Kings of War Third Edition First Impressions: Halflings

Introduction

Mantic has just released the beta version of the Halflings army list for Kings of War that will be in the Clash of Kings book due out in November 2021. Your trusty Dash 28 correspondent is here to give you his first impressions of Pannithor’s newest combatants and take you through the army’s playstyle, lore, and some key units you might want to try out in your first few games with the list.

Army Background/Lore

Mantic’s Halflings aren’t simply innocent farmers living peacefully in an idyllic land. As can be gleaned from their army list, these are vicious little buggers fully engaged in the Pannithor world and ready and able to defend what is theirs. 

It reminds me of something known as “The Fremen Mirage.” Settled agriculture people throughout history have loved to unfavorably contrast themselves with the ‘hard,’ ‘uncivilized’ barbarians outside the city walls. But that begs the question of how those supposedly ‘soft,’ ‘decadent’ people got a hold of all the good land in the first place. As the series of blog posts from which the phrase comes puts it: 

[N]o one chooses to live in a resource poor zone if other options are available. Which is to say, if these people control the resource rich zones, it is because they have rebuffed all efforts by their neighbors to take those zones from them. Collections: The Fremen Mirage, Part I: War at the Dawn of Civilization – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry (acoup.blog)

The most interesting lore question to me is how a bunch of short, stubby Halflings have managed to survive and thrive in a world with demons, dragons, and countless other supernatural beings all vying for supremacy. And the answer seems to be that, well, we aren’t in Middle Earth anymore. Mantic’s Halflings will shoot you full of holes, drop bombs on you, and then crash into you riding gigantic Forest Trolls, after which they are most likely having you for supper.    

Army Playstyle

Kings of War is a game of Nerve. Fundamentally, the goal is to Rout the enemy units preventing you from achieving the Scenario objective and winning the game.

The most obvious way of Routing a unit is by attacking it in the Melee or Ranged phase, causing Wounds, and then rolling the 2D6 Nerve check. Doing Wounds to a target is a function of the unit’s Attack, Melee/Ranged, and Crushing Strength/Piercing values; thus, players attempt to increase these values in a variety of ways. 

But there is another option: just attack the enemy unit’s Nerve value directly! 

Abilities like Brutal, Dread, Shattering or Cloak of Death are functionally equivalent to giving a unit extra Attacks or another point of Crushing Strength/Piercing, and are powerful because you don’t have to roll dice: for example, Brutal will always be -1 (or more!) to Nerve.

So what the heck does any of this have to do with Halflings?

Well, the Halflings list is like a thought experiment by Mantic: what if there was an army list designed around handicapping its ability to rely on units with lots of attacks/Crushing Strength and/or to buff those values, and instead forced the player to rely on other ways to lower an enemy unit’s Nerve and ultimately Rout that unit? The Sauceror’s Brutal aura and the Ej Grenadiers Brutal D3 ability are the best examples of this playstyle. 

The Halflings aren’t supposed to be a horde-style army in the vein of Goblins or Ratkin, although they can certainly be played that way if desired. A Flying Circus build with lots of Tinker units and Muster Captains on Winged Aralez is possible as well. And a few will try to go the gunline route with hordes of Halfling Rifles unlocking War Engines and other goodies. 

But at heart the Halfling list rewards thinking about the synergies between the various units in the list and how to apply the right abilities to the right combats to tip the scales just enough to Rout enemy units. The list lacks traditional ‘hammer’ options and the Spellward special rule means Bane-chanting most units is a non-starter. But the list seeks to overcome those deficiencies through its ability to apply Wounds at range before feasting (literally?) on the damaged enemy unit in Melee through careful application of auras, the Brutal special rule, and the Relentless ability.  

Army Special Rules

Relentless

Relentless is a once-per-game ability available to certain units that allows them to reroll three dice that failed to Wound if the target unit has at least one point of damage on it already. This encourages combined-arms tactics like applying a few Wounds to a unit in the Shooting phase with one of the many Ranged unit options the Halfling list boasts and then attacking it in Melee. It also means that multi-charges are important to the army since–unlike the Jabberwock’s Feeding Frenzy ability–the target does not need to begin the combat with Wounds on it; so, Unit A could attack first and do a Wound which would then allow Unit B to attack second and use its Relentless ability to gain extra attacks. 

Spellward

A new special rule in the game that is sprinkled liberally throughout the list. Even the units which do not have the Keyword can gain it from the Iron Beast’s Spellward aura. A Lightning Bolt spammer’s nightmare, it also has the downside of affecting Spells you might want to cast on your own units like Heal or Bane-Chant. It’s flavorful as well, approximating the ‘Lucky’ aspect of Halflings present in other games. 

Key Units

Braves

In a list Ravenous for unlocks (not apologizing for that), the humble Braves are an important unit, providing cheap unlocks allowing you to load up on Saucerors, Harvesters, and other fun options to your heart’s content. They also just so happen to be the best defensive unit in the game now for their points, taking that title from Goblin Rabble which they are identical to except for a 5 point bump in cost due to having the Spellward special rule. 

