4th Edition list Archetypes

Kings of War Army lists and Tactics
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I want to say right up front that I have not yet played a game yet, my first game of 4th will be on Saturday. However I have played several hundred games of 3rd edition.

With the launch of the digital list builder today I went about building a lot of lists for different factions. I then started to share some of the lists with my regular opponents and we started comparing notes.

Overall, we are finding that there seems to be very little list variety for most of the armies. Building the “basic” 2000 pts from the Companion. Regardless of faction, almost all lists come down to:

1 Warlord, probably one that unlocks something

1 Champion Inspiring caster, usually to get access to Arcane Library.

1 Champion that is either a special rule buff piece (champions uniques, or something like birthing daughter for ratkin) or a second inspiring caster

3 - 5 Core

0-1 Auxillery

3 Specialist

1-3 support depending on cost

For most armies this is infantry heavy, especially in the core and specialist. Most armies end up with 1 unit of cavalry/chariots with J-Boots. Going heavy into ranged seems like a trap even for the shooting based armies.

This is leading to the first day first impression that the armies are too similar. There are obviously SOME differences based on the individual units. One list features hordes of niads, another hordes of shock troops, maybe abyssal dwarves are more likely to go with blacksoul regiments to free up points. But the basic structure of what can be constructed at 2000 points doesn’t seem to have variety at all.

And comparing lists… you know, it seems like it is just a warlord, some buffing champions, a half dozen blocks of infantry, and then a few monsters/cavalry pieces.

The all cavalry armies seem way too expensive. The all shooting armies seem like a trap. The combat champions all seem pretty bad, especially those with the individual keyword which now is all downside and no upside. Outside of maybe Ogres no one seems to be able to take elite units out of core, and core will easily eat a quarter of your points.

I don’t know, I’m excited for fourth edition. And I have multiple games set up this weekend so I’ll get to test a lot. But just strictly from a list writing perspective it seems like a bit of a miss. It seems that everything kind of looks the same on paper.

Is anyone else having the same experience with their gaming group? I’d love to hear the thoughts of others.

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This seems pretty similar to my first impressions as well. I think that the lists that vary the most will be the ones with very cheap core and can easily open up those support choices or multiple battalions.

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Almost all my armies for both 2E and 3E looked like this :upside_down_face: Same with my clubmates’ armies. Presumably we’ll be making similar in 4E :person_shrugging: It feels like the platonic ideal of RNF minigaming to me, and very much as Mantic intended. I’m actually impressed by the space for alternate army archetypes, however their viability is going to be really scenario and meta dependent.

The Internet is already declaring 2026 the Year of the Ogre: Part 2, which kind of sucks. Far less so than list archetypes, I’m getting a little bummed at the obvious tiering happening in the armies. We had some tiering in 3E for sure, but this feels more like 2E (and isn’t a good feel).

In every GW game I played with mandatory core, the best armies always felt like the ones that incidentally had the strongest core units. And I don’t really think that cheapest = best, I think you want your core dudes doing something. It’s clear that Ogre core are right in that sweet spot, even if we all don’t quite know what it is they’re doing in a real game :confused:

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I agree Ogres seem to be doing the best. They are the closest to being able to take an elite unit out of core.

Maybe our group was different, but there was not a lot of infantry in our 3e lists and they were quite varied. In fact, for a lot of the changes here it seems most of us were playing all support.

Also, it seems like without J-Boots fast units with thunderous wouldn’t be taken at all. It seems almost all lists are just taking one fast unit with TC and J Boots. Which is FINE, if it wasn’t the obvious build for every single faction.

I get to play finally tomorrow and I’m super excited. But I was expecting for more out of the armies for options. I also play Firefight, for instance, which uses this same army method. But there is a TON more variety even though there are fewer armies. Enforcers being able to go all Peacekeepers, for instance, for a full terminator build or instead going regular space marines.

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I play in the Northeast US, a region known for its emphasis on soft scores and weaker lists :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

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Also, to be fair, Ogres, Halflings, Trident Realm and Xirkaali all can at least run all Large Infantry out of Core if they want to.

I think I/we were just expecting a little more variety in how armies looked given our experiences with 3rd edition and with Firefight that already uses this exact same army construction system.

I think we are just coming to terms with there not being a lot of variety out of 4th, or maybe just not a lot of variety till all the army books come out. 3 of the 4 outlier armies are from the Invasion book, after all. It does still seem to me like a bit of a miss that there are not more real theme lists or build alternatives available.

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Nature obviously also have large infantry core too.

I do take your point, I expected more heroes who changed composition around, and the expanded lists certainly have them. And I too am feeling like entire unit types just don’t seem worth taking from where we’re sitting - combat individuals, non-inspiring heroes, cavalry in general (apart from heavy cav with boots or in a list with strider access), units that shoot and fight, etc. Note that these weren’t really taken in 3E either, and that there are unit types that were already declared worthless trash by early reviewers (army standard bearers) but have since been reclaimed as good actually (because they’re cheap but still).

Not trying to dish out too much copium by saying let’s wait (potentially years) for the expanded lists before judging composition a wash! I’m personally very interested in playing in the new KOW sandbow, but I’ve also been polishing unloved units for years now, which I know is not how others approach value-driven list building …

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Neat to see some early trends. I have just started dabbling woth the list builder and will need to actually get some proper games in now!

With the shooting rework, movers and shooters (eg Abyssal Flamebearers, FoN Scorchwings and Centaurs) seem to have taken a hit, with most shooters getting their SH value bumped up. Close range stuff like Ogre Boomers and AD Decimators all look bonkers though, especially with Withdraw in play and disordered not a thing. Could lead to some very interesting maneuvers and game states.

On paper TC3 cav look neat, and being able to pick your charge route is cool. But hindered charges lose all TC now, and folks will still be able to take spears and or use facings to slude chargers into terrain. Lots of back and forth though and it will be neat to see this develop.

I have just played a few Ambush-sized games for demoing so far, but infantry feels very fun to use now with those extra pivots.

Excited to see how 4th shapes up!

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