All’s Fare In Love and Kings of War: Warfare 2024 Event Report

I couldn’t figure out how to start this article, so I’ve decided to simply Start Writing. Warfare! It’s an event! I went there, and things happened! I’ve had a really exhausting couple of weeks, so strap in, because this writeup is going to get weird.

Warfare’s the second-biggest event in the UK for Kings of War, second only to the juggernaut of Clash, and is the biggest indie shindig going. It’s ran by the Smith brothers, who went really hard on putting a big show on for us, with some really cool unique elements that represent weirdness done right (unlike this writeup, for example). I’ll try and highlight each aspect of these as I go, because they really do deserve a shout-out.

First things first, the event was 1995 points. That means instead of being able to take three of some units, you’re instead capped at two, as well as being a fair bit below the usual 2300 used for events. This is a big deal. You can approach it in two ways – ground-up build your list for it, or take an already proven list and cut bits out until you hit the cap. I chose to go for the latter, and ended up here:

Army list - click to expand

It’s been a labour of love getting to this point. I haven’t had the chance to do much active testing since War Up North 3, but what time I did get was spent getting shot to pieces by my locals. This meant less reliance on blocks of cavalry, which could easily be Wavered by a spiky roll, and a bit more backup from a classically stodgy block of Thick Beefy Lads. The support package was cut to the absolute barest bones, and I decided I could get away with a bit less shooting, given the wider meta’s seeming reticence to jump on the gunline train I was expecting post-Clash.

As I’ve set out elsewhere, I really want a spot in the UK Masters. I technically already have it. But, it’s about as precarious as it’s possible for a spot to be, and I didn’t manage to substantially improve it at War Up North 3. With the size of this event, though, any good placing might well guarantee my position, so I’d absolutely be gunning for a top finish even if I was out of the running early on. My lovely partner Ben, meanwhile, was already pretty much guaranteed to be qualified for Masters no matter what, and could therefore mess about pretty freely. My partner’s dad Steve, however, had an ambition no less pressing, but somewhat less lofty – not to get the wooden spoon again. In aid of this, they played some practise games on the Friday night.

Naturally, they played Moonstone.

Warfare as an event comes with some unpleasant memories for me. I played at its 40k tournament a couple of years ago, and had such a bad experience against my fourth round opponent that I literally quit the game on the spot. I’d had too much time out of wargaming, and didn’t really have the confidence to deal with someone who was actively cheating (what with the whole ‘kinda freshly being publicly trans’ thing). So, it was gonna be a tough one on the mental front coming back after that, and having had some very demanding weeks at work in the lead-up, I wasn’t at my best brainstate going in.

So, with that heavy burden in mind, this would normally be the part where I write about all my prep for the event to counteract that, like a montage of mental weightlifting and occasional candid shots of my brain laughing in the changing rooms. This is usually aided by having had a week to overthink my round 1 game, which tend to be announced a ways in advance. Sadly, the lovely fellow who challenged me had to drop out last minute, so instead I’m going to write about my vibrating bath.

No, really.

Yeah, the round 1 pairings curse struck again, and my intended matchup once again had to be rearranged. Instead, my prep for round 1 was a brief read of the alternate list, a shrug of ‘oh well, I have too much work to do to think too hard about this’, and a return to the workplace grind. Nobody wants to read about that, and frankly I’d rather not cross the work/wargaming streams too hard. So, it’s vibrating bath time. We never actually figured out what caused this – it’s not a setting the bath is meant to have; hell, it’s literally just a normal tub. But, for some reason, it started vibrating every time I turned the little knob in the middle that usually makes it drain. Like, full body vibrations, not even a little whirr. Swear down, most relaxing bath I’ve ever had. It was like a wet massage recliner. Absolutely phenomenal way to start the day.

To give you some context, while this isn’t the exact bath, this is what it looked like. Your average, normal bath. With a hidden vibrate setting. Fun fact: in a bath with metal taps, it is surprisingly hard to take a SFW picture while you’re in it. So, you get this instead.

