Rumble in the Ribble: Kings of War Event Report

Preamble

Besties. I have had a bad few days.

The short version is that my partner took a tumble down the stairs on Monday, and by Tuesday midnight was in enough pain for an A&E visit. This took ten hours, because England, meaning we got home at 10am. This essentially cascaded into ruining everything we had planned, because our household is set up to handle one of us needing to do everything for a bit, but not while we also, like, have a life. Combine that with a HRT-induced berserk blood rage that lasted through the middle of the week, and you have a very unhappy Stephanie.

Had I been considering things that weren’t related to “what will the flesh of the next person to annoy me taste like”, I would have had much food for thought in the potential this event held. I am trying to qualify for the UK Masters event in January, a goal I have in fact already completed. But, I couldn’t simply rest on my laurels, because my position was precarious. While this isn’t the place for a rankings methodology discussion, it’s enough to know I could hold onto it with a decently high placing, but a bad showing combined with a podium finish for one particular attendee could dethrone me.

It may be hard to believe that I of all people wasn’t focused on this. I’ve written entire articles about just how keen I am on this stuff. But, up until pretty much the day of the event, I was really close to dropping out entirely to take care of my Ben. They’re an adult, and can take care of themselves, but they are also an idiot, which is why they ended up with a busted ankle to start with. The idea of sitting far away at a table worrying whether something bad would happen again did not appeal. Ben was meant to be playing in the event too, but was in too much pain to do so, meaning this would be the first partner-less event I’d done for… three years? The restraining factors were that Ben was very vocal about not having me miss out because of their injury, that the TO would have had to both play and run things, which she was not overly enamored with for good reason, and that I wouldn’t have anything to write about for my lovely readers this week. So, being of sound body, I resigned myself to at least playing the first day.

Buildup

Instead of talking about the game for this bit, I’m instead going to discuss another part of my morning routine – no bath talk this time. Now, without going trauma-snorkelling, I have a bit of a thing about my hair. I hate it, for various reasons. It’s a known fact about me. Shortly before the aforementioned hospital visit, I’d been invited to a promo shoot for a new app for trans folks to do an interview and film/photo some material. This involved the assistance of a lovely professional stylist. She did this with my hair.

I have been trying to do this look again like a woman possessed every day since. I don’t know why, but I just can’t. It’s like a hairy unicorn. It’s unreachable. Irreplicable. Immune to Doppelgangers. The stupid little wafty bit at the bottom is apparently a once-in-a-generation feat of follicular engineering that modern science cannot replicate, and it infuriated me beyond words. I have included this segment not to flex on being happy with my hair for once, but a. because of my pathological desire to include an image every few paragraphs for readability reasons and b. because you all need to understand just how long I spent with some straighteners and far too many combs trying to make this happen again. If you see any shots of me at the event having resolutely failed, no you didn’t. Hopefully this explains the remainder of the aforementioned blood rage.

Anyway, let’s talk about something I got right. For this one, I’d not made the same mistakes I did at Warfare, and had got my oppo research done well in advance. It told me I was in for the usual stacked player base, and also that the TOs strongly disagreed on the merits of the Hammer of Measured Force. Perhaps they’d read our article. Overall, though,, I knew I’d be facing a shooty field, and brought my standard “don’t shoot me please” Stealthy skew. It was basically the same as the shell at Warfare, but the Lord on Chimera was gone – frankly, I was just sick of using the big idiot, but I also didn’t feel like the rest of the list was supporting it as well as it needed, so I wanted to try some stuff that was a bit slower in order to get more beef. I also fancied trying a Magus for Transfusion and Bane Chant, so in one went along with some trashy Draugr idiots. One last little bit of spice was that there were three – three! – Varangur players in total, and I was determined not to finish dead last among them.

