Sorcerer Kings (Court of Air) Versus 100 Kingdoms (Orders Feudal)

First things first! Not quite an apology but an explanation, I usually try to write one or more battle reports a week. I really enjoy it, it helps me improve, and I hope it brings some sort of value/fun/knowledge into your life random reader! But life has been so hectic since the beginning of December, my wife had twins! They are healthy but yeah. Life is hectic. Between being with the twins in the NICU and then life, work, my kids at home, it took about 7 weeks for things to settle down enough to even get to the game store and play a game!

Last Monday I got to sneak away spend some time with the twins at the hospital and then go to game night at the FLGS. I was able to play Steven and his Feudal/Orders list.

Now you will notice that my list is 1990, that’s because I had the ranged Trinvarta in the list builder but wanted the melee one so I just swapped them. Also I hate Jadoo Kavach and will be changing that.

You’ll notice. Horse.

Steven’s list is awesome. I love the Errant of the Order of the Shield and anything he does on principle and I absolutely love the giant blob of Crimson Tower Knights. Looking across the table I know a few key things

1. Nothing I have kills Ashen Dawn in any sort of effective matter and everything I have dies to Ashen Dawn
2. I have insane ranged pressure and I am actually a fair bit more mobile than him.
3. To survive I gotta kite the heavy cavalry and get ahead on points.

We rack up Breakout and get ready to go

Early Game

Round One – We each do pretty well on our reinforcements, Steven heads to the flanks with Militia Bowmen and Mounted Squires, I punch straight up the gut with my Ghols. I really want to take out the objective and see if I can set up some move blocks to make the center really hard for him to score.

Round Two – We continue to posture at each other. I get the long bomb charge with a Ghol unit and fail with the other I begin to chip away at the objective. Our ranges are quite similar, but quality is very much on my side of the board for the ranged battle.

Mid Game

Round Three – This was a big round things started to fight. Using some Court of Air nonsense, I plinked another wound off the objective with Dhanur Disciples move, volley. Drew into the Sorcerer with Dancing Scimitar who killed the objective and then allowed the Ghols to reform and march, charge into the men at arms. They survived the clash from the flank. The right side flank became much more posturing as there were no clear targets of opportunity for either side. The left side is something I’m quite proud of. I was very patient with the left side of the game, I was able to leverage the power of “Huge Command Stack” and activate the left side of the game after everything else. I used the cheeky special movement action of the Steelheart Djinn to move charge onto the zone even though they had been move blocked.

Round Four – Okay, things just…exploded this round. I got a little too cute with my Raj/Steelheart block. I ended up using Lightning Bolt to kill off the Militia Bowmen and I got enough successes to cast again, so I went for a reform to get out of line of sight of the Household Knights, into the Men at Arms and Errant of the Order of the Shield my Ghols had tied down, and potentially just lock down that flank. Sadly, my charge clash didn’t do that much damage and my Steelheart died to the exact point of damage they needed. Ghols cleaned up the Men at Arms and with the powers of “Giant Stack of Cards” I was able to get into the Household Knights flank after they had activated with a march charge.

At this point I feel really good about the left flank. Okay-ish about the right flank, and terrified of the middle flank because that’s 6 Crimson Tower and a Priory Commander.

Late Game

Round 5 – Well the Household Knights go down to a clever little spell called “Spear to Face” as the Steelhearts took a huge chunk out of them from the flank and my Initiates cleaned up the rest. Surprising no one, I bravely ran away from the Ashen Dawn and tied up the Crimson Tower with my Evasion 3 Big Birb in the flank. Ashen Dawn are tied down to that zone due to the close score we had at this point in the game and the rest of my forces are able to slowly whittle down the Crimson Tower blob.

We were both decently tired at this point and we decided to talk out the last few rounds. Sadly the Crimson Tower Knights got gummed up by some random birds, they truly could’ve run amok with some nasty march charge combos

Post Game Thoughts

Steven is always a blast to play against, it was great that he was my opponent after almost two months without a game because he knows Sorcerer Kings inside and out and was able to help me shake the rust off. So even though I won it was with assistance!

In terms of my list, I love it. I love the movement nonsense, the reforms, everything about Court of Air is so fun. I will have to tinker a bit because I HATED Jadoo Kavach. The 10″ just doesn’t go far.

Things I did well – I was a shifty dirtbag, I was using some SHENANIGANS this game. I loved it. I was able to dodge line of sight, dodge this, dodge that, and just use the Court of Air rules to my advantage. That felt really good because I had to be super ahead on attrition to have any chance because nothing I have kills the heavy cavalry effectively.

Things I want to do better – The Raj/Steelheart blob is really really important and I need to be much more careful with it. I need to not lose stands to random Mounted Squires

Things Steven Did Well – I think he had a great gameplan with attacking the flanks. He knew he had the advantage late game so trying to get an early lead definitely was the right call. Things didn’t work out quite how he wanted but it was an excellent game for sure

Honestly, thanks for reading, I hope you are well. Obviously this is a wild time in my life and I can’t commit to regular reports but they’ll be around when I can. I hope you all are staying safe and well in these unprecedented times, if you ever need anything, even if all I can do is simply chat about Nerd Dollies with you I hope you reach out instead of withdrawing. Community is very important and the Conquest one is top notch.