My friend Kevin and I pre-ordered the first wave of product for Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, a rank'n'flank mass battles game designed by Alessio Cavatore and published by a Greek company called Para Bellum. The "core box" is a two-player starter set featuring the Hundred Kingdoms and Spires factions. The former are your standard medievalish humans and the latter are decadent space aliens, otherwise known as elves.
This past weekend, we finally had a chance to break out the core box forces and try out the rules. We settled on a 10-round match without objectives, just to ease into the mechanics. I consider this a "test drive" because we were only trying to destroy one another with no other, more complicated goals to drive strategy and tactics and because we used a very small number and variety of the units available to the factions.
In Conquest, all units are categorized as Light, Medium, and Heavy class. Armies encounter each other gradually over the course of first five turns of the game, starting with Light regiments scouting out the battlefield before the hardier ones march out. Below is a picture of Turn 3 from our test drive. I'll describe how we got to this point over the first two turns in detail, sketching out some of the fundamental mechanics of Conquest.
To deploy Light regiments on Turn 1, the players need to roll a 3+ for each. Mercenary Crossbowmen and Force-Grown Drones (hereinafter "FGDs") are the Hundred Kingdom and Spires Light regiments included in the core box, respectively.
Kevin successfully rolled to deploy his Crossbowmen (who are literally un-armed; Kevin didn't have time to finish assembling them) from his table edge while my Force-Grown Drones ("FGDs" for short) apparently decided to hang back.
Players can start rolling to deploy their Medium regiments on Turn 2, needing a 5+. You still need to roll a 3+ to deploy Light regiments on Turn 2. The core box comes with two Medium units for the Hundred Kingdoms: Men-at-Arms and Household Knights. There is only one Medium unit in the core box for Spires, the Brute Drones.
On Turn 2, Kevin successfully rolled for his Household Knights and I did the same for my Brute Drones. The Men-at-Arms and FGDs must have still been en route. The Crossbowmen advanced forward toward a low wall dividing the battlefield and the Household Knights rode up behind them. In Conquest, you can charge through friendly regiments so long as the end position of the charging unit doesn't overlap that of the friendlies. My Brute Drones marched up behind a stony patch of bush to gain some cover from any potential crossbow fire.
Any Light regiments that have not previously been deployed automatically march on the field on Turn 3. Medium regiments pass their deployment test on 3+ on Turn 3. My surly FGDs finally arrived (far left in the picture above) and Kevin succeeded in bring on his Men-at-Arms (not pictured above, with apologies to the reader) to meet them.
A few notes at this point:
First, every unit in your army has a corresponding card which goes into your Command Stack. At the beginning of each turn, you put the cards representing each unit in the order that you want to activate them. The players take turns drawing cards from their resulting Command Stacks.
Second, characters in Conquest must enter the battlefield as part of a regiment of the same type as them. In addition to class (Light, Medium, Heavy), every unit also has a type (Infantry, Cavalry, Brute, Monster). In the core box, the Hundred Kingdoms character is a mounted Noble Lord (who has type Cavalry) and so must come onto the field with the Household Knights. The Spires character in the core box is the Pheromancer (who has type Infantry) and enters the field as part of the FGD regiment.
Characters have their own cards in the Command Stack but do their moving and fighting along with whatever regiment they have joined. When their cards are drawn from the Command Stack, they can use certain abilities (like spells) or take special character actions (such as challenging an enemy character to a duel, in certain circumstances). Many of these abilities involve changing the order of the Command Stack, so you need to take this into account when building the Command Stack at the beginning of each turn.
Third, and this is extremely important, deployment zones change as regiments march deeper into the battlefield. Heavy regiments may deploy from any edge of the battlefield behind your forward-most Medium or Heavy regiments, which has not itself been surpassed by an enemy regiment. Light and Medium regiments likewise deploy from any edge behind your forward-most Light, Medium, or Heavy regiments. This means destroying enemy regiments or even just marching past them can have the greater impact of disrupting your opponent's ability to bring reinforcements into battle from as far forward as they might otherwise deploy. It also means you have an incentive to get your forces moving up into position rather than hanging back.
With those points explained, I can get into the whys and hows of the picture of Turn 3 above.
I won the initiative roll at the top of the turn and so marched my Brute Drones up toward the Crossbowmen. I knew they would have to take some fire but wanted to get my deployment line deeper into the field for when the FGDs came on. Kevin responded by moving his Household Knights behind the Crossbowmen, no doubt hoping he would win initiative on Turn 4 and be able to charge the Brute Drones through his Crossbowmen after shooting them on this turn.
