Kings of War

Kings of War is a 28mm scale "mass combat fantasy miniature range" and tabletop game from the upstart UK-based miniatures publisher Mantic Games. The miniatures are cheaper than the established competitors, and cheaper miniatures, while not as detailed as the ludicrously expensive ones by Games Workshop, still get the job done and are fairly adequate.

The Factions

Kings of War has 11 factions in the version 2.0 core rule book:

• Abyssal Dwarfs: Chaos Dwarfs in Mantica. Simpler put, they're Nazi Dwarfs. Slavers who focus on shotguns, war machines, and fiery golems.
• Basileans: Fluff-wise, the Basileans are a lot like the Byzantine/Eastern Roman empire but can summon angels. They have armoured knights, men@arms and lasses riding GIANT CATS.
• Dwarfs: Exactly like all other Dwarfs in all other settings, hard and tough and beardy, but unlike Warhammer or Lord of the Rings Dwarfs, they are an expanding empire. They have cavalry... BADGER CAVALRY!!!
• Elves: The elite, noble Elves, who are better than you. The Elves are 'good guys' but are responsible for a lot of bad things in Mantica, including splitting the gods into good and evil half-gods, and educating a gifted human child who would grow up to be Mhorgoth the Faceless, the most feared necromancer in all of Mantica. Oops.
• Forces of Nature: Exactly what it says on the tin.
• Forces of the Abyss: Servants of 37 evil half gods who live with their masters in Mantica's Hell. They look like the horns and pitchfork devils, with some big ogre demons throw in for good measure.
• Goblins: Separate from Orcs in the setting, although they can ally with each other.
• Kingdoms of Men: Generic human army intended to be used with your other fantasy and historic miniatures. Different from Mantic's own human models described above.
• Ogres: Mercenaries who sometimes get ballsy and make their own little kingdoms. They enjoy fighting, adventure and telling wildly exaggerated stories about their exploits. Ogres don't hold grudges or have an inherent racial prejudices, so they are happy to ally with anyone from Elves to Demons and everything in between.
• Orcs: Brutal and horde-based; called "greenskins" and "a sea of green," with the Ogre's tendency towards cannibalism thrown in.
• Undead: Generic undead including everything from vampires and werewolves to zombies and mummies.

There are also beta lists available from Mantic on their forums (and Kings of War General on /tg usually). Mantic is seeking feedback on these lists and they are intended to be included in a future book release:

• Empire of Dust: Essentially Tomb Kings with a larger emphasis on healing than the more standard undead.
• League of Rhordia: An alliance of a human kingdom and halflings.
• Ratkin: Pretty much Skaven.
• Salamanders: Lizard people of a couple different stripes. Formerly known as Reptilians.
• The Brotherhood: Another holy order style army, this one more inspired by Bretonnia and Azeroth. Has both big and small water elementals in addition to lots of cavalry options.
• The Herd: Beastmen, either taken from the Warhammer Fantasy line or from another line, such as Wrath of Kings.
• Twilight Kin: Dark Elves with a bit of smexy Dark Eldar thrown in for flavor; live in caves beneath the desert after getting thrown out of the main Elf homeland.
• Varangur: Vikings and raiders reminiscent of Warriors of Chaos. Formerly known as the Shattered Clans.

In addition there are future armies planned that don't yet have lists yet:

• Northern Alliance: A good Elf/human faction from the far north. Said to field various ice-themed creatures as well, such as yetis.
• Ophidians: A mortal race with undead servants. Originally said to be Egyptian-themed, but recently described as quite different in theme from Empire of Dust.

The Game System

The Kings of War game is written by none other than Alessio Cavatore, who now seems to be outside of the Games Workshop tent pissing in. The rules are gloriously straight-forward and streamlined, meaning that they're the extreme opposite of Warhammer rules. This makes the decision between the two games more defined for players.

The basic turn order is:

-Move: You move your guys.

-Shoot: Bows, crossbows and rifles shoot up to 24", pistols slings up to 12" and war machines up to 48". Also Magic happens during the Shoot phase.

-Melee: Close combat similar to Warhammers.

Whenever a unit takes hits (melee or ranged) they accumulate 'damage' (there is no model removal as damage represents a mix of morale loss, injuries and casualties). If you inflict damage on one of your enemies' units with shooting or melee you can attempt to rout it at the end of the phase. This is done by rolling 2D6, adding the result to the total damage accumulated so far and comparing the total to the unit's Nerve value. Two values are listed for Nerve (a 20-strong regiment of Elf spearmen has a nerve of 14/16, for example). If the total equals or beats the first value the unit 'wavers' (misses the next turn), and if it equals or beats the second value the unit is routed and removed from the table.

