Kings of War: Vanguard – Scenario Preview
3rd Oct 2018
Rob Burman
… and we’re back! After going through the campaign structure in Kings of War: Vanguard earlier in the week, today we’re talking scenarios. Right from day one, Vanguard features not one, not two, but 12 scenarios for your warband to battle it out over.
Each of these missions has a strong narrative feel that ties in to the idea of these being elite troops sent ahead of the main army. The 12 scenarios in the rulebook are:
- Supply grab – the standard scenario used in the alpha and beta rules
- Light the Beacon
- Free the Princess
- Recover the Plans
- Kill the Bard!
- The Dragon’s Egg
- The Power Stones
- Capture the Giant!
- Destroy the Baggage Train
- Burn the Stores
- Secure the Portal
- Kill the Commander
Ahead of a one-off game, you’ll need to roll off to see which game you’ll be playing, while a campaign can tell a particular story that sees you choosing which scenario to play each week. For example, week one could see you needing to light a beacon, before hunting down a dragon’s egg and eventually killing the commander. There’s a great opportunity to tell an overarching story.
Something we wanted to do with Vanguard was ensure that each of these missions felt as real as possible (well… as real as a fantasy game can be when you’re pushing tiny goblins around trying to capture a giant). As a result, we wanted to make sure each scenario has a piece of scenery or terrain that both sides are trying to fight over. After all, it’s more exciting to scrap it out under the shadow of a magic rune stone, than using a token to represent its incredible arcane powers.
This led to the creation of the Battlefield Objectives set. In this set you’ll find a piece or pieces of scenery that match scenarios from the book. It includes:
- 3 Ancient Standing Stones
- 1 Pyre with detachable flames
- 1 Captured Princess
- 1 Dragon's Egg
- 1 Fallen Spy
- 1 Rune Stone
- 2 Piles of Treasure
- 3 Piles of Supplies
This means you can create a gaming table that accurately matches the scenarios in the rulebook. Plus, they’ll look great in your Kings of War games too. Oh, and obviously we created the Vanguard Giant specifically for the Capture the Giant scenario. If you fancy picking up one of those before the official release date of January, then we’ve got around 20 pre-release Giants left on the website.
KINGS OF WAR HOOKS
Another exciting element of the scenarios is that each one has a Kings of War ‘hook’. We’ve mentioned several times that Vanguard and Kings of War work together, and this is just one of the examples of their synergy.
Each of the 12 scenarios ends with a panel explaining the Kings of War Hook. So, first you would play your Vanguard scenario and then that will affect your subsequent game of KoW. Let’s give you a couple of examples to whet your appetite:
FREE THE PRINCESS – in their next game of Kings of War, the winner of this scenario may grant one unit in their army the Inspiring special rule for free. Nightstalker armies must instead add +2 to the Ne values of one of their units.
RECOVER THE PLANS – if the Attacker wins, in their next game of KoW, they may deploy up to 3 of their units after all their opponent’s units have been deployed and before Vanguard moves. If the Defender wins, they may choose to give the Vanguard special rule to up to 2 of their units AFTER both sides have deployed their models but before any Vanguard moves are taken.
As you can see, there are some great opportunities to have linked games. You could even play several Vanguard scenarios and apply all their effects to your next Kings of War game. We’ll be exploring more of the links between Vanguard and Kings of War in tomorrow’s blog.