Quirkworthy

Caveat: this second part is for the 5% of the gaming population who immerse themselves in the world of games and gaming as much as I do, and who are as curious and particular about how things work as I am. Sticklers for details, beardy idiots, pedants, geeks; call us what you will. For the saner and more normal 95% who get their gaming fix by sticking some models on the table and rolling the dice, the first part is probably sufficient. You were warned 🙂

I will assume here that you’ve read part 1 of this review and so you understand the basics. This part is about the details.

Unfortunately, it’s in the details that this edition of Kings of War creaks a bit. I do look forward to the 3^rd edition, which will, one assumes, have fixed all these things, and be full of amusing background material too. If Alessio hasn’t killed me by then I’ll happily review that when it comes out.

For the moment, we have what we have, and if you’re just throwing down with a mate for a friendly game using an army you have kicking about then KOW2 is fine. If you’re taking it more seriously then you’ll need to be writing some house rules. I would, however, suggest that you do give it a try. Mantic are very keen to read your comments and you don’t often get a chance to have this much input. Download the rules, drag out your old Warhammer armies and give it a blast. Then let Mantic know what you thought (good or bad). They’ll appreciate it.

Now put your protective harness on and stand well back – I’m about to get picky!

What Works?

The core game works. This is a short paragraph, but it is the bulk of the game. Personally I don’t find the “I-go-U-go” whole-army-at-a-time turn sequence to my taste, and I have issues with the way individuals work, but you can’t deny that the game is slick and functions well as a basic system.

What Needs Work?

Several areas. A few specific units are currently broken, others are a just bit too good for their points. The poster boys for brokenness are the Masters of Death (assassins). Take multiples of these in your army and you’re laughing (but your opponent won’t be). Not only do they have +2 to damage in both melee and shooting, they can appear anywhere on the battlefield – guaranteed (no dice roll required) – in whichever turn their owner wishes. This includes behind the enemy, of course, and I forgot to mention that you triple your attacks if you charge from the rear. Alessio is entirely aware of this and even now his little grey cells are being burned by the million as a clean and simple answer is sought.

The human captain who gives lots of units Vanguard (a double move after deployment) also needs work, but again Alessio is on the case.

Vampires (Soul Reaver cavalry) are perceived by some as needing a nerfing, though I personally don’t agree. After 7 games with a Soul Reaver army I think they’re nasty, but very killable if you’ve thought it through. They are, in fact, so expensive for what they do that I reckon you’d be better spending your points elsewhere. If they have their Bloodbath rule removed (as was discussed) then I really would think twice about taking them unless they drop very dramatically in points. Two units of the lesser Undead (or even better, Twilight Kin) cavalry is only very slightly more points and is a much better option in my opinion.

There are other issues in terms of points balance, such as the relative costs of lesser and greater Obsidian Golems, and I think that many of the war engines are overpriced (or under-useful). Some characters feel like their relative battlefield usefulness is not reflected well in their points. But all this points juggling is easy enough to fix with playtesting. It means that this edition is a bit exploitable, but don’t let that stop you. Go out and exploit things, my children. It is for the Greater Good of the 3^rd edition!

(Just remember to tell Mantic what you’ve found broken).

So far we have had cosmetic and easily fixable issues that will clearly fade with time. A 3^rd edition was planned from the start and the KOW ship is on course. None of them should really be a concern. My next thought is more worrying, though increasingly theoretical. It’s about Individuals. Models with this special rule are basically those on foot or riding a normal mount like a horse. Those on big monsters don’t get the benefits. An Individual doesn’t have to worry about turning and can charge all round and this is where the trouble starts. There is no restriction on characters moving around and between units and this means that a single fighty Individual can destroy whole regiments on their own, almost regardless of relative points values. You get double attacks from the flank and triple from the rear, and any character worth his salt should be doing this at all times. Advance in the lee of a “real” unit (or fly, or teleport in like assassins) and then skip through the gaps in the enemy line and start hacking away. Enemy units must leave an inch gap between themselves, and an Individual model is generally on a base that will fit in between…

One potential fix for this that was mooted at the tournament was to disallow doubling and tripling for Individual’s attacks. They do not suffer this problem as they have neither flank nor rear themselves, so why are they getting the benefit? This would go the bulk of the way to fixing the issue and I’m sure that the assassin problem will be ameliorated too. However, I still think that we will be left with the rump of a problem, which will still essentially require you to take a fighty character of your own in any serious army. Their job will be as a sweeper to protect the flanks and rears of the fighting units, because even if an enemy doesn’t get additional attacks, they’ll want to hang about outside the front arc as that way they can never be charged by their target. As damage is cumulative, a character nibbling away at a unit will erode it on their own given time, and can easily make the difference to an otherwise evenly balanced attack going in from the front. Mantic want us to play with huge armies, so having a rule that encourages you to forgo a unit or two so that you can take an über Individual model seems counter to their intentions (plus a bit odd in general). For those of a greybearded persuasion like myself, it’s harking back to the days of what used to be disparagingly known as “Herohammer”.

