COK 25 (and a Forces of the Abyss mega army + command dice) just arrived to me, here in Dublin.
My son has had an advance read of it, ahead of me, and is excited about the command dice.
Looking over the rules on those, and the faction-specific ones, I have to say I’m looking forward to giving it a shot. Nothing overpowered, just a bit of fun.
I’m just dreading tackling the mega army box, although the Nagarri and Berserker models look like they’re going to be an absolute BREEZE to put together…
My book arrived to. The command dice rules seem to be really good. Giving KoW a good twist if wanted.
I bet the new Abyssals are really cool. Looking forward to seeing some of them painted here on the forum!
Do we know when the companion will be updated with the changes?
Nov 11 is what I’ve heard …
(And since we’re checking in, got my Clash a few days ago and command dice the week before that 
I’m actually going to a GT in early December that’ll be using them, sooooo guess I should get some order practice in 
)
Rules changes I’d like to see in version 4.
A change to the flank and rear rules. Tone down the harshness of getting hit in the flank or rear and you will find infantry have more of a place in the game.
My suggestion would be - double attacks for a rear attack but only double in the flank if the unit is already engaged with a unit in another facing.
Get rid of the -1 to hit for Hindered. In a D6 system this is too huge an effect on units esp when the culture is to have a lot of terrain on the board. Either that or make a rule limiting the amount of Hindering terrain.
Don’t flame me, i’ve played this game since 2015 and I have thought about this a lot. Constructive replies only please
mmmmmmmmmm
So I come from a historical gaming background, the -1 to hindered I think is fine as it is on charges. In the majority of historic games the field tends to be far more open and such features are either avoided like the plague or you have to deal with them it’s part and parcel of the game.
However, this leads to two armies often grinding out the fight with battles suddenly swinging when a line is broken or turned. Which is the reason a lot of terrain has made it’s way into KoW over the years.
But, how about this for a compromise, -1 to hindered on charges when the unit goes over it’s standard movement. Slow steady progression at walking speed is the best way to maintain coherency of a formed unit as anyone who has had the fun of reenactment will attest. The amount of time shieldwalls break up even at a gentle jog is ridiculous!
As to flank and rear I don’t mind either way, a unit that gets hit in the flank should pay the price, and in a game that has no reactions to charging it’s tough luck, but I can also see how pinning a unit in place would also work first. I rarely see rear charges in my games unless someone has taken a massive pasting so the triple attacks practically don’t exist for all intents and purposes.
As another KoW player who came from historical:
I think that the issue is that flanks and hindered charges have the right effect, but are too easy to engineer.
It feels bad when a minor error has a big impact
Like leaving 1 mm of base open and losing a unit or having the unit in the next combat kill a unit “for free”.
If anything (I’m not sure the extra complexity is worth it):
Make the flank arc a line that extends from a unit’s front edge.
Hindered only applies to charges against units with their leader point in terrain, and/or to units when their leader point crosses terrain.
We’ve played a couple of games with Command Dice now.
There isn’t a cognitive load / “gotcha” element that has arisen for us, which is the main thing I perceive people to have been worried about.
In terms of time invested, there are a few extra rolls involved, and I expect we will get even quicker as time goes on. Right now we are still glancing at table to check things, and confirm picks. But in terms of effects, because it is often re-roll just one dice, or recover one wound, we are getting pretty quick at implementing the effect of some of these orders.
I do think they’ve gone so conservative with the effects that at times their impact on the game feels very muted. A wound more or less here, more or less there. It’s less a thumb on the scales and more a little finger. Potentially there may be powerful synergies, but there’s been nothing yet that swung a game for us.
The lack of fireworks is probably the right thing to do, for KOW, and at this introductory stage. But while I think some people said they would omit them because they were worried they’d be broken, for me its their relatively limited impact on the game as a whole that could lead me to omit them, and save the few minutes per turn involved.
Time will tell, will keep using them.
