Writing army lists at Conquest Last Argument of Kings

Since we have a bunch of newbies in Bremen/Bremerhaven again and I keep telling similar things/writing a little summary of list writing that will hopefully help some people. Because as soon as we have decided on an army, sooner or later the point comes where we have to/want to build an army list independently. For me, building army lists is a fun part of the hobby, for others it is a tedious task with several pitfalls. In order to get at least a few of them out of the way, I have written a little help here.

The idea
First we need an idea and a plan, this should be defined in some way. Many Hundred Kingdoms players initially say "I want to play cavalry", but there are different starting points as to why we write a new army list. Be it because we have acquired new figures that we really want to test, want to show someone that [insert any regiment here] works well, test combinations or because we are going to the weekly game night. In the end it all always comes to the same end, we sit in front of the army builder and ponder to ourselves.

So as soon as we have an idea of what we want, let's stick with the example of the cavalry, we have to concretize the whole thing into a plan. A few things are important in my opinion

• Have enough scoring regiments
  A normal list at 2000 points consists of 2-3 characters and 7-10 regiments. Basically, I would always recommend aiming for 2 characters and 8 regiments at the beginning. Since many scenarios have three or more zones and only medium and heavy stands score, at least 5 of these regiments should be able to score. Better six if you can't/don't want to do a little trickery with characters by putting a medium character in a light regiment. You should always keep in mind that you don't want to stand around on a mission objective with expensive, large blocks instead of worrying about solving the problem (preferably wiping out enemy regiments).


• Pay attention to the reinforcements
  Since regiments arrive on the battlefield at different times depending on their class, you may encounter problems with the scenario. The heavier a regiment, the better its stats are usually, but the later it appears on the battlefield. For example, Heavys don't come until round 3 at the earliest, but only on 1-2. With a bit of bad luck, it may be that a heavy regiment only enters the battlefield in round 5 and therefore only really actively participates in the game from round 6-7. Everything can be over by then, so in my opinion it is always useful to build lists where you are sure that you have everything on the board in round 4. This is possible on the one hand because you can choose a regiment every round, which comes automatically, and on the other hand through special rules like Flank, etc. In addition, all mediums come in round four, which makes them the heart of every list in most armies. A good mix, without special rules, is usually 2 lights, 4 mediums and 2 heavys.

• Have the option to score from round 2
  Points start from round 2 and you should therefore have options in your list to be able to score in most scenarios in round 2. Any army, except Dweghom, can bring a Medium Regiment 16" from Reinforcement onto the board. This is exactly what you need to score most zones on turn 2. This is achieved through Chants (Conquest), the Vanguard special rules and Standards. If you do without such elements in your own list, you should have at least one character level of the Medium or Heavy class in light regiments in order to score points. Every faction has one of the two options

• Know your army
  Seriously. Try to play your selections regularly and know the values. Many players are not aware of the abilities of their troops and by playing something different over and over again you don't realize what Household Knights can do, for example. As a tip: at the beginning I just played a list up and down and wrote down on this list what exactly my things do, in which round I can roll the dice, when they come, etc. It's also good to know what the regiment really does can and you can usually just think about it in your head. Household Knights with Move Charge and Clash 2 will almost certainly not take out an enemy regiment with 6 impacts. Sounds logical, but as often as I see someone try this with Thanes and complain about their own dice, I'm not sure.

• Keep the character favorable
  Most characters cost between 80 - 120 points without equipment and it is quite easy to upgrade them to 200+ points. This is not always, in fact very rarely, a good plan. Often an additional regiment is simply the better choice because it gives you more options. Therefore, I would prefer to give characters equipment that buffs regiments and view this as a "unit upgrade" rather than a hero who slaughters his way through an army alone. They exist too, but they are definitely in the minority
  
  
• Try to keep regiments without characters always odd
  If a regiment loses half of its stands it is broken. If a Broken Regiment loses half of its remaining Stands it is destroyed. Therefore, 4 Stands die almost as quickly as 3, unless a character joins them. There are options where this is good, but at the beginning you should try to keep the regiments without characters always odd

• Movement wins the game
  Builds up pressure. You have to build pressure on range in some way and that is either through movement or fire. This not only means the movement value but also the application on the battlefield. In addition to the obvious things like Nords and W'adrhŭn, which with a few tricks bring a monster 21" onto the field on turn 3, so it is immediately in an unfavorable spot and holds a zone, there are numerous buffs and special rules. Spire and W 'adrhŭn can usually simply increase their movement by 1-3" through buffs, like the Spire or Knights can make a move charge to 15" with impacts. There are several options and since most regiments in Conquest are very immobile, such rules are all worth their weight in gold. It is not without reason that the Fluid Formation rule and the Strategos Supremacy (free additional reform action for each regiment) are considered to be the best in the game. There are many more examples such as Mobility of the City States etc., but one or more elements Being able to move better should be present in every list. If you can't or don't want to do that, you can also use fire and magic as a second option for pressure. Something that Dweghom especially likes to do.
  But you can also actively influence this on the battlefield, because the wider a regiment is, the harder it is to pivot. On many tables there is nothing wrong with a line of 5+ stands if your only plan is to run into a zone and stay there, but if you need movement it's not a bad idea to put your regiments maybe just 2 wide on that to lead the battlefield. Especially when you come from the flank, you gain a few more inches to potentially run directly into a zone.
  
  
• Use the free Armybuilder/app at Para Bellum - Army Builder (para-bellum.com) 

Once our core list is in place and we've played it a few times, we'll probably make minor changes because we realize that item YX is pointless or we feel it's missing some punch/steadiness. That's not a bad thing and the list is slowly being fine-tuned. Once we have enough practice, the points above are automatically included in our list construction and new considerations are added.