Flying units are another area that seems a touch over powerful. They are often several models strong so the benefits for flank & rear charges are fair enough. Being able to fly them over the enemy battle line and then spin 180 degrees (all flying units get the Nimble skill so they can all do this even when they double move – usually a total of 20 inches) means that they should be in a position to charge into the rear of an enemy unit in their next turn. A unit of 10 Gargoyles has 20 attacks at 4+, and only costs 90 points. If this is going into the rear of a unit that’s an average of 30 rolls to damage (triple your 20 attacks, half of which hit), so you’d expect 5 hits on a target with the highest damage of 6. As you move your whole army at once, attacking with multiple units against single targets is a common and highly effective tactic. Put two Gargoyle units into the back of a single enemy unit and you’re getting 10 damage on the highest damage unit in the game – and all for 180 points. Of course, Gargoyles are not particularly resilient to damage themselves, but if they’re behind you then this is hardly a problem. It’s a similar issue to the assassins: they are weak in defence and strong in attack, but if you can never attack them because you can’t see them…

Pre-measuring is another aspect that I believe causes problems with competitive games. If I have a unit that is faster than yours, you should not get the first charge. Ever. There need be no guesswork required. You have no tension of whether you have judged things right or not (something I rather like in Warhammer); here it is all about the geometry of the position. Now it was instructive to watch the top players in the tournament exploiting this feature to obliterate my army, but they weren’t what I’d call fun games (in an abstract sense – my opponents were a good laugh though). And now I’ve seen people who do it well I’d try it myself. Why would I not? Not using the tools at hand feels very odd to me, so I’d feel I had to. If both players are doing the same thing and both have taken the fast armies then you’re back to an even playing field, but where does that leave any army without move 6 foot troops, or, more importantly, move 9 cavalry or move 10 flyers? If both players have equally fast armies do you then get a good game or just a stand off? Is it like playing Chicken? I don’t know the answer to these last questions, but it’s something to consider and try out. Please comment below if you give this a go on the tabletop.

Finally, I wonder whether using chess clocks elicits the intended behaviour or not. Again, I expect it to act to reduce the size of the armies being fielded, rather than expanding them. Physically moving troops is time consuming, and if time is tight then that has to be a consideration in army builds. Again, Mantic’s desire for huge armies comes under pressure from the other direction.

Conclusion – Serious Play

After the feedback from the Tournament, Alessio is working on a series of changes to the tournament pack that will be available from the Mantic site and will (presumably) apply to future tournaments. This will doubtless go some way to removing the most heinous of the broken units we saw at the first tourney. However, I predict that this will simply leave the next level of imbalance to be exploited; a level that was masked by the sheer obviousness of the Masters of Death and Captain problems. Kings of War is plainly not finished yet in terms of detailed balance, nor is it expected to be. I do expect it to be fine when it is finished (which will be the 3^rd edition, next year). At least, it will be much more fine. There’s a load of playtesting to do yet, and if they add a bunch more armies into 3^rd (and I expect they will) then they will also need testing. If they go in as the new ones did in 2^nd, then we’ll be right back to where we are now.

I’m quite taken by the idea of using chess clocks, though I remain unconvinced that all the ramifications were thought through well enough. Chess is a very different proposal to a tabletop game where your armies are mutable. Adding time pressure is tricky to balance, and will put off as many people as it intrigues. Naturally slower players, or players who wish to field larger armies, will be penalised if the times are set for faster, smaller armies. If the times are set to accommodate the larger forces then smaller players are unpressured. It’s a tricky thing to balance. Using chess clocks for chess competitions don’t have this problem as chess has fixed “armies”.

