Today my Conquest gaming group is putting on our first Last Argument of Kings 2.0 tournament at Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, MD! Conquest has been growing steadily in my area, and it has been great to see new players dive into this amazing wargame. Some of them are coming from other wargames, and some have no wargaming experience at all. One of the more interesting parts about Para Bellum’s Conquest is how you actually build an army list that can be played on the tabletop. Like some other games out there, Para Bellum has implemented a way to restrict some Regiment options by making some units only available to some characters, and some of those units only being able to be taken in limited quantities. This ensures players cannot just grab 10 of their best regiments and throw them into an army list with their nastiest character. This article will go over how I built my 2000pts One Hundred Kingdoms army for my Conquest tournament, and should be a good example of how army building works in Para Bellum’s Conquest.
Warband 1 Imperial Officer: This Warband starts off with my Warlord, the Imperial Officer. He has some defensive tech with the Armor of Dominion to turn off any Cleave or Smite for enemy stands in contact with him, and Disorienting Strikes to give anyone dueling him -1 to their Clash value. Refusing a duel makes the unit the character is in Broken, so it is extremely important characters have some protection against your opponent’s dueling. While -1 Clash isn’t a ton of protection, he will be sitting in a block of 5 stands of Steel Legion who have their Drillmaster Officer upgrade to get the maximum amount of attacks from the unit. With their Bravery and Oblivious special rules, along with the Tactual Tier 1 and Bastion from the Imperial Officer, this unit should be extremely resilient. Not to mention they are capable of hitting extremely hard with their Clash of 3 and Cleave 2!
This warband is rounded out with a regiment of Men At Arms containing 6 stands, some Militia Bowmen (oh, you poor poor souls who will be sacrificed as chaff every game), and some Hunter Cadre. The Hunter Cadre got a nice bump in the new edition with their Fiend Hunter special rule giving them full re-rolls to hit against Monsters or Brutes now. It will be interesting to see how often this comes up, but with so many Brutes and Monsters in the game I am guess they will be an MVP unit. I would have loved to get a Null Mage Officer upgrade for them as well, but points got tight and I chose not to include one. Hopefully I won’t be kicking myself if this unit gets close to any enemy mages.
Warband 2 Noble Lord: My second warband starts off with a Noble Lord on foot. Before the changes to Household Knights and the Mounted Noble Lord in the 2.0 update, every single 100 Kingdoms army I built started with a Mounted Noble Lord in a big block of knights. It is nice to not feel punished by not including this combination in all of my 100 Kingdoms lists, so I am going to try out the more economical Noble Lord. He is still coming in at 105pts with the Combat 1 and Flesh Cleaver Heirloom, but I think that is a steal for adding some serious combat punch to the 7 stands of Men At Arms he will be accompanied by. The larger your Regiments are in Conquest the better their Resolve becomes making it easier for them to pass those morale tests.
This warband is rounded out with a minimum unit of Mercenary Crossbows and 2 units of House Hold Knights. The knight’s Brutal Impact went down from 2 to 1 in 2.0, but they got cheaper. They have been excellent speed bumps in my practice games, and they can still put out some serious damage with a first action Charges followed by a Clash. It is extremely important in Conquest to have some fast moving units to set your Reinforcement lines. Since your units do not start on the table, but instead move onto the table from a board edge, the further up you can set that reinforcement line to bring units on for the sides of the table the better.
Warband 3 Water Chapter Mage: This Chapter Mage may be my favorite unit in my army. With the Kiss Farewell, a crossbow that a noble’s wife had commission built to be used in the assassination of her husband (the lore in this game is amazing and this may be the best weapon lore of them all!), she comes to the table with a Barrage of 7 and the Deadly Shots special rule! Combining this shooting with the shooting profile of the Crossbowmen she is attached to will put out some serious ranged firepower, and since Characters make their attacks with the Regiment they are attached to she will never be losing out on her spellcasting with her one character action. For her spells, I decided to go with the School of Water for her since I think even the slightly worse 2.0 version of her healing spell is still extremely valuable. With Arcane 3 she should be reliably healing any unit that needs it regardless of it’s size.
We will see how my 100 Kingdoms performs today in the new 2.0 ruleset, but I know I will have a blast playing this game win or lose. List building for Para Bellum’s Conquest is very simple since there are only about 8-10 Regiments you are adding to the list. The real fun of list building in this game comes from the granularity of building your characters to perform the role you need them to on the tabletop. We will see if I accomplished my goal of building a strong all-round army after my games today.
If you are looking to start building your Conquest army, or need to add some Regiments to an existing collection, check out FLGs webstore for some amazing Conquest product at a great discount. My next article will have pictures from the event along with writeups of each of my three games, so wish me luck!