Anyway, we piled into Steve’s car, as he was kindly hosting us for the weekend, and made our way to Farnborough. The event was hosted at a private airfield-y sort of thing in the middle of nowhere, so we got to walk across a nice big cark park, past displays of the failures of capitalism and centralisation of conspicuous climate-destroying consumption, into what was essentially a pretty aircraft hangar with a big welcome lounge. This might sound awful, but it was actually really nice – for some reason the acoustics were great, so despite the presence of hundreds of nerds, it was actually possible to have audible conversations at lower than jet-engine volume. And, y’know, you could forget about all the billionaires destroying the planet and stuff.

Steve, despite having printer responsibilities, managed to forget our lists. So, in case any of my opponents didn’t want to just look at their phones, I had to take some desperate measures.

As you can see, it didn’t work well. Thankfully, my day 1 opponents were all very willing to bear with. We made very sure to remember the sheets for day 2.

Round 1 – Goblins, Push

Well, love to get what is arguably my worst matchup in the first round. The scar seared into my psyche by Goblin gunlines is arguably the main determinant of my listbuilding at the moment. You only need to lose your freshly painted, 300 point, custom-based Lord on Chimera top of 1 to some grotty idiots with ballistas once before you decide to absolutely never let it happen again. Fortunately, this wasn’t full gunline, but it was still populated with enough of the power pieces that it had my respect.

Army list - click to expand

My opponent, meanwhile, had not lost a competitive game of Kings of War for over a year. Reports vary on whether this was because of a fearsome tally of victories unmatched, or a very long period of hibernation since being the ringer for the last Warfare event.

The unique terrain feature for this round was Tar Pits. These would apply the effects of the Weakness spell to whatever went through them, making an already hardy opponent even tougher to break through. But, they were well-positioned such that canny fighters could avoid having every combat take place inside them. Reader, I will tell you now, that is not what I did.

I set up to give myself a wide variety of options – Push, in my view, is a mission that doesn’t reward a fixed game plan. Meanwhile, my opponent went for a fast/slow division, stacking hordes on my left and Bangstiks on the right. My start was some chip shooting on the Sharpstick Throwers, as they’re a little aggressively positioned. Because these are Goblins, and Night Raiders roll good, chip shooting comfortably Wavers them, making my position much more secure. That said, I’m still going to get shot, and Weakness from the Tar Pits is going to make the combat much harder when it does happen, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

For now, though, we’re kind of just staring at each other. I’m happy with my defensive positions, so it’s on the Goblins to respond, and they took a similarly cautious approach. But, some of the Bangstiks have to move onto the hill, and that means 🙂 our favorite girlie 🙂 is coming 🙂 for them 🙂🙂🙂. Magnilde goes absolutely storming into the exposed left Bangstiks in my next turn, while the Sharpstick Throwers are removed entirely, and Kuzlo and Madfall are dared to charge me on the left (with a Thegn on Frostfang there to make sure that combat goes absolutely fine for me bar catastrophe). 

The initiative is now firmly in my favour. If the Goblins stay put, I’m going to keep shooting them consequence-free. But, if they move up, they’re not getting a very good alpha strike on the right, and will be moving face-first into my heavy hitters on the left. It’s two rough choices, and so my opponent splits the difference. Kuzlo and Madfall take the bait as a delaying action, while the central Horde pushes up. Everything else, though, is on brace for impact duty, and I duly oblige in my own turn, dropping the hammer as hard as I can while keeping a second wave in reserve.

Unfortunately, I had reckoned without the wildly good staying power of a certain Winggit. I always treat these little annoyances as priority #1, but it turns out one hovering over a Tar Pit is beyond the killing power of a whole cavalry block. My second wave is therefore stalled, hard, and suddenly we’re on shaky ground. To compound my suffering, the central Horde manage to get a flank charge into my Night Raiders, but I’ve reckoned without the sheer limp-wristedness of Goblins. 50 attacks, hitting on 6s and wounding on 4s, do not in fact kill a 13/15 Nv Regiment as consistently as I expected, and so I get to retaliate with extreme force. With the left flank collapsing in my favour, it’s now all down to what happens on the right.

