Vanguard at Franticon 2020

March 6th-8th 2020 marked the second iteration of Mantic Franticon, an enormous wargaming convention held over three days in central London (UK) celebrating Mantic Games' various IPs and hosting tournaments in Kings of War, Kings of War: Vanguard, Deadzone, Dreadball and a painting workshop (new in 2020).

The foothills of Krkonoše

The Black Order made the long march all the way from the Czech Republic to take part in Franticon 2020, trekking through the snows to reach the paved streets of London for one of the biggest emergent events in the Kings of War calendar. Having signed up for all three days (a choice I'd regret come Sunday morning), the schedule was as follows: Friday 6th: Vanguard

-200pt warbands fighting in 3 scenarios (Capture the Flag, Infiltrate and Kill, using the Angry Grot scenario pack)

Saturday 7th: Kings of War Doubles

-2x 1000pt forces (of cooperating alignments) fighting in 3 scenarios (Raze, Control, Loot) Sunday 8th: Kings of War Singles

-1650pt army fighting 4 scenarios (Smoke and Mirrors, Plunder, Push, Dominate) For the first event - Vanguard - this would be my first Vanguard tournament in the UK. I'd played tournaments in the UK and Czech Republic before in Kings of War, but only a few in the UK, so was quite curious what the broader meta would be, especially with a very large Spanish contingent in attendance.

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DAY ONE - VANGUARD

The Black Order sent a small detachment of veteran warriors to scout ahead of the Order's main warhost, joined by allies from the dark depths of the Deepwood and warriors from the mountain ettin clans. -Thrend Atop the Piled Dead (Snow Troll Prime with Forgebreaker and Potion of Haste) -The Crone of the Deepwood (Ice Queen with lucky charm) -Tostig, Morcar and Sigeferth (Huscarls) -Anselm and Kolya (Elf clansmen) -The Horror of the Deepwood (Frostfang cavalry)

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TABLES

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Round One - Capture the Flag

The first game saw the Black Order take on the Northern Alliance forces of Richard Martin. Roughly speaking, Richard's forces comprised of: -Thegn with a bow -2x huscarls with bows -2x elf clansmen -Ice Kin Hunter with a longbow -a Snow Troll

-and an Ice Queen to top it all off! Amused to face fellow Northern Alliance in game 1, we deployed fairly conservatively, although the table favoured Richard's extensive firepower with plenty of angles for his longbow-equipped Hunter to rain death on my models. I realised pretty early on my only hope for victory would be to use Thrend's Potion of Haste to nick the Flag in the board centre and leg it back to the Order's deployment zone.

Broadly speaking, that's exactly what happened. Richard was very unlucky to lose the initial exchange of arrows between our archers; his went down and mine made their armour rolls against all odds, and would prove a thorn in his side for most of the game. Thrend used his Potion to grab the Flag and then belt it back toward my lines while the hulking Horror (I mean, Frostfang cav) and the Huscarls provided cover. However, Richard saw a late-game surge which actually succeeded in knocking down Thrend on the very last turn of the game, sending the Flag flying out of his hands. Unfortunately for Richard I was still ahead on kill points, so even without the extra turn for Thrend to stand back up and pick up the Flag, the end result was that the Order won.

Takeaways: As will become clear in this report, the Forgebreaker/Potion of Haste combo is wicked good and the Potion of Haste is almost certainly undercosted at present. On a Sp6 (or more!) model it can give incredible potential for board coverage.

Round Two - Infiltrate

The second game was against a Spanish player (Javier, I believe) who had come 2nd in the UK Clash of Kings last year and was pretty new to Vanguard. Another Northern Alliance warband and this time the Triple Troll Threat - Javier ran a list focussed around the NA's unique ability to stack up on Large models like almost no other warband in the game. -Snow Troll Prime -2x Snow Trolls -3x Elf Archers -2x Huscarls

It would be fair to say my initial plan was to kill Javier's forces, not to focus on getting into his deployment zone. I was very concerned that 3 trolls would be able to outspeed my guys and generally cause havoc. I made two crucial mistakes in this game: I split my warband in half during deployment, putting all melee units on the right flank and ranged on the left flank (when I should have committed to one flank entirely) and spent the last two turns mopping up his units when I should have been scoring points.

Basically, I ended up wiping the enemy Northern Alliance forces (seriously - there were about 6 NA warbands at this event, 3 of which ran Triple Trolls - what gives, guys?) except for the last two models, both of which squeaked into my deployment zone, while I had only Tostig the Huscarl in his zone, and a very angry Thrend and the Horror standing on a pile of corpses in midfield. I was banking on a Round 6...and it wasn't to be. Had I had one more turn I'd have taken it, but really I should have played to the scenario more and not relied on another turn. Game to Javier (who went on to win the event).

