Kings of War List Building: Goblins & Abyssal Dwarfs!
October 31, 2013 by crew
If you're looking for a couple of army lists to get you sorted for Kings of War then check out these two rather epic lists by Pathfinder Christopher Nicholls who has been gaming in the fantasy world of Mantica for a while!
Goblin Army List: The 300!
This was the list I took to Clash of Kings this year. I battled very hard and only lost one game in the final against the person who won. This list ended in 3rd place. It's very simple to play with. No great amount of skill is required. Just patience with glueing so many of the little buggers!
The core of the army is five Hordes of Sharpsticks and three regiments. Lets have a look at what this actually looks like on the table.
As you can see that pretty much covers the entire line of battle. What this means is that in order to get behind your first line your opponent will have to go through it. This is not as easy as you might think. Sharpstick hordes have a high nerve value at 19/21 without command, and you better believe these are worth the extra points as they keep the roadblocks in play as long as you can. They also get to come with Phalanx which means cavalry and flyers suffer a -1 to hit them.
These units also have a fair amount of hitting power. With thirty attacks the bucket of dice will have some impact when they hit if they are not suffering from the totally spineless rule (1 in 6 chance of standing still when trying to charge), but their main job is to stop your opponents from getting to the damage dealing units, the rock lobbers!
At fifty points a warmachine these things are an absolute steal! They have a special always hit on a 5+ shot (Indirect Fire) and do a staggering 2d6 blast with a piercing value of three. Those armored knights your opponent is using are being blown away by the hail of rocks falling through their ranks! They do however have a dangerously low nerve of 8/10 so enter some cheap inspiring Zap! action in the form of a Wiz!
Wiz are a cheap fifty point Wizard option which serve two very important purposes in this army.
1. They are inspiring. This means that when an opponent breaks one of your units within six inches these guys force them to re roll the dice.
2. They bring some added artillery of their own. Being Zap! three a group of these can gang up on those pesky flyers that get behind your line, or that unit that does get through the Sharpsticks.
Here is the army list in full.
5 x Hordes of Sharpsticks with Standard and musician
3 x Regiment of Sharpsticks with Standard
7 x Rocklobbers
7 x Wiz
You could drop the command units to squeeze in the extra Hero or Warmachine. However there will be that one time where your opponent gets that lucky roll and breaks you by one point. So be safe and take the flag!
This army does not venture into the wealth of other units available to the Goblin army and I could spend a long time debating the merits of each and every one of them. However, they didn't make the cut for this army as I wanted to kick start my collection with hundreds of the bread and butter guys. I feel that goblins should always be run as a horde army.
You should always have hundreds of the bugger on the table. If you don't, then you're not doing it right!
Abyssal Dwarfs Army List: Wall of Stone
As the title of the army suggests this build is based on a wall of stone.
The Abyssal Dwarf list is actually very broad compared to their cousins (standard Dwarfs). You have the option to build a standard Dwarf list with them, including lots of heavily armored stunties going round the board picking fights as usual, but they also have flying units, monsters and BIGGER warmachines.
One of the first units to jump out at me were the Lesser Obsidian Golems. With defense six and nine attacks for a solid unit these guys were pure gold for ninety points. Their ability to take a pounding and stay in the fight with no waver value and a break point of forteen meant they were perfect for forming my 'wall'. Sure they are shambling which means they don't get to go at the double, but trust me, your opponents will want to come to you!
Behind the wall should be the best warmachines (in my opinion) in the game. The mighty Ankgor Heavy Mortar. These are ninety point warmachines with a high defense (5) and 3d6 blast at piercing 3. With indirect fire these guys hit almost anything on a 5+. A good roll with one of these will threaten to break hordes!
Next in line would be the Gargoyles. Present in both this army list and the Twilight Kin lists, these make some of the best anti-warmachine hunters in the game. They are fifty point threats to anything your opponent wants to hide. They have onlyfive basic attacks, but against warmachines they treble this to fifteen!
With fly it means your opponent may only get one round of shooting with his cannon before these things are tearing the poor crew apart and looking at the rear of his line! They also have a nifty ability called regeneration which might make them hang around a bit longer.
Now comes the hammer! The finest beat sticks for the points cost in the game. The Mighty Abyssal Halfbreed Champion!
This guy is fast (speed 8 )
This Guy is tough (defence 5 with 14/16 nerve and regeneration!)
This guy is strong (6 attacks at crushing strength 3!)
This guy is inspiring, which works on himself too!
He's individual which means missiles and warmachines without breath attack suffer an additional -1 to hit him.