Funnily enough, the right is extremely squeaky-bum. While only one thing can still hold Loot tokens, I could feasibly lose all my holders to chip shooting and charges, turning this win into an unceremonious draw. It doesn’t help that clocks are low at this point, so the pressure is truly on to play it perfectly. Fortunately, I am fortunate. I scrape through with just enough survivors to take the win, and coast my way to round 2. Never in doubt.

I took way more pics than this (and in fact did so for every game)! If you want to see them all at the end of each writeup section, let me know in the comments. I’m not doing them all here, because I promised my boss this would be written up three and a half hours ago, and I fear his moustache.

Round 2 – Abyssal Dwarfs, Smoke and Mirrors

Yay, a faction that isn’t Goblins! Oh no, it’s one I’ve never played against before! That aside, I was looking forward to this. I plan to play Abyssal Dwarfs next year, along with a few other factions (watch this space!), and am looking at a very similar list, focused around Hellfanes and beefy blocks of lads. 

Army list - click to expand

For this table, we had Quicksand, ensuring things would be Hindered regardless of any abilities that might say otherwise. Not so great for me, as it would put the small lads on an even footing – they’re likely the recipients rather than the deliverers of any charges, and thus their natural resilience will be boosted further. 

However, the scenario is in my favour. I’m usually pretty decent at placing Bluff Counters, and feint a bit to the right, meaning my opponent has to commit some speculative chaff rather than outright refusing the flank. Maybe I should have been even more aggressive, and weighted super-hard to that side, but it felt like a gamble in a game that should favour me a little bit.

Deployment is fairly conservative, with one exception. Seeing the De5+ Regeneration writing on the wall, my Night Raiders decide not to hide in the trees, and instead set up opposite some Abyssal Halfbreeds, hoping to chip them off fast with shooting. I get first turn, and get to work, posturing hard while avoiding the Hellfane and Abyssal cavalry. The Abyssal Halbreeds are suitably peppered with shooting, taking a fair bit of damage, though Regeneration will likely take a bunch of that off next turn. The Abyssal Dwarfs, meanwhile, trudge forward, as they are wont to do.

Now at this point, I make what I reckon is an error. I’ve ran the numbers on it since, and it’s just straight up not that great. But, it did hold the line in place, and in hindsight my Lord on Chimera was probably a bit useless in the matchup anyway. Basically, I sent it and some Mounted Sons of Korgaan straight at the Abyssal Grotesques, hoping to take their melee potency out of the running before the lines met on my opponent’s terms. It wasn’t likely – I’d average out needing to roll roughly 9s twice, which is never a good look – and it didn’t pan out. Maybe I should have waited until I could make it more conclusive, but I was worried about the Abyssal Halfbreeds swinging in hard from the left. Oh well. Fortunately, though, my shooting Wavers said Halfbreeds this time, which is huge – I probably, in hindsight, should have planned around that being the likely outcome.

Meanwhile, away from their twisted cousins, the rest of the Abyssal Dwarfs are merrily trudging forward, confident in the fact that a. they have a Hellfane to anchor around, and b. they’re stodgy as hell. I’m going to have to answer that at some point, but would rather do it on my terms, so hold off rather than charging in to relieve pressure from the left. This means the Hellfane is getting steadily closer to the Quicksand, but there’s not much I can do about that – it’ll just be difficult to kill later.

My Thegn on Frostfang absolutely bails me out on the left, rolling up the Abyssal Grotesques and buying me a bit of respite. I decide to break the standoff on the right by taking out the Horde of Blacksouls, which I just about manage with a careful triple-charge, and prepare to receive Hellfane impact in response. We’ve been doing a silly little chaff-dance over that way while revealing tokens, and I hasten its end by running over some Mutated Mastiffs with my cavalry.

