Kings of War: Vanguard – How to Build a Warband

All this week, we’re giving you the lowdown on our fantasy skirmish game: Vanguard! The two-player starter set is now in stores, so we thought this was a great opportunity to introduce the game to potential newcomers… and tempt some of you out there to give it a go! Remember, you can always get a sneak peek by reading the free rules here. In the full rulebook, you’ll find more missions, campaign rules, advanced spells and more equipment – but the free rules are a great place to start.

Another important element is learning how to create your gang, so in this blog we’re going to discuss the ins and outs of creating a Vanguard warband. We wanted to make sure the process for creating your elite gang was as straight forward as possible, so there are only a few things to remember. You can also use the Easy Army website to make it even easier to compose your chosen group of fighters! The website contains all the factions and equipment – plus it’ll tell you if you’ve composed an illegal warband.

Firstly, let’s look at the different types of models:

COMMAND – well, you’re going to need someone to do all the shouting. Command units come in all shapes and sizes, from the massive Snow Troll Prime in the Northern Alliance list to the humble Stinggit in the goblin faction

GRUNT – these are the lowest of the low. Even in an elite warband, you need a little bit of chaff to throw at the enemy. However, when they’re not dying horribly, grunts are useful for claiming objectives. You can also give them one piece of common equipment, should you wish

WARRIORS – now we’re talking. Warriors are far more capable when it comes to getting stuck in and can choose two pieces of equipment from the full range of items. Plus, they’re a little harder to kill thanks to the Down and Out rule

SUPPORT – this is the catch-all name for a range of specialists that can add some extra oomph to your warband. Although some will be used to back-up your core troops, others (like the Forces of Abyss Hellequin) are ready to lead the charge when it comes to combat. Support units tend to have a special ability that can form the backbone of your squad

SPELLCASTER – as the name implies, these are your magic users. We’ll be covering magic in a future blog because Vanguard introduces some interesting new mechanics for the way magic works in Pannithor and each faction gets some unique spells! We’ll be covering that in a future blog

LARGE – Large models are the big guys in your warband. However, they don’t always just provide the muscle, because a large model can be a mix of types. This means you can have a Large Command unit (like the Snow Troll Prime), a Large Spellcaster (Forces of the Abyss Warlock) or Large Support (Ice Elemental)

Now, you can either read on to see an example warband, or take a look at the video below, in which the Weight of Fire crew take you through how to build a warband…

BUILDING YOUR WARBAND

So, now you’re up to speed on the unit types, let’s have a look at how to build a typical 200 points warband. Firstly, you must take a minimum of five Warriors and/or Grunt models and one Command model. To give you an example, we’re going to build a Forces of the Abyss list.

To start with, let’s choose the Grunts and Warriors:

2 x Flamebearers (Grunts – 9 points each)

2 x Lower Abyssals (Grunts – 8 points each)

2 x Abyssal Guards (Warriors – 14 points each)

The above comes to 62 points, which means we’ve got another 138 points to spend. This is when we can start to have some fun with the other types of units. You see, for every three Warriors/Grunts in our warband, we can take up to one Command, one Support and one Spellcaster model. What’s more, for every 150 points in the warband, we can take one Large unit – although some factions have special rules that allow them to take more.

In our Forces of the Abyss warband we’ve got six Warriors/Grunts, which means we can add up to two Command models, two Support models and two Spellcaster models.

We still need a Command unit, so let’s add that to our warband.

2 x Flamebearers (Grunts – 9 points each)

2 x Lower Abyssals (Grunts – 8 points each)

2 x Abyssal Guards (Warriors – 14 points each)

1 x Seductress (Command – 45 points)

We’re now sitting on 107 points, so we’re going to have to think carefully about what’s next in the warband. Well, we can take up to two support units (because we’ve got six Warriors/Grunts, remember), so let’s add a Gargoyle and Hellequin to the list. Now our warband looks like this:

2 x Flamebearers (Grunts – 9 points each)

2 x Lower Abyssals (Grunts – 8 points each)

2 x Abyssal Guards (Warriors – 14 points each)

1 x Seductress (Command – 45 points)

1 x Gargoyle (Support – 18 points)

1 x Hellequin (Support – 29 points)

We’ve now got the maximum number of support models for our warband, but we can still add one more Command model or two Spellcasters. The Forces of the Abyss only have the one spellcaster: the Warlock. As well as being a Spellcaster, the Warlock is also a Large model – thanks to the chubby cherub carrying our tormented magic user.

This means that if we want to include a Spellcaster in our Forces of the Abyss warband, it will come at the expense of the Despoiler, because that is also a Large model. Decisions, decisions. Well, in this case, we’re going for the Crushing Strength of the Despoiler to hopefully cause our opponent some problems.

2 x Flamebearers (Grunts – 9 points each)

2 x Lower Abyssals (Grunts – 8 points each)

2 x Abyssal Guards (Warriors – 14 points each)

1 x Seductress (Command – 45 points)

1 x Gargoyle (Support – 18 points)

1 x Hellequin (Support – 29 points)

1 x Despoiler (Large – 37 points)

With the addition of the Despoiler, our total goes to 191 points, which leaves us 9 points spare. This could be spend on an extra Flamebearer or Lower Abyssal, or we can add some equipment to our warband to boost the existing units. Check out a future blog when we’ll run through the various options for giving your warband new equipment.

As you can see from the example above, you’re going to have to choose carefully when it comes to creating your warband because you’re not going to be able to cram everything in. Of course, when making your Company for a Campaign you’ll have 400 points to play around with, but you’ll still be forced to choose a 200 points list when heading into combat.