Mantic's KoW

KoW has been my favorite game since 2nd ed landed last year. Play it every week, despite the simple ruleset there is plenty of depth to keep things interesting.

I like kings of war. Can use my warhammer models. Can use most kings of war models in warhammer fantasy.

Personally, I find it a sort of bland game; it definetly plays fine, and I will say that the rules are simple, yet deep and enjoyable. Some factions have some power creep in em, but they make up for it by having a huge variety of lists.

But the thing that urks me the most are the Mini's; they range from good(Undead, Goblins) to passable(Orcs, Ogres) to straight up insulting(Elves, Basilieans, Tomb King Expies). Thank god they allow for mini's from other manufacturers, otherwise this game would be dead on arrival.

Mantic as a whole, I somewhat find dumb; with KoW being the only manufacturer backed WHFB expy on the market, they blew the huge oppertunity that the End Times Hype/Age of Sigmar hate tidal wave presented, and instead focused on their retarded sci-fi games.

Its a fun game with simple rules and deep mastery. Honestly is also super bland, spells are short and don't hope for anything strong or creative in them and artillery is a waste of point (with 3 artilleries hitting at 5+ you only secure for them to do something every 3 turns).

It does lot of things right, from game mechanics to allowing miniatures from different companies to giving cheap alternatives of miniatures. But it also shows how green it is as it doesn't have the lore or flavor to entertain people by diving in the fantasy world.

BTW, have someone tried trident realm or abyss forces? I'm waging which faction to build once I finish my main one and both seem quite interesting.

Yes.

Except at a GW store, but nobody plays at GW stores anyway. So it's a moot point.

>Removing models adds nothing but making combat take a little longer.
>It's tedious, more likely to damage models, prevents multi-basing and it can be simulated quicker and easier with a rules abstraction at this scale.

All at the sacrifice of immersion. Where when you used to look at a unit that is a fraction of its original size from the beginning, showing that that unit is bravely fighting to the last man, or it becomes easy to see who is gaining the upper hand, now you just see 2 bricks meet each other in the middle, dice are rolled, and either nothing happens, or one disappears; then you lose the little cinematic appeal of it.

And that's the problem I have with KoW. It's a fine game, in that the mechanics and gameplay are pretty solid, but it feels so bland. Like the goal isn't to show the great epic struggles within the battles, it's just so a system has a solid competitive balance. It feels very gamey, and less narrative GW plz dont sue

I'd like your opinion on something.

How do Forces of Nature play compared to the Trident Realms?

I like the Naiads infantry and Wyrm Riders, but don't know if they make more sense to use as part of an actual Naiad army, or a Forces of Nature army.

The ruleset is solid, games play fast compared to WHFB and it's more balanced than about everything else on the market. Plus you can play with any minis you want and the rules are perfect for multibasing and mini-dioramas.

AoS ruleset is really garbage trough.

The setting is as well. The minis too.

>All at the sacrifice of immersion. Where when you used to look at a unit that is a fraction of its original size from the beginning, showing that that unit is bravely fighting to the last man, or it becomes easy to see who is gaining the upper hand, now you just see 2 bricks meet each other in the middle, dice are rolled, and either nothing happens, or one disappears; then you lose the little cinematic appeal of it
It's a moot point, because in WHFB or in AoS you're just grinding your units slowly at the centre of the table. KoW is much more fast-paced and lethal.

The game is just fun. Sure you don't get bonuses for having a bigger moustache than your opponent or pretend riding a horse but the game is intense, fast-paced (even when playing horde armies), deep and balanced. The army comp system is simple and allows all kind of lists.

But even then removing models adds nothing. It doesn't feel more cinematic because that group of guys are still standing very rigidly in formation.

Not removing models gives the sense that maybe guys aren't dying in droves, but being injured or worn down and exhausted.

Removing every model that gets killed IS tedious, especially if models have more than one wound. And then you end up with these big empty movemtn trays cluttering the table.

Also this means all those models you spent all that time painting aren't just fancy wound counters that'll get removed turn one. That was always what pissed me off most.

>in AoS you're just grinding your units slowly at the centre of the table
This is a meme. When playing the battleplans or GHB missions, it's more dynamic than that. At least that's been my experience. I just think the reducing unit sizes from damage is one of the things that can't be sacrificed form this type of game, and KoW does it unnecessarily.

Again, KoW is a good game, just not for me. I was searching desperately for an alternative to whfb when GW meliciously killed it, but KoW wasn't it.

Consensus seemed to be that Trident Realms were somewhat underpowered, but then they actually got a few tournament wins. Having not played those armies myself, couldn't tell you more than that sorry.

FoN probably has an edge because they can take the green lady but a player at my lfgs plays trident and it works well.

