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At some point in the last year or so Mantic bought out River Horse and so Alessio is at Mantic now, able to do what he does best: write games, without needing to focus on the admin side of running a company.
I haven't played any games of third edition, so I'm quite looking forward to the refresh and being able to use some of the Kings of War Champions armies I've already built.
I do need to get on with painting my dwarf army, but I'm also keen to see new dwarf miniatures that are apparently on the way.
Azazelx wrote: I really don't see why Mantic keep pumping out new editions. They're not GW and the KoW rules are pretty damn solid (and have been for some time).
3rd is now 6 years out and saw several factions added or changed that would make a "consolidation" of the rules worth doing
and a new Edtion every 6 years is still far from GWs "new game every 3 years" (1st Edition KoW was 2010, 2nd in Summer 2015 and 3rd end of 2019, so 5, 4,5 and 6 years)
From what we have seen so far it is more of a streamlining/simplification of things rather than changing the game, but more in the line of getting the rules that belong together back together and going with the easiest version that gives the same result
like currently moving + shooting is -1 to hit except if you have steady aim, which by now shooting units have
so they decided to change things around, and standing still gives +1 to hit while moving+shooting is the default without the need of a special rule
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/09/18 09:53:07
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
everything, as models and books sell best if there is any big release of some kind to along with
so Mantic might use a new Edition to adept the release model to boost sales and/or use 4th to generate interest instead of going straight to the lore book releases
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/09/20 09:16:21
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
What we've seen so far from the ominous new faction - the Xirkaali Empire - points to an Asian-themed Gnoll/Dogmen faction of some kind.
Personally, I would have preferred Ophidia - they have been a major player in the lore since forever, and the whole "Fantasy Arabs/Persians" shtick is currently underdeveloped in most contemporary systems. Other than Trench Crusade's Iron Sultanate, I can't think of any recent take in a fantasy setting.
Maybe, just like GW, Mantic considers the topic to be too touchy.
The new lists look like a lot of the fun stuff has been removed. Goblins looks like they were absolutely slaughtered. Ogres look fine, but a lot of the cool options like crocodog wranglers, crossbow on sergeant, lots of cheap heroes are gone.
More restrictive army building, and more being forced into certain (named) heroes. Might be fine, warmachine / hordes was a good game with this premise, but feels like there is a risk of more "netlists" when much more of the list is set in stone.
No rules committee is not a great development.
Massive cost increases to all heroes. The previously cheap army standard style heroes look like they are back to being useless.
Faction commands... if they are as badly balanced as the last attempt was... It wasn't really the dice that was the major issue.
I will for sure continue playing, but the news so far about this edition change has more sapped my interest than built it up. Not looking forward to how they will likely slaughter the KoM/LoR list
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/11/07 13:12:53
KoW's models are moving away from the style that I prefer (more restrained, dark ages style) to the more modern video gamey style that I don't really find appealing. They've still got stuff I like but no entire ranges that really work for me.
And I'm perfectly happy with 2nd edition KoW for the way I play. I'm not attending tournaments and am therefore not bothered by the weird skew lists that produces. If I ever want to play in a tournament I'll look into 4e but I find it unlikely and it sounds like a downgrade rather than an upgrade to me (much as happened to Warmachine after Mk2).
Core rules are becoming more cinematic (bigger heroes, commands, dynamic lapping around...) while at the same time list building is being gutted and straightjacketed. So who is this edition for? Competitive players hate the former and casual gamers hate the latter. (or both)
And the bereaved fanbase is compensating by doubling down into toxic positivity and dogpiling anyone who says anything negative. Even the guy on FB who basically said "giving influencers partial information was a bad marketing move as it resulted in reviews that might have been more optimistic if they had had full context"
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2025/11/07 21:55:28
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
List building is an interesting point as for a lot of people nothing really changed.
and not like 1995/1999 points was a common size for casual games already to avoid certain builds as the list building was more restrictive below 2000.
The old style wasn't as straight forward for new players to check their unlocks with Hordes without using a list builder as some people think.
