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I always follow the shiny when I'm getting into a new game, and I can never stick with just one faction or army. I really like Kings of War, but giant massed combat is a little unrealistic for me at this point. I have some local people who are interested in playing it a bit to see if they would switch from WHFB, but as of right now my Fantasy collection involves 2-3 units of Dwarfs, Orcs and Undeads.

The question, dear Dakka: At what point level does KoW become "playable"? Could I get by with a few small units just to get the rules down before expanding?


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I'm going camping! See you suckers later. I'll check back in a couple days...

KoW is good if you like collecting units because they're cool because you can ally easily within alignment (good with good or neutral; evil with evil and/or neutral; neutral can ally with either but can't have both good and evil in the same force).

Because there is no casualty removal, you only need the outline of a unit's footprint to be represented to get the feel of the game across. A typical infantry unit is 5 wide and 4 back on 20mm bases (or 100mm frontage and 80mm depth).

You can play it with movement trays with no models or just a single model on each to represent, say, dwarf missile troops here. I suggest a minimum of 4-6 elements in starter games.

Because it sounds like your friends already have their own WHFB armies, you can easily convert their units to KoW stuff to army lists from KoW. There are no lizardmen official lists right now, for example, so I'm going to use the Forces of Nature army supplemented by the Ogre army list to represent the typical GW/fantasy lizards.

Also because they already have their own armies, getting them to see that they can get double duty from the stuff they've already bought. Plus they can maybe buy stuff like a giant plastic spider from the dollar store or paint up some unofficial model they've always liked and be 'legal'---just have to re-skin their individual units to represent X in KoW.

Do you have more or less stuff than they used in this game?

http://www.wargamesupplies.co.uk/videos/item/118-kings-of-war-battle-undead-vs-dwarves

Minimum unit size for most standard infantry is a troop of ten (though technically that is too small to count as solid and unlock any heroes, monsters etc) so you can get a few units out at minimum sizes and always house rule in an allowance for a single hero per side for variety and to learn the character rules (call it a clash between raiding parties).

I think Kings of War only becomes really fun when you get to 1500 points or more and really gets going closer to 2000. As mentioned above, the ally rules are pretty flexible, so if you can borrow some troops from a friend you can have a playable army.

However, if you're limited to what you have it might be possible to have a good game. If you and your opponents agree to all keep your units to the minimum size (usually 10 models for foot troops), you should be able to have a good game, as it's the number of units that make the game more engaging.

You can read my review of KoW here
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/08/kings-of-war-battle-report-and-game.html
At the end of the battle report I have some ideas for smaller games of KoW.

At the club, we don't play small games of KoW. We save KoW for big games and for medium games we use the ruleset "Of Gods and Mortals." It's a mythic wargame, but it's easy to use one of the army lists to represent a fantasy army. Here's a game where we used played Dwarfs (Norse Pantheon list) VS Chaos (Japanese Pantheon)
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2014/06/grind-them-to-dust-ogam-battle-report.html
It's a very nice ruleset based (with some nice improvements) on the "Song of Blades and Heroes" game that is our go-to game for small warband skirmishes of 6-12 minis per side.

In general I find it's best to use a ruleset that is made for a certain size (scope) of battle rather than trying to shoehorn a game into a scope it wasn't designed for.

Man, I read Chicago skirmish all the time! Also, thanks a bundle for the tips guys. I think I'll borrow some models and give it a go this weekend if our schedules line up!

So far I think the only thing that will trip me up at first is the movement, since I've never played using trays before.

If you were set on KoW as a skirmish, I'd recommend 54mm scale models and using the unit sizes as skill representation. E.g. a half-regiment of knights would be an inexperienced knight errant sort of thing, ehile a large unit would be a veteran knight.

So you'd have to play large points, but it might work, as well as keep a skirmishy feel.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
Man, I read Chicago skirmish all the time! Also, thanks a bundle for the tips guys. I think I'll borrow some models and give it a go this weekend if our schedules line up!

