Kings of War/Mantic general: "Might as well go for four" edition

>Elves
>10th place average, 2nd worst
>8 appearances in 32 players

How? They've been wrecking shit in casual play. Or are the strategies I see in casual play totally garbage at tournaments with pros? (fuck'n deathstar buffed archers)

>Orcs
>Significantly worst average placing with 7 appearances
Ouch.

Found the other example I was thinking of. They're just really weird. I love it.

Casual perusal of the list leads me to believe that orcs pretty much need Goblin allies.

What sort of things should I look to include in an undead list?

Wights are murderous. They're your can-openers, able to carve up any high-def unit in short order. The lack of monsters is more than made up by how bullshit good Wights are.

Zombies are dirt cheap and, if you take a horde or legion, will stick around far longer than they have any right to. Especially if you take the undead rat/dog upgrade and have a necro with heal nearby.

Werewolves and ghouls are the only rank-and-file units you have that don't have shambling. Werewolves work best when ranging ahead, hunting for warmachines or getting in some juicy flank/rear charges. Ghoul troops are dirt-cheap chaff and are helpful to protect your flank.

Revenant regiments can work well as an anvil, but I prefer giving them two-handers and making them a hammer. They're cheap enough to where you don't feel like you're wasting too many points, and if they get in the flank you're slapping down 24 CS1 attacks. Not too shabby. Goes well as flanking units for the aforementioned horde of zombies.

>Wights are the only can openers
No, they're just the strongest. Zombie trolls are a lot cheaper and nearly as good. The vampire infantry/cavalry units are great as well for non-shambling can openers. Mummies are a lower damage can opener with the best staying power out of any of the high CS units.

I wouldn't call werewolves rank and file either, since they have nimble. Generally speaking, with the rest of their stats, it makes them light cavalry.

Wights are probably the most efficient use of points for a heavy-hitting can opener. This isn't to say that the other units are bad at all, far from it, but there's a reason Wights are as popular as they are.

At no point did I say they were the only can openers.

>I wouldn't call werewolves rank and file either, since they have nimble.

By rank-and-file, I mean non-hero units without shambling. Admittedly though, there's only one hero with shambling, which is the army standard bearer.

Cheers guys, unit sizes, regiments or hordes for skeletons? The wider frontage of hordes makes me think regiments are the way to go.

Depends what you want it to do. I'd say hordes are in general more useful, just because they can absorb quite a lot of damage.

>47634551
Pretty basic Im afraid

For High Paladin I instead use Reaper Bones pathfinder dragon and reaper pathfinder Queen Ileosa to make an image of a queen with a dragon slave.

For sister its a bunch of reaper bones, anima tactics, kingdom death models which later on will be mixed up with mantic sisters because for now its just a mesh of cleric models

Fair enough, I thought that because they were wide rather than deep they might have more trouble with units being brought to bear against them.

Where the hell are the rules for "Undead Giant Rats (dogs?)"?

Army special rules. Increase lifeleech by 1.

What are the best units to pick for them from the gobs? They warmachines?

Are the Undead Cav units decent? The skeletons have a vibe that would suit Mousillon, the spoopy Bretonnian dukedom.

The recent activity in these threads almost makes it feel like last summer.

Tournament season, yo.

Revenant Cav are pretty durable for knights with def 5+ and -/17 nerve, and the 16" charge means the shambling isn't too big of a problem. Good value for the points.

Soul Reaver cav are some of the premier cavalry in KoW with def 6 with lifeleech and CS1 TC2, but pay for it in points and low nerve.

Well, the Chaos Dwarves didn't really worship the big four Chaos gods as much as they worshipped a lesser Chaos Deity named Hashut. It's kinda like how Skaven's deity is also a lesser Chaos god. Neither of them look like the general forces of Chaos.

Hashut also has a bull theme going on that is frequent in their iconography and the Chaos Dwarves themselves are the Mesopotamians of the setting. So they shouldn't really look like barbarians of the north by the logic the White Dwarf theme used when originally designing them.

I feel like this might be obvious but do Undead Vamp Lords have Lifeleech 2 or 3?
Does the fact that it saays "Lifeleech 2" in the unity entry completely overwrite the Army-Wide special rule, or do they stack?

> All units in this list have Lifeleech (1) unless specified otherwise.

The Vampire Lord entry states Lifeleech (2), which is specifying otherwise. It does not stack.

Excellent.

What sort of things should I look to include in an varangur list?

Barbarians.

Since you have very limited shooting, you will want to invest in either chaff or speed. Or both.

A follow up to the Dungeon Saga teasers:

manticblog.com/2016/06/06/dungeon-saga-warlord-galahir/

Praise MOM, that mad, Spanish bastard.

