"Kings of War 3.0 Hardback being released! News, Rumors?" Topic

The free mini-rulebook is on line with Mantic. Looks like a very polished set and we're eagerly awaiting our hardbacks having playtested it a few times now.

Without a complete set of lists in the mini book, there's a lot of curiosity about upcoming armies, including the Kingdoms of Men. Supposedly there is fluff explaining who everyone is, my question is "does the fluff say anything about the troops and style of the army?"

News, Reviews and rumors of three new armies would be appreciated.

Cough it up!

The core armies are going to look WFamiliarB, though the army structure seen in the first two revisions is such that you can build a single race army, but don't have to. All Evil will work together, as will all Good. The Neutrals will work for either side. The Humans are the primary Neutrals.

Go look at the Kickstarter for Kings of War just finished. The upcoming armies are all over it. A bit less WFamiliarB than the core, too.

The kingdoms of Men list/fluff is not all over it. But it is in the book. The few teasers posted indicate that Basilea the principle city seems a lot like Byzantium / Constantinople. Hopefully, this means that the troop types are just as interesting / varied.

It's been out how long? And already is on the 3rd edition?
Wow, how many revisions does it take?

Hold out for 4th edition.

To be fair versions 1 and 2 where free, this is the first edition of full blown rules they did

Aye. 1 and 2 were the beta rules. (or at least the playtest rules, if I've got the terminology wrong) AFAIK the next book is going to be an expansion, with lists for demon, angel and nature armies. Should be interesting.

Read through a friends rulebook and we played more than a couple of games to see how it really is. I agree with Dead Awake: The rules blow.

Ouch.

What made them fall below expectations?

Way too simplistic. Only the active player is doing anything. The way Units take wounds but no troops "die'. A horrid "rout" set up. Armies are generic. Lack of any decent magic system (Zap and Heal? Really?). Would you like me to continue?

Their minis are okay, their game is a joke.

The preeceding is my opinion, and my opinion only.
-Patrick

" Armies are generic."

As opposed to what exactly?

It is a very stark take on fantasy gaming. Everyone that preservers likes it, but it is an extreme IGUGO system.

Apparently to make tourny gaming the aim of the set for better or worse (another example of that is Epic from GW, the army lists and scenario all written for tournament play, but that is alternating actions).

Interestingly following feedback their warpath Sci Fi game is going to be alternating activations.

Note I have wondered why you have wounds rather than removing models from the formation…

Still as you see in a different thread you can win £1,000.00 GBP/$1000 if you are good at it…

" Armies are generic."

'As opposed to what exactly?'

As opposed to having a bit of flavor or difference in them pehaps? I'm not saying that they have to be full blown WHFB special rules are everything rules, but as they stand right now they have almost none.

For the record: I do like their minis, awaiting an undead army right now. So I can play Armies of Arcana and WHFB3rd with it.

Way too simplistic. Only the active player is doing anything. The way Units take wounds but no troops "die'. A horrid "rout" set up. Armies are generic. Lack of any decent magic system (Zap and Heal? Really?). Would you like me to continue?

Sounds a lot like the Warlord Games trilogy, which is doing okay for itself – apart from the magic, which goes one better than HoTT as far as I can tell. :P

I still don't have the book myself (time to cancel a Maelstrom order, I think) so I can't comment too much about the finer details and the whole (and neither can Curis at Ninjabread for that matter, never mind how many spiky angles and disturbing mouths he can [or can't] draw); but I've liked the impression of the free downloads, and for me it's Warhammer that's the tedious game.
Roll dice for every single model; roll more because one to a handful of models in the first rank have a different weapon, or a different strength value, or some fancy special rule bolted on; roll again; and yet again; pick out individual models from – what? – 150-200+ on the table? (and mutter and cross your eyes when you try to rank 'em all up again) Stop to check a character's or magic spell's special rules; roll and roll and roll to resolve them. The Ninjabread comic paints armour saves as only a slim relief, but it's barely even that compared to all that goes on around it.
So yeah, it's the micromanagement of Warhammer that gets me (not to mention competitive success as an exercise in list-building, touted as 'tactics' in some internet fora) when I want to concentrate on the actions and abilities of whole formations. I thought Epic: Armageddon was horribly simplistic and abstracted compared to 40K the first time I read the rules; but then I played it, and moved onto Warmaster and the WG3, and now I have trouble thinking of Warhammer or 40K as much more than mass combat being played with skirmish rules.