So far I think the only thing that will trip me up at first is the movement, since I've never played using trays before.

Cool! Glad you enjoy our blog.

Trays actually make it a good deal easier in many ways. If you don't have any, you can do what we do and just cut out rectangles of cardboard of the recommended sizes and put your minis on them. That's what I've been doing until recently, though I just picked up a bag of plastic trays at a swap meet, so I'll be playing-it-fancy soon.

Welp might as well post this here, seems interesting and relevant to the subject.

http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?1772-The-Star-Struck-City-Mordheim-for-KoW

Thanks for that link. I had a brief look-over and it looks like a neat project. For those who want to play Mordheim with KoW, it's probably the ideal ruleset. I may see about incorporating some of the entries on the starmetal discovery chart for use in SBH.

Still, well-proven and playtested rulesets already exist specifically for small skirmish wargaming with streamlined mechanics. So it's tough to be lured to homebrew rulesets and/or mods of existing mass battle games.

It's settled! http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/kings-of-war/getting-started/product/kings-of-war-two-player-battle-set.html

Oh! Look! I like Orcs! And I like Undeads! Perfect!

But yeah, looking at the price and the rules, I'm in.

I would say no... The rules are fast playing and many find them bland. They are designed to play a large number of models on the table very quickly to fit with an evenings play.

For skirmish I would suggest Jake Thortens God of Battles. Similar to mantic/JT stuff, it is also fast playing but smaller scale with more chrome.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
It's settled! http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/kings-of-war/getting-started/product/kings-of-war-two-player-battle-set.html

Oh! Look! I like Orcs! And I like Undeads! Perfect!

But yeah, looking at the price and the rules, I'm in.

It's a good deal and a nice selection of stuff, but I do think you'll quickly tire of battles at that size and want to grow your armies.

 Eilif wrote:

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
It's settled! http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/kings-of-war/getting-started/product/kings-of-war-two-player-battle-set.html

Oh! Look! I like Orcs! And I like Undeads! Perfect!

But yeah, looking at the price and the rules, I'm in.

It's a good deal and a nice selection of stuff, but I do think you'll quickly tire of battles at that size and want to grow your armies.

Though Mantic does also offer boxes to expand your armies - for the same price as the two player box and with a similar number of figures, just all for one army.
For that matter, they sell Single player starter sets, for folks that want to have something other than Orcs or Undead. (Or want a quick ally force.)

So it can be split up over time: Each of these is 50 GBP or $75 US. (MSRP - you can find them cheaper online.)
Two Player Battle Set - a decent start for orcs and undead.

Orc Army Set (54 miniatures - adds a chariot, trolls, orclings, and some more base orc units) Expands the options nicely - a general purpose box, with no deliberate focus. You can pretty much just keep adding theses, though you will end up with a LOT of trolls. (Not a bad thing, but their unit sizes are kind of small, so you may end up with multiple small units of trolls.)

Goblin Army Set (74 miniatures - goblin archers, goblin cavalry, goblin spears, more trolls, and... the Mincer.... (I like the Mincer - I have two painted up, and I don't even play goblins!)) Technically orcs and goblins are separate armies in KoW - but they do nicely to shore up each other's weaknesses. And the Mincer is just plain a fun model. (A bit like the Cleaner in Labyrinth.)

I'd go with the Orc Army Set and a Goblin Army Set, then adding more of the same, to taste.

Undead Army Set (110 standard undead miniatures - ghouls, zombies, skeletons, and revenants (armored skellies).) Doesn't add much that's new, just more of the basic core. Foot slogging undead infantry, in large numbers.

Undead Elites Army Set (47 miniatures, including cavalry, a catapult, a bunch more revenants, and more ghouls... there are always more ghouls....) A mixed set that is a lot closer to the Orc Army Set than the straight up infantry box above.