Army list - click to expand

Round 1 – Daniel King, Varangur, Push

One of those players was a certain Mr Daniel King. Daniel was that rarest of beasts – another Varangur player in the UK – and was in with a serious shot at taking my Masters spot with them. After a solid showing at Warfare, I’d closed off most of the routes to victory, and could seal the deal with a podium finish, but if I crashed and burned and Daniel hit the top two, he’d pip me to the post. Naturally, despite my attempt to challenge my arch-nemesis (who will no doubt feature in another article at some point), he challenged me to get the whole matter settled immediately. It wouldn’t be a Stephanie article if my planned first round matchup didn’t happen for some reason or another. I imagine my trash talk during the halcyon days before the Great Tumble of 2024 probably fueled the fire a bit, but I trash talk like I breathe so it doesn’t register as much to me.

That particular trait usually makes me very determined to back up my talk, because I hate being wrong about it. My mouth has lumped me with many a punishing training arc out of stubborn determination to be right, and normally I would have ground out a bunch of games practicing for the showdown. But, because of the ankle, that resolutely didn’t happen. I instead turned up to Element with the sort of grim resignation reserved for one’s first day of teaching Year 8s – a bad time was expected, it probably wouldn’t matter, but we must suffer through this nonetheless.

I was probably the most drained in this round, honestly. Sometimes, you really do not want to be playing toy soldiers (heresy, I know), but I said I’d do it and I’d talked a big game. Unfortunately, this was not a round to be drained in. Daniel is not only a very good player, but had taken a list that couldn’t be better for this particular scenario, with lots of ways to grab tokens, with the tradeoff being a huge vulnerability to just getting shot a whole bunch. This is the metagame we could have if Clash ‘25 had just nerfed gunlines a bit harder, folks. 

Army list - click to expand

Daniel took the first turn, which, frankly, sucked for me – nobody wants to go second against a board pressure list. I simply didn’t have enough shots to dint these Tundra Wolves, as a gunline I was very much not, so I basically just had to castle up and take it.

This approach, predictably enough, didn’t go too well for me. The openness of the board prevented me from screening out a full send, so I was tied up in every quarter, my units ending up stuck out of position or lodged in combat with chaff Heroes aplenty. Not helping was a misunderstanding over the hill rules, which meant I’d basically got my hardest-hitting unit of Mounted Sons of Korgaan stuck unable to do anything for a turn. It was a good lesson to learn the hard way, though, as I’d never forget it again. This meant my centre – the only untouched part of my army – was pretty much all dressed up with nowhere to go. 

This meant the big fold, when it came, all came at once. My middle-left and entire right all died an ignominious death, which meant this game was absolutely not gonna be a winner. It likewise very much wasn’t going to be a draw. But, my goal here was a. to keep my word and stick around, and b. To keep my spot. That last goal was a two-parter – I don’t have to win, I just have to sandbag. So, the goal was to deny as many kill points as possible, and kill as many scoring pieces as possible. I therefore went for both of those things. That meant some very strange choices of piece trades. When the goal is to deny scoring, it can often make sense to trade hard hitters for small but useful pieces, with the idea being to increase the difficulty of holding onto every counter while also winning on attrition. The latter was a losing battle every time, so why bother fighting it?

Ultimately, this wouldn’t go too well, but I did hang on to just enough stuff to prevent an outright blowout. I also picked up as many kill points as I could along the way, taking risky trades to do so. This is an approach I learned waaaay back in the day – when you have a choice between a 0.01% chance to win and a 0% chance, you take the 0.01%, because it’s always better than nothing and the worst that happens is that you just lose anyway. I’d always recommend it, but especially in Kings of War, where tiebreakers matter more than usual.

Daniel would have a tough run of bad luck after stomping me, ending 2-3 in 14th place, and thus threatening my best in faction spot not one bit. A shame, really, as I honestly wouldn’t have minded losing it and seeing a cool turnaround from a returning giant of the game, but I’m not going to pretend I’m not happy to have kept my spot.

Between rounds, I basically sat in a corner being a grump. The lovely George came over to me to say hi and chat hobby, as we’d missed out on playing each other at Warfare, and I got to spread my number 1 wargamer real estate tip. Basically, you [tag Stephanie in GH discord to learn more,  I’m not causing a housing bubble].