>This is a meme.
This isn't. Playing the scenarios merely moves the grind towards objectives.

>I just think the reducing unit sizes from damage is one of the things that can't be sacrificed form this type of game

Except it can. It adds nothing to the game. If it was so important than every rank n' file game would do it. But most games with big blocks of guys, like historicals, ditched it because it's pointless and just takes up time.

Don't be too harsh. AoS is a good little game for kids. It's harmless dice rolling and nothing more.

Nigga more kids play 40k than AoS.

Shit reasoning like that is why kids movies are unbearable.

Nigga AoS is 90s american kid cartoon tier in terms of everything.

I completely agree with you that casualty removal gives great feedback. However, as a VC player, once I started to play KOW it became obvious how much time was wasted on removing, adding and rearranging minis. Not to mention that multibasing is a godsend for transport and money.

For me, it's a small price for convenience and it's worth it.

>GWs primary market is kids with pester power
>More kids play 40k
>Fantasy is made more kid friendly
>user is surprised
Why exactly?

Anyone played historicals yet?

If that's true where are my rollerblading sharks?

>It's an AoS shill tries to convince you that the game is really dynamic and thematic thread

They were too Jawesome for AoS to contain.

Would fit right into the Trident realms, though. They'd make rad Depth Horrors.

> I've seen something and I don't like it
> But did you rub it in your dick?

Man, are you retarded?

He isn't the one rubbing his dick into things thinking its the same as a trying a wargame.

>actually liking individual casualty removal in a massed battle game
I don't even . . .

The rules are solid, balanced, fun and they allow you to play with any fantasy minis you want and multibase the shit out of them. I guess it depends on your local player group but here it's the biggest game by far.

Also it's hobbyist galore.

Very unrelated but every time I swipe pepe it goes faster, am I high?

Is there a most common scale for KoW games? Like, is the expectation that battles will be pretty small, or does it encourage huge armies that need a 4x8 table to contain?

No common scale.

My lgs has had tournaments for 1000 and up to 2500.

We have had 4x4 battles of 16000 total points before.

We also have smaller demo games of only 500 points.

2000 is standard, anything less than 1000 gets a bit wonky, but afaik it can scale up about as far as you like without major issues

Can you give me a sense how big of armies those might be?

There are many people who like it becuase of it's simple rules.

Half the games I DM have skirmish battle in mind and KoW is perfectly lite when we reach the big battles rather than using some ham-fisted mass battle rules.

Are there scans available anywhere? Particularly the new Historical Armies book?

To give you some sense of scale:

A regiment of 20 troops is typically about 200 points, give or take.

Large monsters like Dragons or Abyssal Fiends might be 300-400 points.

No Historical scan yet and no Destiny of Kings, but the rest is here:

mediafire.com/folder/meedbza42sp4m/Kings_of_War

>mediafire.com/folder/meedbza42sp4m/Kings_of_War
Awesome, cheers

If you'd like to see how games look, I've made a few batreps.

youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnt2uvETjSKY6Aq35O_9khep19dLvebfN

The army deals tend to be around 1500 points without multibasing.

>Consensus seemed to be that Trident Realms were somewhat underpowered, but then they actually got a few tournament wins.

Any idea what the story is there?

Is it that people underestimated the Trident Realms players because it was thought to be underpowered, or did these guys have a better understanding of how to effectively use Trident Realm armies?

So I guess this can be a /kowg/ for my purposes.

I bought Mantic Undead thinking I'd get into WHFB Vampire Counts, but then WHFB was axed. So I've got ~600-1000 pts of Undead depending.

Not sure if I want to play Undead in KoW though. Thinking about buying a different army, though I'm not sure I like anything I've seen. Not models, I like the models, I mean army-tactics. Haven't really seen one that plays in a manner that appeals to me.

What are the more "out there" armies in terms of playing differently?

It debloats WHFB like it should have been and is leaps and bounds better than AoS. No TLoS or random charge distances or any of that bullshit. I personally don't like the models, but as they let you use any figures you want (In tournaments and everything) I just roll with my night goblins.

It is exactly what you are looking for OP.

Undead in KoW are really good and you can be really aggresive with them (as they lack range power but they can make impressive charges with their surges).

Many armies seem to play similar at first glance but its once you play them a lot you realize their difference, an example are Orcs, everyone think Orcs are going to be great fighters making mosh pits in the table, they are not wrong, but their mages gain bonus by having hordes close, this is how Orcs really shine differently than other armies making them different to other mass mosh pit armies.

If you have a something more clear on what you want we could help you better.

The basic undead set up is taking a bunch of shambling chaff and parking necromancers behind them to surge them forward. That said out there strategies include elite fast armies which focus on non-shambling units and shit like soul reavers and werewolves, and ranged armies which take advantage of the catapults and archers.