The Salamander hero honestly looks worse than the hard plastic one. I got it from the kickstarter and it has no scales on the sculpt.

How do you feel about big hats?

Magus conclaves are pretty sweet, though.
Obviously not going to be tabling people with them alone, but I'd strongly consider taking 2.

There is an objectively correct answer to this question.

It is that they are great.

What's that ? I want it very bad right now.

Flip a coin.

Just ordered my Dwarves, going halves on the 2 player mega starter, got the dwarf starter, 2 hordes of earth elementals, 1 greater earth elemental, 2 regiments of salamanders, and 2 Reaper minis rune priests. Pretty excited.

Magus conclaves are nice but they are absolutely not heavy hitters. Like the magus and night raiders they are clearing chaff, forcing nerve checks and softening targets for melee.

So is an entire vampire army a shitty idea?

no, go for it.

only concern is is there a vampire regiment? dont know a whole lot about their list.

While the picture name says Daemon Engine, the base model looks like it would make a good steam tank. I would still recommend Scotia-Grendel for a Dwarven Steel Behemoth however.

As in just porting over Vampire Counts? That is fine. Just vampire units? Harder to do, but some refluffing (Using Varghulf models as werewolves and using the Black Coach as a Revenant on Wyrm would work fantastically. Otherwise you will probably be swamped after a while considering the low model count of the concept.

For regiments there are Soul Reavers and Soul Reaver cavalry, with them representing vampire footsoldiers and mounted vampires respectively.

then yea go for it!

Counterpoint: Big hats cover potentially fabulous hair.

Cheers m80, could be a good concept to go for
undead hunting dogs like wolf- or staghounds could be a cool thing

Has Mantic made any art for space ships in Warpath?

I specifically want to see Forge Father ships because the lore makes them sound awesome.

I didn't see any, but it could be cool as fuck if well done.

But not even more fabulous beards.

I've been toying with the idea of a homebrew army with a fantasy arabic theme reminiscent of Academy in HoMM5.

I want to include sparabara as a unit because I think it would have a unique role, fits the theme (persian is good enough) and because it's fun to say.

Here is the proposed unit:

SPARABARA
Infantry
SP Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Regiment (20) 4 5+ - 3+ 15 13/15 140?
Horde (40) 4 5+ - 3+ 30 20/22 220?

Special Rules: Big Shields, Phalanx

Thoughts on the Sparabara?

Historically, didn't Sparabara only comprise the front ranks, with archers behind?

Might want to incorporate ranged attacks into the unit.

Woops, that formatting is rubbish.

Sp = 4
Me = 5+
Ra = -
De = 3+
At = 15 (regt) or 30 (horde)
Nerve = 13/15 (regt) or 20/22 (horde)
pts = 140 (regt) or 220 (horde

Special Rules: Big Shields, Phalanx

On top of I would reduce their def by a few points (as in make it worse, like 4+ or 5+) because Persian infantry of the time were pretty lightly armoured and they already get the 6+ to attacks in the front arc from Big Shields.

>as in make it worse, like 4+ or 5+
this isn't WHFB, def doesn't work that way

They were indeed. Because of the high attacks value, maybe make it Ra 6+ for 20/30 pts?

But they've already got def 3, which is pretty standard for guys with little to no armour in KoW.

Woops I got mixed up.

Ah well you know what I mean.

The def is fine, I just had a stroke or something and forgot how it worked.

Standard KoM archers have a Ra of 5+ but maybe 6+ would be better to prevent them from making vanilla archers obsolete.

>Standard KoM archers have a Ra of 5+ but maybe 6+ would be better to prevent them from making vanilla archers obsolete.
There's also the 15/30 attacks versus KoM bowmens 10/20.
30/6 -> 5 shots
20/3 -> 6.666 shots

So the Sparabara would be putting out a couple less shots on average, but then they have higher frontal def and phalanx.

Sounds a fair compromise to me.

How viable do you think exclusively running Forge Guard in Deadzone is?

I picked some up at the weekend and they are really cool I'm just concerned that they're too slow to actually get anything done.

Also managed to get 3 games of KoW in last week with my Varangur, won 2 lost 1 against Ratkin, Goblins, and Twilight Kin respectively.

Fun games, look forward to playing again.

I've taken the feedback on board about the Sparabara archers.

Now, what to you make of this?