Predictably, the Hellfane responds by hitting me really hard in the face. I absolutely love what this model does, even though I’m on the receiving end here. Meanwhile, the long collapse of the left is accelerated by the Immortal Guard and Overmaster getting involved, meaning my Night Raiders will soon be under threat. They’re holding onto some pretty important Bluff Counters for me right now, so their survival is critical.

I have to commit extremely hard to the Hellfane now. If it lives, I’m stalled out. So, everything is thrown at it, while Magnilde absolutely ends the chaff fight at the back. I squeak, by the tiniest of margins (like if I hadn’t committed around 750pts of my army, more than half of that in the flank, I probably wouldn’t have killed it) a Rout, and now the race leftward begins. I basically have to play catchup with these Immortal Guard regiments, and it’s going to be a close-run thing, because these Night Raiders are absolutely not going to win that fight (as I determined at the start of the game).

Fortunately, the terrain is working in my favour now, stopping any At The Doubles to get progress into the deep left side. This means pursuit of the Night Raiders is harder, while catching up is easier for me. Charge after charge sweeps aside the remaining screeners, and my Night Raiders hang on through Abyssal Halfbreed Lord hits to hold for the last turn… then Turn 7 happens. Okay, dig in baby, we’re going into overtime. 75-dice rear charge into Immortal Guard kills them dead, Hindered or not. Full control of the middle. And finally, as a bonus, my Night Raiders survive their long Abyssal nightmare. GGs, fantastic game that could absolutely have went either way. If I’d walked away from that one with a loss, I’d have been able to hold my head high, and I think that applied both ways to be honest – my opponent played it really well.

Round 3 – Goblins, Dominate

Again? Seriously? I get that they were joint most-popular faction at the event, but somewhere out there the tiebreaker gods must have been laughing at me to make this happen twice on the same day – the odds were like 0.6%, according to some super-questionable maths. Whatever, we spit in the eye of destiny. Let’s take a win regardless.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to get one of the nicest players I’ve ever met. Like, game aside, I just want to take a moment to say this man had immaculate vibes. We spent the entire game deeply engaged in a war of maneuver while also roundly mocking each other at every opportunity, and I loved every second of it. This was my favorite game of the event in a run containing several lovely games. 10/10, would love to play again (and likely will, if I make Masters).

I wasn’t super fussed about the unique table element for this game. It was certainly a good one – halving shot counts while within or firing through it – but its potency was mitigated by its positions on the table; Ben, playing a gunline, had a perfectly reasonable first round on it despite the specific impact on shooty stuff. So, while I did bear it in mind, I didn’t expect it to be game-defining.

We started with a truly excellent Prank. My opponent had submitted their list after the Clash update went live in Companion, removing the old Formation for Goblins – but, it was still legal for exactly this event. That meant the Formation didn’t show in their list, so I briefly got excited thinking I was finally free and would never see the damn thing again. Naturally, I was brought crashing back down to earth with a polite explanation, and resolved myself to once again have some Bangstiks and stones break my bones. The stones here were brought to bear by a bunch of beefy Trolls, which aren’t the blocks of bulk I usually see at home, and some beefier Slashers. I knew any lategame fight with them wouldn’t go too well with me, so positioned to take the hit on my Human Tribesmen and Night Raiders while swinging the fast stuff round for midgame (after dealing with the Bangstick lads).

Army list - click to expand

This kind of went to plan. I felt forced to durdle around hard with my Lord on Chimera, who rightly feared the dreaded Groany Snark, and so brought it round to the middle as support for the rapidly disintegrating center. Said disintegration was being sped along by the expendable central elements, who had taken an early charge into some Goblins to buy me board space and set the line further up (and to bait a flank charge from Bangstiks). Now, you may be thinking, ‘“Stephanie, why would you bait a flank charge from such a lethal unit, for they will surely kill you quite dead”. The answer is that they’ll hurt themselves a bunch in the process, because 28 dice means at least some sixes – and that was exactly what happened, allowing me to hoover up some of them on the cheap while my Mounted Sons of Korgaan played stand-off with the rest. Meanwhile, the Human Tribesmen refused to die (which felt more surprising than the numbers I crunched afterwards would indicate, but I hadn’t played them much so didn’t have a gut feel for their survivability), holding a bunch of Trolls in place.

