Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings

Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings
Wargame published by Para Bellum Wargames
No. of Players	2+
Session Time	1-2 hours
Authors	Alessio Cavatore
First Publication	2018

"Ultima ratio regum."

– Cardinal Richelieu

"War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means."

– Carl von Clausewitz

"I am a king and I have one last argument."

– King Fredrik "The Great" of Brandengrad

The game

Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings is a Rank and Flank tabletop strategy game in the style of Kings of War and Warhammer Fantasy, with the rules written by who else but Alessio Cavatore (Game has developed since, further from the original design from Alessio). I guess the guy has a type. Conquest's concept is basically revive a Warhammer Fantasy setting that doesn't exist currently while also not being generic Tolkien plagiarism. While also actually encouraging strategy outside of listbuilding.

The game has a few unique mechanics that create an experience which makes it quite different from other Fantasy and Rank 'n File games.

First: Alternating activations, the good shit. After a regiment activates, your opponent gets to activate one of theirs, its basic stuff but makes the game less of a "oops i killed your whole army on my turn" affair that is unfortunately present in other games.

Second: The command deck. You pick the order your regiments will activate at the start of the turn, then you stick to that order (Unless you're a cheating Spire motherfucker) via the command deck. This creates an element of prediction to the game, sometimes its better to activate a unit that might not be obvious first because you know your opponent's response is likely deep in their deck, and you could take advantage of that knowledge.

Third: Regiments have 2 actions. Your dudes get to pick from a list of actions (Move, Charge, Shoot, Reform are the basic ones) you can use these in any combination, you just can only use 2 unless a special rule is allowing you a third.

Fourth: Dynamic Deployment, your furthest forward unit creates a line, you can deploy units on the edges of the battlefield as far as this line goes. Meaning giving your opponent lots of ground can be very dangerous, UP YOURS GUNLINES! However you can counter this by moving units past their line, which pushes their line back that far

Fifth: Unit weight classes. Lights, Mediums, and Heavies. Your scouts actually matter! You don't start out with any of your army on the table actually, you start rolling for reinforcements turn 1, Lights can come on as quick as turn one or as late as turn 3, while heavies might not show up into the 5th turn. However because of this your Light units are usually either cheap scouts or very expensive special forces dudes. Mediums are line holders or pushers generally, while Heavies are line breakers and usually a bit undercosted due to them taking forever to get to the battle.

These things add up into what is a unique experience in wargaming, with listing building, positioning, and prediction equaling being important factors.

The rules are free and you can get them off the company's site

The Lore

Genesis of the World & the Four Horsemen

Originally there was Creation and Destruction. One aeon Destruction was sick of Creation creating stars and matter so they had a smackdown that ended in a tie: Creation was punched so hard he became the star and magic stuff of the universe whilst Destruction was slashed so badly he decided to have a nap. With both bros out of action and the cycle of creation and destruction broken, their sister Balance came into being. Balance struck a deal with what was left with Creation. She would imprison Destruction on the condition that Creation would never try to reform. He agreed and so Balance hugged the napping Destruction until she covered him with herself and he became the hot core of a new world called Ea.

Destruction had some pretty bad dreams though that manifested into 3 horsemen: Famine (an entity that ironically just wanted to eat everything), War and Death. In a weird proxy war, Creation manifested his own horseman called Conquest and the four duked it out, with the magical space entities later called 'Dragons' stepping in. In the end, War was buried in a cage of his own essence deep in the earth close to Destruction with the others banished or 'killed'. Balance, watching all this, was so sad with this conflict she cried tears, which swept over Ea, and eventually became life. Life turned out to be pretty damn good and the Dragons decided they wanted in on this. Being incorporeal space gods apparently wasn't enough. So 2 Space Dragons remained as they were while the rest eventually formed fleshy bodies to live in, sacrificing more and more of their superpowers as they tried to become more natty. Things would stay this way for a while until Ea would see it's first humanoid faction arrive: the Exiles.