NAPTHA THROWERS
War Engine
Sp = 5
Me = -
Ra = 5+
De = 3+
At = 2
Ne = 11/13
Pts = 70

Special Rules: Blast (d6), Individual, Piercing (2), Range 12”

So with that range & no Reload! it's immediately compared to Breath Attack WMs such as:
Elf Dragon Breath -> 15 attack reroll 1s @ 4+: 8.75 hits vs Def, 90 pts
Dwarf Flame Belcher -> 18 Attack @ 4+: 9 hits vs Def, 85 pts
Abyssal Dwarf Dragon Fire-team -> 10 attack @ 4+: 5 hits, but it's individual, and 50 pts
Goblin War-Trombone -> 12 attacks @ 4+: 6 hits, but with pierce 1 and 65 pts
Naptha Thrower: 2 attacks @ 5+: .666 hits blasted into 2.4, but with pierce 2 - it'll also suffer shoot mods. 70 pts

Pierce 2 does help, but looking at the Kings of Math doc (just because I felt like doing both things), it shows that it has very low average damage. The average wounds are from left to right for vs Def 3/4/5/6 targets.

For fun I threw in the Ratkin Artillery (90pt), clawshots (90pt), and a KoM ballista (60pt). The thrower comes very close to the Ratkin Artillery, but then it'salso a 48" WM, so won't be charged after 1 round of use.

It should be noted that much of this other artillery has a Nerve statline more close to 9/11 or 10/12, but eh I don't think that matters too much on a single WM.

I think it should be buffed, somehow. Extra range, or maybe just making it a 'normal' breath attack weapon. Not overly sure.
PS use the Kings of Math doc in the OP if you are not, it's great. It doesn't track non-attack rules so it ain't perfect, but still good.

Oh, I just noticed Dragon Fire-team should have Vicious, which slightly boosts their expected damage to 3.9/2.9/1.9/1.0
Also, sort of ignored your thrower having individual, which makes it a bit better, but eh, not as much damage as that cheaper Dragon fire team.

Anymore fun 'brewing activity?

One time, when I was 19, I made mead in my closet with apricots, honey, and bread yeast.

Interesting. Tell me more.

It was drinkable? It sounds more like wino.

I know a lot of KoW players use either GW or Mantic models but I was wondering if anyone used other companies to build their armies?

Been thinking about making a wood elf army with grenadier miniatures since I actually like the 80's sculpt aesthetic.

It was drinkable, but I brewed it in smaller water bottle containers rather than a single large jug or vat, and I didn't have a good filter to remove the yeast after it was done fermenting, meaning that each bottle was of wildly different quality. They all got you drunk and didn't give you turbo-diarreah though, and when you're 19, that's all that really matters.

It wasn't hard. Get dried fruit, boil the water, make sure the container you're gonna use is sanitary, put the fruit in your boiled water mixture, put yeast in after it's stopped boiling but is a it warm, put a balloon with a small hole over the opening on your bottle and then leave it until the balloon naturally deflates on its own.

I forget the exacts, because it was five or six years ago, but it was actually much easier than you'd expect.

I use tons of old Confrontation figures that my store sells in its loose minis bin ($2 a piece, more if you want a base to come with it) along with some recasts from based Ukranians ($10 a piece as per the standard metal dude in a blister price). They fill in a lot of gaps that have rules but neither GW nor Mantic offers models for like a mounted necromancer or a imposing demon on a 40mm base.

I seen plenty of divine rage of late, plus gamezone and AoW mixed with WH and sometimes mantic (specially undead).

Does anyone use movement trays that accomadate round bases? Did you make them yourself if not where did you get them?

The mantic forums have a really useful thread on hobby supplies, and includes links to round base movement trays

vb.manticforum.com/forum/kings-of-war/general-discussion-aa/270745-movement-trays-markers-and-various-helpful-stuff-to-enhance-your-kow-experience

Awesome thank you so much

Momminiaturas is popular.

Looking to get into KoW. Always wanted to play WHFB but I was too poor and I'm getting back into tabletop games. Looking at Varangar cuz conversions were my favorite part of 40k.

2 Regiments of Bloodsworn (+Headstrong / Fury)
1 Troop of Tundra Wolves
1 Horde of Fallen
1 King on Chimera (got some sick conversions planned)
Alternatively
2 Regiment Sons of Korgan (+Headstrong / Fury)
1 Troop Fallen +Brew of Strength
1 Troop Tundra Wolves
1 Chieftain on Direfang (+Lifeleech (1), +Pipes of Terror)
OR (the most drops, but the most cash for me to enter)
2 Regiments of Bloodsworn (+Headstrong / Fury)
1 Troop of Tundra Wolves
1 Regiment of The Fallen (+Brew of Strength)
1 Regiment Direfang Riders (+Lifeleech (1))
1 Chieftain on Direfang (+Lifeleech (1))

Which of these 1000pts lists looks the best? Can't find much feedback on Varangar. Someone said I should take allies for chaff (i'm just learning about this stuff)

The later seems the most fun to play, pretty fast army than without ranged you will need anyway (unless allies or mages).

