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Hi Dakka Dakka!

Wow, I'm hooked on a new game, it's the Closed Beta Playtest of "Kings of War". I totally love this game!

At first I was interested in 'Kings of War' as a 'poor man's Warhammer'. I mean, the rules are free from their website vs. 110 dollars for an 8th edition rulebook and a High Elf book. Don't get me wrong, Warhammer is -worth- the money, it's excellent! But I was a bit short of cash, so I thought I'd give 'Kings of War' a try.

Initially I thought I saw some similarities to Warhammer is Alessio's rules. But these are actually superficial. When you play the game, you realize it's quite another system altogether. It's more abstract than Warhammer. You play units, not units of individual models. The Kings of War Closed Beta was only 12 pages long not counting 3 pages of army lists. But you know, it was very easy to learn, the rules make sense, and in the first hour long game I played, I was really playing, not trying to figure out how to play.

Well, I was totally captivated from that moment! My 1000 pts of Mantic Elves vs 1000 pts of a friends Mantic Undead. The models are beautiful and affordable. They don't mix well with GW models unfortunately, Mantic models are 'True Scale' as opposed to GW's 'Heroic Scale'. But I got my Mantic army rather painlessly (the army I 'd bought before that was Sisters of Battle, again, worth the cost, but -not- very affordable) and really enjoyed hobbying the elves up!

Anyway, to get to the point, have you tried Mantic's 'Kings of War'? I'm curious if you did or didn't and why

Hmmm, it doesn't sound too bad, but for me mantic means models, and not gaming systems.

Playtested it, I like it. Came at just the right time too.

I don't like the token system, but other than that, it's a pretty good game, IMHO. Still kinda new, so I'm waiting around. However, certainly interested for their Orc range.

I get to repurpose GWs WHFB figs, and get a rules set that my kids can play with..

What is not to like?

For MY needs, this is the perfect time and the perfect ruleset.

Having said that, I have NOT had a chance to play the game.. I am still getting figures ready to go..

porkuslime wrote:Having said that, I have NOT had a chance to play the game.. I am still getting figures ready to go..

Really? You didn't have an old GW army or two around?

That's all I did when I played.
One unit was VC, 1 was TK, one was Mantic, another was "Cursed Company", I had some Zvezda Cursed Legion.
My heros were Mannfred, a wight, an old wizard model.
You get the idea. It wasn't an "Army", but scrapign together 1000pts of models for the game was fairly easy.

Worst case, cut out some squares of card and use them. That will work fine and give you a place to dump the wound tokens.

Thought of that.. but since I had issues with using Space Marines as Undead and Tyranids as Dwarves, etc.. I wanted proper minis.

I have SOME old Elves and Dwarves but needed to scramble to get enough to play.

I have personal issues with using squares of cardboard, even to proxy with. Plus, getting the kiddo interested would require something 3-d.

She wants to play undead.

Gotcha. Getting a child interested is hopefully worth the wait.

I got to play the game at their open day and really enjoyed it. I have a 2000 point undead army. just playing around with numbers and looking at different unit choices. Not sure which is the best way to go at the moment. Maybe lots of Cavalry...

The Starter Set is due for release soon.
Dwarves and Undead. Lots of minis and the new ruleset.
Am tempted but may have to wait.

Love the game, and don't mind the tokens at all.
The system works well imho and is an excellent way to get the youngsters started wargamming.

Lyracian wrote:I got to play the game at their open day and really enjoyed it. I have a 2000 point undead army. just playing around with numbers and looking at different unit choices. Not sure which is the best way to go at the moment. Maybe lots of Cavalry...

(This was with the beta rules so it may be a little outdated, not to mention on top of my head) Maybe 2-3 Hordes of skull rat skeles with liche and knight support. Weak shooting wise but you'll stay in combat as long as dwarfs dont throw in those nasty dogs

I will give this a go for sure. I really like the interviews I've heard with the owner, I think the mini's are nice, but I'm waiting for that army that really captures me to be released.

love it. Got a signed copy of the battleset and i am painting it up right now.

It's on my list of things to try out.

Will I get round to it? possibly........

I saw the starter set at my FLGS and wondered how it was. I recognized the Mantic name but that was it. The minis look pretty nice, and I didnt even complain about the price. Oddly enough, my brother and I have been tossing around the idea of playing some type of Fantasy game to help not play only 40k, and this looks like the winner in that idea.

Im glad to see people seem to like it, as it will make me more apt to buying it

I really enjoyed Kings Of War.

It's like Warhammer refined down to 12 pages of rules and a 1 page army book for each race.

The only odd thing to me is that rules encourage your to place a counter/tokens to denote casualties on squads when simply removing models works so well. Other than that, I enjoy the faster game play and lack of charts associated with Kings Of War..