The Exiles

The exiles are Elves from another planet, originally just colonists on Eä using magical portals they've created to explore new worlds. Unfortunately for them, eventually some UNSPEAKABLE EVIL started having a party on their homeworld, so they fled to avoid the "festivities". However, after the first of the lowerclass nobles arrived, some of them decided to be huge cunts and seal off the gate they used to get there, killing off millions of fellow Elves. This, unsurprisingly, pissed off everybody. Thus a 3 way civil war started, spliting the surviving Exiles into the Spires (the guys who did the whole self genocide thing), The Weavers (hippie elves), and The Quiet, who presumably listen to emo music and dye their hair black and neon blue.

The Spire are dedicated to Returning home, and willing to do anything to get back because they're cutthroat psychopaths.

The Weavers want to Terraform Eä because they're presumably scared to try and get back/don't think they can get back.

The Quiet are edgelords who do mysterious stuff that we don't know about because thats their job.

The Spire and Weavers tried to make up after the civil war by coming together to try and cosplay as Norse gods. This resulted in the Nords and their Einherjar demi-god daddies. However the Spire fucked it all up because thats their job and some dickhead named "Loki" killed the guy who was supposed to alert the Einherjar of the Ragnarök about to happen. This resulted in the death of pretty much all of the Exiles in the process of pretending to be a god. Thus the Weavers and Spire had a second bad breakup after their terrible makeup sex and absolutely refuse to work with eachother.

The Dragons and the Dweghoms

As the Dragons tried to become more natural they came across some problems. Biggest problem was that any offspring they had a 100% autism rate. Second biggest problem was that they never died. So those that became fleshy first formed a Boomer ruling class and those below never moved up the social ladder were forced to hear Boomer humour for eternity.

With their society stagnant with a 0% mortality and birthrate, as well as effectively blocked from political life, the zoomer Dragons became more materialistic with their Nintendos and Fidget Spinners but they saw an opportunity in the war against the recently arrived Exiles. In the peace treaty they added a demand that the Exiles teach them how to bio-engineer life. From that spawned the first of the Dwarves, a slave caste, made to serve the Dragons and empty their piss jars.

The Dwarves were hardy little dudes but the Dragons were getting sick of teaching any newly created Dwarves how to do their jobs all the time. So the Dragons asked the Exile biomancers to give them memory, which had its own set of problems. As the Dwarves were becoming a little more self-aware of their horrible lot in life a few would occasionally attempt to revolt, only to find that they physically could not, possibly due to their bio-chemical makeup. Those that tried were sent to the deepest parts of the mines to work. This turned out to be a MONUMENTAL mistake, as the rebellious dwarves dug closer and closer to the sleeping form of Destruction. Turns out mixing underlying rebellion with Destructive tendencies is a bad idea. To make it even worse for the Dragons, the dwarves came across the Horseman of War, caged in a prison by the Dragon's making. Inbued with fuck-ass-mad determination, fire powers and crazy endurance, the dwarves who took the path of War would become the Dweghom. They broke the cage, causing all the older Dragons to stroke out, and started their revolution, simply called the 'First War'. The First War was huge and highly destructive. 99.999% of the Dragons were wiped out and any Dwarves that remained were also cleansed with such vigour that it would make several African nations blush. After the war the Dweghom would attempt to write the history of the First War, only to immediately fall into infighting over what exactly happened.

Right now the Dweghom (don't call them Dwarves. It's their N-word) society is completely based on war. Even the way they measure time is based on the military's standard of a 'watch' with the 'first watch' beginning with the First War. Anything NOT war is considered frivolous and asking them to do any sort of labour is akin to spitting on their beard (although there are exceptions. Someone has to make weapons). Right now the Dweghom are a very powerful but very fractured force that doesn't take much to piss off. With the Hundred Kingdoms and Spires starting to take shots at each other, the local Holds are looking to expand and settle old scores.