The undead I'm working on is almost entirely reaper bones, with some boardgame minis that I had handy.

I like the second one the most. The Chieftan will be a great centerpiece, though you should add another source of inspiring eventually. You probably don't need allies, Varangur don't have anything super chaffy, but using hordes of their cheaper infantry won't be a bad idea especially as their nerve values aren't too bad.

I can't see why you need allies for chaff when you have Thralls and Tundra Wolves available to you

I can recommend Fallen, they're quick enough to get into a flank and really start smashing shit quite quickly.

They aren't massively survivable but they become a problem that needs to be addressed and that can buy your heavy hitting footsloggers the time they need to close the gap.

I usually run them in 2 regiments.

I use Nurgle Plague Toads for them, kind of makes sense since they have nimble and pathfinder. They just ribbit, ribbit about and hop over stuff.

Speaking of Thralls do you guys think I could get away with using zombies for them?

The rest of my army is Nurgle themed so they should fit.

Seems a perfect fit to me.

Another idea

DJINN
Large infantry
Sp 5
Me 4
Ra -
De 4
At 12/24
Ne 12/14 or 15/17
Special: cs2, fly, wind blast 2

Uh...that doesn't seem too weird, I guess? A quick flick through the core book brings me to the Elohi - 12/24 at 4+ is the same as 9/18 at 3+ (6 hits and 12 hits), CS2 is a better CS1+TC1, fly is fly, you 'replace' inspiring with WB(2) - Inspiring is probably worth more though so you don't really do that, and then you have worse Def and Speed and now the comparison isn't so great is it?

Taking the "Djinn" the Enslaved Guardians in the EoD, they have Wind Blast 5 so you could consider Wind Blast 5 rather than 2 just to keep in-line with other things that are "Djinns". I also don't really see Wind Blast below 5 anywhere, but it's not like that's a hard rule you can't set to whatever. Wind Blast 2 isn't going to be doing much movement, though.

Then of course you don't have any idea on points, which is the hardest part, and one I don't want to even stab at. For "vaguelyish similar" you'd probably want to look at stuff like the Elohi, the Enslaved Guardian, Nightmares, Tortured Souls. That low low speed is a serious downer to Fly's power though, I'd think, so has to be kept in mind.

Hopefully the Ophidians are more in the line of Araby than just TK plus meat or Rackham Ophidians.

I fot the feelings that they were going for Stygians from Conan.

A lot of the armies feel vaguely samey at first blush.
Are they actually noticeably different in feel in play?
The friends I play with might not appreciate it if it's too bland/samey, but I'm looking for something simpler than WHFB - 3 rolls for every attack round (hit, wound, armor save, then maybe a ward) combined with math comparisons and counting what models can attack is annoyingly slow.

There was some tournament yesterday or the day before or whatever with 26 particpants - "Kings of the Keystone"

Attached are the results, and this is a link to the rules/scenarios
docs.google.com/document/d/1BAaGxLy_mOL5w7LeOYXyCck18sNZSN6SlOTWmTyHaio/edit

And then, if wanted, the forum post on this topic was @ vb.manticforum.com/forum/kings-of-war/general-discussion-aa/285747-kings-of-the-keystone-one-day-tourney-results

Actually, it's attached here.

So I just noticed CS and TC and other similar rules say +n modifier to rolls to damage - I've just been ticking the targeted units Def down at a 1:1 basis.
This is completely exactly the same thing, right? Like "CS1 versus Def 4+ means they're actually Def 3+" will be fine?
Are there any edge cases where this'll be a problem? I can't really think of any, but it's weird that they'd do it this way. Feels like an extra step versus what I've been doing.

I think that's fine as long as you remember this from the rulebook:

"Any die that rolls a 1 always fails to damage, regardless of modifiers. If a modifier brings the score required to damage a target to above 6, that target cannot be damaged."

They play very differently bruh, the Herd is very fast and punch hard, but they are squimish. Elfs tend to be few but wreckers of stuff ,Undead tend to be fun with shambling than in good hands can wreck shit and blah blah. WHFB had lots of options and stuff than perhaps had a more fluffy feeling (like special objects or spells for every race) but tended to muddy it all in the gameplay part, mantic has ridden itself of a lot of fat and is fast and lean in echange of that. If you really want fb game with more options and what not, try War Throne, isn't fast but you have lots of options if you don't mind the extra clunkiness. You can't have it all.