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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/kings-of-war-fantasy-battle-game-2nd-edition?ref=nav_search




This Kickstarter is to fund the 2nd Edition Kings of War Hardback Rulebook, a new tome that will build on the previous edition to create a bigger and better game.

It will include:
• Enhanced Game Play - with improvements to the rules to improve the strategy, speed and simplicity in the game.

• Refreshed Army Lists - all armies will be updated and rebalanced, and new units and new armies will be added to the core rulebook.

• Fantastic New Art - an update to the art library throughout the book to bring the world to life.

• Develop the Background - exploring the fantasy world and each of the factions like never before.
• and more!


Kings of War 2nd Edition grew out of gamer demand. After thousands of games and numerous tournaments played across the globe over the last 4 years the gaming community saw opportunity to streamline and develop the rules and army lists to an even higher level. The new rule set will allow you to play exciting games with huge armies - from start to finish in an evening. The background will let you engross yourself in the world of Kings of War and its history, and study your opponent’s force and the units at his disposal - so you can plan their defeat!





Mega Army - Army Name - Starter Values (based on mantic website as best I can, NOT online discounters or bundle deals, please check the value for yourself before backing!)

£119.93 (approx) - Undead - £42.46

£138.32 - Dwarf - £45.46

£143.91 - Elf - £55.45

£15.02 (approx) - Orc - £52.46 (approx)

£132.42 - Abysal Dwarf - £52.46

£163.08 - Goblin - £51.46

£159.41 - Basilean - £57.46

£134.21- Ogre - £40.97

£83.34 - Forces of the Abyss - £21.84

£9615 - Forces of Nature - £43.28

STRETCH GOALS

Funded: Army Builder and Chess Clock Apps

Funded: Free counters


Funded: Elf Mage and Baslilan War Wizard (free for pledges with those armies ONLY, otherwise $8 add on)


Funded : NEW! Lower Abyssals Hard Plastic



Funded: Lower Abyssal Magi upgrade above sprue to add more options


Funded: Abyssal Champion (metal)


Funded – Abyssal Succubi


Funded – BONUS Kickstarter Exclusive Resin Tyrant King Blaine on Gramakh for Living Legend/God of War pledges only (from the comments NOT just for $50+ spend)


Funded – BONUS Kings of War Heroes! (Free Undead Necromancer & Dwarf Warsmith for the respective Army deals only)


Target Hit- Kickstarter Exclusive "Map of Mantica" and Poster (for Living Legend/God of War pledges only NOT just for $50+ spend)

Funded Kings of War Worldwide Campaign PDF (for Living Legend/God of War pledges only NOT just for $50+ spend)

Funded - Undead Soul Reaver Cavalry (5 added free to Undead Mega Army but NOT the Undead starter)


Funded BONUS Basilean Heavy Arbalest Warmachine (Free to Basilean Mega Army)


Funded Abyssal Iffrit (free for Abyssal Mega Army)


Funded Elf Forest Shambler (Free for Elf Mega Army)


Funded Orc War Drum (Free for Orc Mega Army)


Funded - Abyssal Molochs


Funded Hard Plastic Salamanders


Funded – Forces of Nature Druid
(no image it's up for vote I'll add if they make a descision)

Funded - Forces of Nature Nyads (free for Mega and starter forces of Nature army)
(no decision on art check the update)

Funded – Abyssal Dwarf Greater Obsidian Golem/Forces of Nature Greater Earth Elemental
(no real art, check the updates)

$350,000 - Free Wound Trackers



Army deals

Well this is unexpected to say the least, and to think I'll just planning on buying the KoW rulebook for Christmas.

Interesting enough there was mention recently in the Mantic blog that they where planning to revisit where KoW all began and I've seen quite a few mentions of the
KoW Elves being revisited and updated, and Mantic not being "happy" with the direction of the Twilight Kin design, mostly from various posters during the Dwarf
Kings Quest KS and even a few passing forums. Lets face it we all know theres no such thing as a "small" Mantic KS, so they could be planning to redo and possibly
launch some new plastics (Abyssal's and new units are mentioned above).

Just a thought



Automatically Appended Next Post:

@OrlandotheTechnicoloured

Sounds like its gonna start at the beginning of next week to me.

Next Week (coming Monday) Nov 10th till end it right at the start of December, so possibly Dec 7th, equals a 28 day campaign.

Sign me up.

I was sad that Deadzone got pushed back from November. I was totally looking forward to a nice crazy tabletop KS campaign from Mantic.