The Fall

As the Dweghom infused themselves with the essence of War itself and the Exiles played God, far to the east a tribe of humans started worshipping a magic battery and invented religion. Something that would totally not have any negative consequences. Trying to find shelter from the elements, this tribe started exploring an abandoned Dweghom hold and began gathering around an old furnace for warmth. Soon enough, they discovered that the power source for the furnace was a tiny of sliver of Creation, fractured from the big guy during his fight with Destruction. The more it was worshipped, the stronger it became, in time becoming a full on deity named Hazlia who led his people out of the ground and into the world to found a civilisation called the Old Dominion.

For a while, things were pretty good and in time, humanity under Hazlia was starting to match the elder races in power. A government was formed with Hazlia at its head, who created a pantheon of his own budding personalities and a couple older deities who were invited to join him. Hazlia built a floating celestial palace above the Dominion's capital from which he would occasionally trot down and do a magic trick or two for his fans. A breed of half-humans were designed by the Exiles to do the Dominion's general labour, leaving citizens time to do other things, such as worship Hazlia.

Then one day Hazlia decided that the humans in the far north, the Nords, should be conquered for....reasons? Tens of thousands of men were thrown into the snowy wastes for no gain and three entire legions were wiped out in the Dominion's land war in Asia. For the Nords this was their Ragnarok, the ultimate war, and even without their superpower Exile-enhanced Einherjar, they fought the Dominion to a standstill. Then Hazlia decided to go to war against the Spires for....reasons. The Dweghom, needing no real excuse to fight, jumped in as well and now the Dominion found itself fighting a three front war. Sure enough things started getting crazy: leaders blamed the half-human workers for their woes and the resulting pogroms meant no-one could work the fields. Crop yields dropped, people starved and any 'criminals' were rounded up as slave labour to try to fix the labour shortage meaning more legions had to be taken off the front lines to deal with the constant slave uprisings.

The XII Legion however refused the call back to the capital. Longtime worshippers of Cleon, the God of Soldiers and Honour, they had been effectively banished to guard the western passes of the Dominion's frontier. The first clue that things back home weren't right was the growing hordes of refugees fleeing the Dominion. A trickle became a flood and anyone with brains that could see the end coming had taken the gamble to cross the Wastelands and over the mountains. The XII took on the job of protecting the refugees, majorly pissing off Hazlia. Out of spite more than anything, another two legions were sent to deal with them, only for one of the legions to join the XII and betray the other.

Back at the capital, the human government figured out pretty quickly that Hazlia had gone mad. Two initiatives were made: first was to get all men of science and knowledge out of the Dominion ASAP, down towards the southwest. The second was to kill God. Operation Kill God worked but Hazlia was so triggered by the whole thing he had a tantrum and crashed his palace into the earth, wiping out the Old Dominion and bringing on a mini Ice Age, henceforth known as 'The Fall.'

For the lucky refugees that had fled west and crossed the mountains, they would eventually settle in the expanse beyond, founding what would become the Hundred Kingdoms. The XII Legion, now the Last Legion, stayed in the mountain passes, fighting back whatever nightmares were creeping out of the magical radiation from The Fall. This was apparently so traumatic, no survivors would say what happened during that winter. Instead they would form 'Orders' to help guide the survivors and try to stop them from murdering each other.

The Nords awakening

It’s not easy being a Nord. If the endless snow, wildlife and rogue giants don’t kill you, then poverty and starvation will. It’s not surprising so many try to get on the yearly raids south.

Living on the northernmost continent of Mannheim, the stubborn people there used to live under the reign of the Jotnar, a species of giant, that would come down from the western mountains for a casual butchering now and then. Life changed when the Weavers and Exiles, posing as Gods or perceived as Gods, came into town and settled down in a giant tree. The two groups of Elves, led by a being called Thor, had decided to try and make-up since their latest spat and thought the best way to do this was make SCIENCE! on the locals. That said, for once the Elves were not complete dicks and from all accounts cared for the Nords, foretelling a time when the legions of light from the South would attack Mannheim: Ragnarock.