Whilst KOW2 is fine for casual play, I’m not sure it’s ready for serious tournaments yet as the playing field is not even enough and the lists not sufficiently refined. I could be wrong – maybe that’s what tournament players really want: room to exploit. For me I want to have a close game and if I win I’d like that to be because I played better and not just because I’m more able to spot the broken bits. Maybe Alessio’s revised tournament pack will fix enough of these issues to make it all fine. I hope so. You can all help to rectify this as well. You all need to go out and play Kings of War and let Mantic know what works for you and what doesn’t. I’ve played it a reasonable amount now and these are my thoughts to date. What do you think? Am I wrong? Let me know.

Lastly, on a personal note, regardless of the clean rules, fast play and even ignoring the balance issues which I’m sure will be sorted soon enough, I feel that Kings of War is missing something. This is a very “touchy; feely” kind of thing to say, and unhelpfully, I can’t really tell you for certain what this “something” might be, though I will hazard a guess or two. It could be the lack of background. KOW2 is rather generic, and this is always less appealing than a game with an immersive fantasy environment. It is more likely to be what I see as a missing level of detail. KOW is not sufficiently abstracted for me to see it like DBA as an overview, yet it lacks a level of ability to tweak. For example, there are no magic items, and the magic system is perfunctory (though this may expand with 3^rd ed). All I can do is pick from a fixed palette of units and unit sizes (and choose to have banners/musicians or not). I think I’d like a bit more mutability, though it’s hard to say what else this might be. It could even be that I want more boundaries in army selection. Who knows? There is just a niggle at the back of my head that Kings of War 2 is missing a little something. If I work out what this is then I’ll be sure to tell you.

This review is split into two parts for a couple of reasons. The first is that it will not be short, and the second is that it seems at present to be a different game depending on your style or level of play.

This first part is about how the game works for casual players who get together with a mate and play with whatever they’ve got. They play for fun and next time they meet they’ll probably use the same or very similar army because that’s what they have. The second part builds on this foundation and is a more in-depth look at specific details that affect more serious players who pore over army lists in detail and will tweak their armies to maximise their effectiveness. This includes tournament players, but is not restricted to them. For example, this is how I generally play.

The copy I have was given to me by Mantic. It will soon be available for free as a B&W pdf from their website as well as to buy if you fancy a copy in glorious colour.

It’s also perhaps worth me saying that I actually asked Ronnie if I could write the tabletop fantasy game for him, only to be told that Alessio was already writing this. Dwarf King’s Hold came out of that process, and the game I had in mind for Mantic was taken up by someone else and will be out next year. As I have mentioned elsewhere, nothing I design gets wasted. It’s all in a notebook somewhere and its time will come. As both Alessio and I were both writing the games at the same time, unbeknownst to each other, I personally find it intriguing to see which rule conundrums and choices we tackled the same way and where we parted course. I really look forward to reading someone’s comparison review when they’re both available. But back to Kings of War…

The Ethos

Kings of War is an unusual game in that it is not released in a finished form, but as a work in progress that has a predefined timeline. You are very much encouraged to play and comment, and your feedback will be listened to and incorporated where appropriate. You have a real opportunity to take part in the game’s development, which is cool. It is a 3-year plan, but why take my word for it. Here’s Ronnie to tell you all about it:

As this is a review of the 2^nd edition I understand that the rules are not yet completely locked down or finished. However, even taking that into account, you need to be able to play something with them and they have had a year to mature already. So, with that at the back of our minds, how do the rules work?

The Rules

I won’t go through all the rules in detail as you can download a set for yourselves (I’ll link this to the 2010 edition for the moment, and try and remember to change it when the new one comes out in a fortnight). Let’s look at the basics though.

Kings of War is a tabletop fantasy battle game. This means that each player fields a force comprising units of infantry, cavalry and characters from a variety of possible races: Elf, Dwarf, Human, Twilight Kin (Dark Elf), Abyssal Dwarf (sort of Chaos Dwarf), Orcs, Goblins and Undead. In KOW a unit does not take casualties: it is either all present on the table or it is removed completely. It will, however, take damage which will need to be represented with tokens of some sort. This retention of whole units reminds me of the DBA family of games, and allows you to model the whole unit on a single giant base should you choose to.

The game is played in turns with a player moving, shooting and fighting with all of his army in his turn. The player turns are entirely separate and I wasn’t the only one who kept reaching for dice when my opponent attacked (so I could roll my saves –  many years of conditioning by Warhammer). In KOW the attacker rolls everything. Alessio has said that this is to avoid unscrupulous players wasting time in tournaments where they could deliberately drag their feet when it came to rolling stuff. It does mitigate that particular flavour of naughtiness, though I don’t believe for a second that it will stop cheats cheating. They’ll just move their nasty behaviour elsewhere.