Wild Runners

Speaking of unlocks, the Wild Runners units (both melee and ranged) are priced to sell: around 150 points is exactly what you want for a mid-level unlock. Regiments of the ranged cav are a strong option with the Blackpowder Weapons, and the fact they unlock is amazing. The melee version is good, cheap flanker in regiment size but gets a lot more interesting as a Horde. Like all Halfling cav, the horde is Nimble, hits on 3s, and can benefit from a Sauceror’s auras- one to two hordes with Potion of the Caterpillar and Jesse’s Boots of Striding. A horde of melee Wild Runners is a very unique unit in the game that has a lot of potential. 

Sauceror 

The unit that makes you view every other unit you thought kinda sucked in a new light as you scrolled down the army list for the first time. The potential application of the Sauceror’s Gastromancy auras are mind-bending. Remember that you cannot stack the same aura, so no taking three Saucerors and giving a unit Brutal (9), but you can stack different ones. Another limitation is that the auras only work on units with the Ravenous keyword, which in practice means you can’t buff any of the Large Infantry or Large Cavalry units. 

But the combinations you can pull off are pretty amazing — most of the time you are going to want to use the Brutal or Rally auras, but the ability to affect the same unit with different auras means the Lifeleech and Wild Charge auras will be used as well. Giving early Rally to your Volley Guns to protect them from counter-shooting, adding Wild Charge to a Nimble Wild Runner horde or a Muster Captain on Winged Aralez, or Lifeleech to the Defense 6 Iron Beast are just some of the ways you can make your opponent cry.

One thing to note about the Sauceror – its Gastromancy abilities are not Spells, which means it can be given items that grant it a Spell like the Shroud of the Saint or the Diadem of Dragonkind and use both in the same turn, which makes the Sauceror very utilitarian, if you want to go that route. Otherwise, you can join in with the crowd and just take two Mounted with Inspiring Talisman and the Sacred Horn. 

Forest Troll Gunners

Most comparable to Ogre Boomers, this is a unit that can do a little bit of everything. Their shooting attack is very strong even without Piercing — essentially they have an Elven Archer horde’s worth of Attacks, hitting on 4’s but at slightly reduced range. On the table, that combination of rules leads to interesting tactical decisions: do I stand still to hit on 4’s this turn, or do I move to get a better position on the board? This is a good counter to the 18 inch, Steady Aim units in vogue right now like Naiad Heartpiercers or Flamebearers–I remember a game during playtesting where I lined up two hordes and a Forest Troll Gunner Hero across from an Abyssal Warlock and two Flamebearer regiments and was able to comfortably outshoot them with higher Defense and Regeneration (5+).

Forest Troll Gunners are capable in combat too, Crushing Strength (1) and Pathfinder means they can sit in forests to mitigate incoming Ranged attacks and then charge at full strength out when the enemy units get close. Having the Ravenous keyword allows them to be dangerous in melee when Bane-Chanted, which might be one of the only reasons to take Bane-Chant in the Halfling list. 

Aeronauts

This unit perfectly fits the Halfling theme of multiple medium units working together instead of having big hammer units taking out enemy units on their own. A bit of a glass hammer that does decent damage in front and is deadly in the flank. The Blast D3 attacks are swingy, but can really hurt when the dice spike. Their Height 5 means they are more difficult to hide from enemy shooting but also means they are a great second wave to a frontline made up of Forest Trolls. Always hitting on 4s means you don’t mind (and in fact quite enjoy) putting them into units you otherwise shouldn’t, like units with Ensnare or Phalanx. 

Harvester 

A great second line unit to punish enemy units that want to get up on your Halfling infantry. With both the Tinker and Ravenous keywords, this unit synergizes extremely well with all of the support options the Halfling list can bring. It’s a key component of the Halfling playstyle that can join in multi-charges to add Brutal along with its D6+8 attacks (hitting on 3’s!) or tie up an enemy unit for a few turns with its Big Shield and potential Rally (2) from the Sauceror for a 15/17 Def 6 unit on a smaller base that is difficult to multi-charge. 

There are tons of other great units like the Iron Beast, Muster Captain on Winged Aralez, and Ej Grenadiers that I will not go into here, but the Halfling list only has maybe one or two ‘trap’ units–everything else has a place and a role in the list. 

Conclusion

Overall, the Halfling list lends itself to multiple playstyles with a host of interesting units and unit interactions that will make playing them on the tabletop a blast. I think the skill level needed to get the most out of them is higher than most other lists, but they do have a few straightforward units that will help beginners get their feet before moving onto the more intricate ways to play the Halflings. 

Let us know what you think of the new Halfling list. What are your favorite units? What kind of synergies are you excited to pull off? Thanks for reading!