Adepticon 2025 2: Ambush

I hate beginning these with apologies, but unfortunately they are not getting any less late as I get to them.  I finally seem to have recovered from my case of con-crud - however work has been very busy (especially with me missing 5 days for Adepticon (I had only planned on 4)), and once I get to the weekend I have to do other silly things like pay income taxes.

However, finally, day 2.  

Mantic asked me to run a Kings of War: Ambush tournament at Adepticon.  My guess is because we used the Ambush rules for the team tournament I ran last year.  

Let me be honest - I LOVE Ambush!!! Really. The box sets are a fantastic bargain, sometimes being half the price (or less) of buying the models in them individually.  The idea of learning the game with smaller units on a smaller board that plays quicker - a great idea.  So much so that when I run "Learn to Play" events at Origins and Gencon, I have fully switched to 750 pt ambush lists (from the 1000 pt full lists).

However it is NOT a competitive game, and it is NOT balanced.  It is great to build forces and learn to play the game, or with them.  However if you already have an existing army, selecting an ambush force from it can result in pretty broken options.  I don't think I was the only one that thought that, as I only had 4 players for this event.  (Also, it was at the same time as the Kings of War Pairings event on Friday, and running two tournaments for the same game system simultaneously is generally not a great idea (we just don't have the hundreds of players that the 800 lb gorilla on the third floor has).

Jonathon Donovan, Joseph Pierce, Volker Jacobsen, Thomas Powers

With 4 players, we did a simple round-robin tournament - so everyone would play everyone else.  1st round was random.

Round 1

Volker Jacobsen v Joseph Pierce

Thomas Powers v Jonathan Donovan

During lunch, players put out the armies for pictures.  The event was so small that we had exactly 4 medals to hand out, so there was no painting award

Jonathan Donovan's Northern Alliance

Joseph Pierce's Varangur

Volker Jacobson's Northern Alliance

Thomas Pierce's Twilight Kin

Round 2

Joseph Pierce V Jonathan Donavan

Volker Jacobsen v Thomas Powers

Thomas Powers v Joseph Pierce

Volker Jacobsen v Jonathon Donovan with a Northern Alliance battle royal in the frozen north

So three fast, fun rounds, and it was medals all around, with time for everyone to head to the exhibit hall. With 4 medals, no could win more than one.

Best Sportsman, Jonathan Donovan

Third Place, Thomas Powers

Second Place, Joseph Pierce

First Place, Volker Jacobsen

Of course you can see the full tournament results at : Ambush @ Adepticon 2025

I don't think Ambush is a tournament variation of Kings of War.  The only way that such small games can be competitive is if the list are guaranteed to be balanced - so no one could do something weird like bring a ShadowHulk and 3 troops of Reapers.  Perhaps is all the lists were fixed - so that you would actually purchase the entire army - so wait, it isn't an army.  Not big enough for a battalion.  Maybe a company!  Purchase a company box similar to the Ambush boxes, but with the same number of units balance between all the sets.  Throw in a hero - no, a Champion to lead them.  Play it on an even smaller mat - one that could fit on an average Ikea kitchen table.  Something that small wouldn't really be Kings of War, it would be it's own game, but of course everything in it would be usable in Kings of War if the player wanted to continue collecting more units for their army.

Of course if you are interested in Mantic games and were at Adepticon, or have just been watching their news, you know I'm talking about Kings of War: Champions - the new stand alone game announced at Adepticon and shipping in just a few weeks.  The starter set has 2 companies, with 2 more released with them, then 5 more being released one per month through the summer.  After the initial 9, Ronnie has promised that each new army would ALWAYS include it's own Champions Company.  I'm excited to try and to run this new game, and I think it would be great fun for people to bring the companies and have a tournament next year at Adepticon!

Because it is all fun and games . . .