"Mantic’s own Kyle Przelenski comes back to talk about the new magic supplement. Tune in for a discussion of spell casting tiers, channeling, new terrain interaction, new items, new spells, new characters AND COK-style unit tweaks!
Come join the discussion in the Kings of War WorldWide (KOW3) Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/172722949908327/ "
Obviously, join the discussion here first!
I’m always keen on more narrative stuff and the chance to have slightly different terrain / scenarios in each of the planes could be fun for a campaign setting
it all sounds good fun to me
I’m very happy that they keep it out of the core rules at first, but allow/encourage us to try it out, and maybe some parts of it will eventually become part of the main game. A very safe approach.
I am very excited for some new spells to try out.
A brief summary:
I haven’t had chance to play KoW 3rd edition and already a supplement that alters/modifies the rules is due out in a time when Covid-19 is making gaming unfeasible for a lot of people.
Not sure how I feel about it, does mean having to bring 3 books with me now, Gamers edition, Uncharted Empires, and now this… I hope Mantic don’t go down the same foot path that GW went down, that is to say bolting on supplement after supplement onto the core rules that end up robbing the elegance of the core rules and transforming it into a bloated mess.
By the time the book is released, Kings of War 3rd will have been out for a year. This is the norm for the game - an annual release which tweaks the balance and the rules and trials new things.
So it’s unlikely you’ll ever need more than 3 books at most. 2nd edition followed the same pattern.
My view could be painted by my casual player mentality. I don’t have a desire to chase a meta or need to be the best at gaming. I also play a lot of systems, so I’m not solely focused on just KoW, but rather it is a game that I enjoy from time to time to add variety to my gaming experience.
While it is true that it will have been a year since the release of 3rd edition, it is also true that a good chunk of this year has seen various lockdowns that make gaming unfeasible for a lot of people. I understand that Mantic will have already had product release dates in mind and scheduled before the global Pandemic hit.
However, it does come across as a bit tone deaf, nothing stopping Mantic from showing a bit of flexibility in their schedule, give people the opportunity to get some use out of the products they have bought less than a year ago.
As for 3 books to a table, that is I hope you can agree still excessive. First edition KoW didn’t have this need for 3 books, and it played fine. It just seems very much a GW esque sales strategy. I have no issue in buying Mantic products (I spent over €400 in the last two month), what I want is a product that is going to offer me long term value.
This doesn’t prevent people from using products they bought in the last year in any way. The two books out still stand.
While there is a pandemic at the moment, these rules will last for a long time to come (at least a year) during which time we might be able to get out and start playing games again. And, as you suggest, there a business reasons for doing it, too - nothing wrong with that.
3 books is a maximum. You don’t have to use the magic rules (or even buy the book). The same applies to uncharted empires - unless you’re fielding one of those armies, you don’t need the book to hand. They’re optional in their use.
Finally, Tthere was a point during Kings of War 1st edition where you could be using the core rulebook, Kings and Legends, and the Basilean Legacy at once, not to mention Hellfire and Stone. As I said, it all depends on whether or not you choose to use those rules. I can’t really comment on what you feel about this, but I can offer facts that knock through the ol’ rose-tinted vision.
Mantic have obviously had their plans completely thrown up in the air. I’m sure they’d rather be releasing a campaign book and a separate Clash of Kings book.
I do hope that the two pages of ‘tweaks’ are released separately in some format, if these are rules rules and not campaign rules.
“Kings and Legends, and the Basilean Legacy at once, not to mention Hellfire and Stone.”
Wasn’t aware of those, guess my group just stuck to the basics as we felt that offered enough game.
Which is completely fine. You can do exactly the same in this case, too :).
Once you’ve played a few games, I don’t feel you really need any books by the table.
Some elegant core rules, combined with army lists exported with an EasyArmy Pro subscription (which I appreciate is another thing to buy) means all of the army lists, stats and special rule explanations are covered in a couple of data sheets.
Hopefully any of the new spells, tweaks etc. would find their way into EasyArmy pretty quickly after the magic suplement’s release.
Must be great writing a cool campaign supplement and see everybody only care about two pages of balance adjustments…
I’m exited about the supplement. Sounds like lots of cool stuff that you can mix and match to create some unusual games. 
@Dave Will there be a global campaign to accompany the book or did Covid kill that as well?
Covid killed the campaign, otherwise we’d all have been in the Halpi mountains stabbing up dwarfs/goblins (delete as applicable)
I really love the campaigns Mantic has produced and have the lot of them stretching back to the misty days of Hellfire and Stone, and even without a global campaign they make a nice change of pace for a weekends gaming
Just found this from early May:
(not sure how much has changed)
UNIVERSAL BATTLE – KINGS OF WAR
While Rob was busy interviewing Vince, the Dash28 crew was previewing some of the new magical supplement rules for Kings of War on Universal Battles. These new magical rules were due to appear in a new summer campaign book, which is currently a bit in limbo due to lockdown.
However, Matt James from the RC has done a great job creating some bombastic magical rules that really add a different gameplay element to your battles. Now, don’t worry hardcore tournament fans, these magical rules are designed for narrative play and come with a big health warning: NOT DESIGNED FOR TOURNAMENT PLAY . So, before you start worrying the sky is falling (possibly a spell in the supplement) please remember these won’t be appearing at your next tournament.
Instead, they’re designed to tie in with the online campaign, whenever that comes and are meant to be a lot of fun.
great part of the open day I thoroughly enjoyed watching the game and listening to the discussion as they played on various aspects