One of the major gripe with the trident is that nearly to no troop with their special rule in the army.

The biggest problem is the game is just dull. In wanting to be so competetive, it loses any flavour. Just play original WH Fantasy instead. Contrary to popular belief, the rulebooks and models didn't spontaneously combust when the game ended, so it's still easy to play.

Do you have any specific complaints or are you just meming? Having something that is actively supported is nice. There are actual tournaments for it and upcoming things like the global campaign.

That's fine and all, but the game has no soul. You walk away from a game and there's nothing memorable about it, it's just...eh.

I agree with him; all the factions feel sort of samey, and outside of one or two things per faction, they arent all that different. Its not like dwarves or VC or tomb kings, they just dont have any flavor.

KoW is like a steak; but with no seasonings or sides.

>Steak without seasoning or sides
Meanwhile WHFB was a pile of sides with seasoning dumped on it next to a framed photo of a steak.

Sometimes, I just want some fucking steak.

The game is pretty new, they'll be churning out more fluff once they get the Steak just right.

> factions are kind of same-y
You haven't played much then. Undead vs EoD for example look similar at first glance, but have very different major tactical options. I end up fielding my dudes as one or the other.

Of course it's going to look a bit Same-y to a WHFB player when they split single factions into two or three, Eg Orc-Goblin-Ogre, or FoN being a hybrid of Herd+Salamander. Etc.

The faction abilities are usually pretty mechanically significant too. Night-Stalkers alone are way the fuck out there compared to anything in WHFB for core mechanics. Ratkin's got an interesting one too.

Elves vs Dark Elves, and the fact it's got like 4 human factions without much extremes between them I'd agree with though.

>The game is pretty new, they'll be churning out more fluff once they get the Steak just right.
Nah fuck that, I don't want more.
I love being able to flavour it however I like, without nerds shrieking that it contradicts the fluff, or having to change my models to reflect different upgrades, or pouring over books for hours before being able to get a quick game in.

>One of the major gripes with the Trident is that there are nearly no troops with their special rule in the army.

Yeah, that does seem bizarre. Perhaps the need an errata where they have a different special rule.

Or maybe it just makes more sense to run Naiad-heavy Forces of Nature instead of Trident realms if you want to get your fix of fish-people.

>KoW is like a steak; but with no seasonings or sides.
If you say that as a negative thing than you've never had a good steak. Bet you use fucking A1.

>Want to collect Brets
>Apparently Brets were pretty shit near the end of Warham
>"Well, fuck"
>Wasn't really interested in KoW
>Hear about the not-Brets the Mantic kids brewed up
>Order of Redemption reminds me of Dark Souls 3's Abyss Watchers
>One of those martyr groups of "We fucked up, and can't let it happen again"
>Go out of their way to protect anyone who finds themselves against Abyssals
>Basileans at ends with them even though the Brotherhood hold the fucking line for them.

Not-Brets are pretty fucking cool. Please make a cool line of minis for the Brotherhood, and more fluff, Mantic.

I think that it is a good way of putting it. Sure I would love to celebrate the exploits of my Dwarven army, but it simply isn't any fun when I am guaranteed to lose every game as GW doesn't believe in actually playtesting their games. The new character customization options for example add a lot of flavor, along with the unique regiments feature in the campaign book. Both really let you personalize your army ruleswise.

I agree that there is a happy medium. Mantic is putting out a lot more fluff with the upcoming book, though I can understand the hesitation after hearing the 30K horror stories.

I've never understood why GW made 30K a thing.

It's supposed to be a piece of background fluff with many of the details lost to time, not a fully fleshed out setting in its own right.

Yeah, it seems like FoN are the better choice than TR.

>I've never understood why GW made 30K a thing.

It's made GW a disgusting amount of money.

>I've never understood why GW made 30K a thing.
>It's supposed to be a piece of background fluff with many of the details lost to time, not a fully fleshed out setting in its own right.
Wasn't the Horus Heresy invented to explain the contents of the Adeptus Titanicus box, where both sides had identical units?

>Mantic is putting out a lot more fluff with the upcoming book
Any detail on what's getting fluffed out?

>Dwarves in green and silver

I like that color scheme

Thankyou, my favorite color. Though I have been questioned about it because orcs and goblins are green.

My original warhammer fantasy army was going to be a clan from Karak Hirn which holds main banner is green and gold. Just kept the green and decided my clan color was silver.

Here is a greater earth elemental

Do they still have GW stores with actual tables?

Wow, with the highlights the cartoony aesthetic actually looks really good.

>But the thing that urks me the most are the Mini's
I do hope you know you don't have to use the Mantic minis, and they themselves courage to use whatever the fuck you want.

