This is intended to be a living glossary of common Kings of War terms intended to help new players and maybe even merge regional slang into one place. If you or your locals have a different name for something described below, please email us or join our discord and yell at us! Links for both are at the bottom of the page.
Playstyles/List Styles: The general way a list functions on the board or what it is supposed to do or excel at
- Alpha: An army with significant speed, usually made mostly of hard hitting cav and/or flying units typically sp8 or higher.
- Combined Arms: A healthy amount of shots but combined with a good amount of bite, a well rounded army able to play in and vs most matches.
- Grind: An army style meant to get stuck in and then out last or “grind down” for the win, often high nerve units supported by things like heal and life leech.
- Gunline: An army with a high volume of long range (24"+) shots, 70+ shots including spells and average blast hits feels like the ballpark for a gunline but nobody can agree. “You know it when you see it” as Potter Stewart would say.
- MSU: Multiple Small Units is an army made of an excessive amount of units, usually bad and intended to outlast the opponent.
- Skew: A list that leans extremely heavily into one “thing” (Shooting, War Engines, Lionsnarl, etc.). Most army playstyles have lots of variation within them so when you put your entire points pool into one concept/unit is when it becomes a Skew-Alpha, Skew-Gunline, etc..
- Toolbox: A list that doesn’t necessarily fall into one of the above archetypes but instead has a plethora of different units that each solve different problems depending on the opponent/mission. This is the antithesis to skew lists.
Pre-game Terms: Things you might hear or want to consider/address before the game/event actually starts
- Actual/As it Lies vs Intent: It’s common in the Kings of War community to play by intent. Meaning as long as you and your opponent are on the same page, if you move a model and say something like “This is outside of 12 inches” then it is outside of 12". To avoid things getting bumped into charge range by accident or measuring being off a smidge. If it was stated and agreed, then you’re playing by intent. If not stated, then you’re playing by what the tape measure tells you.
- Blackjack/Northern Kings/Other: Event scoring system. This is somewhat regional but most events will have slightly different scoring systems for games with blackjack and northern kings being the most common. Blackjack is a zero-sum system where a match result sums to 21 so every point a player gains is a point taken from the opponent. Northern Kings is a flat points value awarded to players for wins, losses, draws and sometimes side objectives. It’s important to understand the scoring system of a tournament before you go.
- Lines of Attack/Play: Gameplan, idea, gambit, strategy, etc.. I hear this often in Kings instead of the synonyms I listed that I hear more commonly outside of Kings.
- Turn 0: Used to describe everything that happens between seeing your opponents list and starting turn 1. List analysis, ground rules, choosing sides, placing tokens, deployment, going first/second, etc..
- WYSIWYG: What you see is what you get (pronounced ‘wizzy-wig’) is a term to state that your army or unit is exactly what it appears to be. Examples being a unit with spears has phalanx, a unit with wings has fly, etc.. Less common in Kings as modelling opportunities are so wide but it’s not unheard to ask or be asked if your army is WYSIWYG at events.
Deployment Terms: Terms you might hear during deployment or to describe somebody’s deployment
- All 72/Full-Board: Deploying units across the entire width of the board.
- Battle Group: Set of units deployed together to help compliment each other or do the same thing. Ie “shooting battery” can be war engines and Blizzard Wizard
- Battleline: The meat of a list. Usually infantry and a concentrated amount of it and usually in the center of the board.
- Castle: A tight, layered up defensive formation usually meant to move slow while shooting and keeping its hammers concentrated but safe in the 2nd line. This often pairs with a deferred flank but does not need to. It’s favored often by slow high defence armies like dwarf ironguard and artillery support.
- Checkboard/Staggered: Often done at a regiment level involving higher damage regiments placed in between chaff or anvil regiments in a repeating pattern. The damage units are sagged slightly back from the chaff/anvil units to prevent enemies from fitting into charges and allowing those damage units to fight and hopefully kill whatever is hitting the anvil/chaff units.
