Para Bellum Games released version 2.0 of their massed battle fantasy wargame Conquest today, and it
is looking like the game is going to be even more finely tuned and exciting than it was in the 1.5 version.
Para Bellum put out a solid TLDR version of the 2.0 update complete with the game designers thoughts
and reasoning on the various 2.0 changes. You can find this, and the complete 2.0 Conquest rules,
completely free over on the Para Bellum Games website. The creators of Conquest also did a complete
overhaul of the armies for the game for the 2.0 update, but unfortunately we will have to wait until
Wednesday to see the army changes. For now, we can go over the top three biggest changes to Conquest The Last Argument of Kings main rules. After checking out the new rules (along with the new army roster rules on Wednesday) go check out FLG’s recently updated stock of Conquest models over on their webstore.
Infantry Stand Change- Previously, players treated their stands of 4 infantry models of a set of 4 single
models who happened to share a bigger square base. This meant the single models contributed their
wounds total and attacks to the stand’ s offensive output or survivability. While this was an interesting way to organize models for a massed battle fantasy wargame, it did come with one glaring downside. It limited Para Bellum’s game design to counting by fours. A single infantry model could gain a single wound, but then their stand would increase from 4 total wounds to 8 wounds. In the 2.0 version of Conquest, stands are treated as a single stat entry on the table. While there are still models that go in your infantry stands the entire stand could have 5 wounds instead of 4, or even 6 attacks instead of 4. It will be very interesting to see which units get an extra wound or attack with the use of this new system.
Shooting Change- In version 1.5 of Conquest any regiment shooting missile weapons over half of their range also halved the number of shots the regiment took. This rule is gone from the 2.0 version of the game, letting shooting units fire their regiments full total Barrage for every Volley action. This is going to mean shooting units will become more effective in Conquest 2.0, but if you are worried about the game devolving into a gunline fest; don’t be. Para Bellum tempered this buff to shooting regiments with a full rework of the profiles of the shooting regiments number of shots and ranges.
Guaranteed Reinforcements- During my local Conquest groups very first tournament last month, I saw an
Old Dominion player lose a game due to his abysmal reinforcement rolls. When I walked by their table
all of his undead units were engaged with the dinosaur riding W’adrhun roughly 10 inches away from his
board edge. This is the kind of game that is not fun for anyone, and Para Bellum made some changes in
2.0 to fix this. Now, one unit per Round is guarenteed to come onto the board with no reinforcement roll
required. This may be the single biggest change in 2.0, and the affect this will have on everything from
army building to how units are deployed onto the table cannot be overstated. Taking a single Heavy regiment in your army doesn’t mean you are accepting that unit won’t show up unit Round 5, and getting that long range Light unit onto the board Round 1 won’t be a 50/50 preposition.
These are just three of the biggest changes for Conquest 2.0, and there are a ton more that you can see by checking out the rules over on Para Bellum’s website. It will be extremely interesting to see how these changes interact with the updated army rosters that will release on Wednesday. Check back here for complete 2.0 army roster change overviews starting with the 100 Kingdoms faction later this week!