Could have had the same effect in general by doing a 0-2 on certain units and being more generous with "does not unlock" for the same effect but that would not help with being hard to understand for new players
of course sucks for everyone who build a pure Siege Breaker, Abyss Berserker or Scorchwing List but that those being gone one way or the other with a new update was to be expected, while overall there are more choices to make now and this is something the competitive players should like
overall I find it less restrictive depending on the armies, and more appealing is you now need to make choices and cannot have everything at once (like the typical Ogre lists of taking just both named characters to get the most flexibility isn't that easy to do now) while still being able to make certain theme lists
PS: and the rules committee is still there, just under different name and it won't to the heavy work like in 3rd (something that was heavily criticized before, that mantic let fans write the rules instead of hiring a rules designer)
PPS: regarding Ogres and the options being gone, Matt Gilbert and Ronnie mentioned in interviews that the rulebook lists focus on currently available plastic models and units being gone there doesn't mean they won't come back with a new kit/model later as every army will get something during the release of their campaign book
goes we know more once the Halfling list is previewed as those are getting the least new things and therefore we would know what to expect for the other factions later
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
None of the new people I know trying KoW had any issues with the unlock system in 2nd or 3rd. For me personally, I think the new one is at best comparable in complexity to the old one.
The biggest issue with list building in 3rd was that you had to do it in companion, or else it was impossible to know what the current army list actually was, between rule books, CoK updates and erratas. Luckily, companion is pretty good and easy to use.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/11/10 11:00:33
New system is absolutely more complex, less intuitive and less memorizable, going from a few simple rules with WYSIWYG categories of core and unlockables (with few exceptions like Irregular) to fully unit-per-unit basis with abstract, arbitrary categories and possible on the fly modifiers. But it does introduce design space for splatbooks, which I suspect was the point. Want to keep running Dwarfs with a core of Earth Elementals? Buy this book with this hero who moves them from Support to Troop.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2025/11/10 15:44:03
The old meta is dead and the new meta struggles to be born. Now is the time of munchkins.
kodos wrote:Matt Gilbert and Ronnie mentioned in interviews that the rulebook lists focus on currently available plastic models and units being gone there doesn't mean they won't come back with a new kit/model later as every army will get something during the release of their campaign book
Can anyone share more about this? Are the lists now primarily focused on currently-available plastic models?
That'd be a bummer for me who always used the game for non-Mantic models (as did most folks for the first two editions) and appreciated that the army lists were fairly broad.
Depends on what approach they take. The GW model is to force folks to buy new rulebooks and then write those rule/army books in such a way that they drive players toward the purchase of new (or just company-preferred) armies and/or units.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/11/10 20:54:48
kodos wrote:Matt Gilbert and Ronnie mentioned in interviews that the rulebook lists focus on currently available plastic models and units being gone there doesn't mean they won't come back with a new kit/model later as every army will get something during the release of their campaign book
Can anyone share more about this? Are the lists now primarily focused on currently-available plastic models?
That'd be a bummer for me who always used the game for non-Mantic models (as did most folks for the first two editions) and appreciated that the army lists were fairly broad.
Depends on what approach they take. The GW model is to force folks to buy new rulebooks and then write those rule/army books in such a way that they drive players toward the purchase of new (or just company-preferred) armies and/or units.
I recall in the interview i listened to recently on counter Charge that they are removing some units to save for a later time when they can release the models.
~ Shrap
Rolling 1's for five and a half decades.
AoS * OPR Grimdark Furture * Konflikt '47 * Trench Crusade * Horus Heresy * Epic Warpath * Armoured Clash * Star Wars Legion
Obviously new armies sell best if combined with a book release, this isn't because new stuff is better but because it is new models and rules/lore
This doesn't mean that rules are necessarily written in a way that new stuff is better or people must buy the new things to keep playing
Mantic tried different sales models over 2nd and 3rd and models released together with a book just did better than those having a stand alone release
To a part people are driven to buying new armies with the new releases because the new hotness combined with new models being better than old ones
But Mantic also clearly said that you should not start certain armies now with 4th (Herd/Nature, Varangur, Elves, Dwarfs), as the lists are more for those who currently have it, and wait for their new model releaes to avoid being disappointed.
Harry, bring this ring to Narnia or the Sith will take the Enterprise
kodos wrote:
But Mantic also clearly said that you should not start certain armies now with 4th (Herd/Nature, Varangur, Elves, Dwarfs), as the lists are more for those who currently have it, and wait for their new model releaes to avoid being disappointed.
I guess it's good that they're being up front about this. Guess I'll just have to wait to see what the army lists in the rulebook look like.
Shrapnelsmile wrote:
I recall in the interview i listened to recently on counter Charge that they are removing some units to save for a later time when they can release the models.
Not wild about this. It's one thing to not put new units in an new edition rulebook. Removing units that were present in earlier editions smacks of GW...
Maybe this is good for Mantic, but none of this will make it easier to sell my players on buying into 4th edition.
