Hi everyone, Jake here, and I wanted to write a quick intro to Kings of War for those of you thinking about starting the game.

This article is going to break down some of the strengths and weaknesses of Kings of War. Hopefully, this will be helpful for people interested in the game and wanting to learn more. I plan to write some follow-up articles covering picking armies, army list basics, tactics, ect. If there is a specific beginner topic you want to see covered, feel free to share a request in the comments.

It’s worth noting that all of this is my personal feelings of the game, some people may disagree with what I call strengths and weaknesses of the system, so keep that in mind. However; hopefully, this at least gives a good feel for the game.

Strengths

These are the majors strengths I believe Kings of War has as a game.

Streamlined Rules with Deep Tactics

Kings of War is a game that can be learned in thirty minutes. Unlike games like Infinity, Malifaux, Warmahordes, and Warhammer 40k, you will not spend 50% of a Kings of War game with your nose buried in the rulebook.

Despite how quickly the rules can be learned, the tactics for the game are very deep. I felt comfortable with the rules for the game within 1-2 games; however, it took 10 games roughly for the deeper tactics to begin clicking together. Seven years later, I still feel like I am chasing the deeper strategies tied to using specific armies, playing specific scenarios, or using certain styles of play.

If you are interested in seeing more on the rules, I recommend checking out these four intro videos to the rules of Kings of War.

Quick Games

Because of the streamlined nature of the rules, Kings of war games can be played comparatively quickly. A typical game of Kings of War is about 2,000- 2,300 points, and these games can be played consistently in under two hours, even for horde armies.

I recommend beginners play games at 1,500 points, which is a great starting point into the game (enough units to get strategy, but low enough points to make collecting not too bad), and these games can be played in 50 minutes to an hour and a half pretty easily.

Scales Well

Because of the speed of play, the game scales up in size really well. Most miniature wargamers dream of playing epic conflicts, with hundreds of models per side. For many games, playing double and triple the normal game size would mean the game lasts literally all day. However, Kings of War mega games scale incredibly well. I have played 3 on 3 games, with 6,000 points per team, and been finished in 3 hours! Granted that was with 6 experienced generals; however, that goes to show that if you love to see a TON of minis on the board, but don’t want to spend a whole day playing one game, Kings of War may be for you.

Balanced Armies

Kings of War largely is a balanced game. While there are some choices, armies, and combos which are a little better than others, you will not automatically lose or win games based on what army or army build you take. Like every miniature game, there are min-maxed builds out there; however, they are rare, and often the balanced builds at the hands of experienced and capable generals win the day.

This combined with the speed at which the game can be played means it works exceedingly well for tournaments or game days. You can easily get 3 games in a day, and not have any ruined by broken armies.

No Gotcha Moments*

By and large, Kings of War has no surprise combos, rules interactions, or other shenanigans that will lose you the game, commonly referred to as gotcha moments. This is a game that the generals play with open lists, all details of their army out in the open. And because it doesn’t have the vast amounts of special rules per model like many games, they cannot combine in game-ending combos.

However, this means that nearly every game of Kings of War will be decided by the person who can both achieve their own plan while blocking their opponent’s, and consistently think several turns in advance. There is no win button of epic doom with lucky dice.

* There are a few very rare rules interactions that can be surprising the first time they happen. Brinton Williams wrote an excellent article covering these.

**Kings of War also has a spell called Surge, which allows casters to move shambling units forward, often with the goal to get juicy flank and rear charges. This ability can be exceedingly surprising the first time it happens to you because it is counter to the way movement traditionally works. In many ways, losing a game due to a few sneaky surge moves is a right of passage into the game. Initially, it may seem overpowered or unfair; however, rest assured as you get a few more games under your belt you will be able to predict, avoid, and prevent these moves.

Miniature Agnostic and Unit Basing

One of the most unique things about Kings of War is that it is a miniature agonistic game. This means that while Mantic Games makes some units for the game, they don’t make everything, and it is common and even encouraged by the community to use what you want in the game that represents what that unit is.

Above you can see several hordes of Depth Horrors, represented by some Wrath of Kings (i think) models. Kings of War is the perfect game for people who like cherry-picking models from various ranges. Below is a regiment of “Skeleton” Spearmen or Zombies from my own army. This also means that Kings of War can be a hobbyist’s dream because you can mix and match from pretty much any game that is fantasy-related.