Round 2 – Paul Burke, Ogres, Hold the Line

A fact of life at northern events here is that losing round one is often no protection from a very strong second round opponent. Paul is one of the top players in the country, and is playing a faction that was the bane of my life during Clash of Kings 2024. So, it’s time to get revenge.

This was the first major UK event using Clash ‘25. As such, it would be the first time we’d see Ogres in their nerfed state, with Siege Breakers no longer the order of the day. Paul had adapted to this with a very, very shooty build, taking advantage of the fact that any given Ogre unit is probably acceptable at worst in melee to soften up opponents on the way in. I really liked his Hero loadout, making innovative use of Ogre Sergeants on Chariots that presented a threat both shooty and punchy, and, while the focus on guns was probably a good thing for me, the bulky US would be difficult to overcome in this scenario.

Army list - click to expand

Paul formed two main clusters, on the left and in the centre. Winning the centre is always a big swing, and if he could even just hold the left to a draw he’d take the game on that basis. But, it did mean I could smuggle some cavalry round the right hand building, and set up accordingly. A large central dead zone meant crossing the board would be painful, and Paul definitely had shooting superiority, so it was time to just grit my teeth and prepare to be shot. That said, I at least had threat range superiority in melee, so could hopefully convert a win once I made it through. If I made it through.

The early shooting was fairly desultory, as it was mostly short-ranged. Paul positioned well to deny good trades, but I feel like he underestimated just how slow a game I was ready to play here – I knew from lots (and lots) of experience that I could afford to get shot a lot, and he’d have to get close up to do major damage – and he wouldn’t get a second change. Of note, though, was a very nice Magnilde missile into Nomagarok after I softened him up with some early shooting. We absolutely love to see that guy die early – Ogres with healing is very different to Ogres without. This meant Paul had to try and deal with a very mobile piece in his back line, while simultaneously addressing all the oncoming threats – a difficult needle to thread at the best of times, and not one I envied him. To his credit, he showed why he gets the good results by threading it pretty much perfectly, denying me almost every charge I wanted and only offering me stuff where absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough. Magnilde continued to be an absolute menace by Wavering a Horde of Boomers, meaning retaliation against oncoming Human Tribesmen went from difficult to impossible. Meanwhile, my right flank tidily removed everything in their way, meaning they were going to hit home, and my left flank went all in to tie up as much as it could. The left flank didn’t last too long, as Paul was able to slowly mop me up, but this was all fine – I’d secured the right at very low ‘expense’ in terms of fighting units committed, so I could absolutely pile in to the centre and turn Paul’s game plan back on itself. Units were removed wherever possible, with even the Night Raiders not engaged by Siege Breakers taking a charge on an Ogre Warlock they’d chipped earlier, and I basically dumped as much pressure on the mid-board as I could.

Paul continued to dig out of the hole, unexpectedly barreling his Shooters into melee (honestly a good play I didn’t see coming), and finishing off Magnilde, but my brain had engaged all two cells at this point now I knew Ben was home safe and mostly not empained. I thus engineered as many charges as possible cleaning up almost everything… but double 1’ing the Shooters after a Human Tribesmen flank charge. Oh dear. This very much put Paul back in the driving seat, particularly as we worked out he could now get a Hindered flank with his Siege Breakers. Ouch.

At this point, I broke my photo streak, because boy this was close. Paul’s retaliation took out the Human Tribesmen, but he managed to double 1 the Night Raiders, keeping them in the fight. I went for as many kills as I could – Ogre Warlock with Mounted Sons of Korgaan, Lord into the Shooters, Night Raiders scrabbling to Waver the Sergeant on Chariot. All bar the latter succeeded, and I was readying myself for a slog to close out the game, but Turn 7 decided not to show up for once – I’d won. Back in the game, baybee.