- Deferred/Denied Flank : A side of the board that is not deployed on and ignored in order to bolster the other ⅔ of the board.
- On the Line/on the 12: A unit is deployed the max forward. Ie 12 inches.
- Poverty Flank: A flank held down by a meager battle group, sometimes even 1 unit.
- Shooting Lanes/Valleys: The bigger gaps in terrain for each Kings of War board make small or large open areas to draw line of sight to for shooting units. These are called lanes or valleys or even funnels. Don’t stand in them.
Unit Terms: Terms used to describe units and what they generally do
- Anchor: An anvil that is notably important to a battleline or battle group. If it falls, so does the army usually. A horde of Abyssal Guard or or an ax legion make for a sturdy anchor.
- Anvil: The main job of an anvil is to survive a charge or multiple. Not necessarily damage. Perfect examples of anvils are earth elemental regiments and ironguard regiments.
- Chaff: The main job of chaff is to die STRATEGICALLY. Never intended to live but used in such a way to force bad charges or gain board space for a turn while the opponent has to spend time killing them. Critters and rabble regiments are premier chaff pieces.
- Dart: A fast non-yielding individual that projects a threat in a large circle of the board to deny flyers from hopping lines or assassins getting to casters or just tying things up where you want. Seductress or Riftforger on Manticore is a quintessential dart.
- Doorstop/Stopgap: Just enough defense/nerve to maybe hold something up for 1 turn. Usually a non-yielding individual with a little beef to it (No beef would just make it chaff). Forces of Nature Chieftain and Undead Revenant King are great examples.
- Efficient: Usually damage-efficient but generally refers to a unit doing something very well on a per-point basis- Point per nerve, point per wound, etc..
- Hammer: Everything is a nail when you’re a hammer! These units excel at dealing ridiculous amounts of damage to everything they get their hands on. Good examples are a horde of greatax or regiment of lionsnarl.
- Missile: The thing about missiles is they’re very effective but aren’t particularly re-usable. These are fast units that usually leave quite a dent but only do so once. Good examples are Hellhound regiments with the Dark Gods command or a maniacal fleabag reg with mawpups.
- Pest: A pest excels at dealing psychological damage rather than actual damage. It will annoy you to no end and get into places you don’t want it and potentially wreck gameplans. Knucker or a cheap flying hero is the pestiest pest.
- Plink: Refers to a unit that has a shooting attack that doesn’t output a ton of damage but softens up targets. Naiad Heartpiercer and skulks are great examples.
- Support/Force Multiplier: This is a unit typically on a smaller base able to easily be added into charges to just get those extra 3-5 wounds necessary to secure the rout. Battle Captains on Rhinosaurs and Shaoquans are excellent force multipliers.
- Tarpit: A unit that if you cannot kill it on the first charge or you don’t send enough initially, you will be fighting that unit for the rest of the game. Naiad Ensnarer hordes and mummy regiments excel at not dying AND not doing damage.
- Wasp: A small hard to get to unit, usually cheap in points but with a very high game impact via dealing damage. A Wartrombone or an efreet are key examples
- Slot Machine: A unit that is wildly hard to predict with high variety in possible outcomes that while technically average, can produce ridiculous results. Goblin Blasters and Giants are good examples of trying your luck.
In-Game Terms: Terms you might hear during the game
- Bumper/Backstop/Frontstop: A unit being used to stop another-usually more important- unit from being manipulated by enemy movement spells. Windblast, enthrall, surge.
- Bounce: Not killing a unit in melee that you were expecting to.
- Chaff Puzzle/Set-Piece: A term for when the board presents a series of bad charges at first glance. Oftentimes no obvious good answer exists to solve.
- Charge Block: Using terrain and units to prevent an enemy unit from charging a unit that it has the range to charge by not allowing the enemy unit(s) to fit in final placement or reach without colliding with other things.