I was also sad that I had missed out on the original Kings of War campaign (not so much after having seen certain figures).

It's cool they're shooting for a low funding goal of getting the book updated- I think that's a good thing. Maybe even my local store would carry it then.

The nice thing about this is that if they end up making a ton of Abyssals, and well, everything they end up making in general, would probably end up getting stats for Dungeon Saga as well. Clever.

Hope those rumored Forces of Nature make an appearance as well, with the Salamanders naturally.

Hard plastics would be a welcome addition. Do you guys think that could happen?

Definitely looking forward to this (tho I did just pick up a hardback of ebay). They way it sounds with the long pledge manager I can put in for a large Abyssal force

not sure if the start will be this week (the blog is meant to hit Friday I think) or next week (as today was the first I saw of it) so I can be clear bases on ROnnies last bit

They said in the newsletter that this blog was expected on Monday (today). So the campaign starts sometime next week.

I've been sharking around a few Mantic kits for a while now, so colour me interested.

My big wish - a complete redo of the campaign and siege rules.

Those were my only disappointment with Kings of War. (Sorry Bob - My Kingdoms of Men have a stone castle - your elves have nothing that will even scratch the paint.... But don't worry - I'll be able to blow your castle to smithereens....)

The Auld Grump

Campaign rules are on the rules committees to-do list, but they may be better suited to being in a supplement rather than in the main hardback. We're looking at really fleshing out the world and trying to give every race "the Basilean treatment" in terms of depth in the hardback, so we might run out of pages for the siege/campaign rules.

Curious as to what materials we might see figures available in.

Wasn't Mantic having an issue with hardcovers though? Weren't they just saying how Dungeon Saga might be the last HC compendium? Or was that due to some sort of other issue, not just because it was a rulebook with a hard cover.

I'll definitely be in on this, been looking to get into Kow for a little while now and the fact this KS will give me both the main KoW hardback rulebook and a mini gamer version in one cheap bundle is too good to pass up.

There might even be some new army bundles on offer if this thing's funding explodes (spoiler: it will)

We are now running short of the hardback rulebook and the two-player set as well.

I wonder if this is a possible hint for a new 2-player starter set?

Add-on Wednesday might be a thing

A new 2 player set will definitely be on the cards for a number of reasons - not least of all for a new rulebook!

Bit of a curve ball here. All that talk of DZ2 and then that getting pushed back because players lack funds around xmas and then BAM! a different Kickstarter right before xmas.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Bit of a curve ball here. All that talk of DZ2 and then that getting pushed back because players lack funds around xmas and then BAM! a different Kickstarter right before xmas.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Bloody hell Mantic, give our wallets a fething chance to recuperate.

The amount of Mantic kickstarters is too damn high!

Unless they think that their Deadzone customers are somehow different to their KoW customers, which is a frightening prospect. I hope they're not that stupid.

 Alex C wrote:
Unless they think that their Deadzone customers are somehow different to their KoW customers, which is a frightening prospect. I hope they're not that stupid.

Considering I backed KoW and regretted it later (sold it off) but went ape-gak on Deadzone (and don't regret it), I don't think that statement is far from the truth. I would love another Deadzone KS, but am not really interested in this one.

I think the blog said it all,

they were going to wait, but if they do they run out of rule books to sell (and risks distributors/stores dropping a still minor product)

and re-ordering the old book does not make sense as there will be a big minimum order and they won't have time to sell a lot of them before going to 2.0 anyway

so a KS genuinely only to fund the book is cool and if people want to throw money at them they'll take it and make some minis now rather than in 5 or 6 months time

Do you think Mantic will really limit themselves to selling "just the book" and keep it a "small KS"?

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I think the blog said it all,

they were going to wait, but if they do they run out of rule books to sell (and risks distributors/stores dropping a still minor product)

and re-ordering the old book does not make sense as there will be a big minimum order and they won't have time to sell a lot of them before going to 2.0 anyway

so a KS genuinely only to fund the book is cool and if people want to throw money at them they'll take it and make some minis now rather than in 5 or 6 months time

This. It's the same problem that the OOP books (Basilean Legacy & Heroes & Legends) have - order a new print run in and they won't sell out before the new edition definitely lands. Make a lower volume order and it costs more per unit so Mantic have to up their prices.

The KS is a mini KS aimed solely at getting the book as fantastic as possible rather than putting miniatures into production. The minis are only if the funding goes absolutely sky high and are not the main aim of the KS. I can't yet say what the basic buy-in level is going to be, but it's a lot, lot less than even Dungeon Saga. It's also one where they're setting up the pledge manager for, so you can pledge $1 and then add on the book later.