Kings of War is stripped down; more like the games I already enjoy. Maybe it's stripped down too far – I dunno. I can't say what waiting for your turn is like, but I imagine something that makes 'you don't even get to roll for armour saves during it!' a pretty laughable excuse. (I hear people enjoy the chess clock option too, once they get used to it) Maybe I'll decide that a block of dwarves swinging hammers should have a vastly different effect to a block of skeletons poking with swords. Maybe I won't be able to imagine 'zap' as a fireball or lightning bolt or chittering stream of malevolent spirits unless they write it down for me. But I think I might like it a bit more than the alternative.

The problem with Kings of War is that it's too fast. You can get in 3 to 4 games in the same time it takes to play a game of Warhammer. I assume that's gotta be a problem for someone…

Honestly, the games are so fast that your enemy's turn is maybe 7 minutes. This is one of those systems where alternating activation would actually make it take longer to play, as usually the sheer number of units fielded would cause a lot of headaches as to who just went or which units have already moved this turn.

It's definitely not stripped down, it's _streamlined_. One of the ignorant mistakes most people make when glancing at the system is saying that all units look the same. Little do they realize the humongous difference a single stat can make between two units.

Don't get me wrong, I love Warhammer. Well, 6th edition. And Mordheim. Because Warhammer is best as a skirmish game. But when my gaming group wants to put down 400 models on the table and _get a game done in 90 minutes_, Kings of War is where it's at.

The only problem I have right now with KoW is deciding whether or not to rebase my 20 years worth of Empire, Tomb Kings, and High Elves onto element basing, as I cannot stand individual basing anymore and will punch the nearest anything next time I nudge a movement tray and 20 models go toppling over.

If it was anymore 'streamlined' it would be one dimensional. Oh, wait, it is already.

One of the ignorant mistakes most KoW people make when glancing at other peoples posts is that some of us have tried the game and not glanced at it.

Gotcha, so you've played it so you know turn length is not an issue. You know you can play a turn with a dozen regiments in less than ten minutes very easily, and if you introduce alternating activation it would slow it down. Or making the other player roll dice would also slow it down. You know that the system is designed to play humongous games very quickly and the only way to accomplish that is the rapid igougo system that it currently has.

And you also know that adding more phases, like a magic phase, would slow it down. Is there some requirement for a separate phase? Magic in KoW is a shooting attack, so it's in the shooting phase.

Routing is built in to the morale and wounding system. Which is kinda like Warhammer except it makes more sense, as the scenario of 80-model hordes being held up by a single figure left after a 40-man regiment has taken 39 wounds is not very likely to happen.

So your only real complaint is that it's element basing, which, again, is for ease and speed of play.

But as a fan of both KoW and Warhammer, I know that Warhammer is just simply not designed for the scale of KoW. Warhammer is great for a couple dozen figures, as it's basically a skirmish game, and breaks down at games larger than 2000 points.

Kings of War has more in common – game length, rules and scale – with Warmaster than Warhammer. Hundreds and hundreds of models per side, quick combat resolution, all in 90 minutes, and tremendously satisfying to boot.

Yeah, I'm a KoW fanboy, ever since my first game about two to three months ago. It's totally rejuvenated my love of mass fantasy combat, which GW poisoned in 7th ed and finally killed off in 8th ed.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The only problem I have right now with KoW is deciding whether or not to rebase my 20 years worth of Empire, Tomb Kings, and High Elves onto element basing, as I cannot stand individual basing anymore and will punch the nearest anything next time I nudge a movement tray and 20 models go toppling over.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Thats surprising, I assume your trays have sides?

Chris, sides don't matter when you're traveling at twice the speed of sound.

Doug, you obviously didn't read my earlier post. I guess that you can get element basing out of my complaint about wounds, but to claim it's my only real complaint… sigh. Nevermind. You're a self proclaimed fanboy so anything that goes against your worldview is verboten.

It's not about speed, it's about quality.
A sneeze is very fast. That doesn't mean I want the end result on my game table.