Seeing the Knights committed against the Brute Drones, I brought in the FGDs from my new deployment line behind the Brute Drones, hoping to tempt Kevin to respond by deploying his Men-at-Arms against them, which he did. I marched them onto the low stone wall mentioned above. Without going too far into the terrain rules at this point, I was hoping to tempt Kevin into charging me over the wall but we'll come back to that. In the meantime, Kevin unleashed a full volley of aimed bolts at my Brute Drones, killing one of the Brutes. I wasn't too worried with two left, just as long as I could win initiative on the next turn.
At the top of Turn 4, I succeeded on my 5+ deployment test to bring on the Abomination (type Monster, class Heavy). And, unfortunately for Kevin, I also won initiative! The two remaining Brute Drones duly smashed into the Crossbowmen and destroyed the entire unit.
Importantly, "Charge" is not an attack action. Every regiment can take two actions per activation and the only action that can be taken twice in an activation is "March." The Charge action is a move equal to the regiment's March value plus d6 inches. Charging into a regiment prevents that unit from being able to Charge that regiment. But the Charging regiment will need to have another action remaining after the Charge to attack, or "Clash." If the regiment Clashes after Charging, it makes Impact attacks on top of its normal attacks to the tune of one half (rounded down) of its normal attacks.
Every successful Impact and Clash attack triggers an injury roll by the regiment receiving the attack and any unsaved result in wounds. Then the regiment that received the attacks must make a resolve test for each unsaved wound with each unsaved resolve test causing an additional wound! This can make charges against regiments with low Resolve stats absolutely devastating, as Kevin's Crossbowmen found out! (Note: Wounds taken as a result of ranged attacks do NOT cause Resolve tests, making Conquest impervious to "gunline" army lists!)
But with the Crossbowmen wiped out, Kevin took his revenge and charged the Brute Drones with his Household Knights and Noble Lord, handily wiping them off the battlefield. Next, I deployed the Abomination up behind the portion of low wall at the very center of the battlefield, hoping that I would either tempt Kevin to once again Charge over a wall (which is even more dangerous for Cavalry type regiments) or force him to maneuver around it and miss his Charge in the case that I lost initiative at the top of Turn 5.
Kevin deployed his Men-at-Arms from his right flank edge and attempted to Charge my FGDs before they scurry back over the wall. But he rolled a 1 on his d6 and just barely missed it. Turn 4 therefore ended with the lucky FGDs backing up and putting the wall between themselves and the grim Men-at-Arms.
Kevin won initiative on Turn 5 and wheeled his Household Knights around to get into position, basically trying to prevent my abomination from Charging into their flank, which as in all rank'n'flank games is an especially effective attack. Nevertheless, I charged my Abomination into their front rank, eviscerating one of the Knights.
Perhaps regretful that he did not simply take the risky charge over the wall against the Abomination, Kevin steeled his resolve on his right flank and charged over the low wall at my FGDs. Terrain is wonderfully simple in Conquest. There are a few generic rules that can be assigned to the terrain you are using at the beginning of the game. For the wall, Kevin and I decided we would apply the Broken Ground and Hindering rules. In a nutshell, this made the walls dangerous to Charge across.
Kevin's Men-at-Arms not only lost their Impact attacks because they charged across the wall (Hindering) but also needed to make a test for every stand of figures in his regiment that charged across the wall (Broken Ground); in this case, all six stands! The Men-at-Arms took three casualties before making contact with the FGDs, a tremendously unlucky roll.
The Clashing Infantry regiments pictured above pre-casualty removal. The terrain doesn't actually appear in the picture because we had to remove it, considering the Men-at-Arms were attacking from on top of it. Note that the core box contains six stands each of Men-at-Arms and FGDs and they can be taken in regiments of three stands. But the core box only comes with one card for each, meaning you can't actually use them as separate units right out of the box. This is my only real complaint about the core box.
At the top of Turn 5, I once again lost initiative and made a big mistake. One of the characters in your army must be assigned as your Warlord and each character type has a specific Supremacy ability it may use if it is your Warlord. The Pheromancer's Supremacy ability is to give +2 Resolve to ALL of your regiments, making them that much more resistant to taking casualties as a result of failed Resolve tests. But I clean forgot about this!
Kevin began the turn by attacking the Abomination with his valorous Household Knights. Even without the benefit of Impact attacks, they were able to take out half of the Abomination's wounds. I then drew my Pheromancer card and once again healed another d6 wounds on my FGD regiment, taking them back up to their original six stands! (But that sixth stand was comprised of only one out of four Drones ...) Kevin then Clashed against the FGDs to good result, removing two of stands I had just replaced.