>Mantic as a whole, I somewhat find dumb; with KoW being the only manufacturer backed WHFB expy on the market
9th age is getting more and more support, from the top of my head from Shieldwolf, Fireforge and Hidden Dreams, plus possibly a few others too.

>All at the sacrifice of immersion.
I don't know man, when a unit at any point at history suffered heavy casualties, it'd just run away, and don't stand there for an eternity because they passed all their Ld tests. Getting cut down to the last man was pretty fucking rare, and for me separate figure removal takes away from immersion.

Get in the middle, roll 4+s, the one who passes most wins. Good game.

I didn't get a Bretonnian army book since 6th ed. GW committed a war crime's equivalent of offense in my eyes with AoS.

>The game is pretty new
Had their first KS 4 years ago for 1st ed, and even before that they had it for 2-3 years or so. I wouldn't say it's exactly new.

They won't make any minis for the "we aren't WHFB lists we swear" armies.

>They won't make any minis for the "we aren't WHFB lists we swear" armies.
They did though. See Empire of Dust. They have stated that they plan on making figures for every single army eventually.

IIRC Ophidia was in the pipeline for a long time, and I'm still a bit pissed about "hey guys, metal skeleton crossbowmen!" thing when they were just fucking metal upgrade parts. Which is true for most of the infantry, and I have no idea who thought metal was a good medium for a massed combat game.

Ophidia is its own faction that will have different figures, though it is likely that the basic skeletons will be shared. I think that they just don't want to invest in molds for new armies, so they just use metal conversion bits in the case of the Abyssal Dwarves and the Empire of Dust. It's lame, but still more affordable than most alternatives. That said I want to see them try to use resin or something instead. Makes balancing the figures much easier.

Restic was much better, but sadly some people bitched too loudly and now we can enjoy full metal zombie trolls for twice the price.

I mean resin, not restic. Restic is objectively bad. Privateer Press and Mantic have both thankfully ditched it. If anything they should at least use PVC like Privateer Press and Reaper if they just want a material to cut costs.

>Restic is objectively bad
For fuck's sake, it's not. If anything, it was much better than metal, and for the hefty sum of the price of a file, you could remove the mouldlines too without any kind of problem. Resin would provide lot more problems, including quickly worn out moulds and not as strong thin parts.

>I wouldn't say it's exactly new.
Given the size of the company, the number of other games they were developing and releasing during that time, and just how many army lines they needed to fully flesh out (and still need to)...

It's pretty new. Between 1st edition and right now is like jumping from the first demo of WHFB to around 5th edition.

>sadly some people bitched too loudly and now we can enjoy full metal for twice the price

This still pisses me off. There was nothing wrong with the Resin, beside the fact you got twice as much for the same price. Oh no.

Yeah, but the models will have shitty detail. Mantic was just listening to the largest complaint about the game and decided to improve the quality of their figures. Actual Resin is pretty good though as far as detail goes though.

I didn't notice that desu. Tho I'm curious about their boardgame material, the Dungeon Saga figs look pretty neat.

The Dungeon Saga figures look pretty nice in my opinion, and the designs they used got refined from "board game figure" level to "war game figure" level when they finally got released for Kings of War itself.

>Here is a greater earth elemental

Awesome job!

The giant crystals look really good in green.

What are some units without minis that you feel are most in need of getting minis?

Stuff that gets a lot of use on the table, but currently uses stand-in miniatures.

I would say that nothing needs figures, but something like a Chroneas would be nice. Profile wise it really isn't like any other demon model.

Mantic's dwarves aren't even half bad.

The main complaint about this is low detail. They have flat helmets, plain shields, and soft detail in some areas, compared to GWs where there is a lot of intricate gaelic designs to make things interesting.

Yeah, they have an industrial look. It's a design choice, fitting for dwarves IMO.

No, I mean like actual soft detail in that the molds simply weren't machined well. That is the problem with some of the gunners. The other problem is probably that not all pieces can be switched out as they opt for things to be molded on, but as you won't have identical twins in a 20 man unit it isn't that bad.

I'd say the other three kinds of Elementals and Greater Elementals.

I really haven't found any good alternative minis for Fire, Air, or Water Elementals.

Also, the Well of Souls and Abyssal Temptress could both use models.

I agree with you on the elementals. While the greater ones are easy to fill in, getting regular elementals is difficult.

I think that Temptresses are an easy unit to sub in though. There are tons of succubi models sold by a variety of companies. The Confrontation ones especially are good choices.

My problem with succubi models from other companies is that they tend to be R-rated or X-rated. And I'd feel like a bit of a "that guy" using them in my army.

Mantic's stuff is more PG-13 and sassy than outright slutty and lustful like traditional succubi.