossible you might say. Aren’t units supposed to stay some distance away when moving? Of course, but during a charge, you can get as close to units as you want (without touching) in order to complete your charge against your intended target.

Now figuring out which units are shaped correctly to pull off this maneuver is going to involve some math, but don’t worry, the math is simple enough even I can do it. The important thing to remember is that the withdrawal distance is 1” and 1” = 25.4 mm. Since you’re turning the unit exactly sideways, you’re taking it from its depth distance to its width distance so you’ll need to know the distance between the two. This is simple just subtract the depth from the width. A Large Infantry Horde is 120mm x 80mm so has a difference of 40mm. Now since the unit pivots on its central point, we’re only worried about half of that 40mm difference (the one closest to the enemy unit) so we divide the difference by 2. Whatever the result of that is we want to be less than 25.4mm (aka 1”).

So the example for the Large Infantry Horde goes something like this…

120mm – 80mm = 40mm

40mm / 2 = 20mm

20mm is less than 25.4mm so a 90 degree pivot charge can be done.

Here is a little table to help for those who hate math

Squares (monsters, titans, individuals) can always do this move if there is actual room to make the charge. Chariot bases and individual cavalry bases can also easily do this as their width is less than their length.

Now there is a variant of this charge that actually any unit can pull off if the opposing unit to their flank is close enough. You don’t have to turn the full 90 degrees, if you can just angle a couple of degrees after the withdraw move and then still push forward to hit the flank of a unit before you run back into the unit you withdrew from, you then pick up and place on the flank. Keep an eye out for that one as well.

Blocking Flanks with Terrain

This is another example of a move I’ve seen catch some new players out. You position a unit so that your opponent is in your side arc, but then pivot/move in a way that prevents the opponent’s unit from having room to fit for a legal charge. This creates a situation where oftentimes the entire front of a unit is also exposed to them with plenty of room, but since they fall into the side arc, there is no available charge. A unit has to charge the arc it is in, and a cunning player can use this to advance next to terrain preventing certain charges.  

I’ve definitely seen this one rile players up, as it looks a little bit odd on the table with a unit clearly there available to be charged, but the mechanics of the game prevent it from happening. I tend to just take some of those abstractions in stride but if it really ruins your sense of verisimilitude you can imagine that the attacker needs to maneuver to a better position of attack and that is what is required.

Withdraw and Pivot

There is a natural tendency for players, especially newer ones to think combats that happen in their turn will continue in the next turn. I’m not sure if this is just a natural mental shortcut that happens or has been influenced by folks history with other games where units are more often “locked” into combat. Either way, the fact that a unit can just decide, with some restrictions, to go fight someone else in their turn has led to quite a few “oops” moments I’ve seen from players. I described the 90-degree charge above, which is one of the ways this happens, but I wanted to focus on another variation that I’ve seen surprise some players.

While different types of units can do this, I’ve found the most common case in my games comes from monsters, titans, and heroes. Just when a player thinks they’ve locked an opposing dragon down by disordering it and engaging it, the dragon simply withdraws and inch, pivots, and hits an exposed other unit. This is entirely legal and totally encouraged to get some of your valuable units out of a bad situation. It is best for a player to remember when they try and lock some of those units down so look at what charges are available with a 1” withdraw and pivot. It is also important to realize that the pivot can go through enemy/friendly units as long as it ends clear.

Charging Individuals at Seemingly Impossible Angles

We now come to the maneuver that inspired this little article. There isn’t really a name for this one, and someone more clever than I should come up with one. Tom Robinson used it in the Call to Arms 3 final round, but rumor has it he learned it because the Dark Lord himself Dan King did it to him (if I have the story right). I ran into it during an internet thread at the tail end of 2018 but don’t know what or who started the kerfuffle then.  I’m not about to try and contact trace this thing like a viral outbreak so instead, I’m just calling it “Charging Individuals at Seemingly Impossible Angles” or CIASIA for short because that sounds like a pleasant Italian fishing village with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean instead of a flying monster descending from the sky to tear apart your poor wizard, so I prefer that version.

What is it? Well first let’s start with a game situation. The orange monster (who is flying) wants to charge the blue individual hiding out behind the regiments in front of them. At first glance, it doesn’t look possible. The monster is in the front arc of the individual and there is no room to land. This is however a legal charge, due to the unique interaction of the individual rules. Let’s walk through it.

First lets look at our charge steps for a legal charge…

• The target is at least partially in your unit’s front arc;
• The unit can draw LoS to the target from its leader point;
• The distance between any point on your unit’s front-facing and the closest point on the target unit’s base is less than or equal to double your unit’s Speed stat;
• There is enough space for your unit to be physically placed into contact with the target by moving as described below; (authors note, I’m not describing all of that below)

The first three are pretty simple. The individual is in the monster’s front arc. The monster is tall enough to draw a line of sight over the intervening troops. The monster is in charge range (don’t worry, I measured). The final one is where things get a little tricky. If that was not an individual being charged, there would be no way for the monster to fit against that front arc. Since it is an individual, however, a new rule comes into play.

From the Individuals page of the rulebook under Melee

“When charging an Individual, a unit must make contact with the facing that they started in as normal. However, the Individual will align flush with the unit’s facing, rather than the unit aligning to the Individual’s facing.”

This means if a unit approaches that individual at just the right angle, it can contact the front corner of the individual (which is the intersection of the front-facing and flank facing and is part of both facings) with their front then the individual aligns to the unit in a way it has room to fit.

Here is an illustration of the move being completed.

And here is a zoom in on the point of contact before the individual aligns with the unit. The unit just needs to approach the individual at that correct angle where it has room to place, but still taps the corner with its front-facing.

It is worth noting we’ve illustrated this CIASIA with a flying unit and some really difficult blocking front units to show an extreme example, but it doesn’t require flying, certain nimble units can easily perform the same type of angle if the situation is right, flyers with their ability to pivot over enemy units just make it more readily available. It is a weird looking charge but follows the legal charge rules, and the only strange bit really is the individual as it aligns to the unit instead of the normal way this works. It is just an extreme case of those rules interactions. I don’t think anyone bats an eye at an infantry unit charging another at this angle and then aligning to the front of the blue unit. This CIASIA with the flying monster is that same principle just taken to an extreme.

For folks still looking at this and thinking its insane, I get it, but what we’ve basically been told by the rules committee is they spent a whole lot of time trying to find a solution that didn’t break other parts of the game and couldn’t find anything elegant that worked. Instead, they advise using this simple defense against his move, which is essentially just move your individual up so they’re right behind a friendly unit and they’re protected. This “nuts to butts” defense is actually written right into the individual movement rules. Again, the goal of this article isn’t to criticize, but instead to enlighten. If you love it or hate it doesn’t matter so much, I just want folks to understand it and know how to defend against it.

So that wraps up my little wander down the garden path of Kings of War gotchas. Again, I’d like to stress that I actually think KOW has very few of these types of plays, and they really aren’t so bad at all. All of these tactics are also based on gameplay and having the right board state to either accomplish or defend against them. Hopefully, this has been enlightening and we as a community (or at least as a community of folks who bother to read -/28) can move forward with the light of knowledge shining brightly on these few dark corners of the game because I find in any wargame, but especially Kings of War, that understanding and agreement make for a vastly superior gaming experience.

Think of any gotchas I missed? Don’t consider any of this to even be a gotcha and I just need to get good and stop playing like a scrub? Think these are cancers on the game and need to be rooted out by the rules committee and burned like a 17th-century witch? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook as we welcome any and all discussion, even those that come with pitchforks and torches.