I then drew my Abomination card and attacked the Household Knights. This time, I did even better and killed the two remaining Knights. When the regiment that a character has joined is removed, that character is also removed! The silver lining is, if that character's regiment had not yet acted, the character gets to make some parting attacks. That did not apply in this case, as the Household Knights (and the Noble Lord accompanying them) had already attacked at the top of Turn 5.
Finally, the remaining FGDs counterattacked the Men-at-arms, inflicting exactly one or two casualties.
At the top of Turn 6, I once again forgot to use the Pheromancer's Supremacy ability ... But I did win the initiative and drew my Pheromancer card, once again returning two stands to the FGD regiment. Kevin responded with his only remaining unit and the Men-at-Arms attacked to devastating result: A regiment that loses half or more of the stands it began that turn with gains the Broken condition. This isn't that bad per se but if a Broken regiment would become Broken again it then becomes Shattered, meaning it is removed in its entirety.
Meanwhile, the Abomination laboriously turned around to line up against the Men-at-Arms' flank but even this tremendously fast monster could not get that far across the battlefield after wheeling around. To finish up, the FGDs again achieved exactly nothing against the Men-at-Arms.
I again won initiative on Turn 7 and again forgot to use the Pheromancer's Supremacy ability. But I did realize at this point that the Pheromancer's healing ability was neither limited to the regiment he joined nor by any range restriction. I therefore healed the Abomination back to full health to take on the Men-at-Arms!
And that's when I realized I had made an even bigger mistake than forgetting my Pheromancer's Supremacy ability on the previous turn. Rather than making my useless attack on the Men-at-Arms, I should have used the Rally action to get rid of the Broken condition on the FGD regiment. I simply didn't know that there was a Rally action. Oh well, that's what test drives are for, right?
Back during Turn 6, when the Men-at-Arms clashed against the remaining three stands of the FGD, they inflicted enough wounds to remove two more stands but NOT to outright wipe out the regiment. I was elated because this meant the Men-at-Arms would not be able to reform to avoid a flank attack by the Abomination. But since removing two of three stands was enough to again inflict Broken on the FGD, they became Shattered and had to be removed entirely along with the Pheromancer!
Kevin then reformed his Men-at-Arms for a brave last stand against the Abomination. Over Turns 8 and 9, the Abomination leisurely took them apart, resulting in victory for the alien Spires forces. It's not that the Men-at-Arms had no chance against the monster; but they would have needed to roll better than they did on both their Clash and Resolve tests, and the Abomination has special rules that allow him to tear through its victims armor and reduce their Resolve stat.
Preliminary Conclusions
I really enjoyed this test drive. Perhaps typical of Alessio Cavatore's designs, many meaningful decision points emerge from a fairly simple and straightforward rule set. Kevin and I did not encounter any questions that we could not answer by fairly quick reference to the rule book. The highlight was certainly the moving deployment zones. I am really excited to play around with the implications of that mechanic. I also loved the terrain rules, which were very simple to understand and created interesting tactical opportunities and challenges without overdetermining the shape of the game play.
Some thoughts about the Spires units:
Weighed up dispassionately, FGD have a bad stat line, sure, but as you can see they aren't meant to assault so much as to tarpit and with the support of a Pheromancer (even one played as badly as I did) they are pretty damn good at their job. The Men-at-Arms are no joke and the poor FGD survived three rounds of combat with them. Of course, putting that wall between them also helped.
I didn't talk very much about the Brute Drones above but they are suitably impressive and I don't blame Kevin for deciding to deploy his Household Knights against them. Paired with the Abomination, it is hard to know where one should concentrate; if allowed to operate together, they are capable of all sorts of hammer-and-anvil shenanigans.
Speaking of the Abomination, it is truly terrifying (and even has the Terrifying special rule). With a March value of 10 inches, Resolve 4, Defense 3, and 10 attacks ... well, the only saving grace is that its Clash value is merely 2 (meaning it normally only hits on 1s and 2s). This thing is only available as a Restricted choice for the two Spires characters that can legally bring it to the table.
The Pheromancer is the weakest Spires character and he's nothing to write home about in terms of his stat line. For those playing out of the core box, be aware that he is doomed if the Noble Lord manages to call him out in duel. But his Accelerated Hibernation ability pairs wonderfully with the FGDs, as you can see in this report. That ability, however, is not as wonderful in a list with lots of cards in your Command Stack, or at least that's my hypothesis.