Age of Magic faction review: the Great Kingdoms
The archtype
The Great Kingdoms faction lets you represent an organised army from a nation state, knightly order, great empire, or something similar to that. From a human kingdom, to a proud elven empire your have a lot of options here.
The options
The Great Kingdoms list is notable for its options, it can be the most varied list simply by taking one of every troops type. One notable restriction is that all your missile troops must be levy. You have no options for Hearthguard or Warriors with missile weapons. The Great Kingdoms can take bows, crossbows, or firearms.
You can take a Captain, who has his own version of the We obey rule, and can keep your units doing what you want them to. A Paladin is a hero who specialises in fighting creatures or monsters in other armies and received a bonus when doing so.
The Great Kingdoms sorcerer can choose Energy or Light spells, and these can work well with the choice of units you have to work with.
The Battle Board
Your Battle Board rewards you for taking a combined arms list, with the Enfilade ability letting you activate 2 units to shoot, but not if they are next to each other, while Banish Evil grants you bonus dice when in combat with the bigger units the enemy may have.
Models
The Great Kingdoms list works well with Bretonnian, Empire or Dwarf armies from Warhammer, you won’t find too many options missing. A Dragon Slayer makes a good Paladin given the bonus they get against monsters.
If you’ve come from Lord of the Rings then Gondor or Rhun are well-represented by these rules. Uruk-Hai would also work well here, as would the Black Numenoreans.
Sample army
Above is an example army for the Great Kingdoms. The front left and right are two units of 12 levy with bows at 1 point each. Front and centre is the general and his bodyguard of Hearthguard (1 point). Behind the levy archers in each side is a tray of warrior with no special equipment (1 point each). My old War of the Ring movement trays are still useful!
Between the warriors is a wizard (1 point) and a unit of mounted Hearthguard (1 point) to project some power quickly across the battlefield. Then we have the flying scourge, or dragon to you an me, for our final point.
In total with is an 8 point army of 51 models.
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