I think the game will really take off once they have a few more armies. (right now there is only Elf, Dwarf, and Undead forces)

A couple of years back I bought a load of metal Rackham undead miniatures expecting to play Confrontation with them. Then Conf3e got axed and 4e came out and I scored a lot more in fire sales as I liked 4e. But then the game died before I got them painted up. "Never mind" I thought, "Maybe I'll use them for a WFB VC army". But 8th ed is really not to my taste (7th ed. wasn't either to be honest, but 8th is really a stage too random for me - too much "whoops, I rolled a 6, you lose the game" in it for me). I looked at Armies of Arcana, but I never got beyond the 3rd page of the rulebook before I fell asleep....

And then KoW came out, and finally I found a "larger-than-skirmish" fantasy game I enjoy. I've played 3 games now and enjoyed them. My Rackham metals have been inspired to be virtually all painted up now, and I just scored a load of Mantic plastics at 50% off in the Hobbycraft sale last week, so my army has doubled in size!

Once we've played a couple more games to really get to grips with the rules and tried out a few different army builds my mate and I are going to give the chess clock idea a whirl. We like straight forward, uncomplex and subtle rules. We like cheap models. We like games that don't take all night to come to a conclusion.

Mantic=Win!

Roll on the good times.

The only downside is the lack of diversity, but that's changing.
That Other Game Company is releasing far to slow to keep my interest up.

Not only are the models very fairly priced, but the rate of production is excellent; not split between a sci-fi and 2 fantasy versions.

-Matt

Well, I'm an unabashed Mantic fan and supporter. Since I first heard about them in Summer of 2009, I watched patiently, and they keep getting better. The ruleset got our entire group converted over.

It's clean, it's fast and so amazingly simple to learn the rules that it's a bit of culture shock. Learn to play in 30 minutes, have the rules down solidly after a game - two at most. But despite the simplicity of the rules, the game is tactically complex. It's a pure win. I don't see me ever wanting to memorize huge piles of trivial rules again -- I'm too old for that. Just let me play with my toy soldiers!

When KoW came out, it was just the final nail in the GW coffin for me.

Have played plenty of KOW and currently working through undead and dwarf armies. The box set Mhorgoths Revenge is superb but the best thing about the game is its dynamic. I urge anyone who hasn't tried it yet to give it a go. The games play is very fluid, but doesn't lose any tacticl edge. You can get through bigger more impressive looking games in a relatively short space of time compared to other fantasy games. I agree Llew, I am a big Mantic supporter, the models, rules, prices and attitude to its customers are superb. It has also drawn me away from 8th Ed WFB as the two games were released at a similar time. Mantics other little 'side projects' are looking good too, there is allegedly a 'Dungeon' based game on the horizon which has got to be good news for fans of Talisman, Hero Quest etc..... Long may it continue!

I was very impressed with the ruleset having read it. I have to say the only thing stopping me at the moment is the need to sort out my Space Marine and High Elf armies (I like 40k, WHF and KoW.... is that allowed?! ).

I am planning to play this using WHF models as proxies in the mean time.

Rules that dont get in the way of the gameplay, and prices that dont get in the way of paying my mortgage!
WIN! WIN!

With GW's new price increase, Mantic seems more and more attractive every day. Just have to wait to save up for those elves.

I really like how simplistic the rules are for the game. Only 12 pages yet you have a wargame with depth? Preposterous!

Oh, and the models are dirt cheap?

The system can scale to how many points you want to play?

Seriously, there's so much awesomeness oozing from this system. I really, really want to try it out using proper minis, the Undead range looks absolutely amazing, especially Revenant Calvary.

I've been following Mantic's progress since I first stumbled across on a video about them before they officially launched. I approve

They have been making nice models at value-for-money prices, have a decent looking set of rules that I can't wait to try & have released things like Dwarf Kings Hold, which shows they are not one dimensional - have a very friendly Forum where no one has anything bad to say about them & actively listen to players who playtest their models in order to help refine their rules as well as letting people know what they're working on way in advance & giving friendly, frequent, amusing updates. Their rules are FREE & should always remain so. They are the polar opposite to GW at the moment.

I love their Orcs, they are really ugly and brutal & I know many of their contributors are ex-GW men. Unless GW starts regarding itself with some humility it looks like a lot of their gamers will be as well

I've bought the starter set and a few other things, I like the minis, they have a healthy dose of humour. In fact I'm tempted to put more of them together right about now

I love the undead range, and the dwarves are nice, even though I personally am not a big fan. I haven't had a chance to build/paint an ork yet, so im holding back on those. The only models they have I don't like are the Elves, they seem too.... I dunno..... wispy? thin? Just not proportioned right. Like an awkward Teen who had a growth spurt but still weighs 90 pounds.

The game, I like and wish I could play more. A lot of my group is quitting 40k now, with the price rise, so Im gently pushing to KoW

I really want to try this game. My lil bro has quite a few mini's.... Maybe ill try it next week?

Seriously considering making a move over to Mantic. Their prices dont choke me and Ive yet to read a response about them that was negative

Love the models , they are perfect for this edition with all the hordes and large units

And they are only slightly smaller then warhammer correct? I have a couple ghouls from their range (a year or so ago when they gave away free sprues) and they are fairly close to a Tau Firewarrior