Greetings Dash28 fans, it’s exciting times in Pannithor, as Halpi’s Rift is officially here, sort of. As copies trickle out to stores and pre-orders, some of us are lucky to already have a copy, while others wait and hope, and still, others may be waiting and seeing what is included with the book before buying.
Well, I am going to be giving a first reaction and review of the contents of the book, which hopefully, will help answer some of the questions about what is inside. This examination is my thoughts upon first flipping thru, and reading thru parts of the book, over the course of the next few weeks Dash28 will have more articles covering more in-depth the various aspects of this supplement.
The Contents
Lore
This book is first and foremost a narrative supplement (I would argue it is NOT a campaign), creating new rules and environments to play games of Kings of War in. For people who have been asking for more Lore, Halpi’s Rift is jam-packed with it, with over half the book spent creating the story behind the Rift.
Now I haven’t gotten a chance to read it all, or even most of it; however, the general gist is a magical flux happens after a magical nexus is discovered. The early part of the book flicks to the perspective of nearly every faction in the game, and various named characters reactions to said magical wave. This new power is viewed as having a lot of potential for the various factions, and they begin a mad rush into the underground to try to claim it for their own, which eventually leads to planar travel, and fights across various planes of existence.
New named characters are fleshed out in this lore section, providing some much needed additional character (ha pun) to some of the KoW factions.
Perhaps most exciting from my perspective is how predominantly the Ratkin are featured in the lore, with an entire section exploring who and what the Ratkin are.
This section is also accompanied by some amazing artwork, including an awesome map, showing one of their warrens.
Now there is of course more lore that I could cover in here, but that will have to wait until our review of the lore :).
Narrative Setting
Halpi’s Rift mostly focuses on the setting, which is based around 4 planes of play, each of which brings different rules to the game. The plane you pick dictates what scenarios are available to choose from, as well as some new Spells, channeling charts, mercenary choices, magical items, and finally magical terrain choices to select from. The choices are based off the flavor of the plane being used.
For example, if the game is taking place on the Abyssal Plane, then you can play Loot, Push, or Plunder. Games also have a special rule called “Treasures of the Wicked Ones” which can either minorly damage or heal units carrying Loot counters. There are two spells potentially in play, both of which are fire-themed. There is a new 20 point magic item, which is one use and basically allows you to reroll the combat.
The mercenary choices (unsurprisingly) allow access to various Abyssal and Abyssal Dwarf units, but only for evil armies, these units count as Unique, Irregular choices from the core army. There are also two special types of terrain Abyssal themed.
Finally, each plane contains a channeling table, which supplies themed ability and effects to friendly and enemy units, with 6 options for each plane’s table, which you randomly roll based on how many levels of spellcasters you have.
Disappointingly, there really isn’t an attempt to create an actual campaign for these rules. Nothing links the games together. There are no injury charts, no experience tables, and no maps to be conquered. There are no effects for winning a battle in the Material Plane when then entering the Abyssal Plan.
I do think people looking for narrative elements have a lot to work with here, and can easily cherry-pick their favorite bits to plug into whatever campaign they want. But as is, there isn’t actually a campaign system here, rather it’s a setting.
This means, anyone trying to create a campaign using the Halpi’s Rift Campaign Supplement, ironically still needs to create their own campaign.
I would have loved a map campaign rules set, using some of these Halpi’s Rift rules for different locations on the map. And the supplement could have come with a tear away copy of a map to pin army flags too; however, this is not that.
New Characters
A whole section of this book is naturally devoted to the new characters’ rules. Now at this time, it is unclear if these have been playtested for tournament play. However, they are in the paid version of Easy Army now, so my gut says yes they are for competitive play too.
This is, in my opinion, the most exciting part of the book. These characters are interesting, and many inject some much-needed flavor into their armies.
Now I can’t cover all the characters (we will have a future article looking more in-depth at them; however, I will say there are 12 characters, and they are for these factions: Forces of Nature, Ogres, Trident Realms, Forces of the Abyss, 2 for Abyssal Dwarves, Night Stalkers, Goblins, Empire of Dust, Orcs, Ratkin, and Undead.
I will give my initial thoughts on the Undead character, as that is the army I am most familiar with. He is named Zuinok Iceblood, and is a 120 point caster, that has Aura Elite, skeletons only! Something to boost skeletons is most certainly needed, I don’t know if this is enough, but at least it compares nicely to the zombie aura. Zuinok also has Fireball 10 and Surge 8, and finally has a rule that if they are in your army, you cannot include any other living legends.
This is a softer choice, I don’t think it will make most optimized lists, however, for people looking to make skeletons work, here is an option!
Clash of King Update
For people hoping for a big Clash of Kings update, prepare to be disappointed.
The update is decidedly brief, taking only two pages. Perhaps most importantly, War Engines Ignores Cover rule has been tweaked, but there are some other great tweaks here, such as removing the restriction on Enthrall only being used once on a unit per turn.
A great deal of Irregular units were made Regular, and a few Regular swapped to Irregular. A future article will cover how we expect this will affect play in the future, but as is this is a mostly bare-bones update. Disappointingly, the Avatar of the Green Lady stays just as weak and doesn’t get a destruction form, though her points drop.
There is also a battle report of a massive game that took place in Mantic HQ, if that appeals to you.
Conclusions
Well, by now hopefully this has helped you know what is in Halpi’s Rift, and if it is the right product for you. I will say, if the campaign rules hold no interest to you, and you aren’t partial to reading the lore, then you are better off going to Easy Army paying for a subscription, and getting access to the new characters and updates now. Yes, they are uploaded to the site!
If narrative play is something you are interested in, this book may interest you; however, you should be prepared to still need to devise a campaign system of your own, as this isn’t that. But the various new terrains, items, spells, and channeling tables add a lot of potential elements to games. In the future I see myself pulling out aspects of this, perhaps the terrain for pick-up games, and giving them a go.
If you are someone who is interested in reading more Kings of War Lore, then this book is a must. Particularly if you are interested in the Ratkin. However, be warned, I’m basing this more on the amount of the lore in the book, as I haven’t fully read it, and so am uncertain of its quality.
Well hopefully that answers some of your burning questions about Halpi’s Rift, look forward over the coming weeks to more content giving more in-depth looks at this new supplement for Kings of War!
