New to the Kings Empire

[DeleteAccount]

So, got some models and still waiting to get a game in, but was hoping to get some discussion going. Anybody played any games with them? What works and what doesn't? What assets do you guys usually go with on commanders and the Kings Hand? Stuff like that.

I have the backer stuff model wise which is enough to field a 2 full Commander force. Assets, margaret seems to really want the binoculars (the one that lets her maje a unot shoot at +6 range) and her personal one while Edmonton I'm keen on the assistant and his personal one. Kings Hand I'm inclined to go big gun, symbol of the realm and the one that makes him better when in glory, but I can certainly see going for other ones.

I do feel a bit frail in theory with what I'm packing, are whales brawlers a good addition for tarpitting? Almost a must even?

So yeah, hoping to hear some stories and suggestions from other players.

[retnab]

For Maggie I usually take Rapier Wit and either the Radio or the Military Assistant (if Charles doesn't have it). Rapier Wit threatening the enemy with passing their own attacks back at them is a real good way to keep her alive

[DeleteAccount]

2 hours ago, retnab said:

For Maggie I usually take Rapier Wit and either the Radio or the Military Assistant (if Charles doesn't have it). Rapier Wit threatening the enemy with passing their own attacks back at them is a real good way to keep her alive

Sounds nice. Any other assets that seem worth it? The generic negaphone is temoting since I don't see many sources of reinforcement outside of Edmonton's asset and that one is pricy.

And what do you play around with on the Kings Hand?

[retnab]

Medal of Honor's good for the extra TT and trigger, Marching Boots is a good anti-Hordes pick for the extra Ar vs hazardous, and the Map's good for deployment control. Haven't used the megaphone much but I think it'd be better on the backline commanders more IMO

King's Hand actually has 6 super solid assets, I think it's one of the best for counter-building to what you expect your opponent to bring so I don't really have a set list for it

[DeleteAccount]

1 hour ago, retnab said:

Medal of Honor's good for the extra TT and trigger, Marching Boots is a good anti-Hordes pick for the extra Ar vs hazardous, and the Map's good for deployment control. Haven't used the megaphone much but I think it'd be better on the backline commanders more IMO

King's Hand actually has 6 super solid assets, I think it's one of the best for counter-building to what you expect your opponent to bring so I don't really have a set list for it

And as for the units themselves? Any duds or ckear winners? They all seem to have a purpose at a glance, but curious.

[Jinn]

South Wales Borderers are absolutely amazing. After they lose a single model they get better stats than most 9+ cost units. They get +2 to ALL Acting Values of a fireteam if it has lost a model, which includes Sp, Df, Wp, and Ar. That puts their stats to 9Sp, 6Df, 6Wp, and 9Ar, and then they also get a Stat 7, (effectively) strength 3, which is solid for a 9 cost and amazing for a 6 cost. I hate fighting these things.

Honourable mention to the Behind Enemy Lines Stratagem that can summon these in your opponent's deployment zone, preferably after all of their dangerous models have gone allowing them to heal up on the next turn.

[DeleteAccount]

3 hours ago, Jinn said:

South Wales Borderers are absolutely amazing. After they lose a single model they get better stats than most 9+ cost units. They get +2 to ALL Acting Values of a fireteam if it has lost a model, which includes Sp, Df, Wp, and Ar. That puts their stats to 9Sp, 6Df, 6Wp, and 9Ar, and then they also get a Stat 7, (effectively) strength 3, which is solid for a 9 cost and amazing for a 6 cost. I hate fighting these things.

Honourable mention to the Behind Enemy Lines Stratagem that can summon these in your opponent's deployment zone, preferably after all of their dangerous models have gone allowing them to heal up on the next turn.

Oh wow, I was only thinking in terms of it workong on their attack actions, not everything. It doesn't increase their Sp when moving tjough, right? Only for when doing tests. Also, I believe that they cannot cheat penetration flips when the fireteam is missing a model, so I assume that's the balancing factor there, that they are very swingy when they hit?

