TME about Kings of War miniatures game!

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Neon

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As the title reads, tell me everything (TME) about the game.

The miniatures keep popping up on my favorite hobby store feed. They look amazing!

How good are the game mechanics?
Is the line well supported?
Is there a reasonable fan base?

TME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Well, I've played it some. It's a fast paced and balanced game. It doesn't have the depth of character or weirdness that Warhammer does but it does have enough to not feel like it might as well be a medieval or ancients game.

Kings of War is an I go you go game and you roll off for first turn. The phases are move, shoot, and fight. Movement is straightforward with a limited number f pivots allowed per move. You can go at a normal rate, at the double, back or sideways. Fighting is roll (unit attacks characteristic)d6 vs the unit's melee rating. Shooting is 24" for most weapons, 48" for warmachines (unit's attack)d6 vs the unit's missile rating. Damage is (hits)d6 verses the target's defense rating. Morale is total wound markers +2d6 verses the unit's nerve rating which has a value for wavering (can't move forward or charge) and broken. There's a short list of magic spells which are cast in the appropriate phase with movement spells being cast in the movement phase, fireballs and healing in the shooting phase. The core army lists are in the core book and there's occasional new ones in supplements with no codexes in sight. The core lists cover Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Elves, Humans, Paladins and Angels, and Demons but Mantic has branched out into fun stuff like Renaissance Halflings with dog cavalry, Nightmare creatures, Salamanders, and Naids. They've also got fantasy skirmish and naval battle games now.

All told it's a fun game and you can spend more time setting up and taking down a big game than you did playing it. In a lot of ways it's what Warhammer eighth edition would have looked like if Alesseo Cavatore who wrote second edition Kings of War had his way.

The miniatures line is a mixed bag, it never rises to the heights but it does occasionally fall from them, crashing in pieces on the rocks below. The earliest models were done by Rendra, the company that used to do Games Workshop's plastics before they built their own factory. Later Mantic went to China for plastics and the first few sets were pretty bad with the Goblins and Men At Arms being particularly shoddy. Those models have since been replaced though, if you were looking for a bargain the buck a figure sets are gone now. The range uses plastics, resin, and metal with some metal and plastic hybrids. The early Abyssal Dwarfs are just the regular plastic dwarfs with a metal piece on their shields and helmets. They've since been replaced with plastic figures.

Mantic's CEO Ronnie Renton used to work for Games Workshop, the GW genes are strong here but Mantic has generally gone for a cleaner and lighter look.

I think the fundamental thing about Kings of War is that it's less half the cost of Warhammer.
 
The game and price point are attractive. I will have to look locally to see if there is a community before investing into this line.
 
I've been tempted at times... but their figures are such a mishmash of good/bad sculpts and materials (just calling their crappy resin 'premium plastic' ain't fooling anyone) that I don't want... I've stayed away, except for some of those early zombies, which were sorta nice.
 
If your retailer is restocking it there's probably a community or at least other people who would like to play.

Kings of War can be played with Warhammer models or anything else really but the original army lists really map to Warhammer well for some reason. I've always thought it was funny that their rules were clearly aimed at Warhammer players and their models so clearly weren't.

They did go that way with the Dead Zone Marauders. I'll stick to my old figures.

But one of the appeals of Kings of War is that they don't care who's models you're using. If you don't like theirs they're fine with you using someone else's. At least last I heard. I guess I could talk about the quality of the figures and stuff if people care. There's a few standouts but most are just okay. Personally I'm fine with that, I don't want lots of microscopic details in an army I'm going to paint. I've got Abyssal Dwarfs, Basiliens, Forces of the Abyss, and Ogres I could photograph.
 
If your retailer is restocking it there's probably a community or at least other people who would like to play.

Kings of War can be played with Warhammer models or anything else really but the original army lists really map to Warhammer well for some reason. I've always thought it was funny that their rules were clearly aimed at Warhammer players and their models so clearly weren't.

They did go that way with the Dead Zone Marauders. I'll stick to my old figures.

But one of the appeals of Kings of War is that they don't care who's models you're using. If you don't like theirs they're fine with you using someone else's. At least last I heard. I guess I could talk about the quality of the figures and stuff if people care. There's a few standouts but most are just okay. Personally I'm fine with that, I don't want lots of microscopic details in an army I'm going to paint. I've got Abyssal Dwarfs, Basiliens, Forces of the Abyss, and Ogres I could photograph.
I always like looking at minis. :smile:
Post'em if you got'em!
 
Mantic do have my good will, if not my money, just for trying to offer an alternative to GW.
I'd be curious to what you've done with the figures.

