Kings of War - a WFB successor

The Empire of Dust is going to get some new models this year. Do these look like more preferable alts to Tomb King models?

https://www.manticgames.com/news/christmas-blogs-kings-of-war-in-2022/

Yeah, those are pretty sweet.

Got my Basilean paladins in to start my Brothermark army . . . and they hosed up my order again, to my benefit again.

They sent me the more expensive mounted paladins instead of the foot paladins I paid for. I'm not really sure what to do at the moment because I wanted them anyway.

Got my foot paladins in, woot.

Nice! With the Basileans, I'm personally eyeing the Ogre Palace Guard. I have no idea what to use them for at the moment, but I really like the sculpts on them.

Double-post: I am seriously considering getting two of Mantic's starter-sets in the future: War In The Holds and A Storm In The Shires. The first has tons of goblins and Ratkin, which I can use as cheaper Skaven. The second one has Riftforged Orcs and Halflings, both of which I can have tons of use for in my various projects. A third box I'm also tempted to get, Shadows In The North, would give me lots of useful barbarians, perhaps for Icewind Dale. The Nightstalkers in the same box are not as interesting to me, but I can convert the spectres into more conventional zombies or ghouls.

Triple-post: Mantic is beginning to update their older models, by gradually switching entirely from metal to resin. The switch will also allow many models to be upscaled, such as the Tomb Kings Ushabti stand-in◊.

Quadruple-post: I've recently bought two boxes from Mantic: An Ogre warband for Vanguard and the Veer-myn starter set for Deadzone. I bought both of them mainly to get bits for conversions to go along with my boxes for WHFB and 40K, while also trying to get the most value of having differing sculpts and sprues in each box.

The Ogres for Kings of War are quite different from the heftier Ogres in Warhammer and D&D, but the individual pieces can be used for almost anything. With minimal converting I can use the Ogres as Bugbears, or Neo-Orogs and Tanarukks, or any other orc-like large monster. Speaking of orcs, the Mantic-Ogres could also be converted into very large Warhammer-orcs, with beards. Either way, I really like the tools for future conversion-projects I have in the Vanguard box.

The Veer-myn are also really nice. Even though Deadzone is a 40K-equivalent game, the Veer-myn are very compatible with Skaven in WHFB, needing mostly just a colour-palette more in line with 19th-century industry to look more Steampunk-y. While they have lots of gasmasks, that can work just as fine for machine-using Skaven. But I am also tickled by the prospect of making space-Skaven for Necromunda. I am thinking of buying a Ratkin box for Vanguard in the future, to get more bits for conversion.

Edited by Mara999 on Jun 21st 2022 at 10:08:28 PM

Yeah, the ogres in KOW are really interesting, especially compared to WFB's version. Hardly my favorite army but I did briefly consider them as "guys who also have guns".

The new Empire of Dust is looking really nice. Plastic kits for the skeletons with a choice of bows, hand weapons, or spears; and the cavalry kit can be either the armored revenant cavalry or mounted archers. Some new units on the horizon, like a very Necron-like monolith that casts the Surge spell on nearby units.

Having never played TK in WFB, was their army really slow and in need of strategic buffs to close the gap? I think both of KOW's undead factions work this way.

Also; since my last post mentioned it; Mantic's customer service is fantastic but whoever picks/ships orders desperately needs help. Most of my orders have been wrong, they fixed it quickly and let me keep the useful product they sent, but it's still worrying for the next time I place an order.

Edited by Rotpar on Jun 21st 2022 at 4:27:53 AM

To my understanding they have had issues with shipping due to the board-games being more popular than expected. At least with shipping to the US, but Brexit is making it more difficult to deliver to those of us living in the EU. Both of these issues have caused delays, at least.

Bought a hunk of plywood and have measured out bases for my foot and mounted paladins. Laid out some space for my future heroes and titan.

Recently there have been lots of announcements about future developments for Kings of War, such as the new rule-book and updates to many of their existing armies. Besides switching gradually all their metal minis to resin, Mantic is also starting to switch pvc into hard plastic, beginning with the Ogres. They are also releasing more troops and monsters for their newest armies, such as this monstrous-looking Storm Giant for the Riftforged Orcs. Another thing that piqued my interest was that they are working on making a proper army for the Twilight Kin. I am looking forward to seeing what they will cook up, mixing fantasy Dark Elves with the very Lovecraftian Night Horrors.