And yeah, the Behind the Lines strat with whales seemed like a match made in heaven, a part of me wonders if it's worth only drawing 1 card turn 1 to buy that stratagem and drop them at the end of the turn, or if so much action already hapoens turn 1 to justify going with almost no hand.

[Jinn]

7 hours ago, Razhem said:

It doesn't increase their Sp when moving tjough, right? Only for when doing tests.

It actually does, weirdly enough. The Sp stat is an Acting Value and it is that AV that determines the number of inches moved in an order.

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45 minutes ago, Jinn said:

It actually does, weirdly enough. The Sp stat is an Acting Value and it is that AV that determines the number of inches moved in an order.

Oh, ok, that's kind of weird at a first glance but neat. And how is the Kings Habd and titans in general? Seems like it's pretty easy to flip a few assets turn 1 before they do anything for example.

[Jinn]

12 hours ago, Razhem said:

And how is the Kings Habd and titans in general? Seems like it's pretty easy to flip a few assets turn 1 before they do anything for example.

It is always pretty easy to flip them back as you can spend reinforcement tokens freely during their activation to do so. If you have Thrace or Kassa you can speed it along a bit. If you get the tactics discount for being behind on VP getting the Medic! stratagem is a no-brainer for 1 tactics token.

My main King's Empire opponent brings Kassa with her Bigger is Better upgrade and the King's Hand and maybe an Abyssinian titan to get Kassa +2 tactics. Add on a Medal of Honor for +1 tactics gets her to 5 tactics. So she activates and discards a tactics token to flip to glory, draws 3-5 cards by flipping assets on the King's Hand, maybe gets it to take a Gatling Gun attack. Then, later in the turn, using the Keep Calm and Carry On stratagem my opponent flips Kassa from glory to get a second activation, discards a tactics token to flip her back into glory, and then generates another 5 tactics tokens. Let me tell you, from the receiving end of it this is a very powerful strategy to face. KE is up something like 6ish tactics tokens and 6+ cards with a very healthy Titan.

[DeleteAccount]

10 hours ago, Jinn said:

It is always pretty easy to flip them back as you can spend reinforcement tokens freely during their activation to do so. If you have Thrace or Kassa you can speed it along a bit. If you get the tactics discount for being behind on VP getting the Medic! stratagem is a no-brainer for 1 tactics token.

My main King's Empire opponent brings Kassa with her Bigger is Better upgrade and the King's Hand and maybe an Abyssinian titan to get Kassa +2 tactics. Add on a Medal of Honor for +1 tactics gets her to 5 tactics. So she activates and discards a tactics token to flip to glory, draws 3-5 cards by flipping assets on the King's Hand, maybe gets it to take a Gatling Gun attack. Then, later in the turn, using the Keep Calm and Carry On stratagem my opponent flips Kassa from glory to get a second activation, discards a tactics token to flip her back into glory, and then generates another 5 tactics tokens. Let me tell you, from the receiving end of it this is a very powerful strategy to face. KE is up something like 6ish tactics tokens and 6+ cards with a very healthy Titan.

Christ that sounds beefy! So if I understabd correctly, Kassa flios assets even if they are not broken, draws cards from that abd does it again to put them right side up again abd draw more cards?

[Clement]

It's weird that "Keep Calm and Carry On" is half the price of "The Lion Among the Gazelles", can be used on more things, and still lets you generate tactics tokens.  All for the price of flipping from glory (hilariously trivial with King's Empire Kassa) and can't be repurchased.

I assume Kassa is using Emergency repairs to break an asset or two, then more emergency repairs to flip it back over?   Or is she getting them broken some other way?

 

[DeleteAccount]

2 hours ago, Clement said:

It's weird that "Keep Calm and Carry On" is half the price of "The Lion Among the Gazelles", can be used on more things, and still lets you generate tactics tokens.  All for the price of flipping from glory (hilariously trivial with King's Empire Kassa) and can't be repurchased.

I assume Kassa is using Emergency repairs to break an asset or two, then more emergency repairs to flip it back over?   Or is she getting them broken some other way?