Takeaways: I defeated myself in this game. In the end I think the kill points were something like 125 to 30 or so. Javier played very well considering he was extremely new to the game but I really shouldn't have been so conservative early on with staying in the midfield. I know better. I've seen Triple Troll warbands before and generally wasn't that impressed with them - all those points clustered in a few models - but Javier's superb armour rolls and unfailing use of Steady really managed to soak up a lot of punishment until the last few rounds. I'd have been better off sending the Elf archers to score points and using the rest of the list to crush things in the middle.

Round Three - Kill

Somewhat frustrated at myself for essentially defeating myself in game 2, now came the chance to purge a multitude of sins in the old-fashioned way: blood and sweat. Round Three would be a very straightforward Kill scenario against Jack's (sorry, missed your last name!) Nightstalkers.

This was a very straightforward scenario. Jack's list had some nice ranged potential - and even managed to bring down Thrend on the penultimate turn! - but the Order's vanguard was seriously angry from their defeat in game 2 and refused to fail armour rolls or miss melee attacks. I forget the final kill points, but it was a clear Black Order victory. Jack was a great sport (and got his revenge in grand style when 2 Phantoms unloaded point blank into Thrend with something like 6 or 7 exploding 8s!). I was really happy to play something that wasn't Northern Alliance! (Ironically, come Sunday, I'd be begging to play something that wasn't Nightstalkers)

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FINAL RESULTS

In the final standings I came 5th out of the 25 or so players. I wasn't too unhappy with the result especially given my performance in game 2. However, I was pretty sure I could have done better overall, had I given a bit more thought to the scenario in the second round. That said, it was my first big Vanguard tournament outside of the Czech Republic so not too bad overall. I came 3rd in the painting competition judged by Juan Hidalgo (first place Richard Martin's tartan-bedecked Northern Alliance and second place Matt Gorham's 'Crew of the Skinned Elf', an Ogre warband the Black Order has crossed blades with before).

Overall, day 1 of Franticon was great fun. I really enjoyed myself, met some great opponents and the Black Order gave a good account of itself. Roll on day 2, and the muster for Kings of War Doubles...

CLOSING THOUGHTS - QUO VADIS, VANGUARD?

My final thoughts: Vanguard is good fun and I've had some incredible experiences with it in a campaign setting. I ran an eight week campaign in Prague that everyone seemed to really enjoy and it remains one of my all time hobby highlights. Vanguard, for me, is going to be one of my main games for the foreseeable future. I think Mantic did a great job with its inception and I can't wait to see how it develops. However, Vanguard, for me and many others in Prague and London, can still go some way to being a more balanced and less frustrating game in the tournament context. I love the game, love introducing new players to it, and will keep playing it as long as I can. I can just see it can be an even better game still. It's tempting to blame the exploding 8s mechanic for making the game random - and it does - but it's not the chief culprit. Deadzone, also by Mantic, uses an exploding 8s mechanic and is much more balanced for competitive play. Vanguard is still in its first edition (it's the baby in the Mantic family!) so there's a lot of growing and fleshing out yet to do. No, the issue for me with Vanguard at present is that the rules system is a little too intricate and not always as intuitive or watertight as Mantic's products are famous for. As the latest FAQ released by Mantic indicates, there are still a lot of basic rules that most of the playerbase aren't aware of (such as Fatigued models not contributing Outnumbering dice) or getting entirely wrong (no one I've ever met or played against plays Obstacles the way the FAQ suggests - and everyone has a different understanding of what a "qualifying Charge" is). How to get a model into a Rear arc also seems to be open to varying interpretations. I also have long since lost count of the number of times I've tried to explain the differences between regular Fatigue and Forced Fatigue, and also the order in which Group and Extra Activations have to be done (and how they interact with Fatigue/Forced Fatigue). To some extent these issues are down to certain players expecting Vanguard to be "mini-KoW". These players should probably look at Vanguard as a game in its own right and not come at it expecting it to have the same rules as a game simulating much larger battles at a more distant level. That's just a mistake. However, it's also the case that the Vanguard rules are generally a bit complex. Were I to suggest changes I'd probably want to streamline the movement rules much more (especially with obstacles and difficult terrain) and - drumroll, shock, horror, gasp - I'd get rid of most of the Fatigue mechanics and replace it with a 'spend 1/2 Power for an extra short action once per round' much like the Deadzone mechanic. Far less to keep track of in terms of Fatigue bookkeeping, fewer counters on the table, and MUCH easier to teach new players. There might also be an argument for making Nerve work identically in melee and ranged attacks as that's a common bugbear for new players.

My travel setup for Vanguard - fits in a bag!

I've digressed slightly. Vanguard is great fun at present but where it really shines is in a campaign situation, not a tournament. However, if there's the chance to streamline the rules in 2nd edition, I genuinely truly believe that the game can appeal equally to fluff/campaign-based players AND tournament players. There's no reason why a more streamlined set of base rules shouldn't benefit both groups of players. The changes I've listed above are in alignment with the opinions of my gaming group in Prague and so far a few people in London also seem receptive. I really hope Vanguard moves in this direction for a hypothetical 2nd edition.