I have a friend with a mostly Knight based Empire army who would like to try Kings of War and I was unsure whether to direct him to KoM or LoR. I know there’s significant crossover but was wondering if there was a reason to push him to try one over the other.
I know he has a ton of knights, some cannons, some volley guns/rocket batteries, Demigryphs, a Steam Tank, General on Griffin.
Based on what he has it seems like he could go either way but is there a reason to focus on one over the other if he wants a mostly cavalry force with a little bit of infantry/artillery?
Rhordia has more of the more GW Empire crossover units - demigryph knights for honour guard, wizard wagon as war altar, organ gun.
You lose out on a wider variety of infantry, but if mainly foot knights, halberdiers (count as spearmen) and crossbowmen/handguns then that probably the easier list to get a best fit.
Steam tank can be run as a mammoth. No shooting but viable stats. There will be a more suitable (rule wise) model in due course - there is a halfling ‘iron beast’ model due out as part of a mantic kit starter for league of infamy, which will end up with KoW rules.
If they have a steam tank but not the wizard wagon efforts, then altar works well enough.
Re lack of halflings - no, the army is viable without them. You miss out on really cheap bodies and a light cav option, but nothing major
This. Three reasons why to take Rhordia over KoM:
a) Honour guard (demigryphs)
b) Volley guns
c) War altar.
If these don’t appeal, use KoM instead.
That said, there’s nothing wrong using an empire army as whatever army takes your fancy at that particular time. My former Warhammer Empire army has featured as Rhordia, Kingdoms of Men and Brotherhood in the past. These days they are mostly Basileans.
You’ll end up painting units that can be used in only one of the armies eventually, but that’s much better than having to paint entire new armies instead.