Even better, Kings of War uses Unit Basing, meaning models are not removed from the table individually, rather you take them in one big group, and they live or die as one big group. This means that every unit can become mini dioramas. Because of unit basing, Kings of War doesn’t require players to have an actual 20 miniatures to represent a regiment of 20, instead, the preference is to have 1 more than the minimum model count for a unit the size down, so a regiment of regular infantry only needs 11 models, this is called Minimum Model Count.

Generally, it is preferred that the base of the unit looks nice and full, and this is usually achieved with roughly 60-75% the models, called preferred model count.

Be warned, model count can be a controversial issue to ask about on community forums, as everyone approaches it slightly differently, so unless you want some people on Kings of War Fanatics frothing at the mouth, it might be best to avoid asking about and use your own judgment, or that of a close group of friends. The main lesson to take away is this lets the models you have spread further when creating your army. A box of 30 miniatures can easily become two regiments, or a horde and a troop.

Weaknesses

Right, so you have heard me go at length about the strengths of Kings of War, so here we are done, hopefully, that helps. Oh wait, what about the weaknesses? There are none… Ok but seriously, yes Kings of War, like every game, does have some weaknesses.

Again it’s worth remembering this is my own list, so they are obviously influenced by my own preferences and biases.

The Lore

The lore of Kings of War is fairly uninspiring. It’s a world that in many ways feels generic. It doesn’t have central themes that seem to tie the world or beings together. The groups of villains and heroes almost all lack backstory or clear goals.

Some people may argue that this is changing, and there are a number of Kings of War novels coming out that attempt to flesh out the lore; however, for myself, none of these products do enough to make up for being built on a generally mediocre foundation.

Most players I know pull inspiration from fantasy novels, video games, and movies for their army projects, and the lore of Kings of War tends to just fade into the background. The lore of the game, even for fans, is at best a secondary influencer on the game.

Lacks Narrative Play

Perhaps unsurprising for a game that lacks strong lore, Kings of War doesn’t have many established routes to play narrative games. Rather the tournament games and the casual games generally use the same play style.

There is a pretty cool deck of tactic and battlefield cards, to quickly and easily provide some narrative to your games, and you can find them here. There are also a few books, such as Halpi’s Rift, to come out and try to create some narrative play options; however, these books have had mixed results.

Almost all the narrative play for Kings of War comes from the community. The good news is with a balanced and streamlined game, it’s pretty easy to come up with ideas in your own groups to create some narrative scenarios; however, if you are looking for some already created content you could check out this map campaign written by Dash28 writer Greg (linked on our resource page), or his narrative scenarios.

In many ways, creating narrative in Kings of War is like a sandbox, we are given the tools, but its up to the player to decide if and what they will do.

Some Lack of Flavor

With the streamlined rules, the rules for individual units need to be less specialized than other games. This means, especially initially, Kings of War units may feel like they lack flavor when compared to other games. Few units have unique rules of their own, and many units are defined by a shift of 1-2 stats a point or two to define them being elite, or rabble, or a specialist.

As you continue to play Kings of War, these small differences feel more pronounced and special, but you will never have quite the same feeling that some other games provide with every elite unit having their own thing that makes them special.

Requires a Larger Collection

Kings of War is an army game, even the elite armies like Ogres will require you to paint dozens of models, and horde armies will require hundreds. This means starting a Kings of War army takes time, and is a commitment. However, if you start at 1,500 points, and build up from there, it becomes much more approachable.

Lack of full ranges for almost every army

One reason Kings of War is miniatures agnostic, is because Mantic Games does not produce models for every unit, or even every army. This means that starting an army isn’t always as simple as just buying the starter box for the army. Because of this, it can sometimes be a little confusing what models to use for what armies, or how to easily get into an army.

Generally, my suggestion, if you don’t have models you already want to find a use for, look at Mantic’s range and pick one of them, and this will be a good starting point. Once you grow more comfortable you can always expand to new armies and ranges. Mantic’s models also are often more affordable, so for gamers first getting started can be a great entry point.

That said, there is always a little confusion what to represent units as. For example, Forsaken from Varangur, some people use Chaos models from GW, others barbarian models from Reaper, still others may use monster models from Mierce Miniatures, none of these choices is right or wrong. This can take a little puzzling over; however, if you find yourself wondering what you could use to represent X, this is a great question to brainstorm on the various community hubs.

Well, those are my thoughts on the overall strengths of weaknesses of Kings of War. Hopefully, this article has been helpful. I plan to write more of these Beginner Articles, so if you want a specific topic covered, don’t hesitate to ask!