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Disclaimer: This is a review of the rulebook aside from the rules as I feel there is already a lot of other posts about that. This is just about the quality of the product itself and the other aspects that haven't seen as much light from my readings. Feel free to comment and add your two cents. Note that this is just my opinion and I am not a professional reviewer.

So I got my Mantic Rulebook the other day and I was rather pleased with it. It was a lot smaller than I'm used to having played Warhammer all of these years I half expected a giant tome when I got the box. The small, graphic-novel sized rulebook was surprising at first. As I read through the book, however, I noticed some great changes that needed to be made from the first version (beyond the gameplay mechanics that were revised that is). Among those, I was pleased to note that while they did not make any major changes to the fluff, it seems they went back through and polished it up. They seemed to utilize an editor that was a bit more experienced this time and the story didn't have the mistakes that gave of an amateurish feel at times. (Some of the lines in the first edition book made me cringe at the wording sometimes). While they kept pretty much all of the original concepts (which is a good thing as I like some of the different ideas that they use), they polished up the wording and other clerical errors to give a much more professional feel to the writing. (BTW I have the pdf version of the first edition rulebook, which is why I was able to be surprised by the second edition's physical copy size).

Secondly I was amazed at the amount of content that was crammed into the book. It made me realize that you don't need books of a biblical size to get a rich background and then supplementary books just to get the rules for my army. This was very refreshing and came as quite a surprise. I thought overall that the book was a good investment and the construction was excellent, this felt like a book that could stand up to a couple years' worth of use. The pages were excellent quality, the artwork was superior to the previous edition (not that the first edition book didn't have some great artwork, too, you can see that in the ones they re-used in this edition. This one just had more developed pieces it felt like). I liked the aesthetic, it bleeds a very nostalgic 80's-90's fantasy movie feel to it (the good kind, this is not a bad point to me as I really liked that era and I think there's a lot here that do as well). Overall I was very impressed with the composition and the content of the book.

That being said I have a few minor gripes. First, I felt that the unit descriptions were lackluster at best. Some of them were little more than a mention that "These be skeletons" before moving on to the next unit. I think space may have been a premium in this section, but I feel that this detracted a bit from the flavor of the armies. Giving a bit more description as to the stories behind these troops that are supposed to be the focus of the game would go a long ways to add to the flavor of the game. Secondly, in the fluff history it felt at times like I was being shotgunned with information. I love that there are so many cultures from which you can choose to base your armies, but I don't feel as though I got enough time to get to know any of these cultures before we were on to the next one. I'm not saying they need to cut out any of these great ideas for cultures, but at the end of the Elves I found myself scratching my head and had to go back and re-read the section several times before I felt I had a decent understanding as to how their society works. This could be fixed by some good housekeeping with the text as I found certain parts were repeated in different sections, which added a bit to my confusion when I read about the two variants of Ice elves (the ones in the Bitterlands vs. the ones in the Winterlands) when some of these were already mentioned when the book was talking about the Mammoth Steppes, this also confused me as I couldn't find where the Winterlands were on the Mantica map. Overall, though, Mantic has created a great sandbox in which we are allowed to play and develop our armies and their stories, and that gets me very excited.

Overall, I give the book a 92% and am looking forward to playing around in this new world.

Mine arrived today and I have to agree, wonderful book overall with a surprising amount of content for it's (very convenient) size.

I actually found it funny that a softcover 'gamers version' came with it since when i picked up the hardcover the first thing I though was 'this is such a great size to bring to the table'.

Presumably this is the 'Kings of War 2.0' rule book review? Manic make a lot of different games!!

I got the rulebook a couple of weeks ago and am very happy with
with it - I can see why you might feel 'shotgunned' with information but I guess to build the whole world and all factions in a single book means they have to be reasonably judicious in the editing!
There was only one thing in the book that made me cringe - it's a painting in the Basilean section of a male warrior, a panther and presumably two warriors from the 'sisterhood' - who look like 1980s magician assistants. Apparently female Basileans need to be perfectly coiffed and made-up before battle

@arbitorian, yes sorry, with my blinders on I forgot to put the KoW part in there, thanks.. I'll fix that.


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@ wafflecakes, I missed that picture, on what page is it?

Page 94 it seems

I really want the hardback version of this book. Where is the best place for Australian players to purchase this product?

Unconfirmed rumor was hardbacks were sold out at the distributor level (not store) nearly worldwide...good luck I'm sure there must be a few stores with an extra copy on the shelf. My FLGS asked for 8 copies and was only given 5 due to high demand. All 5 sold the friday they arrived.


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As a GW fantasy player, turned to Mantic for my regimental battle lust. I must say, I like alot of the little things that are different from GW Fantasy. Leader Point for one is excellent IMHO, charging is how it used to be. I'm truely impressed so far and only halfway through the rules. In 2 weeks I kick off 1of2 L2P events for KOW at my LFGS, the second will be down the road a bit. GW you messed up bad....

The thing I really like as a modeler first and a player second is the line of sight rule. It makes it so that I can justify using my Nethyrmaul undead dragon from bones as a mount for my vampire and still put him on the awesome stone base without giving my opponent an unbelievable advantage cause my stupid zombie dragon has to carry his giant pet rock with him wherever he goes so he can stand on it majestically. Now we can appease both his vanity and still remain tactically viable.

 Gromgor wrote:
The thing I really like as a modeler first and a player second is the line of sight rule. It makes it so that I can justify using my Nethyrmaul undead dragon from bones as a mount for my vampire and still put him on the awesome stone base without giving my opponent an unbelievable advantage cause my stupid zombie dragon has to carry his giant pet rock with him wherever he goes so he can stand on it majestically.

Which is exactly why we did it

 Tinwhistle wrote:
I really want the hardback version of this book. Where is the best place for Australian players to purchase this product?

Might Ape or Tabletop Empires.

So if I go to the Mantic website now and order a 2.0 rulebook, am I going to get one? It is still marked as pre order, and I keep reading that it is completely sold out? Should I wait for a second printing?

The preorder is for the second print run.

I still wish a rulebook comes with the army bundles. Now that the beta army lists are gone on the web, I really wouldn't mind having a copy with an army I buy.

Someone posted on Facebook that the Army Set he bought in his FLGS came with the softback Gamer's Edition:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/403267653139331/730432583756168/