- Charge/Halt/Path Manipulation: Using a unit or units not involved in combat to influence the path and/or final position of a charging unit- usually to avoid hindrance. Very common to see individuals moved in such a way that when one of their friendly units charges, the charge isn’t hindered when it normally would have been.
- Crescent. Two or more units angled slightly instead of flush, often with the front corners of their base touching. This keeps a relatively flat line to keep enemies out of your flanks while drastically shrinking the frontage available to the opponent for charges, especially for double charges. The smaller the base, the more effective this is at keeping enemy units out or forcing single charges.
- Cycle Charge: Specifically when you withdraw a unit through a unit behind allowing that unit to then charge. New for 4th edition.
- Flush/Sagged: These refer to your units alignment to each other. Flush implies that no lip or part is protruding and you have made a flat line. Sagged or sunk, implies that you have created a lip or recess, often to hide a smaller base between two bigger ones.
- Frontage: The exposed length along the front of a unit or combined units. Often used when describing whether a charge or multi charge will fit in place or to refer to the breadth of a battleline.
- Footprint: Refers to the base size of a unit and the space it takes up.
- Go-Turn: This is the turn in the game where you take about 30 minutes and truly commit to the fight. Involving multiple if not all of your units charging and trying to take a massive chunk out of your opponent’s army in one go. Certain list archetypes dont have a go turn, it’s usually alpha and melee lists that have this. Anywhere from turns 2 through 4 can be the “Go Turn” if the timing/mood is just right.
- Kill Box: A space on the board that a player can bring a high volume of quality shots to bear if any enemy ends up in it. Some goblin lists are made to force units into positions where they have to move within 12" of 4 war trombones. That would be the kill box.
- One-way Trip: A simple term for a unit riding off into the cold dark end. Usually applied to chaff pieces here for a bad time And a short time.
- Pivot-move-pivot/Shuffle: This used to be a nimble slide in 3rd but it is a way to tell your opponent you are pivoting 90 degrees, moving most of your advance distance and pivoting 90 degrees at the end to maintain the same facing as you started. It looks like a sidehop that covers twice the allowed distance so it’s often commonplace to call out doing a “pivot-move-pivot” and then just measuring full distance to the side and sliding to avoid fuss without your opponent thinking you just made a 6" sidehop.
- Playing for 7: Making your game plans in a way that in turn 6 you have decided you can’t win so you forgo trying to lessen the loss and take all your moves with the intent to win on 7 instead.
- Phone Booth: Small confined spaces with multiple units and multiple combats. These favor grinding armies and hurt large bases like hordes.
- Pressure: Pressure is what describes forcing your opponent into or out of spaces that you can apply a lot of damage to. Fast flying units and long range shooting apply pressure to units that must either accept taking that damage or flee, gaining you board control.
- Rank and File/Rank and Flank: A miniature game system where the facing/sides of a unit matter in the context of game mechanics. Often with large rectangular bases full of infantry models in “ranks”. Kings of War, Conquest the Last Argument of Kings, and Warhammer: The Old World are examples.
- Snakes: Common term for rolling double ones on 2d6 (Snake-eyes). Often heard when telling a player they need not-snakes or snakes-twice when a unit has enough damage that only a double-one will save it.
- Threat Projection/Range: The actual max range a unit can threaten, usually ranged or Wild Charge. So a speed 5 unit with a 12" range can actually threaten 17" for example.
- Toed-In: When a small amount of a unit’s base is IN the terrain feature allowing sight to and from the unit through that terrain.
- Trade/Trade Value/ Trading up/Down: Often in Kings of War when a unit kills another unit, the killing unit dies the next turn in response. The trade value in these instances is the point costs of the units that died in an interaction to determine if you traded up or down. A 115 point unit killing a 65 point unit and dying the next turn is trading down. A 120 point unit killing a 90 point unit which then gets killed by a 150 point unit which in turn gets killed by a 310 point unit is trading up. As one player lost 240 points and the other lost 120 after the dust settled. Trades can take multiple turns or one turn but it’s a line of logic to determine if a charge is valuable or dangerous.