Paul would go on to have an absolutely disastrous weekend despite his undisputed skill at the game, placing dead last in an absolute shocker. Feels like the test list might be destined for the dustbin. On the plus side, he took it in good stride, joking that as he’d won the previous event outright, he’d now encircled the standings completely!

At this point, I was fairly sure Ben was alive and at least decently mobile, so I could relax a bit. Time to end the day on a high note, or at least 1-1-1.

Round 3 – Aythlan Crookes, Nightstalkers, Seek and Destroy

Aythlan was bringing some very nice looking Nightstalkers, which made me regret my hasty favorite army vote (having not seen them, I’d likely have given them at least second preference). I didn’t miss playing with them, but this would be my first tournament game against them, and I went in expecting a grindfest due to the Mind-screech.

Army list - click to expand

We were both getting used to the scenario, so I placed my tokens as if I were playing Salt the Earth, and Aythlan made sure there was no particularly dominant side. Aythlan’s deployment was pretty standard, with a good flank and a stall flank. The stall flank was laced with Doppelgangers, to make sure my hammers weren’t too free to roam. The good flank, unfortunately for him, was made up of Shadowhounds and a Void Lurker, with two big old lumps of difficult terrain right in front of them. This, famously, is the bane of their lives – a fact I’m keenly aware of as a former Nightstalkers player. So, I gave them a nice Horde of Human Tribesmen to play with, while Magnilde and some Mounted Sons of Korgaan formed up on their flanks to intercept anything getting cheeky. 

I knew I’d need a big win for a decent placing, but it was potentially going to be difficult. Aythlan could burn Loot counters if I was threatening to pick them up, though, so I’d have to go in all at once to do it. The difficulty involved in that was, funnily enough, the Doppelgangers. Because I’d be committing my big hammers to the fight, they could easily get copied and pasted if I wasn’t careful. So, the first charge I took was on them, after a couple turns of stalling. Double 1s. Eek. Fortunately, I’d been careful, and only charged them with stuff that would be bad at attacking itself, so they didn’t do too much in response. Meanwhile, I tied up a couple of other pieces elsewhere, mostly as bait for a future, better charge, and deliberately ignored the Loot counters for a while – I could always get them later.

Retaliation, funnily enough, wasn’t super punishing. I lost some Mounted Sons of Korgaan, but the bulk of the army survived intact, and a lot of Nightstalkers were now committed. What really helped seal the deal on the left flank was a double 1 from flanking Scarecrows and the Dream Hunter, which meant Kruufnir could tee up a Bring Me Their Head for some truly excessive violence. Unit after unit disintegrated, including about 75 dice worth of attacks on the Void Lurker to bring it down, and a lucky Waver on some damaged Butchers meant they could only Counter-Charge rather than hitting what was in front of them.

From this point, Aythlan couldn’t really recover, and it was pretty cathartic to channel the week’s frustrations into an absolute tabling (despite him being a lovely guy). Literally everything bar the Horror died in a wave of violence lasting just a couple of turns, and because of the sudden collapse he didn’t have time to burn any Loot counters – so, I ended the day with a really high-scoring win (I think I might actually have maxed out). Aythlan was a good sport about it and had an absolutely lovely army, and explained that his Shadowhound plan was to do an end-run around the terrain to threaten my flank – sadly their deployment was just slightly too early to stop me seeing it coming. With this game over, I very quickly made ready to return home, as I knew Ben hadn’t taken a single painkiller and wanted to rectify that immediately.

Aythlan would go on to take 13th, with a perfectly balanced record of 2-1-2. 

With that, we headed home, and picked up a quick Maccies. Ben nobly confronted the evil (read: tired and overworked) employee who forgot my Tropicana, and my gay heart a-fluttered. There was some brief talk of Round 4’s matchup, which had been pre-drawn, but frankly we both wanted to have a doze. We weren’t the only ones.

Round 4 – Michael Yeung, Salamanders, Control

I think this was the round that actually did for my fragile mental wellbeing. This wasn’t in any way Mike’s fault – we’ve played before, and he’s a consummate gentleman across the table; definitely a lovely opponent to have as my one repeat opponent for the weekend. But, I cannot stress enough how boring a game this was.

