With reviews of Clash of Kings coming out (like this one), I reckon i’s time to start a thread for 2025.
What have you heard, what do you think and what do you hope that the year brings?
With reviews of Clash of Kings coming out (like this one), I reckon i’s time to start a thread for 2025.
What have you heard, what do you think and what do you hope that the year brings?
Currently listening to this one.
Seems they’ve done a decent job with command dice, but need to see everything to get a real idea - ie will cheap heroes be able to get access to the better command dice and fully seeing what all the faction orders are.
Ogre changes seem sensible - now you can really spam siege breakers but your warlocks don’t get buffed.
Miasma for TK losing piercing is good - interesting to see if similar other rules also get effected.
What are the ogre changes? For those of us without time to listen through
Siege Breakers got cheaper but reduced to sp5.
The warlocks spell buff is now restricted to Merc keyword, which Siege Breakers don’t have.
Paymaster is a sergeant upgrade, rather than standalone hero.
Think the berserkers get an extra point of nerve.
Maybe other minor ones, but these were what has been mentioned.
Berserkers got buffed? Whacky. Here’s hoping it’s just the horde size and nothing else, Brave regs are so good, and triple so the Bully.
All CoK 24 changes aside, we have strong hints towards a new edition in 2025. That means new buzzing, excitement and overall attention for our game. “A rising tide lifts all ships.”
On the whole, I haven’t been enamoured of 3 and 3.5. Nothing to do with the core rules, more the expansion of magic, auras, formations etc.
It feels very sprawling and the Clash of Kings supplement seems less of a tweaking balancing thing and more about changing the game, which as someone who doesn’t play constant tourneys, I find tricky to keep up with. New spells and armies, now command dice, it feels like the game is constantly in flux.
And I understand why they do this, I absolutely do. You’re dead in the water unless you keep moving, keeps players interested, sells minis etc. The move to more options and granularity is the only way to expand the game, it just seems to happen too regularly for me to keep up.
And people will say, well why not play the version you like, etc etc - but if I want to play regular games of KoW I kinda have to go to tourneys these days. (No idea where all the casual players have gone)
casual players usually play at home with friends
this is one of the biggest problem with Mantic games in general, because you can play them without investing a lot of time to learn and/or need a lot of terrain or space to play, there is no need to go out and play at stores or clubs but you can play at home with a rather low investment
Has any of the Clash reveals and reviews said anything about the Ratkin Scurriers?
In the Ratkin army review episode of the Counter Charge podcast several potential changes for making the Scurriers more viable are mentioned and I would love to hear if the ninja rats have had any changes.
Regarding casual players…
I am one! There are three of us playing in my house, and none of us go to tournaments. It’s something we’ll do in the future, but not at the moment (We’ll have to travel abroad).
The discourse about KOW on Fanatics and the various podcasts is pretty skewed towards the competitive KOW scene, I think that’s inevitable because there are specific organised events to talk about, there’s rankings, and naturally enough competitive players generate content about their experiences, their plans, their games etc. It’s totally fine, I find the discussions very interesting, although not always relevant to me.
An example: Someone asked recently on Fanatics about whether two particular factions were fun. They received a number of answers, but almost all were assessments of the strength of the faction, or what builds were the most competitive in the current meta. It’s a different mindset, because frankly if a model is cool, or thematic, I’ll play it, and to hell with whether or I’m using a sub optimal build. Who cares! (Well, competitive players, obviously, but my point is, it’s a different mindset, but not a more or less valid one than a casual approach)
For people like us, who’ll play a casual game over a weekend evening, in the comfort of a front room, or a garage, I think some of the lack of visibility is that naturally you’re probably less likely to actively put ourselves out there. I throw up the odd picture or video, but my games are throwaway and just for fun. I am not as highly motivated to comment online about the direction of the game, army lists, rule changes etc. And I don’t have a tournament to promote in order to grow the event, grow the hobby etc.
Occasionally some of the podcasts do a decent job of noting that the competitive KOW scene is not the totality of the game’s player base, or its income stream. But I think there’s probably a deficit of information about exactly how many people are playing KOW, and what their preferences are.
I suspect everyone wants a rule set that’s cleaner and easier than the likes of GW, but after that, there will be differences of opinion.
What I would suggest is that Mantic are clearly building the game for more than competition players… Because there aren’t enough competition players to support the business. There’s a nuanced question of whether the needs of competitive and casual players differ. I suspect they do, but not by as much as people think, and probably not in ways that mean the core spirit of KOW need be compromised. I think it’ll always be more minimalist, predictable, manageable than its competitors.
not that I can see, still same attack profile and points value for them.
