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 Arctic Dragon wrote:
Pic of a KoM Arquebusier (WHFB Empire, 6th ed.) vs a Trident Realm Naiad Lurker from the most recent Vanguard demo. (......)

I'm curious to see what impact Vanguard will have on KoW rules and gameplay.

That's a familiar mini!

At the height of WHFB 6th edition, I think I bought the starter set (empire + orks) from various online auctions at least 8 times. Sold/gave away the orcs, but kept the empire bits. The Spearmen are painted mostly by now (they make great polearm troops when converted to halberds. See http://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2018/12/06/my-2nd-halberdier-horde/), but I do own at least a hundred handgunners which still have to be painted......

On your other comment: I must confess I haven't taken enough time to look into Vanguard. I hear good things about it, but choose to keep focussed on KoW. (My gaming group has many new players who are building their KoW armies, so another game will probably distract them) That said, I would love to try out the game.

Shooting in Kings of War is very hard to balance. (it's either too powerful leading to gunlines or not powerful enough) Maybe other mechanics can increase it's tactical uses without increasing its raw killing power. Good to know the gaming world keeps on improving.

I wrote up part three of this series: Joining the infantry.

https://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/02/22/joining-the-infantry-ideas-for-a-more-diverse-kom-army-3/

Not that there's actually much wrong with KoM infantry, I just kept on making brain-dumps.

If I get the *vibe* again (which might or might not happen) I might finalise the series with cavalry and/or characters

Nice article.

About your suggestions, maybe the special KoM rule might be "Hordes and legions get Inspiring(Troops)" or something similar

Hum, the problem is that then they would get the effect of inspiring on themselves, so the rule might be changed for them so that they don't self-inspire

I'd be against fusing KoM with League.

The League army list is themed around particular fantasy tropes, namely Halflings and Renaissance Era-humanity (read: WHFB Empire).

KoM on the other hand, is generic enough to field any historical army before the Industrial Revolution you could think of. Model-wise, You CAN field them as Empire-esque Renaissance Landsknecht army, but you can also field them as ancient Greeks, Romans or Egyptians, or Dark Age Vikings (the Wolf Coat formation seems predestined for that), or High Middle Ages crusaders, or Tokugawa Era samurai etc.
I mean, if you go heavy on Arquebusiers, cannons and cavalry, even 18th century or Napoleonic armies could be possible. (How competitive such a list would be is a different topic).
Or field them as guys from a different fantasy setting, like House Stark or House Lannister from GoT, or Gondor/Rohan from LotR, also easily possible.
Personally, I like to have one mundane, historically authentic faction that keeps the fantastic elements as minimal as possible. I if want a more fantastical army, there are plenty of alternatives.
So limit it to Flying Beasts and Colossal Giants, MAYBE Ogres to have a Large Infantry option (but personally, I don't think this is needed), but otherwise keep it as it is.

 Esmer wrote:
I'd be against fusing KoM with League.
(.....)
Personally, I like to have one mundane, historically authentic faction that keeps the fantastic elements as minimal as possible. I if want a more fantastical army, there are plenty of alternatives.
So limit it to Flying Beasts and Colossal Giants, MAYBE Ogres to have a Large Infantry option (but personally, I don't think this is needed), but otherwise keep it as it is.

I do not disagree with you, but in order to keep this distinction the two armies should be more different than they now are.

I understand this is mainly because Mantic had to include an empire-port in Uncharted Empires; which is of course very close to the KoM army. (the same with Brotherhood), but when the RC is going to write KoW3, it makes sense to diverge these armies a bit.

That said, I posted part 4 of the series; on KoM characters.
https://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/06/03/improving-kingdoms-of-men-characters/

All in: there's little need to change the characters in the KoM army; but still it's good to run an analysis on how the five characters in the KoM army work. I did include a few ideas for future changes, but they are minor.

The review of the Kingdoms of Men Army is completed:

https://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/06/25/improving-the-kingdoms-of-men-army-here-is-the-cavalry/

 Schmendrick wrote:

This is, of course, a grossly underrepresented problem in many armies and the wargaming community as a whole. Thanks for pointing that out! How would you tackle such a serious problem?

so true. but i am very careful what i answer on this. there are trolls left and right, (as this is a fantasy forum even more so!). and then of course the troll hunters. i do not want to catch the attention of any.
as i see are proficient with discworld. i therefore would point you to a fact that that will make you realize it is not that grave of a problem:
female dwarfs have beards too. my whole dwarfen army therefore is already what i choose it to be.