I'd get one Undead Army Set, and then add multiple boxes of the Elites for any further expansion - I like cavalry, and the Undead Army Set comes with plenty of infantry.

One downside - neither the Undead Army Set nor the Undead Elites Army Set contains werewolves - who are just plain awesome units. (There are army lists that are all werewolves, all the time.)

Mantic does also have full armies - but they are more expensive in one go (lower cost per figure, but more of them).

It is also very much worth mentioning that Mantic officially allows folks to use non Mantic figures, even in tournament games. So feel free to mix and match from other companies if they have a figure that you like. (For my dwarf army most of my Heroes are from Reaper and my Berserkers are from Avatars of War.)

So, uhmmm,, yeah, I like Kings of War.

The Auld Grump

I definitely agree that Mantic gives you great ways to expand your army cheaply and that the 2 player game box is a really good deal.

My comment was just that I don't think the size of the starter set should indicate to the buyer that the game works very well at that level of play. 4 units per side is a great way to start your miniature collection , but won't provide a very interesting KoW game. To someone who bought this set my recommendation would be to split each unit in half and have the figures count double in order to double the number of units in play.

I do love KoW though. The flexible army lists and relatively open allies rules make it very easy to put together a set of statlines to represent virtually any fantasy army one could want. Thus my Bad-Guy army (Werewolves, Battlemasters Chaos, Vintage Chaos'y figs and others) and my buddy's Mythical Japanese army (Mostly Clan War figures).

As seen here:
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/10/warriors-of-chaos-against-rising-sun-in.html

 Eilif wrote:
I definitely agree that Mantic gives you great ways to expand your army cheaply and that the 2 player game box is a really good deal.

My comment was just that I don't think the size of the starter set should indicate to the buyer that the game works very well at that level of play. 4 units per side is a great way to start your miniature collection , but won't provide a very interesting KoW game. To someone who bought this set my recommendation would be to split each unit in half and have the figures count double in order to double the number of units in play.

I do love KoW though. The flexible army lists and relatively open allies rules make it very easy to put together a set of statlines to represent virtually any fantasy army one could want. Thus my Bad-Guy army (Werewolves, Battlemasters Chaos, Vintage Chaos'y figs and others) and my buddy's Mythical Japanese army (Mostly Clan War figures).

As seen here:
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2013/10/warriors-of-chaos-against-rising-sun-in.html

I... can agree with that - the very first game that I played was about 1,500 points. (It was that first game that converted me - despite the rules still being in beta we managed to get in two full battles in three hours, with no rules arguments!)

Kind of why I had an unannounced segue into 'how to make your armies bigger' instead of staying on topic....

I have played some very small games... but, yeah, KoW is definitely aimed at big battles. (I have been in a 3,000 point game, which ran incredibly smoothly.)

The smallest was werewolves vs. trolls... three of each. Pretty much because we had the models to hand, and wanted to test them out. (We got our Kickstarter shipments that day. )

The battle lasted about two minutes, with the werewolves having troll for breakfast.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
[
Kind of why I had an unannounced segue into 'how to make your armies bigger' instead of staying on topic....

This is my suggestion for that.
http://www.miniaturemarket.com/table-top-miniatures/confrontation.html
Prepainted troops that you can use to bulk out your armies until you get your own painted and ready. Then once you have your own army finished, you've got blocks of troops ready to bulk up the armies of your friend's troops when you get them into the game. A great way to make it easy to get your friend's into KoW.

A unit of one-buck wulfen (as werewolves) added a big chunk of points to my Evil Human army early on, and still fights with them, though I did repaint their blue marks red and put them on nice bases.

Commissar-Danno wrote:Welp might as well post this here, seems interesting and relevant to the subject.

http://forum.manticblog.com/showthread.php?1772-The-Star-Struck-City-Mordheim-for-KoW

Hey, I thought people forgot all about this...