Here’s hoping for Regular instead of Irregular since it’s neither a stat or price change😅
you will be disappointed I’m afraid
Things are starting to change a little bit, we see narrative/casual focused community content coming up and although everyone thinking that KoW is a good tournament game, I (and some others) would say it is an even better casual game
we may need more content of that kind but at least there is something coming
I think KoW is such a good casual game, BECAUSE it’s such a good tournament game. Well balanced, so you can take what you like and still have a reasonable chance of winning, streamlined so it doesn’t take ages to look things up or refresh rules after a longer pause, ‘lore buffed’ enough to allow for background stories, enough ‘blank spaces’ to make up your own stuff and flexible enough to incorporate special scenarios and rules, leaning more into narrative play (ambush, siege, command dice, etc).
Doing things optional, might be a good move by Mantic. They have to please both crowds, otherwise people wonder off. But by no means are changes appealing more competetive players, bad for casual players and vice versa. Keep the game alive! Keep players engaged with it!
IMHO the term tournament or casual game simple came up to excuse lazy writing
A good game is a good game and for casual gaming an easy to understand, balanced and stable game is much more important
Tournaments don’t care about balance or bad writing and in the worst case there are limitations, house rules or comps if needed.
If you can only win the event with 1 specific list from 1 faction and everyone who wants to win plays that changes nothing for the events, but it hurts casual gamers
Poorly written and badly balanced = casual gaming, just isn’t true and bad faith argument
It is more the opposite, the worse a game is written, the less useful it is for casual gaming and only useful in events because there additional rules/restrictions come in (I would say a reason why Warhammer is so popular with events because it is the only way for a lot of people to have fun games because it doesn’t work out if your group doesn’t agree on house rules or list restrictions)
I agree in part, that it is good for a casual game to be balanced, so it is playable outside tournament comp. However I seen again and again how much the balance is appreciated in tournaments/events as well, as people love to face different lists throughout the event, rather than the same lists over and over.
I haven’t heard much but i have a wishlist.
a new 4th edition sometime by june/july with a rulebook. preferably with the lore with it. lore sells the game, not rules. make a halfed out “rank play competitor e-sport” edition that’s just rules for the competitors, competitive play doesn’t sell games. it needs casual players to grow. I don’t say this to hate on the competitive scene, but i’ve seen this game after game where the devs go all in on competition and the game withers on the vine because it alienates new players.
maybe some more lost kingdoms armies like the lizards and dark elves getting fully fleshed out ranges like the brotherhood or official kom miniatures
I’d like to see more lore and fleshing out characters, giving named characters their own stories and promoting them. How would they do this? maybe put an exclusive mini with each novel, a sticker on the novel, linking the book to a battle box set, or maybe linking a novel to a new miniature with some promotion on the last page of the novel.
how about some official kings of war campaign books like warhammer 40k does? that’d be pretty cool. storm of chaos style, or the recent leviathan campaign.
redoing some old armies and miniatures, the dwarves and abyssal dwarves look like they could use an updated sprue like the nightstalkers recently got.
new models for existing armies with some cool abilities.
I would like to see 3 books, Rules, Background and Armies instead of a single one
I can see the rationale for having separate books, but if you do separate rules, force lists and lore, then I strongly believe they should be available as a multi-pack buy (hardcopy and pdf), and any flagship starter set should have all three in hardcopy. If there’s three, they would probably have to be all be the size of a COK or thereabouts… None would - or could - be the size of the current big red book.
If we continue with the current approach, I think the 4th edition equivalent of the big red book should incorporate a minimum amount of lore before each army list. It might only need to be a page and a half of small type, but it’s jarring to me that the lists don’t have this and I agree with TheGrizzly that newcomers to the game and casual players would probably prefer it (I know I would have).
I know there is a large lore book available for free, and yes, I downloaded it, and yes, in theory you could buy a hardcopy to go with your hardcopy big red book, but it’s just a bit of a faff.
Just do a page or page and a half of army lore for each faction, and while at it, maybe just a single line or two describing what each unit in the army is. It might just be a cut-down version of what’s on the webstore description for models.
Putting this lore in wouldn’t substantially increase the size of the book.
Longterm, serious competitive players probably don’t need any books, they’re solely the Companion app anyway?