I'm personally not one for the "bearded women" trope (more power to you, however), but I've bought female dwarves from Reaper that will (eventually, got to paint them first) be mixed in with my other dwarf models. I've also got Amazon models that I will use with my Fantasy Greeks, and then Statuesque Heads to go with other, more heavily armoured models. Depending on the specific KoW army, they're either being approached from a "historical" perspective, in which case they're pretty mono-cultured, or a "high fantasy" perspective which has them more mixed. It also depends on what the historical setting is - ie Roman-ish models are much more mixed than Greek-ish ones.

As far as orientation goes, I'm pretty sure that can't be seen on a model, so I go with "don't ask, don't care". I'm pretty sure all of the historical Greeks and Spartans and Amazons are straight as an arrow, though.

to be honest, vince somewhat put a bug in my ear with the title. i am so tempted to build a kings of war: vanguard abyssals force with just female daemons and succubi... partly because painting the succubi was so much fun and that reminded me of this topic he created!

One could replace the Hellequins with "Seekers of Slaanesh" models and use Slaanesh Daemonettes as Lower Abyssals... for the Despoiler I have a model from Reaperminis that came "for free" in March.

For Flamebearers I am not yet sure... I thought about taking some Mantic Basilean Scouts which could work with the right paint job... but the bow does not fit really well...

For the Abyssal Guards I have no idea so far...

 vince1248 wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
I'd be against fusing KoM with League.
(.....)
Personally, I like to have one mundane, historically authentic faction that keeps the fantastic elements as minimal as possible. I if want a more fantastical army, there are plenty of alternatives.
So limit it to Flying Beasts and Colossal Giants, MAYBE Ogres to have a Large Infantry option (but personally, I don't think this is needed), but otherwise keep it as it is.

I do not disagree with you, but in order to keep this distinction the two armies should be more different than they now are.

I understand this is mainly because Mantic had to include an empire-port in Uncharted Empires; which is of course very close to the KoM army. (the same with Brotherhood), but when the RC is going to write KoW3, it makes sense to diverge these armies a bit.

That said, I posted part 4 of the series; on KoM characters.
https://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/06/03/improving-kingdoms-of-men-characters/

All in: there's little need to change the characters in the KoM army; but still it's good to run an analysis on how the five characters in the KoM army work. I did include a few ideas for future changes, but they are minor.

You might want to pick up the KoW Historical rulebook. Personally I think it has better army lists for the human WFB factions than Uncharted Empires. That’s probably due in part to my personal preference for Low Fantasy over High Fantasy. The Holy Roman Empire list in the Historical book covers WFB Empire better than vanilla KoM and the Historical list lets you take Mercenary Genoese Crossbowmen that have Piercing (1) Elite, Reload! and Foulkon (2) and a troop only costs 30pts more than normal crossbowmen.

I know both books are meant to be compatible, but out of curiosity:

In tournament play, is it allowed to use Lists of the the Historical rulebook?

 Schmendrick wrote:
I know both books are meant to be compatible, but out of curiosity:

In tournament play, is it allowed to use Lists of the the Historical rulebook?

It's up to the TO.
I wouldn't, the historical lists are not balanced properly.
They're also not that historically accurate, so being into history isn't really a reason. Players can theme a KoM or Rhordia list if that's what they're after.

Romans with two handed weapons is just power gaming.

Prestor Jon wrote:
[ (.....)

You might want to pick up the KoW Historical rulebook. Personally I think it has better army lists for the human WFB factions than Uncharted Empires. That’s probably due in part to my personal preference for Low Fantasy over High Fantasy. The Holy Roman Empire list in the Historical book covers WFB Empire better than vanilla KoM and the Historical list lets you take Mercenary Genoese Crossbowmen that have Piercing (1) Elite, Reload! and Foulkon (2) and a troop only costs 30pts more than normal crossbowmen.

You're completely right. I even tried out this for my Brotherhood army http://kingsofwarvince.business.blog/2019/06/14/alternative-builds-for-the-brotherhood-army/

Never tested this out for Kingdoms of Men, but probably this will work out as well.
Anyhow, though I wanted to buy the historical supplement next order, it seems that my next Mantic order will most likely be KoW 3rd edition (YaY) which may or may not be compatible with KoW2 historical.

I have high hopes that many of the issues mentioned above will be solved at KoW3rd edition, so we'll see.