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Hello,

Just had a quick skim through the new Kings of War rules, and I'm liking it so far. However, I have a few questions regarding the new rules:

- Have we really got rid of musicians and banner carriers? I can't see the option to take them anywhere, and I'm surprised that this option didn't make the new edition.

- Would profiles for the previous edition be (relatively) compatible with this one? In particular, my brother just finished scratch-building a battle-driller, Herneas the Hunter, and a Steel Behemoth, and is devastated that he can't legally take these anymore! Does anyone know if including these units will unbalance the game too much? They seem compatible to me.


Thanks for any clarification you can give me. Also, what are other people's thoughts on the new edition? Good? Bad?

@Lach:
1) banners and musuicians were removed because the cancelled each other out, which lead to most people just not bothering with them and using the points to buy more units.
2) The lists on the mantic site arent complete. Afaik, battledriller, Herneas and Steel Behemoth are still in the lists, theyre just not in the starter lists. Check the beta forum for a more complete list.

Yes command groups were dropped. They are purely an aesthetic choice now. This was a frequent and popular request from the community.

None of the units you mention have been removed. If you are looking at the online lists put up on Friday, they are only samples, not the full lists. They are about 60% complete. The full lists are in the gamer's edition of the rules and the hardback book. They might eventually go up online like the v1 lists eventually did - but we don't know yet for sure.

Thanks for the clarifications guys.

Quick question for anyone who knows - are abyssals on a 20 or 25mm base? Got some 40k daemons of khorne who need a new home

Abyssals are on 20s. Salamanders are on 25s.

The lower abyssals are apparently on 25s.

It doesn't matter what base size you use as long as the frontage is correct. So if a unit is on 25mm bases in KOW a regiment will be 125mm across and fit five of your demons, if it's on 20mm bases it will be 100mm across and fit four of them. It's the unit footprint that matters more than the number of models - 12 bloodletters has approximately the same footprint as a 20 strong regiment on 20mm bases.

So Abyssals have a "standard" 100x80mm footprint? (Like Beastmen?)

Actually, does anything besides Orcs have WHFB-legacy-sized frontages now?

Salamanders are on 25mm bases

Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Does anyone else do mutlibasing for their miniatures? I'm trying to get my spearmen on their individual bases - but that's a pain in the ass - so I'm considering picking up the GW plastic tray kit and just cutting those into the proper base sizes and gluing the minis right onto them.

 Azazelx wrote:
Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Only if we felt it was justified where two units were almost identical. A bigger footprint is generally worse unless you are a shooting unit and then it's better (wider arc). Of course you get a wider charge arc but it's harder to move around).

I'm doing a combination of both multibasing and individual basing. For disorganized troops (like zombies for example) I base them in bigger bases that can be mounted on a much bigger base with the right footprint. The bigger bases lets me crowd more than one zombie so they look like they're swarming.

For more organized formations (like a phalanx of pikemen or polearms) I do normal WHFB style basing.

 mattjgilbert wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Only if we felt it was justified where two units were almost identical. A bigger footprint is generally worse unless you are a shooting unit and then it's better (wider arc). Of course you get a wider charge arc but it's harder to move around).

I'm thinking of just using the standard footprint for my Orcs for friendly games. Since I base everything on 25mm rounds for flexibility between games and then blu-tac them down to Renedra HIPS unit trays for KoW. It also makes it a hell of a lot faster and easier to get painted forces on the table needing to paint 12 rather than 20.

 mattjgilbert wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Only if we felt it was justified where two units were almost identical. A bigger footprint is generally worse unless you are a shooting unit and then it's better (wider arc). Of course you get a wider charge arc but it's harder to move around).

Sounds about right. 125mm frontage is a disadvantage because three units can charge the front (100-100-100 against 125) whereas only two 100's can charge the front of a 100, since corner-to-corner is not allowed.

 infinite_array wrote:
Does anyone else do mutlibasing for their miniatures? I'm trying to get my spearmen on their individual bases - but that's a pain in the ass - so I'm considering picking up the GW plastic tray kit and just cutting those into the proper base sizes and gluing the minis right onto them.

I multibase about 6/7 soldiers per 10 you are supposed to have. I prefer a slightly looser formation, so generally dot the soldiers about. For hordes, I use two "10 man" bases at the rear, and either use an appropriately sized defensive terrain (such as wooden shielding) to fill the front ranks, or just 4 lots of "10 man" bases.

Means I essentially get an extra unit for every 2 I base but doesnt look like I am taking the wee by having one guy representin 40.

I also use a single large model to represent several smaller ones (ie a giant to be 3 trolls).

 judgedoug wrote:

 mattjgilbert wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Only if we felt it was justified where two units were almost identical. A bigger footprint is generally worse unless you are a shooting unit and then it's better (wider arc). Of course you get a wider charge arc but it's harder to move around).