This vastly changed the dynamics of things. I now had the speed advantage in most places, and had bought some time for my flanks to swing around and in. If we did end up in a cavalry standoff on the right, that was fine, because I had guns, and if both forces are sat still but one side is shooting, they likely win the right. The center was not long for this world, though, so I prepared for the inevitable collapse.

When said collapse did happen, though, it came with a critical Waver on one of the Troll units, thanks to a clutch Icy Breath. The cavalry flanks finally rolled in, with the third unit trouncing the last of the Bangstiks, and put me in a tight but winning position. I just needed to hold on long enough that these Slashers didn’t mop me up, and that Groany Snark didn’t spike too hard.

The tension was thick at this point – we were both down to zero redundancy; if something didn’t work, that thing was likely dead. My left flank was mopped up, and we were playing across the horizontal line. I got ahead. Then fell behind. Key units Wavered, but weren’t Routed. Groany Snark decided that doing thirteen(!) damage to a Lord on Chimera with five(!) attacks was enough for one game, and flubbed. Turn 6 turned into Turn 7. The game remained on a knife-edge. And, by the time the bottom of 7 finished, I was the one dancing my victory-dance on it.

This was an absolutely fantastic way to end Day 1. Not only had I had an immensely fun game, that I feel genuinely could have gone either way at several points and was an immensely rewarding tactical challenge against a lovely opponent, but I’d also had two more challenging games against lovely people and went 3-0! Honestly, the biggest struggle was not being even more happy about it on the way home than I was, as the rest of the car had not had such a successful run (2-1 and 0-3). The draw went up somewhere along our journey, and so we stopped at a Pizza Express. I’d never actually been to one before, and was pleasantly surprised to find them willing to accommodate my specific type of autism by removing any and all tomato from the process. Coupled with a gorgeous toffee pudding, I was a happy bunny when we turned in for the night.

Day Two

Upon arrival, I walk into the venue and am greeted by the lovely DeathByDragons. I am, like, 60% sure he is still drunk from last night. He gives me a big hug and compliments my hair, and in my mind, the other 40% slots into place. I am immensely looking forward to his report on this event. Or the bits of it he remembers having happened.

There’s no other reason for this section break. I just wanted to mention that. Such a nice guy.

Round 4 – Dwarfs, Compass Points

Small Faction Weekend continues. My opponent is playing small lads, which he mentions he hasn’t used much before. That said, we’re both on three wins, so there’s no assuming mistakes will happen at this level. The list is fairly classic – blocks of beef, Throwing Mastiffs, and Golloch’s Fury in back. The terrain is also fairly safe – a River, with two large Ford sections in the midpoints that can easily be crossed, but that Disorders you if you end a move in it.

Army list - click to expand

The opening is a safe one for us both. The Dwarfs refuse a flank, trusting in some zoomy Heroes on the right to harass my shooting, and I weight fairly evenly, hoping to be able to respond to the evolving boardstate. I make a small mistake in my opening moves that hurts me later – my Lord on Chimera touches the River at the end of its move, meaning it’ll be Hindered in its next activation. 

In his turn, my opponent runs up, and then uses his Throwing Mastiffs and a bunch of shooting to put a bunch of chip on me. I’m baffled by this, as I was under the impression they couldn’t be used when also using At the Double, but I’m assured it can due to Ordered March. Nothing gets Wavered, but instead of the original plan to pull back (and fix some of my positioning errors), it’s go-time, as I can’t realistically hold off and lose something next turn. So, I commit to a very risky send – Magnilde and some Mounted Sons of Korgaan into Garrek Heavyhand (with the hope being to break through and hit a Horde of Ironguard sat behind), and my Hindered Lord on Chimera plus more Mounted Sons into a Regiment of them. Not good trades, but perfect is the enemy of maybe enough to hang on here. It doesn’t work out in the middle, though, and a bunch of my hammers are left high and dry.