A player turn has three steps: movement, shooting, melee.

Movement rules are pretty straightforward. You can move double, move single and turn or turn in place. Whether you move or not also impacts on shooting effectiveness. This is all pretty standard stuff and is clean and simple, though the fact that distances are sometimes measured from the nearest bit of the unit and sometimes from the champion of a unit could trip up the unwary. Terrain is the familiar half move for difficult, etc.

One particularly important rules here is that you may pre-measure. I’ll deal more with this in the second part, but for now be aware that you cannot, for example, have a failed charge as you can in Warhammer, or declare a shot that cannot reach. You can always check in advance.

Once you’ve moved all the units you want to then it’s time to shoot. Magic in Kings of War is perfunctory and pretty characterless. All magicians share the same spells (with the exception of Undead who get an extra one): Zap and Heal. No prizes for guessing what they do. Each is simply a case of rolling a given number of dice, and each one that is 4+ either causes or heals a point of damage. These two “spells” count as missile attacks, and so you can only use one a turn. Normal shooting has a couple of potential modifiers that you can easily memorise. Otherwise shooting is merely a case of rolling the number of dice your stat line tells you and trying to get the number given or better. For example, an Elf Bowmen regiment has 10 dice and needs 4+ to hit. Very easy. If you hit a unit then you roll a dice per hit to see if you damage them. If you damage a target then you roll a Nerve test for them to see how happy they are. I’ll cover this last bit in a moment.

After shooting, any of your units that has moved into contact gets to fight. Again, this is simply a case of rolling the number of dice you have on your stat line against the value listed. A lone Dwarf Warsmith would roll 2 dice, needing 4+ to hit. A horde of 20 human knights would roll 32 dice, needing 3+. Any dice that hit are rolled again to see if you can best the defence of the target, just as with shooting. After fighting you will roll a Nerve test for each unit you have damaged.

Nerve tests have been streamlined since 1^st edition. Now they are listed as two numbers on the stat line. When you damage a unit you roll 2D6 and add the amount of cumulative damage on the unit. If you equal or beat the higher value then the unit routs and is removed from play. If you equal or beat the lower value then it wavers for a turn (unless it’s Undead), basically standing about doing very little except waiting to get hit again. Someone else will have to come and save it.

On top of this you have a handful of special rules that tweak the core rules to do the sorts of things you might expect. Really hitty units get to add to the rolls to damage things they hit, nippy units get extra movement, stuff with wings can Fly, and so on.

One word of caution about those of you that are driven by background colour rather than game play: there isn’t any. Well, that’s not strictly true, but it is limited to the odd sentence here and there rather than pages of colour text that you’ll see in Warmachine, Warhammer, etc. I think that’s slated to come in with the 3^rd edition (though the Mantic website and Journal already has additional background text so you can get a sense of what’s on the way).

On the Table

The first time I played Kings of War I was not at all taken by the complete lack of interaction in the player turns. I am still not a big fan of this feature, though the game plays so fast that it is less of an issue than I had expected.

I doubt many casual players will bother with the chess clocks and timed turns (ostensibly the whole reason for the lack of player interaction), which is a pity as this is an interesting aspect and worth trying at least once. However, to give you an idea of how quickly KOW plays, we were experimenting with various timed games at the tournament and 30 minutes per player is reasonably tight for a 1,500 point game, but entirely possible. 45 minutes each is ample. This means that in a typical evening’s play I could easily fit in two whole games without being rushed.

The rules are simple, clearly written and easy to pick up. There are no mechanical surprises to speak of, so anyone with a bit of gaming experience should know what they’re doing by the end of their first game.

Anyone who has played a tabletop game will be familiar with the interplay of units, and the way infantry, cavalry and war engines interact is quite similar to games like Warhammer. Each arm does what you’d expect, which is good.

Conclusion – Casual Play

For casual play Kings of War should be very popular. It’s simple to pick up, fast to play and doesn’t require you to wade through a phone directory every 5 minutes to look things up.

If you already have a Warhammer army then I urge you to give it a go for yourself. If you’ve got a Mantic army, even better. It’s free, so what have you got to lose? Regardless of any gripes I may have, Kings of War is definitely worth a try.