Gameplay is fast, fun and straight-forward even though you'll find some quirks here and there (like having the Zap and Breath Attack rules represent every dangerous spell) but it's still fun. Just remember - Kings of War is not Warhammer.

Kings of War second edition has been funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign and was released in August 2015. Second edition promises to iron out the (relatively few) creases in the core rules, re-balance the army lists, add new units and expand the magic rules with a greater variety of spells, whilst maintaining the straightforward game play Kings of War has become known for.

The Fluff

Once The Kingdom of Elves, The Underlands of The Dwarves & The Human Republic of Primovantor lived in peace watched over by the Celestians, beings of immense power who gifted the three races with Knowledge and magic. Everything was good and fine until an Elf mage called Calisor wrecked everything by falling in love with a human. Said human rejected him so he moped around until he met a Celestian, who told him the ingredients to make a mirror that could show Elianthora (the human chick) the future. Being a mage that has the power to rise the ocean up and walk through one realm of existence as easily as walking through a room, he got the ingredients pretty quick and when he showed Elianthora the mirror, she saw them falling in love and having loving children and living a life of love and goodness.

Until she saw herself die and then Calisor taking a lot of women to try to replace the memory of her, but when she saw their children kill Calisor, she shat her pants and smashed the mirror. However, it turns out one of the ingredients to make the mirror was a fragment of the star that gave the Celestians their power, and when one part is smashed, ALL of it is smashed. The 37 Celestians that survived were split into two - a shining side and a wicked side, which then fought each other in a giant war. The wicked ones created Orcs and necromancy, while corrupting Elves and humans. Luckily, the shining ones had a half-human/half-shining one, and with the holy power of the Celestians, he created a giant fiery crack in the ground (now called the Abyss) and imprisoned all the wicked ones in. Unfortunately, the wicked ones eventually transformed it into HELL, complete with 9 circles for them and their minions - the Abyss.

The world returned to an uneasy peace, until one of the wicked ones escaped/was never locked up - this one was called Winter, so no surprise what she did. Eventually, though, after 100 years of the world in ice, the races allied together and drove Winter away but, as you know, when ice melts water comes and the world then looked like the Mediterranean sea, now the world is screwed - the floods destroyed the human republic of Primovantor - the largest human faction, the humans have split into various small kingdoms or city-states (the largest being Basilea, a mini republic of Primovantor, except more holy justice of the Shining Ones). Elves are seclusive and their land is slowly turning into deserts. Each day Dwarves lose a hold to goblins and... wait, that's not right, Dwarves are actually expanding under king Gholloc's empire, stretching from the gates of Basilea to the far east. Orcs rampage around with their goblin servants occasionally, though the gobbos make their own tribes. Necromancy abounds, stealing the souls of the bodies used and sending them to the Wicked One Durunjak. Twilight kin, Elves corrupted by the wicked ones, dwell in caverns beneath the great desert, occasionally leaving to raid the other species. The Shining Ones lie in the Koluso mountains, deciding not to interfere with the world.

TL;DR: Elves ruin everything.

So why do we like these guys?

Cheap. Miniatures.

And look at this: these models are "ideal for collectors, modellers and gamers of fantasy Wargames. They are fully compatible with all major gaming systems, and you can add them to your existing armies or even build a new army with our value for money army-in-a-box bundle deals." Fucking adorable. Don't you just want to take them home and feed them biscuits?

Mantic Games are openly and audaciously shameless, and even tell you that their works are compatible with other fantasy game systems, if said game system producers aren't purist assholes. Speaking of purist assholes, THEY MAKE NAZI ZOMBIES - ALL IS FORGIVEN.

The miniatures themselves range between Good (Goblins) to Decent (Abyssal Kin chick) to Bad (most of the Orc and Elf characters) to What the Fuck is this Shit (Drakon). You aren't going to find varied sprues and large amounts of options like GW - Mantic miniatures are designed for those on a budget.

We all know all high fantasy is just Tolkien rip-offs, fleshed out with a particularly awesome D&D Campaign, or A Song of Ice and Fire, but look at this shit. OK, on the other hand, Mantic's sorceress is way hotter, so I guess we'll give them a pass 'cuz of dat ass.