Sounds about right. 125mm frontage is a disadvantage because three units can charge the front (100-100-100 against 125) whereas only two 100's can charge the front of a 100, since corner-to-corner is not allowed.

Correct me if wrong, but don't units multi-charging need to share equal amounts of frontage, making three units impossible? I thought the rules specifcally said once charges were done that you slide units to share facing as equitably as possible.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
Does anyone else do mutlibasing for their miniatures? I'm trying to get my spearmen on their individual bases - but that's a pain in the ass - so I'm considering picking up the GW plastic tray kit and just cutting those into the proper base sizes and gluing the minis right onto them.

I multibase about 6/7 soldiers per 10 you are supposed to have. I prefer a slightly looser formation, so generally dot the soldiers about. For hordes, I use two "10 man" bases at the rear, and either use an appropriately sized defensive terrain (such as wooden shielding) to fill the front ranks, or just 4 lots of "10 man" bases.

Means I essentially get an extra unit for every 2 I base but doesnt look like I am taking the wee by having one guy representin 40.

I also use a single large model to represent several smaller ones (ie a giant to be 3 trolls).

That's actually a smart idea. I'll use the same thing, but instead I'll use 8 instead of 10. And that does make it so I can use, say, the 8 empire Knights I got as a regiment instead of having three sit out.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:

 judgedoug wrote:

 mattjgilbert wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
Out of interest, Matt - did base size/unit frontages for Orcs (and Salamanders) play much of a part in balancing/costing them?

Only if we felt it was justified where two units were almost identical. A bigger footprint is generally worse unless you are a shooting unit and then it's better (wider arc). Of course you get a wider charge arc but it's harder to move around).

Sounds about right. 125mm frontage is a disadvantage because three units can charge the front (100-100-100 against 125) whereas only two 100's can charge the front of a 100, since corner-to-corner is not allowed.

Correct me if wrong, but don't units multi-charging need to share equal amounts of frontage, making three units impossible? I thought the rules specifcally said once charges were done that you slide units to share facing as equitably as possible.

That is correct. But three 100mm frontage units charging a 125 allows three to contact it. one 100mm in the middle, leaving 12.5mm on each side for two other units to fit in the front. It is why 125mm frontage units are every so slightly worse in Kings of War.

Examples of my inspiration of swarming zombies on bigger bases. It gives a better feeling than when they're arranged neatly in boxes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 infinite_array wrote:
Does anyone else do mutlibasing for their miniatures? I'm trying to get my spearmen on their individual bases - but that's a pain in the ass - so I'm considering picking up the GW plastic tray kit and just cutting those into the proper base sizes and gluing the minis right onto them.

Forgot to quote you. But anyway, Renedra sells big bases for big formations!

Do they? I've only ever seen their 80x100 unit trays.

And your Zombies are always a lovely sight to behold.

No, they're not mine. As I've said they're my inspiration.

Yeah, they have 80x100 unit trays. You can always combine them with smaller unit trays to get the configuration you want. I got a lot of different-sized bases when I bought my Perry stuff so I've been using those.

Warbases are the only company that I have found that does appropriately sized movement trays for Mantic.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
Warbases are the only company that I have found that does appropriately sized movement trays for Mantic.

Back2base-ix also does, but they're here in Australia.

They do everything bar a legion tray for Ogre warriors, but I should be able to request that

Oddly, it's still cheaper to buy from Warbases than Back2base-ix. Even with our shrinking dollar.

Well so it is.

Up to a point anyway, once you go over more than a few trays the british postage jumps 4 pounds at a time, whereas domestic shipping here is $9 all the way up to who even needs 20kg of MDF movement trays?

Just depends how many you need really!

I'm trying to organize my WHFB armies into KoW armies and I have another basing question for you guys.

I always thought that as long as the movement tray/unite base was the correct size for the formation that the number of models didn't matter. The 2.0 rulebook calls out model counts for formations, how tightly policed is that?

My armies are Bretonnians and WoC so I have big blocks of infantry and I'm trying to sort out just how many models I want to use if I multibase a formation. I want to do some multibasing for dynamism but the number of models I have versus the official number of models per formation I want to use isn't an exact match.

Since the main metric of units is base sizes, you can change the actual numbers of the minis on the base.

My cavalry have 4 minis per troop base. My spearmen have 8 on a troops base, and my foot guard have 7.

Prestor Jon wrote:
The 2.0 rulebook calls out model counts for formations, how tightly policed is that?

It's not. The unit footprint is still what matters. Just don't, you know, try to pass off one dude as a Horde.