All this does make me think back to Warhammer 2nd edition psychic powers. Now THOSE were some seriously powerful psychic rules. 2D6" teleportation for entire units… Inquisitorial “Holocaust” power that inflicted damage on every unit, friend or foe, within a large radius around the psyker… “Iron Arm” power doubling strength and toughness, but halving movement… I still say they were ‘good days’, but it may be a matter of nostalgia.
Played my first game with command dice this weekend, and yea, I guess they’re fine but as expected very uneven in application both in balance and on the table.
I purchased two extra reds for my Free Dwarfs, and rolled 2-4 successes the first four turns, after which I rolled a 7 and a 6 to close the match out. My plan was to heal Craggoth every turn (2 points) and reroll a spell when needed (1 point), so mission accomplished. The Free Dwarf orders are almost useless for my army of De 6+ pathfinder / strider dudes, tho in later turns I gave my Lords on Beasts strider because they are always tripping over everything. As the dice fell, it did exactly nothing (I didn’t roll a 3+ to hit or a 2+ to wound) but hey, I did my thing.
My buddy purchased two extra reds for his Nightstalkers, and rolled 7+ every turn of the game except one turn where he rolled a 4. He used 3 points to full back his wavered Soulflayers out of combat every single turn I wavered them (I did a lot of wavering this game), and then 4 points to cycle another Soulflayer reg into combat with ferocious charge. He used ferocious charge every turn of the game, including the time he rolled only 4 successes, 5 times on Soulflayers and one time on Tormentors. We all knew this order would be spammed on Soulflayers and, well, it definitely will be.
We tossed out a bunch of random rerolls throughout the game and playfully tracked their successes, which were few and far between but nice in theory. I still feel like all lists with conjuring staffs should immediately drop them for a red die. At the worst, you’re going to have 1 blue success for that reroll.
Overall? I enjoyed healing Craggoth for 5 points over the course of the game and it probably kept him in play. Thankfully I had very low expectations for what I would use my points for, as I was gifted very few over the course of the game! And obviously my Nightstalker opponent got huge use out of his many points, hitting on 2+ with his flying hammers whenever needed.
Remove the faction orders entirely and I’m all for command dice. Keep the faction orders in and it feels like the “haves and have nots” style of game design we love to hate with Warhammer.
Played a game yesterday, with my son, and he paid to maximise his command dice access, and I deliberately didn’t… I went for the bare minimum, to see what would happen.
I did roll quite badly throughout the game, but I more or less ended up ‘locked out’ of accessing the more powerful command dice options. I think, in hindsight, I hadn’t realised how useful the “by the master’s will” faction specific order is, I regret not making sure I could use that repeatedly.
Still not sure whether it made a difference to the outcome of the game (He won, incidentally), but just observing that where command dice feel at their most neutral is when you both pay for the same / have the same. Like any other upgrade you pay for, it must be said.
The two standout moments in the game had nothing to do with command dice, they were when a troop of skeleton bowmen caused 1 wound to a Mind Screech, and then it rolled double sixes on its nerve. And, a little later, a regiment of skeleton warriors took massive damage, needed to roll double ones, and duly delivered… Obviously there are people who’d say take these kinds of occurrence out of the hands of the dice gods as well, as they have nothing much to do with generalship, good or bad, but I just find them so entertaining. And these instances of good luck both went my way, and yet… I lost the game anyway.
Flank/rear.
Are you thinking to apply this change for all units in the game or only infantry? Maybe infantry/ heavy infantry could have a special rule that says this. And Cavalry have a special rule that overrides it; they aleays get doble/triple. Adds complexity though. Another solution I’ve heard is to simply add more nerve to infantry/heavy infantry.
Hindered.
I like the tactical option this brings to the game. Maybe the modifier could be capped to 4s or 5s to hit, to not hurt the standard rank and file attackers, but still have terrain protect against the heavy hitters.
On command dice to answer below and add a torch to a fire; could the withdraw optional rule become a common command? Assuming command dice will be non optional. Then it will still be kept in game, but at a cost. To make both camps slightly unhappy.
