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Having read the book it felt quite whack jumping in and had a bit of difficulty with the gameplay. Because the rules have so largely deviated from other Warhammer Historical titles. That I felt it was not a Games Workshop release at times but an entirely separate system from a different wargaming company after playing 5 2000 points game.

Why did they choose to make this game so different from the standard Napoleonic era and later gunpowder gamebooks of the Warhammer Historical line all of which largely felt like 40K but with more realistic rules and different settings (esp The Great War WW1 rulebook)?

Warhammer Historical was always a mixed bag - many of the OG GW staff played (and still do) historicals and had a vested interest in them but they were never a main product for GW (they are a sci-fi and fantasy miniatures company after all). They certainly weren’t going to start making historical miniatures to try and compete with the existing markets. I always saw WH Historicals as printing passion projects by staffers or writers that gave GW a chance to dip its toes into other markets with minimal risk.

Kampfgruppe Normandy (by W.Kinrade and P.Brand) went on to become the excellent Battlegroup series of rules (published by The Plastic Soldier Company) but (in my opinion) when originally published was really a game Warwick had written to play with his little WW2 chaps (not to dominate sales). In this sense it felt more like early GW where you were playing the GW teams hobby not being a consumer in a multi million pound global industry. It was also published right at the end of the WH Historical’s lifespan and I wonder if at this point they were willing to try anything that was ready to go and wouldn’t need a huge amount of input.

If you like it I would recommend the Battlegroup series. It’s been a fair while since I played KGN but I seem to remember Battlegroup being more refined and flowing better. Warwick has written a sci-fi version but I don’t think he intends to publish it at any time soon.

It’s great to see people are still playing it, I’d love to see an AAR if you have any.

I have never even seen this book in person!

The only Warhammer Historical Books I ever saw was Warhammer Ancient Battles, which was relatively successful for its time.

However, Dance with Squats nails it. It was a last gasp publishing and Warwick and Piers were really trying to do something a bit different than the usual GW schtick to catch the feel of the period.

@ Easy E: It’s not a very common book, they cant have printed/sold many before WHHistoricals demise - thus why super optimistic eBay capitalists (wannabe pirates) like to put a ridiculous price tag onto it when it does surface. It is a big tome and well worth a look if you do get a chance even if you’re only interested to see where the excellent Battlegroup series comes from.

From my point of view if more of the Historical books had been like KGN rather than the (slightly lazy) clone of early WHFB that the WHHB line was: I would have been more interested in them. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the HB line but (in my opinion) at this point in gaming history most players that wanted to play historical games would be willing/or expect to learn a new ruleset to capture the feel of the setting they wanted to portray. The hobby was smaller and much more personal than the modern internet driven version. On top of that the great simplification of rulesets hadn’t really got into gear at this point and most systems had some level of crunch to them - many classics of that age probably wouldn’t catch on today with the lack of patience and attention span (that sadly now seems the norm) shown by many modern players. Luckily KGN’s (failure isn’t the right word) relatively short lifespan went on to allow the seeds of Battlegroup to flourish and provide an excellent series of WW2 tabletop gaming.

@Slamdunkerista - I hope you enjoy your games of KGN, you’ve at least made me dig my copy back out and consider playing it again.

Andrew
Dances with Squats
(BeneathALeadMountain on LAF)