Eilif wrote:Thanks for that link. I had a brief look-over and it looks like a neat project. For those who want to play Mordheim with KoW, it's probably the ideal ruleset. I may see about incorporating some of the entries on the starmetal discovery chart for use in SBH.

Still, well-proven and playtested rulesets already exist specifically for small skirmish wargaming with streamlined mechanics. So it's tough to be lured to homebrew rulesets and/or mods of existing mass battle games.

It is designed to be a very close thematic conversion from Mordheim, albeit with a bit of a waterlogged theme. However, if you're looking for something more like Warhammer Skirmish, the One Page rulesets are coming out with that style of game as well soon.

 darkPrince010 wrote:

Eilif wrote:Thanks for that link. I had a brief look-over and it looks like a neat project. For those who want to play Mordheim with KoW, it's probably the ideal ruleset. I may see about incorporating some of the entries on the starmetal discovery chart for use in SBH.

Still, well-proven and playtested rulesets already exist specifically for small skirmish wargaming with streamlined mechanics. So it's tough to be lured to homebrew rulesets and/or mods of existing mass battle games.

It is designed to be a very close thematic conversion from Mordheim, albeit with a bit of a waterlogged theme. However, if you're looking for something more like Warhammer Skirmish, the One Page rulesets are coming out with that style of game as well soon.

Interesting. I'm not familiar with "One Page Rulesets", though I've some experience with short 2 page rulesets like "Panzer 8 Sci-Fi".
http://panzer8.weebly.com
I'll give them a look, but I don't think it's going to come close to Song of Blades, which is my favorite ruleset for elegant, fast-play fantasy warband skirmish. I do enjoy some free homebrew games, but the more rulesets I try (Possibly in the dozens now), the more I keep coming back to well written, commercial rulesets. This is not to say that I play any of the "big-three", but there are so many indie games now that have proven mechanics that have survived years of playtesting, that DIY and homebrew have begun to lose a bit of their shine.


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 darkPrince010 wrote:

Eilif wrote:Thanks for that link. I had a brief look-over and it looks like a neat project. For those who want to play Mordheim with KoW, it's probably the ideal ruleset. I may see about incorporating some of the entries on the starmetal discovery chart for use in SBH.

Still, well-proven and playtested rulesets already exist specifically for small skirmish wargaming with streamlined mechanics. So it's tough to be lured to homebrew rulesets and/or mods of existing mass battle games.

It is designed to be a very close thematic conversion from Mordheim, albeit with a bit of a waterlogged theme. However, if you're looking for something more like Warhammer Skirmish, the One Page rulesets are coming out with that style of game as well soon.

Interesting. I'm not familiar with "One Page Rulesets", though I've some experience with short 2 page rulesets like "Panzer 8 Sci-Fi".
http://panzer8.weebly.com
I'll give them a look when they come out, but I don't think it's going to come close to Song of Blades, which is my favorite ruleset for elegant, fast-play fantasy warband skirmish. I do enjoy some free homebrew games, but the more rulesets I try (Possibly in the dozens now), the more I keep coming back to well written, commercial rulesets. This is not to say that I play any of the "big-three", but there are so many indie games now that have proven mechanics that have survived years of playtesting, that DIY and homebrew have begun to lose a bit of their shine.

Still, I may give the 1-page 40k a shot. I'm always looking for new ways to get my old 40k figs on the table.

Hi Eilif,

i am a big fan of SoBH and all of it's expansions, and if you pay close attention to the 1p40k and 1pKT rules you can see a lot of it's influences.

Actually you should look into the deathball rules if you like the SoBH activation system, as it was directly taken from there. The game plays quite differently however, as it is a fantasy sports game (which you can play with any miniatures).

Eventually i would like to make a system that has the customizability of SoBH, as i always liked the idea of using anything to play from lego to dinosaurs.

You can find all games here: http://onepagerules.wordpress.com/

Update! I bought the 2 player starter set, and I've been looking at the rules a bit closer than before.

