Greetings, fellow Kings of War Enthusiasts! I recently ran the Dead of Winter two day GT for 32 players who braved the cold to gather in Albany NY in the last weekend in January. Besides planning all of the scenarios, terrain, prizes, communication and other logistics, running a Kings of War event is actually relatively easy, at least in regards to the rules. Compared to other more complicated rulesets, Kings is a pretty straight-forward game with only a few “quirky” spots. (I’m looking at you “smart charging”….and withdraw…and disengage…alright, let’s move on). When I’m running Kings events I usually only get called over for line of sight or arc of visibility rulings. However, with the advent of 3.5 there were a few more questions than normal for me to answer.
Now, I must admit that even though I’m a perennial Masters player, I’m not very good at the game. I play a slow, predictable army (dwarves) in a slow, predictable way. Lots of the nuances of the rules are kindof lost on my play style. So I would get asked a question and I would immediately fire up the Mantic Companion to see what the latest rules had to say. I want to use this article to highlight two of the questions that came up.
The first one was a relatively easy question that I totally got wrong. An Ogre player had placed a unit of large infantry, and a unit of cavalry (both height 3), in a pond (height 0, flat). His opponent, a salamander player, was targeting the ogres with a shooting attack, and his contention was that since the Ogres were height 3, and the flat terrain was height 0, that the ogres wouldn’t get cover for being in the terrain. The ogre player admitted that he hadn’t played much of 3.5, but based on the 3.0 rules he would get cover for being more than 50% within difficult terrain. So, what is the answer?
I had them pause the clock and fired up the Companion to read the rules. First place I looked was section 6.i, Cover. Within the Concealed Target section it says: “If a target unit has at least half of its base within Difficult Terrain, it is considered to be a Concealed Target.” So far, so good. Looks like the Ogres are in cover. But wait, later on in the section it says, “Units that are three or more height levels taller then the Difficult Terrain they are within cannot benefit from being a Concealed Target.” Wow, I thought to myself, that seems pretty definitive. Weird change for Mantic to make, but the rules for Cover are pretty clear. At the time I had a line of sight ruling to make at another table, so I was a little rushed to wrap this up and make a ruling. I ended up ruling on behalf of the salamander player, and he butchered those poor ogres.
However, I was totally wrong in my ruling. I should have chased the rules one level deeper. A few days after the tourney was over I was rereading the rules. In Chapter 5, Terrain, section a.iii it describes Flat Terrain. “Flat terrain does not have a height value and is treated as open ground for the purposes of Line of Sight and establishing if a unit is an obscured target. Flat difficult terrain is counted as height 1 for the purposes of checking if a unit is a concealed target.” Well crap, looks like the Ogres would have had cover after all. I reached out to the Ogre player and told him I had made a mistake. Thankfully, he took it well. He was really worried that his ogres would never be concealed in the new rules, so he heard my news with some obvious relief.
So I want to highlight a few things here. First, I looked for the question about cover in the Cover section of the rulebook. The petulant part of me would like ALL of the information about cover to be in that section, but that’s not feasible for a couple reasons. To write out examples with all of the potential interactions in each section would just make for a bloated ruleset that would be hard to read. And when rules are stated in multiple places within a rulebook it can lead to errors within the text. When a rule is updated it needs to be updated in all places in the rulebook. So I get it, but I wish I had read the rules more thoroughly before the tournament. Splitting the concealed and obscured rules may make things more complicated than they need to be, but maybe I just need to stop being such a newb and learn the rules better. We’ll see 😊
The second rule question that came up was more tricky. A Dwarf player was playing against a Forces of nature player on table 1. The dwarf player had overrun to within 1” of a regiment of water elementals. The Nature player was looking at what options he had with the elementals. The situation was convoluted but the crux of the questions was “When a unit moves does it need to finish its move 1” away from all enemy units?” The dwarf player said that he believed that was true. It seemed like an easy enough question, but it’s not.
So first, how did we get here? Well, in the Melee Chapter, under the “Target Routed – Chargers Regroup” section, it states that after routing its target your unit may “Move directly forward d6”. The unit must move the full distance rolled.” For purposes of the rules, a unit may overrun within 1” of an enemy unit. Therefore, the dwarf player could overrun his unit to within an inch of the elementals. So far so good.
In the Movement chapter, Unit Penetration section, subsection iii, Enemy Units, it says “You must REMAIN at least 1” away from [enemy units], except when charging, disengaging, or during a pivot.” (Emphasis added by me). If a unit starts outside of 1” of enemy units it can’t end its turn within 1”. Fair enough.
In the Charges Chapter, section b “Proximity to Enemies” in the last paragraph it says “If your unit is not engaged but begins its turn within 1” of an Enemy unit, it may still move freely as long as it ends its turn no closer to the Enemy unit than where it began.” Cool, so the Nature player can move his elementals however he wants as long as he ends further away, but not necessarily a full inch. But not so fast…
In the Movement chapter, under the “Interpenetration when Pivoting” section, it says, “When a unit is pivoting around its center it can pivot through both friends and enemy units…It must of course still end its pivot…at least 1” away from Enemy units.” So, by a strict reading of the rules, the Nature player can end his move within an inch of the dwarf unit, but he can’t pivot as part of that movement.
And, even though the Nature player wasn’t disengaging, I’ve included the following rules here just for completeness. In section vi, Disengaging, it says “Disengaging units may move within 1” of any Enemy unit they were engaged with at the beginning of the turn. They must still end their move at least 1” away from enemy units unless charging. If they cannot end their movement at least 1” away from enemy units, they cannot Disengage.”
So, how did I rule it? I looked all over the movement rules for something that clearly said that a unit had to end its move 1” away from all enemy units and I couldn’t find it. The dwarf player had said that he thought he saw the rule in a FAQ sometime, which made it hard for me to corroborate. I ruled that the Nature player could end his move within 1” of the dwarf unit. But I didn’t catch the ‘Need to finish your pivot outside of 1” of all enemy units,’ part. So, based on my ruling, the nature player was free to pivot his elementals. In the end it didn’t matter much, but I still didn’t like getting the ruling wrong. The rules for keeping 1” away from the enemy are scattered throughout the Movement, Charging and Melee Chapters. It would be good if Mantic could streamline them. Why can I back up or move sideways and stay within 1” but I can’t pivot and stay within 1”? Or they could clarify them, such as “If your unit is not engaged but begins its turn within 1” of an Enemy unit, it may still move freely as long as it DOES NOT PIVOT AND ends its turn no closer to the Enemy unit than where it began.” (Caps added for emphasis).
In closing, there’s some details here that don’t easily reveal themselves on the first reading of the rulebook. To be honest, I’m still not 100% certain that I’m reading these rules correctly. But I don’t think it’s too much of a problem for most players. These nuances usually come up in edge cases that rarely occur during games. The downside is that when they do come up it’s easy for a new player to come away feeling the game may be overly complex, and it flies in the face of the perception of Kings as a streamlined game. Either way, I’m going to devote more attention to the rules for next year’s Dead of Winter.