These days I'm seeing a lot of energy around the One Page Rules efforts, like Grimdark Future, which have no associated miniatures, depsite their army lists being obvious takes on 40K and WFB factions.
 
They're mostly spray, block, dip jobs. I needed armies for the store in a hurry.

I think we're in the golden age of alternatives with Mantic, North Star, and Warlord all having high end fantasy and science fiction games. I lean towards Kings of War over Warlords of Erewhon but a second edition or free rules pdfs of WoE might change that.
 
It has, unfortunately, become more Warhammer-y and less price friendly as time has gone on. Back in it's 1st Edition and the early portion of 2nd Edition, you could legit build an entire army for the same price as two GW units.

Unfortunately, that's less the case now, though it still compares will. Though the warning that they use a wide variety of materials still, not all of which are as hobbyist friendly as GW's plastic. This is becoming less of an issue, but there's still some old figures made from odd resin mixes and some with faffy metal parts to fit.
 
It's true enough, nothing is as cheap as it once was. At least Mantic seem to have moved away from the endless kickstarter churn.
 
It's true enough, nothing is as cheap as it once was. At least Mantic seem to have moved away from the endless kickstarter churn.
They have.

Sadly, they've spread themselves very thin for a small company, with waaay too many game lines, which is a shame. I really liked the look of Armada, and still do, but it's a bloody expensive buy-in.

For the longest time, our extended group loved Dreadball, but 2nd Edition just killed the interest and everyone went back to Blood Bowl. So there's only really Deadzone and Hellboy that we play now. We couldn't get the interest for Vanguard, sadly.
 
I don't know, fantasy skirmishes are a way to start collecting real armies I suppose. Admittedly Kings of War doesn't scale down well. At 500 points games are quick and tend to be pretty one sided as the first side to lose a unit is at a real disadvantage. On the other hand it's quite possible to run a small tournament in an evening.
 
While it was written for 2nd Edition, the Kings of War: Historical Armies book as actually very good! We ended up using that a lot, since we fancied a historical game and didn't fancy learning a new or more complex system. I don't know if it's still available, but it's very good if that is a specific itch you want to scratch.

It covers armies by broadly defined ages from antiquity through to the late middle-ages, though it'll let you through different eras together without any real issue. It includes a few historical named characters too. I don't recall every army included, but it's got your Greeks and Romans, Mongols, Anglo-Saxons, English, Scottish, Franks and Normans, etc. Plus mercenaries and the like.

It's a fun addition to the line. I think it was rewritten for 3rd Edition, but I've stuck with 2nd Edition happily enough.
 
How is the Kings of War Armada game? I’ve been hoping to find a Fantasy Naval rule set.
 
How is the Kings of War Armada game? I’ve been hoping to find a Fantasy Naval rule set.
Too expensive for me to try, unfortunately, because I am keen to find a Man o' War substitute myself. The ships look nice.
 
I know it’s a niche within a niche, so fantasy naval has like 5 choices and only 1 seems to be in print (Armada). I tried expanding to include space fleet because of general similarities.

that actually led me to Aeronautica Imperialis, which I’m debating diving into as a substitute.
 
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I've played Aeronautica Imperialis. Despite my utter loathing of GW I must say it's pretty fun and definitely a better WWII dog fight game that Blood Red Skies.
 
Yeah, Aeronautica's good. A friend of mine has collected the three different boxed sets, so we've tried to basic factions.

It's way too heavily tilted towards the Imperium (3 out of 6 factions) so far, but it plays well for one-off sorties. We haven't looked at the campaign play yet. I love the Ork aircraft, big rattly deathtraps that spaff missiles at point blank range. Great fun.

By my reckoning, it's better than X-Wing and Blood Red Skies, it's also tidier than the older Forge World supported version of Aeronautica. I really should pick up my own Ork jets for it at some point soon.

It's reasonably priced (for GW), though Forge World sells some of the more obscure flying vehicles, like the farcically oversized (and expensive) Ork Mega-Bomba, that I'm astonished stays atop it's flying base. They also added some not insanely expensive (for FW) Necrons death croissants, which hopefully means the other Xenos/Chaos factions might get some toys along the line.
 
Silent Death is a decent alternative though.

Lots of fantasy naval combat rules, Rolemaster's Sea Law is a functional hex and counter game in its own right that ties in with War Law.
 
I have Silent Death and Renegade Legion. Silent Death is easier to play larger scale engagements than Interceptor (I guess that’s when I break out Leviathan). that is strictly because of the ships records for the RL line.

Went ahead and ordered AI from Amazon so it delivered today (got Wings of Vengeance). Might have gone overboard after watching videos and ordered the other older set from Amazon also and asked my FLGS to order Wrath of Angels.

