That’s not the premise though. Matt’s been talking about this since before US Master’s and I think he only brought it up to reinforce his premise: that the number of lists are unwieldy from a rules update and balancing point of view and some lists don’t offer much that can’t already be done.
Kings of War is not a video game.
We can already customize and theme our armies to a significant extent.
Consolidating lists would make the game more manageable.
It already appears to be a struggle to not only balance, but also provide interesting options to all the lists.
That’s why some formations and army specific upgrades are so uninspiring; having 28 interesting and game-play defining ideas for different armies is a tall order.
Each separate list comes with expectations from players; it must be balanced, have it’s own lore, offer a different play experience, “get something” with each update, etc. That is a lot of work.
The intention seems to be to consolidate lists that offer similar things while still allowing the existing themes and giving existing models a new home rather than removing them.
For example; including Brothermark units in the Basilean list instead of having a separate list. One would still be able to run the same models; but without Mantic/The RC having to make an additional list unique.
The thought is that Mantic needs to develop their IP to make the game their own and sell models related to that IP.
I’m not sure the suggestion is that Mantic should focus ONLY on their own IP.
Developing their own IP and include “generic fantasy” are not mutually exclusive; Mantic are currently doing both (and should continue to do so IMO), .
I kind of agree that splitting off Brotherhood, Elves and Dwarfs into two armies is kind of strange when they worked fine as one. But Mantic does seem to be going that direction as theme lists letting them reuse existing units more does reduce the number of unknown variables. Some other posts point out that focusing on formations or units like Jarvis to really change up an army might be smarter ways of ‘theming’ an army.
Right now at least I love the variety of army building options that the game gives you. I could actually see myself painting three distinct elf armies with their own models even if they reuse some of the same stat blocks just because the flavor is quite different for all three.
Sure it isn’t. But people’s interest in having more races/armies to play with remains the same. People buy codexes and armybooks for WH40k and AoS. I bought different armybooks for WHFB back in the days. I bought Uncharted Empires, before I even planned on building anything other than Undead? Did you buy it?
Most people want more options, have specific hobby ideas or get them by reading through new army rules. It’s what keeps a game alive.
Maybe themed lists like the free dwarfs aren’t interesting for you. But what if you really don’t want to play imperialistic bas***ds?
The split of the Brotherhood questionable, but was surely made to push more Mantic models into an otherwise historical/bretonnian army.
Of course it’s harder to balance that many armies. But I think Mantic and the RC did a pretty good job so far. Is their room for improvement? Yes, thank Dagon there is. Otherwise we would need even more armies to keep the game going!
I also bought all the codex for 40k and fantasy but there wasnt much option was there? I prefer not doing so and think it makes it mich easier for people to get into the game.
I currently have codex for space marines back to the black and while codex that came with the starter game. (Yay for squats). Why you ask? Heck i dunno. Point is ive bought soooo many books that just dont matter anymore.
Hehe, hey, I hear ya @Nicanor! Didn’t wanna step on your toes I read the whole succession wars and clan invasion back in the day as I was younger … and I was absolutely delighted by it back in the day.
But nowadays a novel just needs more than a large number of battle scenes rudimentarily connected by campy plot… well most times. Sometimes stupid action is still good, hey I admit it
In any case … we’ve come along way now since that time … I doubt even nowadays young adults who’ve pretty much all seen at least Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, etc. would be so easily entertained anymore as we were back in the day.
Battletech still publishes numerous novels every year. It also publishes numerous source books each year.
Most move the universe forward or fill in blanks in historical eras. The books have helped create a deep and broad universe that strengthens the IP of the game. Developed constantly over nearly forty years.
Quality is usually very good these days.
By comparison there’s very little world building in KoW. The early year’s of BT, WFB, 40k we’re filled with dozens of setting building products. KoW not so much.
Mantic doesn’t do this hence KoW is much more suited to generic fantasy tropes rather than trying to restrict access based of it’s very shallow and largely unknown fantasy IP.
KoW is however known as a great open miniature mass fantasy battle game. Let’s hope it stays like that. Restricting faction choice only hurts the games major unique IPs - it can feature nearly any fantasy trope army and is miniature open source.
of course, the could just be a Kingdom of Men list and every human faction can be build with such
but this is not what people want, people want guidelines for the armies that manage the background in the setting
you don’t need the Brotherhood list at all, just take the universal KoM and ally Nature and be done. for Basilea you take nature as well but with different units
a game that has taken this to its logical end is SAGA with Age of Magic, you get 4 universal army lists, whatever you do is up to you. a Lantzknecht Army, Undead or Elves take the same army list if it fits your theme. it is all up to the player
some people like this, others not so much
there is the point were too much freedom turns people off because they don’t want to figure it out themselves but already have a theme that fits the background
for that very reason people want the historical lists back, KoM + Artifacts can to everything, but people don’t want to figure it out by researching but theme army that says “Sparta” and they can build a list within that restrictions
the split for Brotherhood than was done to get the IP going, to make every army more than a copy but something that emerged from the new written background
if there are some people who wants less armies for tournaments, they always can make a restriction and bann theme lists
but the casual player who wants more, has a hard time to write his own theme lists and get them accepted by the community
A bit of novel writing would flesh out the lore which would be the guide people might need. While wfb was pretty set in its deep lore (till gw waved the magic lore changer wand) you could still make themed armies from the different elven kindgoms or even far off colonies, imperials from the different counties and elsewhere etc. There was room in the lore to make it your own.
It would be fun of mantic to involve players in establishing the ongoing story through battle reports or whatnot. Probably very cumbersome but still a fun idea hehe.
Might help in creating the stories for places on the map that have little to no explanation (Lethuia, Aberkhaz… just two i glanced at on the map on pg97 of the rulebook)
The mantic campaign results do direct the general flow of the narrative, while the authors of the various novels have asked the community for input/characters
Already happening.
There are novels, which I found enjoyable, and the authors have been asking for player’s army lore to give it a cameo in a novel and thereby adding it to the “cannon”.
Global campaigns have ecplicitly had a lore impact.