The problem for SCAdian and Judge Dong is you can go back and forwards forever talking about simplicity, speed, depth etc, but all it boils down to in the end is "I like it" vs "I don't like it" it plays the way it plays and all that's left here is personal taste.

Based on what was said at the Mantic open day last weekend, the plan is to release two supplement books, one covering heroes and the other with further rules and army lists.

The human army in the book is pretty generic and designed to be used with other companies miniatures. The second supplement will contain the "official" Mantic list which will essentially be holy warriors including Paladins, Battle Sisters, Angels and Giant Cat Cavalry.

The plan is to also do an "Evil" army of demons, which will be more satanic than chaotic and a Nature army of elementals and druids.

Having done the archetypes, the plan seems to be to create some more Mantic specific armies.

@TheRealChris,
yeah, I use GW plastic movement trays. plastic TK skeletons go flying, empire handgunners go flying, metal swordmasters and greatswords go toppling, if I use any terrain other than a flat table. I've had this problem since the mid 90's >:(

@SCadian, I did read your earlier post and responded to it point by point. You said "Way too simplistic. Only the active player is doing anything. The way Units take wounds but no troops "die'. A horrid "rout" set up. Armies are generic. Lack of any decent magic system (Zap and Heal? Really?). Would you like me to continue?"

Those all seem like good things to me for a mass-battle ruleset. The system is designed to be quick to play, and so only the active player does anything to keep the turns going rapidly. It's element basing, so no troops "die" (which honestly feels more realistic than individually removing a geometric square of a soldier from a unit that is 90 degree angles). Routing is built into the Nerve checks. Armies are as "generic" as anything that has a stat line, but each play quite differently. A system doesn't need to have a massive magic phase to have a decent magic system – see 40k 2nd's overblown psychic phase and the horrible nonsense that is WHFB 8th's magic phase.

And yes, I am a fanboy. It's a brilliant system and I haven't had this much fun playing a mass battles game since Warhammer 6th. I am finally able to play mass battle games without having to play WHFB8, which I despise.

From your observations, which are cast in a negative light, I assume you like games that take longer, have individual casualty removal, have a longer separate magic phase. The virtues of KoW are detriments in your eyes… which brings us to the next point.

Of course my worldview is verboten, everyone's is. I like what I like. I'll continue to use WHFB (6) rules but as a skirmish game, as they are far better at representing that.

@HumorousConclusion,
yeah, I'm looking forward to that, as the KoW Kickstarter basically funded the "good" army (which is based more in Indian mythology than Christian). As a backer I'll be getting that expansion and all the units for free which is always a bonus :)

I generally agree with Judge Dong. The virtue of KOW for me is the speed and lack of fuss. You can play avaerage size games quickly and big games in a reasonable amount of time.

Ironically, Warhammer's complexity is not well suited to the large-sized games that GW are increasingly pushing. If you want to play a game at the large end of average you have to put a whole day aside.

KOW is refreshingly slick and depth is not the same as duration.

The only thing I would say, is that I think KOW's magic system is a bit to simple. You don't necessarily have to have a seperate phase, but I like it when the rules reflect that Magic is not a normal activity. Throwing a fireball should not be the same as firing a crossbow. In my view, KOW has stripped this down a little too much.

We finished four games in five hours – and did not have a single rules argument!

I call that a win.

There are rules that I am not fond of – the Route rules work, but I like the idea of last minute rallying.

There are armies that cannot even damage castle walls in the siege rules (and only three that can).

I would like to see characters with bodyguard units.

But, overall, I like them quite a bit – much more than the most recent edition of Warhammer.

Despite grumblings above – the armies don't feel the same in actual play. The special rule that each army gets makes them play differently – while both dwarfs and undead are difficult to break the dwarfs can be shaken, while the undead stand their ground until they all just fold like a house of cards.

The Auld Grump

"I would like to see characters with bodyguard units."

Put your character miniatures into elite units as Champions? :)

It was KOW that led me to play Mighty Armies. One thing I'll say is that after building up so many miniatures, I would like them to stay on the table a while longer. So I play MA because of it's low figure count along with fast play and DIY points system suits me better. If only Rebel Mike would re-write both versions into one set and fix the over-powered(IMHO) shooting, it would be the perfect fast-play mass battles game(again IMHO).
-Edgar