Played a 2000 point game yesterday, and the use of the command dice was much smoother in comparison to early games.
We know the table of all-faction commands, the faction-specific commands, and something we see also is that often you’ll always be hoping to use one of your faction-specific commands.
I played Forces of the Abyss, for example, and once units are in combat and you’re taking damage, you’re going to want to use Abyssal mutations pretty much every turn, if you can.
In an earlier game with EOD, same thing, By the Master’s Will is a go-to.
I wonder about the feasibility of timing it next time, but basically… It’s getting quite fast. Like a minute or less, some turns, where things were really ‘obvious’ in terms of preferred orders.
Sounds great! I hope to try it out myself, soon.
The last weekend we had a small tournament in Prague, testing the command dice in games at 1750 points. Personally, I am not happy with their addition to the game. It adds one more layer to the game making it more complicated, which I do not think was needed. In some cases the usage of command dice also leads to extremes I would prefer to be mitigated, not enhanced. Just for example, some armies get an easy access to Strider which is quite powerful. Imagine also a regiment of Fanatics. Normally, it has 15 attacks on 3+ with CS 1 but with the help of 4 command dice and successful bane chant it becomes 15 attacks hitting on 2+ with CS 3 on a unit for about 150 points. Seriously, I do not think this is good for the game …
Can anyone put together a list of what factions were refreshed in what year…?
I know people believe Basilea could be refreshed soon, but I was just wondering if we could plot out previous releases/refreshes in order to shortlist what factions could be likely to be “due” some consideration, one way or the other.
How far out are we from new Abyssal Dwarves, or Forces of Nature, for example, relative to other factions… I’m guessing Undead might be ahead of them, they seem one of the older lines.
Iirc elves, dwarves, orcs and undead were the original plastic kits.
AD won’t get a refresh for a while - berserkers, halfbreeds and the Immortals kit are the only old one.
Basilea are on the second plastic kit for m@a, but really could do with a sisters revamp, in addition to the teased paladin cavalry.
Working backward iirc
FoA - new plastic berserkers & snake things, plus resin big dude.
TR - riverguard and big frogs. Resin coral giant.
NA - bird things and half elf berserker/ice kin
TK - hard plastic corsairs, mutants, Impalers, boats.
NS - butchers & reapers in plastic.
Rest to follow!
2010/11:
Elves, Orks, Undead, Dwarfs, Abyssal Dwarfs (metal)
2012:
Twilight Kin (metal), Goblins
2013:
Basilea, Ogres (PVC)
2014/15
2nd Edition, Forces of the Abyss, additional models for the existing armies
2016
Forces of Nature (Salamanders), Trident Realm, Empire of Dust (metal)
2017/18
Basilea (only replacement of plastic models so far), additional models for all armies
2019/20
3rd Edition, Nightstalkers, Northern Alliance, Abyssal Dwarfs, Goblins, Ratkin
2021
Halflings, Salamanders (Resin), Riftforged Orcs
2022
Ogres, Empire of Dust
2023
Twilight Kin, Northern Alliance
2024
Trident Realm, Forces of the Abyss
By now expect only a replacement for very old plastic kits and maybe some of the less good ones
Any “refresh” would be more about replacing PVC/Metal models that are not moved to Resin (like Basilea Cavalry)
Thanks guys, useful lists.
It does somewhat help me situate where the age of different ranges are.
I definitely think some rationalisation of existing units and their materials is required, but if we look at the last FoA refresh, there were two brand new hard plastic units (not updates of existing older models), and the Lord of Lies may have been in the game before, but this is a new incarnation. So I don’t think they’ll just be “cleaning up” older ranges, I think there’ll be plenty of new stuff as well, which probably makes sense from the POV of drawing people in.
Personally I really love good, well designed hard plastic sprues. It’s gotten to the stage where it’ll be a major criteria for me, going forward, if I collect more factions. Maybe this reflects that 3D printing and STL purchasing is just not my thing, so available good quality hard plastic becomes more important.