So yeah, after reading I can see that the game goes pretty fast. I'm not typically into large scale wargames, but the price tag is nice, so I think I'll just continue to collect a few boxes of everything and make a unique force.

My only problem so far is the HORRIFIC Goblin Spitters models. These might be the worst models in my collection. I think they might be converted with some GW goblin bits in the future.

Thanks for the info gang! I've been a bit hesitant to get into a large-scale game, but the KoW rule system is so slick, I think it will be lots of fun.

Congrats on your first steps into big fantasy battles. Sorry to hear about the spitters. I'm not familiar with those models, but I hope they are salvageable or you find a suitable alternative.

Still, overall, if your experience growing your army and playing KoW is like mine, you will not be disappointed.
Enjoy!

As I'm writing this I'm putting the basing (concrete patch and pine bark for rocky bases) on 10 archers and 10 beastmen for my Chaos KoW army.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
Update! I bought the 2 player starter set, and I've been looking at the rules a bit closer than before.

So yeah, after reading I can see that the game goes pretty fast. I'm not typically into large scale wargames, but the price tag is nice, so I think I'll just continue to collect a few boxes of everything and make a unique force.

My only problem so far is the HORRIFIC Goblin Spitters models. These might be the worst models in my collection. I think they might be converted with some GW goblin bits in the future.

Thanks for the info gang! I've been a bit hesitant to get into a large-scale game, but the KoW rule system is so slick, I think it will be lots of fun.

I actually kind of like the spitters... but only one box worth of 'like'.

I am starting to make a unit of Pathfinder goblins from the Reaper Bones line -




The Auld Grump

 Eilif wrote:

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
Man, I read Chicago skirmish all the time! Also, thanks a bundle for the tips guys. I think I'll borrow some models and give it a go this weekend if our schedules line up!

So far I think the only thing that will trip me up at first is the movement, since I've never played using trays before.

Cool! Glad you enjoy our blog.

Trays actually make it a good deal easier in many ways. If you don't have any, you can do what we do and just cut out rectangles of cardboard of the recommended sizes and put your minis on them. That's what I've been doing until recently, though I just picked up a bag of plastic trays at a swap meet, so I'll be playing-it-fancy soon.

About half of my stuff is multi-based using blu-tac and thick card. I found a few movement trays from my old, old WHFB days and have been getting those set up as well, and have just ordered some GW ones (surprisingly not that much more expensive than buying big sheets of plasticard as I had also done for a couple of bases!)

Also, since the unit size is the most important thing, I'm basing my figures differently since they come from different sources (40mm rounds for my LotR cavalry models and 40k Wolves, for example) and as long as the unit base/stand that they are in turn mounted on is the correct size, it's all good. I also put my infantry on 25mm rounds (personal aesthetic choice, plus I'm using a lot of my LotR SBG models, and they need to still be able to do double-duty) and the upshot is that it now takes 12 figures to represent a regiment of "20".

...and it still looks good on the table.



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The_Real_Chris wrote:
I would say no... The rules are fast playing and many find them bland. They are designed to play a large number of models on the table very quickly to fit with an evenings play.

For skirmish I would suggest Jake Thortens God of Battles. Similar to mantic/JT stuff, it is also fast playing but smaller scale with more chrome.

I think GoB is the ruleset that Jake was writing in the hope of it becoming Mantic's fantasy mass-battle system (except Ronnie already had Alessio writing KoW, so it dinnae happen!)

Ugh! I finally got everything assembled, but I can only look with hatred as those awful Orc figures. I'm not sure that a stellar paintjob could fix them even.

At least we'll get a game in tonight.

What's wrong with the Orcs? I really like the Mantic style, especially over the GW comically-proportioned ones.

I'd also be interested to hear what you don't like them.

I think the Mantic Orcs are comically proportioned, but in their own way. Different, but certainly no worse than GW's designs.

Let us know how the game goes.