It’s not diving in unless you make a splash, right?
 
I have Silent Death and Renegade Legion. Silent Death is easier to play larger scale engagements than Interceptor (I guess that’s when I break out Leviathan). that is strictly because of the ships records for the RL line.

Went ahead and ordered AI from Amazon so it delivered today (got Wings of Vengeance). Might have gone overboard after watching videos and ordered the other older set from Amazon also and asked my FLGS to order Wrath of Angels.

It’s not diving in unless you make a splash, right?
Buying all three starter sets?

That's the olympic synchronized dive of making a splash.
 
Back to Kings of War:

I sadly haven't had the chance to play KoW 3e yet, but KoW 2e hit retail release just as GW was shutting down Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and benefited from being a fantasy rank 'n flank game, RIGHT THERE, with Warhammer-friendly army lists built right in. My group picked it up and we enjoyed it immensely. We found 2e struck a good balance between tactical and strategic options, decent flavor across armies and units, and ease of play. Not a perfect fantasy game, but better than we'd found WHFB 8e to be.

We weren't sure if we'd like the lack of individual model removal, but it quickly grew on us. The UGOIGO turn structure and the lack of save rolling on the part of the non-active player means it can be played with a chess clock at tournaments, and while we weren't tournament people, we found our doubts about "you don't do anything when it's not your turn" was amply cushioned by how quickly the turns went. Generally, we like the system.

Mantic's models have always been hit or miss, aiming at a balance between characterful fantasy, adequate to serve the purpose, and affordable for an infantry regiment game. I've often seen "not as high quality as GW", and some of the sculpts are, indeed, bad. But some of that is really "not as festooned with overwrought faction bling as GW". A lot of the rank and file troopers aren't so much plain as just rank and file, with a level of detail that GW customers from the 90's would be more familiar with.

Mantic seems to be going through a phase where they realize that to cover costs, they need to sell their miniatures at prices that will prompt customers to expect a quality level of "good", not just "good enough". They also seem to be attempting to develop their own brand and fantasy world, as opposed to just knockoff Old World WHFB, as some people still see them as. Personally, I'm not as keen on, say, Riftforged Orcs with a smithing/heavy armor theme and a more World of Warcraft aesthetic over generic fantasy, but that's my subjective preference. I recognize there's a place in the miniatures market for such things, I'm just not working on anything requiring it at the moment.

I've really only heard good things about the switch from KoW 2e and 3e, but as I said I haven't had the chance to directly compare and contrast. But, if it's as similar to KoW 2e as it reads, it's definitely worth picking up and trying if you're looking for a high-fantasy rank n' flank wargame. (I also recommend looking at Osprey's Oathmark for low-fantasy rank n' flank, and Warlord's Warlords of Erehwon for non-ranked fantasy warfare. Your miniatures should work across all three rulesets - a massive benefit to stepping outside the GW bubble and into the broader wargaming hobby!)

I hope I added to the various takes of the game already in this thread!
 
Here are my armies, they're a bit small but I supplement them with other stuff in my collection.
 

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And some more, I swear they look better in person.
 

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Thanks for sharing. They look great!
How many hours did it take you to paint them all.
That's my worry about games with a lot of units, that the sheer volume of units to paint and hours break me. lol
 
Okay, so they're all simple spray / block / dip paint jobs. I sprayed them brown, blocked in some details and dipped them in Army Painter gloss varnish then dull coated the non-gloss areas by hand. There's variations, I sprayed the ogres yellow after the brown and I used a home brewed dip on the Basiliens instead of the Army Painter stuff. My home brew dip is Future Floor Wax and FW Acrylic Sepia ink. It's thinner and I brush it on instead of actually dipping the figures.
Somehow I forgot to photograph the Baselian Eloi I've got. The Ogres need about three more ogres with hand weapon and shield, three more ogres with great weapons, and berserker braves. The Baselian's need crossbowmen and more men at arms. I'd also like to build up the mounted paladins. The Abyssal Dwarfs need a big monster, another war machine and one more unit of troops. The demons need sucubi another big fiend moloches and maybe the frostgrave demons to represent an armoured or elite unit. I've also got an elven army I need to paint.
 
Yeah, batch painting KoW miniatures is usually an easy affair. The early plastics (dwarves and undead, etc.) were especially good for quick paint n' dip. The miniatures are a little faffier now, but nowhere near as complex as most GW miniatures these days.
 
Interesting blog post today, Mantic is moving away from metal. It doesn't say if it's Siocast but it looks more like the Prodos resin the arch fiend was cast in. Siocast tends to look less shiny and the details don't look quite so sharp. Much as I love metal figures, they're on their way out for all but the boutique miniatures companies.

 
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