Another Kings of War game

I managed to get in another game of KoW a couple of weeks back at the games club. My undead were pitted against Rowans Barbarian horde. We rolled up the dominate scenario which was cool as I hadn't played that one before. Victory would go to the army that had the most points in the middle of the board. As it turned out there was no difficulty working that out as my undead were largely removed from the board before the end. It was a fairly close game though and I probably learnt more losing than I had in my previous games. I'll sum up what I did learn after the pics.

Initial set up - Rowans right flank

Rowans centre

 

Both forces

My wraiths and undead hero charge the barbarian left flank (this didn't work real well - I routed one but my wraiths were routed in turn)

One of my hordes holds up one of the mammoths and large infantry (this worked as I ended up routing both with some help from my second unit of wraiths and werewolves)

My right flank hold up the second mammoth and barbarian horse. I routed the later but was routed by the mammoth in turn

After I routed the one unit of barbarians

After I routed the mammoth on my right flank

Another shot of the clash on the left. In the end both of my units were routed with the mammoth and spearmen still in the fight

My skelly horde charges the remaining barbarians. The rout of my unit here sealed the game

The mammoth charges into my undead knights and finishes them off after they couldn't finish of the spearmen. This left me with no right flank and sealed the game

So what did I learn? Well this is the last time I waste points on troops (unless they are missile troops which can be worth it as Rowan showed). The problem with troops (and I used two of wraiths and one of werewolves) is they don't have sufficiently high morale to survive a decent scrap. I also made a mess of how I used by vampire knights who were routed off the board without doing much (they routed a troop of archers). I also made a really bad mistake of charging spearmen with my undead cavalry. Spears negate the benefit cavalry receive from charging (in this case +2 strength which makes it much easier to damage). It was the difference as I couldn't cause enough damage to rout that unit. I also made the mistake of flying my undead hero off into the centre of the board before I had routed the second unit of barbarians on Rowan's left flank. That second unit routed one of my troop of wraiths and a horde of revenants so that was a costly mistake. I should note thought that Rowan played a good game and that some of my tactics did work - i.e. the result wasn't down to my mistakes. All in all it was good fun and I'm looking forward to my next game.