Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings
| Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings | ||
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| Wargame published by Para Bellum Wargames |
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| No. of Players | 2+ | |
| Session Time | 1-2 hours | |
| Authors | Alessio Salvatore | |
| 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. 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 equalling being important factors.
The Lore
Genesis of the World & the Four Horsemen
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The Exiles
The exiles are Elves from another planet, originally just colonists on Eä using magical portals they've created to explore new worlds. However after UNSPEAKABLE EVIL did something to their homeworld they fled to avoid bad things. However after the first of the lowerclass nobles arrived they 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. Which resulted in the 3 way civil war that split the 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 Fall
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The Dragons and the Dweghoms
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The Nords awakening
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Nepenthe remembers
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 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 prefering 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.