The Elves started gene-splicing the Nords to give them superpowers however it was soon found that trying to splice certain traits into humans won’t work if it goes against their inner natures. For example, If you’re a quiet stalking hunter type, then wolf DNA would probably work but, say, Giant DNA wouldn’t. The Elves took the best of the best amongst the Nords, Captain America’d them and put them in stasis in secret halls to await the final battle. These super soldiers, the Einherjar, would be their secret weapon. When the Old Dominion did roll in, the elf Loki (who, unsurprisingly, was a massive dick) stopped the waking call for the Einherjar, leaving the Nords and their Gods to fight alone. The Nords won but at a massive cost. Their Gods were dead, their population decimated and the economy ruined. With The Fall followed the Winter, followed by the Jotnar, who took advantage of things to dab on the survivors.

The only shining light in this was the Einherjar. After waking up and finding no-one to fight, they instead settled down with the Nords and helped them rebuild society, even as the Nords revered them as demi-gods. As generations passed, the Einherjar bloodlines have become pretty diluted but they are still crazy powerful, capable of doing insane feats. 200 years ago The Hundred Kingdoms realms on the Northern Coastline got a firsthand taste of this when a Nord raid became a full on invasion that threatened the Heartland. Turns out an army of half-wolves, trolls, superhumans and giants are really fucking effective. This invasion was beaten back but with the Hundred Kingdoms and Spires going to war, the Nords are ready for some payback against the descendants of the Old Dominion.

Factions & army list

Conquest has 4 factions currently, while 4 are known to be in development, there are as many as 18 planned.

The Hundred Kingdoms

Basically the Holy Roman Empire, but less like The Empire more like "Oh shit the Emperor is dead and now everyone is killing eachother." Think lots of tiny nations vying for control constantly, hence the name. Armies consist of tons of ranged infantry, lots of MIGHTY HORSES, with The remnants of the Empire (read as platemail wearing heavy infantry) backing them up. Oh yeah, there's also the almost superhuman Orders. Basically Knights who were blessed BY GOD... and maybe related to the Spire enhanced Nords.

Spires

The Alchemist, one of the numerous bad guys in Eä. And of course: an elf!

The Spires Are space Elves that are essentially a mix of Dark Eldar and Skaven. Murdered 99% of their race as a power grab which immediately resulted in a civil war. On the battlefield they don't fight directly preferring to use clones and drones for all of the menial stuff like warfare and manual labor. Able to use a horde army of drones, a elite army of clones, or a monster mash army.

Dweghoms

FUCKASSMAD DWARVES. Sold their souls to escape slavery, and now are obsessed with war on a level that would make a Greenskin blush. Plays like a grindy melee army with lots of heavy infantry, bullshit OP wizards, and Drakes with cannons!

Nords

Glass cannon vikings who fugged demigods and got Werewolves. Armies consist of MANLY vikings, deformed monster babies, and JÖTNAR! Are mad at the sons of the fire giants for eating their gods during Ragnarök. Enjoy nice walks on the 100 Kingdoms coastline to grab as much loot as they can.

City States

A bunch of cities based on ancient Greece. Some have gone full steampunk with crazy Archimedes-inspired war machines while others have gone furry with Centaurs and the like. Originally they were all ruled by a guy that thought he was so cool, he cloned himself to fill all government positions.

Wadrhun

The orcs ('c' like Tolkien Orcs, not 'k' in 40k's football hooligan Orks) of this universe. Originally created by the Spires as a living weapon against the Old Dominion and are still struggling with that fact. Nowadays they live in the eastern Wastelands, mostly around the oasis surrounding old Spire towers. Very much the 'noble savage' trope with feathers, loincloths and chick Orcs riding dinosaurs.

Old Dominion

Hazlia demolished the Old Dominion, but he didn't exactly end it entirely. This pissed him off so fucking badly he forced his way into the realm of Death and effectively invented the undead as a massive call out post on reality; with millions of his former subjects rising from their graves to tend to this ruined kingdom and utterly decimate the living, with a giant beacon of Hazlia's maddened fury drawing all the craziest motherfuckers in the world to heed his furious call. Rules wise they're a slow, defensive army of roman undead who gain bonuses for losing troops; preferring to grind out victories, with occasional undead god-fragments for flavor.

Notes, pictures and trivia

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