Kings of War: Vanguard v1.5 · Manual

1. Setting up the campaign

The campaign combines the map and rounds of Kings of War · KK with a Kings of War: Vanguard company. The wizard covers the name, story, image, number of players, the map with places, gold settings (starting gold, base income, gold per point, selling loss), the warband size and the campaign modules (chapter 9).

Maps within maps. A place on the campaign map can get its own map – e.g. a city with its districts (the “Place map” button in the map editor). Points on it are full campaign places: they have an owner, income and events, and warbands can go there. A place on a place map can have a map too, so there are three levels (e.g. land, city, district). On the campaign map such a place has a dashed ring and an “Enter” button. With the “Paths between places” module, the point details on a place map mark the entrance from the parent place.

Places on the map have a name, a description and an income per round. Some are marked with the ⚑ banner – these are spots for hideouts. The GM invites players by nickname; the roster closes when the campaign moves to Choosing hideouts, where every player takes a free place with the banner.

2. The round step by step

Preparation – the GM adds events; players buy and sell models and items and build warbands.
Orders – warbands secretly march to events on the map. The shop stays open.
Battles – orders are revealed and the service announces the battles. Players fight them on the table and enter the results.
Resolution – each side of a battle settles injuries, equipment, experience, advancement and the retinue.
Dusk – winners take places, and “End round” pays the income and cancels the orders.

The GM switches the phases. After battles are announced there is no return to Orders, and after resolution starts – to Battles.

3. Company and shop

The company is made of models of one faction from the Vanguard catalogue. There is no points limit – only the player’s gold limits it.
A model or item costs its points multiplied by the campaign rate. The shop is open before the rounds and in the Preparation and Orders phases.
Before the company is confirmed a sale returns the full price, afterwards the price minus the campaign’s selling loss.
A leader is enough to confirm the company. After confirmation nobody changes the faction; before it, changing the faction deletes the company and returns the gold.
Common and Rare items are bought without limits. Unique items come from GM rewards; the GM can also grant a model.

4. Warbands and orders

A player builds several warbands from company models; each model can be in only one. The smallest valid warband is a commander (Command) and one warrior (Grunt or Warrior) – such a warband can go to any fight.
A warband has at most as many points as set in the campaign, and an event can lower that limit. Type, class, LARGE and unique character limits work as in Vanguard.
A mercenary is hired when building the warband; the service takes the gold fee when it is sent.
In the Orders phase a warband goes to an event on the map. A player sends one warband to an event, and several to different events at the same place. A place without events takes one warband per player. A warband can also be sent to its own hideout to defend it.
A sent warband cannot be changed until the end of the round, and its models and items cannot be sold. The GM can undo a mistake.

5. Events

Several events can go on at one place. Each lasts a number of rounds, counted from the round it was added.
An event can set the battle scenario or an “Other mission” – invented by the GM and described in the event text (what is played and how). Without a choice the service rolls a scenario for two warbands and picks King of the Hill for three or more.
In Light the Beacon the defender may add at the table, for free and outside the roster, Grunt and Warrior models to meet the scenario’s points requirements. These models are not in the roster or the match result.
A block closes the event to warbands, a points limit lowers the warband size, and the GM describes the reward.

6. Battles

Warbands that reached one event fight each other. How many fight in one battle is set by the Multi-warband battles module (chapter 9): without it battles are one-on-one, with it up to the chosen limit or with no limit. When there are more warbands, the service draws a split into several battles, and a warband without an opponent does not fight and does not take the place. There are no battles on the road.
Rosters are revealed at once; the weaker warband gets Underdog dice and points for a bonus model as in Vanguard.
In a scenario with an attacker and a defender the owner of the place defends if they fight; otherwise a roll decides.
Scenarios are written for two sides. With more than two warbands the GM adds to the event description, before the game, how the scenario works with more players (at a place without an event the players agree on it) – for example a bigger board and several beacons to light in Light the Beacon, or several zones in Canyon Patrol, each guarded by one player. Everyone can fight everyone, also to get in the others’ way.
One side enters the result, the others confirm it, and the GM settles a dispute. With three or more warbands there can be several winners – they are ticked in the result and the rest lose.