Hes individual which means he has 360 degrees of vision, so he can charge in any direction ( a term I call ping ponging between units)
He doesn't double or treble his attacks, but when you have three of them hitting the same target they don't need to!
I like to load them up with Wings of the Honeymaze, to give one flying, boots of the seven leagues, to give one a full move before the game starts and can therefore charge on the first turn. The third one gets pipes of terror, to add an additional +1 to trying to break my opponents units.
Last would be the two standard bearers. These guys are inspiring, which keeps your wall in check as the halfbreeds should be tearing away at your opponents line and too far away to help. I like to give one a healing charm, which really annoys opponents when they have finally put some wounds on your defence six Golems, only to have them removed! The other goes armed with Da Boomstick, which is a great little item giving him Zap 3! Who can resist modeling a dwarf with a shot gun!?
Here is the army list in full.
5 x Troops of Golems
5 x Ankgor Mortars
3 x Halfbreed Champions
2 x Standards
2 x troops of Gargoyls
1 x half Regiment of Gargoyles
Wings of the Honeymaze
Boots of the Seven Leagues
Pipes of Terror
Healing charm
Da Boom Stick
So there you have it guys! That's two massive army lists for both the Goblins and the Abyssal Dwarfs. Which one would you plump for and is there anything you'd change to fit your own needs?
Drop some comments below and we welcome your own army list designs! Send them to ben@beastsofwar if you'd like to get yours featured but make sure to include a neat run down about why you chose what you did.
Get stomping!
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Who says you can’t min/max in Kings of War?!
First of the two lists has the better feel for me. Feels like a Goblin army despite it being so, er focused.
Abyssal dwarf army doesn’t feel like an Abyssal dwarf army at all, being just two lone dwarf flag wavers and a horde of monsters.
Doesn’t mean that either army’s not a meance to face on the tabletop however…
I do like using standard Abyssal Dwarfs in other lists I run. They have some very hard hitting units. I think for the list above its about seeing how far from a standard Dwarf list you can take it. I know my regular opponents would like to see me using some standard Abyssal. Its also a fairly cheap army to put onto the table. When I 1st made it the Golem miniatures were not about. So I used some Dwarfs from the Ironclad box and painted them in a suitable stone colour! So only needing 15 miniatures to make the… Read more »
Berserkers would be cool to see in numbers. Am waiting to see someone field a regular Dwarf army made up of just them and Brock Riders.
Kudos on actually -painting- all those goblins by the way. 🙂
Thanks for writing this. I am an Abyssal Dwarf lover and I must say I will keep all of this in mind for the future. The golems sound quit lovely. The Mortar look really nice as well and sound very nasty. Again. Thanks for writing this.
Goblin Hordes are fun!
And spikey too……
Always great to see opponents reaction when I start putting hordes down for every regiment they do….
Interesting read, thanks.
looks good
Those models are nice I like the half dwarf half horse looking one sporting the hammer…
Those lists are brutal.
Im a bad man…..
Feels like the abyssals could use some halfbreed regiments to me. The goblin list does seem plain brutal, however I wouldnt do it myself just for the sheer amount of goblins to glue and paint…
For those who dont know you can use battlescribe to help make your lists for free.
Kings of War is just a cool game to play with your mates.
Yep, weve had no arguments over rules in over 2 years of playing……
Looking forward to playing this.
Some good solid units and still in feeling with each Army type
Great post.
Thanks guys.
Looking forward to adding to both Armies next year. There will be some great releases coming up.
I have a grudge match booked in for February against Mr Mantic himself Ronnie, who will be using his Standard Dwarfs against my Abyssals. Check out the events page on the Mantic site around then……. loser to shave their beard off????
Its awesome to see a tournament Goblin army that was sucessful while still quite characterful!
I like how the magic items don’t take over the game like they did in WFB.
Indeed. They still effect the game. As I said there is nothing sweeter than healing a unit that has a defense of 6…….
Though watch out for dragons with boots of levitation…..
love that little green horde and both lists suit a playstyle i sometimes miss from a while a go (and a game i rarely play now) of shelling my enemies into submission while forcing them to stay back
Its a good tactic. Try to protect your warmachines while hunting his. Then blast him into submission.
Though I just began building a load of the Abyssal infantry yesterday…… we will see what I can come up with!
This was a good article! I’ve linked your work in my own about KoW armies: https://alkony.enerla.net/english/the-nexus/miniatures-nexus/miniature-wargame/wargames-kings-of-war-sample-armies