 

As I understand it, Stratagems are intended to be one of the King's Empire's strengthgs, so I'm not bothered by the extra omph it packs compared to the Abyssinia one, but it does seem pretty "gamey" the whole interaction with Kassa.

[Nukemouse]

Margaret Belle is the only commander i've played, i think Medal of Honor and Rapier Wit work best on her, feeding her more tactics to use with rapier wit whilst letting her hand out or gain inspired tokens.

[spooky_squirrel]

On 12/21/2018 at 8:18 AM, Clement said:

It's weird that "Keep Calm and Carry On" is half the price of "The Lion Among the Gazelles", can be used on more things, and still lets you generate tactics tokens.  All for the price of flipping from glory (hilariously trivial with King's Empire Kassa) and can't be repurchased.

It's a KE strength, having flexibility in Stratagems.
KC&CO with Kassa and her upgrades nets you a great deal of tactics tokens if you build your forces to contain more Titans (King's Hand and either Mechanized Infantry/Steel Legion), with potential card draw from this shenanigan, but also additional use of a Titan through her abilities. The flipping from Glory cost seems a bit more steep in KE than it would be in Aby (like, why bother in Aby, we'll be back in Glory on the next action if we're doing things right), except for Kassa with Bigger is Better (tbh, it's hard to not Envoy KE in order to use that Asset in Aby as well).
If you're using this on Kassa, you're spending 2 up front to buy the Stratagem and then using 1 more to put her back in glory. If you have 2 Titans on the board, you'll get 4 Tactics tokens when she activates, netting you a total of 1 more Token than you spent.. and then you're using her repairs to ideally keep Titan Assets in play, drawing a card for the effort. So hopefully this is what you need it to do, instead of giving your Motor Scout an extra activation to place another Trap Marker or your Royal Rifle Corps the ability to finish off a threat, etc.

KE might get that reactivation effectively for free (Tactics Tokens wise) for using it on a Commander or Champion (or for a net gain of 1-2 Tactics Tokens with Kassa), but they only get it once. This is a balancing thing that keeps it from being over the top, even if being used with Expert Training.

Aby has card draw built into every action that can declare a trigger and can potentially get a fairly steep discount (-2 Tactics Tokens for a total cost of 2 Tactics Tokens, bringing it to the same cost for hiring the Lord of Steel and being down by as little as 1 VP), while being able to use it again. What we get out of additional activations with our Commanders is quite different. For instance: TLAtG with Lord of Steel lets me jet him over to claim an objective later in the turn, potentially when there's nothing my opponent can do to undo that. Or it lets him drive that spear into something that's just about dead anyway, if the Operation calls for it. His Tactics rating of 1 means that I don't miss out on much not being able to draw new Tactics tokens.
More importantly: it means that I'm not getting a reusable reactivation of my Commander for free* when I use it with Kassa or Unathi instead of the Lord of Steel.
Because it is narrower in focus, there's a lot less "okay, do I reactivate Kassa to get some Tactics Tokens back and maybe some card draw, or do I reactivate this other things to work the Operation"; we are limited to two units to choose from in a two Commander game. It means less overall flexibility from the Stratagem, but a much more focused intent that doesn't weaken us for using it.
Something to think about (balance wise) is that if The Lion Among the Gazelles allowed for reactivating a unit without some additional cost like flipping from Glory, then things would get bonkers fast in Abyssinia, especially with Gloried Electrocutioners running around. Expert Training does this, once per game at a fairly steep cost if you aren't stacking discounts on it. We end up losing balancing effects if we open up that Tyrant's Box

It's a different set of resource stresses. Aby ends up needing Tactics Tokens support. From what I see here, KE could use card draw support to maximize things on the table. It's also a different mode of play on the table, helping keep the characteristics of KE and Aby enough apart where they remain two distinct forces with distinct ways of playing them. This helps keep things more interesting, Aby isn't KE wearing heavy armor, KE isn't Aby on laundry day.