Well, I don't need any more miniatures, but an updated rulebook will be nice. I'll be watching this one.

A low buy in would help, especially if it's just funding the book.

The fact that even Ronnie is saying just pledge for a book and add it later makes me think this might truly be a "small" Mantic kickstarter.

We'll see though, won't we?

Hmm,
I personally don't see the need for another Kings of War edition. We're enjoying the current one just fine. The old hardback has only been out for 2-3 years, yes? Also, what about a KS for Warpath? There's a game that still doesn't have a purchasable rulebook!

I'll probably buy it anyway since it's the only big-fantasy game I play, but it does seem a bit soon to be buying another hardback KoW rulebook.

It does feel like the last Kings of War book is rather new to have a new version out already, even if I'm sure the new one won't be out until next Summer.

It'll have been a 3 year edition by the time the book gets released, which is a bit shorter than the original plan. There has been a noticeable drop in attendance at Kings of War events this year and after gathering feedback it's become apparent that the balance issues (heavy cavalry, Obsidian Golems, Drakons, Elohi, artillery in general) are the reason for it.

If the unbalanced armies were fun to play against then it would be one thing, but unfortunately they are absolutely no fun. The only tactical decisions are made by your opponent over which of your units they're going to delete first, without you being able to hit back or do any damage.

The rules committee had 4 options:
1) ignore the issue. Not really an option.
2) Develop specific counter-units. This is a huge can of worms and unfortunately could end up doing far more harm than good. It would also necessitate adding unit specific special rules which is wholly against the principles of Kings of War.
3) Produce updated/living army lists. It's felt that the community is too small at this point to risk splitting it into the "by the book" or "living army lists" factions. We would still need to make a printed copy of these at which point we may as well just...
4) do a brand new edition. Take the time to fix not only the balance issues, but some of the minor bugs that have cropped up in the core rules. We can look at improving the character and background of the game at the same time.

We had been working on a new army list before the discussions about do we/don't we do a new edition came up. We were struggling to balance the new list - what do you balance it against? The average unit? The overpowered units? Make it a rock-paper-scissors combo against the OP units and open that can of worms?

Second edition allows us to directly address the communities concerns as well as improve the game in general. It is a bit faster than originally planned, but it's the right thing to do. The rules will still be free to download and I believe that there's a softback with all the rules & army lists planned if anyone doesn't want to buy a new hardback.

Daedleh -

Are they looking into the fact that no one finds taking standards for units worthwhile? All the lists I see have people not bothering to take them. Seemed strange to me, as it's almost a must-include in other game systems.

Also the fact that most people stick with the 20 unit size as a maximum, rather than building for something bigger.

Yes and yes.

Standards and musicians have both been sorted and hordes are on our todo list starting next week. Hordes generally just need a points drop and their army selection improved (more slots for heroes/war engines/monsters than regiments).

Also Ogre hordes.

Would prefer if they got on with getting the DBX KS packed and sent out than a new KS altogether.

I'm glad that Mantic is correcting some of the balance issues, but some of them were apparent even for a casual player. An artillery heavy gunline was going to win or lose based on how many sixes they rolled in the first two or three turns, and there wasn't much you could do about it, given how cheap and available the guns are. It didn't bother me much, since I was looking more for casual games and didn't play in tournaments, but it really seemed that the balance in KoW was due mostly to fairly simple and repeated units.

That all said, I'm looking forward to this. I like the core of KoW a lot, and I hope that a revised iteration will be stronger and better. I've been looking hard at Ogres, so kickstarter pricing on them would be nice as well.

Excellent! Good stuff then!

I'd like to see larger creatures or things like that added (so I have a use for the GW miniatures I have bought but won't be using for Warhammer any more). But that's just wishlisting at the moment I reckon.

Pete Melvin wrote:
Would prefer if they got on with getting the DBX KS packed and sent out than a new KS altogether.

No one involved in developing the KoW rules is involved in shipping the DBX KS, apart from possibly Stew.

I'm not sure I can justify backing this after the junk I received from their first KoW Kickstarter. Those plastic Goblins were horrible.

I played the Mantic rules once and from what I recall they were quite fun in 15mm. I'd give a punt on the rulebook probably as I'm probably never going to back anything with a large range of models as I dislike a lot. I realise I'm not the typical Mantic consumer but I'm a fan of these smaller micro kickstarters with focused goals, like Mierce and their mounted commander one.