I'd like to know, is Vanguard alive? I entertained myself during a couple of flights by reading the rulebook (as well as other Mantic games'), and I quite liked the look of the rules, but I've heard really very little about it other than passing mentions and what I researched myself. Mantic's big flagship is KOW proper, no?

Mantic recently started writing about smaller skirmish-style games of KOW, under the title of "Ambush", with smaller amounts of troops to make the game play faster. I think that they would still want to keep Vanguard around, as a skirmish-game similar to Warcry or Mordheim. They have also used Vanguard as a way to gradually update many of their older sculpts, either switching to entirely new ones or just upgrading to a better material.

Double-post: And now Mantic released an article about the complete opposite style of gameplay, where you field even larger armies in Legendary and Siege warfare.

Triple-post: And now we get to see some of the new ogres, including the sprue◊. I'm always glad whenever the sprues for upcoming miniatures are revealed, because it helps me start to plan how I'll build the minis and if I might convert them into something particular. These new ogres look pretty good, with a less cartoony style reminiscent of the recent resin sculpts, like the Matriarch and the Paymaster. I still like the old cartoony pvc-ogres, even if it's been joked to death that they "skipped leg day". I've alread bought the Vanguard box, so I have a good set of those ogres and I can mix bits from them with the new ones.

Those look great. Looking forward to a single Big Book 'O Rules, hoping Brothermark gets some love for the annual "update".

Mantic just unveiled a new range for their Terrain Crate line: Dungeon Adventures. They have up for pre-order two new upcoming adventure books, as well as plenty of existing terrain-pieces and their Dungeon Saga miniature-boxes rebranded for this new line. Besides the re-branded old boxed sets there are also a few new boxes of dungeon encounters. I've been long thinking about buying a few of those Dungeon Saga miniature boxes, to get the equivalent of a Vanguard warband for half the price.

Was cleaning up some old stuff the other day and found my old WFB models on square bases from waaaaaay back in the day. Made me really want to get some use out of them. I think I'm gonna get into Vanguard, if I can find a decent group.

Mantic has an article on building your army, though I am most of all interesting in the reveal of the new ogre chariot◊. Interesting to see that it is now pulled by maw-beasts instead of boars.

Double-post: After sneakily revealing a few of the updated Ogre units at a time, through various blog-posts about playing, Mantic has now revealed the entire upcoming Ogre range. This includes an upcoming starter-set featuring Ogres vs Empires of Dust. I really like the new KOW Ogres, even though I still like the cartoonier early ones. The new Ogres look less like huge Orcs and more like WH-Ogres have hit the gym, to become less like sumo-wrestlers and more like powerlifters. I see so much potential in using these figures as-is and for conversions, like using the Siege-breakers to convert extra-large Black Orcs.

Edited by Mara999 on Oct 14th 2022 at 11:22:41 AM

I'm not a fan of the top-heavy Mantic trolls, to be honest. Good thing there's nothing stopping you from using the butt-ugly WFB ones though.

Ditto. I don't particularly like the trolls built for the goblins and orcs, but the newer snow trolls for Northern Alliance are nicer, even if a bit static. The forest trolls used by halflings are the nicest trolls Mantic has made. The only reason I'd get some of those early lumpy trolls is to use them for conversions. I am thinking of maybe buying the starter-set War In the Holds, but I'd kitbash the three trolls in the box with bits leftover from Mantic's Rat Ogre equivalent. The trolls have crude stitches and bits of metal riveted into their skin, so they wouldn't be too difficult to be turned into Rat Ogres.

I was briefly considering the ogres if I wanted to go gun line. Like their new models.

Double posting because I'm hoping to get my dad into the game so that I have someone else to play with. Leaning toward . . . ogres! Because he likes the line, they're getting updated, and it's fewer models to work on.

That sounds like winning combination. The small model-count can be a smart economic choice, if you like to use proxies and convert miniatures extensively. With the size of the ogres you can fairly cheaply convert proxies of them from toys, by using army-men and other figures of a similar size. Ditto with action-figures for making giants. While Mantic's ogres haven't as strong a theme of taming huge prehistoric monsters as GW's Ogre Kingdoms do, toy animals are still a great thing to use for various beasts. As for the oficial models, I am making myself a list of things to buy for my own projects, which does include a regiment of the new ogres.