7. Resolution and Dusk

A battle resolution has six steps as in the Vanguard campaign: what happened, injuries (with the Healer, permanent injuries and prisoner ransom), equipment, experience, rank advancement and the retinue review. There is no gold for the battle, no exploration and no recruitment.

Dusk starts once results are confirmed and resolutions closed. The single winner of the battles at a place takes it together with its income and sets up a hideout there – also in a place that was someone else’s hideout. When all winners belong to one guild, its founder takes the place; when they belong to one mission alliance, whoever formed it does. Otherwise, with several winners the GM chooses at Dusk who takes the place; with a draw it stays with its owner. A warband that met nobody takes the place only if it is unclaimed, and sets up a hideout there too. This is how a player gathers more hideouts.

8. Guilds, alliances and gold

A guild is a lasting alliance: its members are allies. One player founds a guild for the level 1 cost (Players tab) and names it.
In the “Campaign modules” step of the wizard the game master can call guilds something else: consortium, group, brotherhood, cartel or alliance. The chosen name appears in all campaign texts, and with “alliance” mission alliances are called mission pacts.
Players join on request (paid, not returned) or by the guild’s invitation (free). The accepted player pays an entry fee that is lost. A player belongs to at most one guild – a founder has to dissolve theirs before moving to another.
Level N costs N × the level cost and allows N allies. Each round the guild yields N × the level income, split evenly among all members, rounded up. The founder pays for upgrades. The amounts and the highest level are set by the GM in the campaign wizard.
When only allies meet at a place, there is no battle – they win without a fight, like a lone warband that met no enemy. An unclaimed place then goes to the guild founder at Dusk, who sets up a hideout there, even if the founder’s warband was not there. In a battle with others allies stand together and can win together – a place won only by members of one guild also goes to its founder.
Guilds are public – founding, joining, upgrading, leaving and dissolving go into the chronicle. Nobody leaves a guild during a shared battle that is not yet settled.
A mission alliance is a temporary alliance for one event in the current round. It is made during the Preparation and Orders phases: whoever forms it invites any number of players, and each ally pays the amount from the campaign settings, which is lost. Until Battles only its members see the alliance; then it goes into the chronicle. On this mission allies do not fight each other and can win together, and an unclaimed place goes to whoever formed the alliance. The alliance ends with the round. Guild members stay loyal to their guild and do not make mission alliances, and a player in a mission alliance this round joins a guild only once it ends or after withdrawing from it.
Gold can be sent to any playing participant. Only the sender and the recipient see the transfer – the GM does not see it either, and it does not go into the chronicle.
Participants send each other messengers with official letters (Messages tab). Only the sender and the recipient see a letter.

9. Campaign modules

The GM switches parts of the rules on or off in the wizard, in the Campaign modules step. Modules are set before the start – once the campaign starts they cannot be changed, nor can the guild amounts and the warband limit per battle. The Rules tab shows which modules are on.

Guilds – a lasting alliance: founding guilds, requests and invitations, levels and income; guild members are allies (chapter 8).
Mission alliances – a temporary, paid alliance for one event in a round (chapter 8), guild members do not make them.
Messages – a tab with messengers and official letters.
Gold transfers – sending gold to other players.
Multi-warband battles – more than two warbands fight in one battle, up to the chosen limit or with no limit. Without this module battles are one-on-one.
Paths between places – the GM draws on the map (in the “Map” step) where one can go from where; a path leads both ways or, with an arrow, one way only. A warband is sent to one of its player’s places or to a place linked to one by a path, so only a captured place opens the way to the next. A player who holds no place may send warbands anywhere. The module is off by default.
Warband movement – a warband stands at a place on the map (a new one gathers in a hideout) and sets out from there: it stays or moves on, with paths – one path further. At the end of the round it stays where it got to; a lost or drawn attack returns to where it set out from, and a defender beaten at its own place falls back to the nearest hideout. A warband without orders defends the place where it stands – when warbands from outside its alliance arrive, it fights with its current line-up, without a mercenary. A warband’s line-up changes only in a hideout. Warband positions are shown on the map; orders stay secret. The module is off by default.