Salamanders are one of the factions responsible for my mass-Stealthy style of listbuilding, and Mike’s list very much showed just why this is. With over 100 shots, and most of them on very resilient bodies that could punch decently in melee, I was going to have to cross the board and get involved if I wanted a chance at a win. The problem was that the terrain made close to zero contribution to such a goal, with a giant deadzone in the middle that basically said ‘this is where you go to die’. I’d have to bait Mike into my half in order to pick up favourable trades – a daunting proposition with him not really having any incentive to make such a move.

Army list - click to expand

I wish I could make this game sound exciting. There were certainly some moments of drama, like Magnilde absolutely decimating Firebrand with Duellist and barrelling into some Rhinosaur Cavalry on the Overrun to plink them and tie them up – but, a spike or two on damage meant she didn’t hold them in place long enough for a big charge to safely hit home elsewhere. The right hand Scorchwings and Night Raiders were likewise locked into a shooting duel for several turns, with Transfusion and Heal keeping both parties in the fight for ages, but my shooting kept spiking so low that I could never get over the hump and Rout them. Pretty much everywhere else, we basically just sat in our trench lines, waiting for an order to go over the top that would never come, warming our hands by the fires and telling bad jokes about spicy lizards/fleshy humans respectively.

The game continued in this vein the whole time. We pretended to play some Kings of War in the centre with a chaff fight, but really the only determinant of the game would be whether one of us would lose our right flank (where all my shooting was). Spoiler alert, we didn’t. This meant that despite the game itself trying its best to bring us a victor, going all the way to Turn 7, it was inevitable that we would end with a very frustrating draw. Honestly, this was an annoying as hell result – I needed the big numbers to get the high placing, and I felt like I’d been robbed by a very silly terrain layout. There was nothing to be done for it, though, other than hoping to avoid a repeat pairing in the final round (a distinct possibility, due to our close scores).

Mike would take a respectable 9th, also managing a perfectly balanced 2-1-2.

After this, I was just super drained, honestly. It felt like a decent placing was out of reach, and I was cursing the weird-ass table with the silly double-building nonsense that I couldn’t help but feel had throttled my chances. It would take a minor miracle to reawaken my fighting spirit.

Round 5 – Ed Stevenson, Dwarfs, Bulldog

Truly, I don’t know what it is about events at Element that means I have to get Dwarfs in the final round, but it’s been three different times with three different players. After the previous game, I was very much after some blood and guts, and a big old Dwarf brick promised spectacular violence for whoever hit home first. Ed had packed every Throwing Mastiff he could and exactly zero other guns, making a mockery of my Stealthy skew and meaning I’d be reluctant to commit until full delivery was possible.

Army list - click to expand

Bulldog was a very interesting scenario to get for the last round, and apparently didn’t go down particularly well with a lot of the players in attendance. I personally enjoyed the deployment mini-game of trying to fake out the position of my token (I gave myself options everywhere on the board), only for Ed to respond in the typically blunt Dwarf fashion of making a huge brick and putting his token in its hardest unit. Game 5 is not a place for fancy tricks.

Naturally, this meant my focus was ‘break the brick’. This was aided by the Shieldbreakers going a bit wide, which meant I didn’t have to engage everything at once. Ed gave me his Mastiff Hunting Packs in order to buy board space (for moving up his Loot counter), and I decided it was time to full aggro (by which I mean sending my Lord on Frostfang in, and everything else sort of durdling). Look, I’m just not an aggro player! Committing everything likely would have led to it being eaten anyway, so I didn’t fancy risking it.

Interestingly enough, I took no actual losses in the clap-back, despite a flank charge, so I got to commit hard in the next turn. I slammed home on the left flank, more to tie things up than in the expectation of actually killing things, and managed to pick up a Dwarf Lord on Large Beast, as well as the Berserker Lord (who had decided to slow down my Loot counter-carrying Human Tribesmen). 