It’s at this point we realise Throwing Mastiffs could not have in fact been used, because they’re still a ranged attack. We rewind as best we can, but the game state damage is done at this point. While we do a better job at picking up errors for the rest of the game, the Varangur can’t recover, and I lose all bar the right hand objective. Oh well!

Round 5 – League of Rhordia, Hold the Line

Finally! Regular-sized enemies! Oh no! They’ve all got Phalanx!

This was a pretty spooky matchup on paper, and to get it in the final round when I’m most tired was worrying. Further to my detriment, I’d never actually played against League of Rhordia – they kind of just existed as a meme, to appear disproportionately rarely and be joked about by players every so often. This was very much in fact not the case. They’re actually low-key kind of good, and my opponent was well-practiced with them. Funnily enough, taking an underplayed faction and getting good at it is very familiar to me, so I went into this last game with some healthy respect.

Army list - click to expand

Complicating matters was the terrain feature for this game. It’s not that it wasn’t favourable for me. In fact, applying the Frozen condition to things is absolutely great for Varangur. The faction is built off the shell of Northern Alliance, who are much better at putting it on enemies, and so has the Tundra Fighters rule on a bunch of pieces. The problem is, because Varangur are usually so bad at it, it almost never comes up. Like, I can’t think of a single game where it’s mattered. So, I don’t actually know my faction well enough to instinctively remember what has it and what doesn’t.

Thankfully, Rhordians are not complicated. They just want to punch me in the face with cavalry and shoot me a bit. That’s a very familiar gameplan to me, even if the execution is different to mine, and thus I know roughly what to do to counter it. I want to play my slow flank slow, and my fast flank fast, while giving up as little of the middle ground as possible. The one exception would be if the Dogs of War pushed hard into the centre, because I’d likely not grind hard enough into them to clear fast enough and get into the scoring areas.

This was broadly how things played out. Our fast flanks met each other at top speed, and pretty much mutually destroyed each other in the collision – my Snow Foxes tied up a Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez just long enough for my other stuff to turn around, while some plucky Halfling Knights’ good fortune in heavily chipping my Lord on Chimera was evened out by a later double-1 when I’d expected it to die.

In the middle, meanwhile, we basically played Staring Match With Guns, much the same as in the earlier rounds. My Stealthy met the Battle Shrine’s Rallying in a battle of the boring grinds, and I eventually turned out the victor there with limited resources. But, I eventually had to push into the centre, and was stuck without the ability to abandon the left flank – a unit of Mounted Sons of Korgaan were the only survivors there, so I had to hold some of my heaviest hitters back on garrison duty. Fortunately, the right flank played as slowly as I expected it to, so I had time to bring things to bear.

We ended up with a very close scuffle over the centre points, with a last-minute screening play from the Wizard to jam up my stuff making my consolidation rolls key.

I felt I could likely hold it to a draw in Turn 6 if I needed to, but then Turn 7 rolled around and it was go-time. I slammed everything in as hard as I could, and managed to flip the game hard enough that I scored a 5-0 win!

I’ve spoken relatively little about this one, partly because of lingering sads from the previous round, but mostly because… not much really happened. The pics kinda tell most of the story! We had an absolutely great time though, and this was a really deep and tactical game to end on. I likewise expect to see my opponent at Masters, and look forward to it.

With that, prizes were given, and we wrapped up the event. I placed 7th, which wasn’t quite enough to guarantee me best Varangur this year, but definitely put me in a very solid position. Besides that, the Hampshire-Berrys once again brought home the wooden spoon, covering us in honour and glory (and a celebratory/consolationary McDonalds). We’ll know whether I’ve made it to the big time by the next Road to Masters article, coming in December, but for now, wish me luck in the Ribble Rumble, which is the last realistic chance to make or break my placing. Thanks for reading, see y’all next article!

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