Ed slammed me back in turn, beginning a nasty grind fest in the centre, but didn’t pick up much beyond the Lord on Frostfang (who was never particularly long for this world) and Kruufnir, who I’d sent in to draw out some pieces. This didn’t feel too bad at first, but I was grateful for my backup Lord and Magus, who made sure things were still Inspired. I really wanted to pick up Ed’s Loot counter at this point, but De 6+ is a stat that gets respect for a reason, so I didn’t manage it despite dumping a bunch of damage on the carriers. Meanwhile, my Snow Foxes double charged the last Mastiff Hunting Pack to do a grand total of… one damage. This would be a running theme later. In response, my centre was well and truly collapsed, and a big blow was dealt to my Human Tribesmen with a double-6 Waver, preventing them from taking a very nice flank charge. Not to worry, my Lord will kill these Mastiffs to open up the mid-board again and let the rest of my right flank swing in. And… one damage. Eek! The rest of my Snow Foxes were summarily cleaned up, but one thing did go in my favour – my Night Raiders, who had been sitting pretty in their starting forest, finished shooting off the left hand Shieldbreakers, meaning they could start moving up and getting involved.

This would come to a head in the late midgame. Yes, I’m using such an imprecise term because I don’t remember exactly when it happened, shut up. My left flank finally started going in my favour after a long grind (see, I know for a fact that, all things equal, Mounted Sons of Korgaan will likely win a fight with Bulwarkers… eventually), so Magnilde and the Lord got to tag-team the Loot carrier and just about finished them off (with the aid of a cheeky Bane Chant on Magnilde herself, pushing her to new levels of silliness). While I didn’t get the counter as a result, because Individuals can’t pick them up, I did start to get the edge on scoring. Meanwhile, I made the totally acceptable trade of my remaining Mounted Sons of Korgaan for the remaining Mastiff Hunting Pack. Totally fine. Magnilde died a valiant death in response, but Ed was quickly running out of units – and, most importantly, running out of non-Individual units. This meant that instead of a back-and-forth on the Loot counter, it was either me having it or nobody. This swung the game heavily in my favour, as it’s really hard to regain the lead in Progressive scenarios that I’ve played so far, with Bulldog being no exception. I thus got him into a bit of a chokehold scoring-wise, eventually grinding him down to a smattering of remaining doughty lads and taking a very commanding lead to win the game.

With that, Ed would end on 12th place, a scant few TPs from top half, but he’d get a consolation prize shortly after. I want to shout out his fantastic tokens, by the way – each upgrade in the list was lovingly represented with a really cool token, fully painted, which really accentuated the lovely models. This game definitely brought my mojo back a bit, to the point where I was perfectly happy to play another game at home (but for details on what I was playing, you’ll have to wait until next year!).

Aftermath

The day would end without a podium, but my choices for Most Sporting and Best Painted both won their respective awards (the former with a victory in the dice-rolling after a three-way tie, which is always a good sign for the niceness of the playerbase), which felt good. After a long weekend, it was time to work out my Masters points, sigh, grab some leftover sandwiches, and head home. Overall, it was a lovely event to cap things off until January, and I’d strongly recommend attending for folks in the area – the Element events have expanded their player count to 44 for next year, so there’s plenty of space even with 22 tickets already sold.

With the final results in, at the time of writing my UK Masters place looks secure. It’s been a journey with a lot of ups and downs, but it’s not over yet – so, look for a Part 2 in my Road to UK Masters series fairly soon*. In that, I’ll talk through my preparation for the field, and how I’ll be adapting my list to what I expect that field will look like. I’d have liked to have Ben next to me to celebrate, but hopefully they’ll be fully recovered by Masters anyway. For now, though, adieu my lovelies, and let me know if you enjoyed the read down in the comments** 🙂

*Vagaries of scheduling depending.

**but please not the Disqus ones! I don’t get pinged for those, and I hate seeing them weeks later and being like “oh no I ignored my sweethearts”, so please feel free to @ me elsewhere to get a response 🙂

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