Hi so here are my questions. 1.) What’s a good starter army? I’m really leaning to salamander or Forces of Nature but I want an army to help me learn the ropes and build up over time. I figured Elves or Goblins as secondary Choices. But I do have my old Bret army if humans or their equivalent is good for starting players. I’m trying to find a forgiving army as I learn rules. 2.) I was wondering the current meta for the game, is it more leaning to shooting or combat? Just so I have an idea of how to build a list. 3.) I have the Main rule book and the uncharted expansions but do I need the Hapi’s Rift? Thanks in advance for any responses.
P.S I have played games like Warhammer Fantasy 8th and 40k so that’s the basics for my frame of reference.
hey, welcome to the fun house, I shall do my best to answer your questions but if it’s unclear feel free to to poke me for clarification.
1.) Good Starter armies are actually much harder to describe for KoW than for 40K or whamster which had definite tiers of armies. KoW is very well balanced so you can genuinely pick what you like and it will be a solid army. There are a few armies that require more finesse to use but you could easily start with any of your choices.
2.) the meta is pretty much always aimed at melee combat, while you can take shooting heavy armies and they can do very well, the game is designed to be about armies fighting over objectives and it’s better to think of punchy armies being supported by shooting, rather than gunlines trying to remove an opponent.
3.) to get started you can happily stick to the main book and uncharted, and here is where I go back to question 1 and 2. Kings of War gets rebalanced on an annual basis, normally after a years worth of tournament results and feedback from around the world. This does two things, armies that are too good get pared back a little and armies that are weaker, or in danger of becoming a cookie cutter net list , get boosts to the lists. Units may get a buff or points adjustment. It also stops the meta from becoming stale.
Halpi’s this year has some adjustments and new characters along with a campaign, it’s more a stop gap until we get back to regular gaming. I wouldn’t worry about getting the book until you’ve started to play and get the game down, you can use easy army for online list building and it has the adjustments in there if you want to stay on top of the changes. But if you’re not planning on attending a tournament it’s not necessary until you get some games in.
So to sum up, pick the army you want to play you won’t find a complete dog some lists will just be a little more restrictive than others.
there are some great channels on youtube that give break downs of armies, Master Crafted Gaming and Direct Misfire, Dash 28
Echo the above welcome, general sentiment and resources.
Dash28 has a useful little ‘beginners guide’ to the armies - here’s a link to the first of them - and more detailed ones elsewhere on the site.
With starter armies, as the game is pretty well balanced the real issue comes down to play style and a few nuances - some have rule combos or strengths/weaknesses that can take a while to master (Trident Realm, Empire of Dust for example). Others are a touch sub par - not poor, but a more limited range of ‘optimal’ builds (ratkin slaves, brothermark)
FoN is a solid army, with some pretty powerful builds/combos - and can include salamander models so useful way to start a couple of armies at once 
Elves have some decent units and there are some top notch goblin builds out there.
The Breton type army can be covered by Kingdoms of Men, Brothermark or Order of the Green Lady (which also overlaps with FoN) - and to a certain extent Basilea and Rhordia - so plenty of scope.
Meta-wise, it sort of depends where you are. Combat is more a thing than shooting (as more armies can do this well). The ranged side tends to be based around war engines & lightning, rather than unit shooting (although there are a few exceptions). You then get ‘grind’ style lists - that win with attrition, as opposed to direct killing power - high defense, lots of cheap nerve, heal/wound recovery or a combo of all.
Also look at easyarmy - army builder which (with minimum subscription) has full access to all unit rules, stats & updates.
Mantic is greatly expanding their Salamanders line this summer, almost certainly starting with a mega army of new and old releases, so it’ll be a great time to jump in with sallies if you’d like to go full Mantic and not Warhammer models or third party.
If that appeals, I’d recommend learning the ropes until then with Warhammer models you’ve got - Order of the Brotherhood (the one with water elementals and stuff) is the closest to Brets, and is also a pretty legit army on the field.
Hi Adrian, welcome to the KoW community.
Your Bretonnian army makes a good starting point for Kings of War. I’d suggest using that army to try the game and when you’re hooked (like us) you can pick the army that appeals to you.
The equivalent to Bretonnia in Kings of War used to be Brotherhood in 2nd edition. I used my GW empire army to play one. In 3rd edition, the game has evolved somewhat and the Brotherhood faction has split due to in-game lore.
Of these two factions, one especially might apeal to you. The Order of the Green lady is basically a combination of feudal knights with elemental forces (water&earth) from the forces of nature list. As @Boss_Salvage mentions, it’s a valid army. That said, the army is not particulary new player friendly as it’s got quite a few fiddly parts.
The other faction is the Order of the Brothermark. Lorewise, the less mythical parts of the Brotherhood joined up with Basilea (the lawful-good empire) for a more Byzanthian-themed human force. Game-wise this army -to me at least- is a bit of a disappointment . As it’s very similar (and less good) than it’s parrent list, I’d suggest using these models to build a basilean army instead. And this is very well possible with these models. For instance, here is my empire army representing a 3rd edition Basilean army and part 2.
Which brings me to the point I aim to make:
Your Bretonnian (human) army can be used as two main armies without any adjustments:
- Basilea (lawfull good humans following shining yet flawed deities)
- Kingdoms of men (A generic but suprisingly versatile and effective human army able to represent human armies from ancient egypt to 17th century europe).
With some adjustments, your army can also represent
- Order of the Green lady (A theme list from the Forces of Nature army adding in knights and men-at-arms)
- Order of the Brothermark (A basilean theme list)
*League of Rhordia (Kingdoms of Men theme list originating from GW Empire
So basically, having a human army sets you up for almost half a dozen armies with vastly different playstyles that may or may not apeal to you. I love the versality of humans.
That said, if you want something truly mythical or fantasy, you might want to explore one or more of Kings of War’s other options. There’s plenty of armies, each with a different playstyle.
All “full armies” (named parent armies) are valid choices with plenty of choice both model and game wise. Some “theme armies” (like the Brothermark listed above) are much more niche. While you can’t go wrong playing order of the Green lady, I would not suggest (for instance) Twilight Kin or Sylvan Kin to a new player.
If you have more questions, don’t be afraid to ask them. We Kings of War nerds love to answer the questions.
And quite lengthy so, I get the impression😉
No, seriously. Some good advice for starters here. Building an army from an already owned WHFB army is quite common and sensible. That’s part of the beauty of KoW and it’s community.
I would say order of the green lady would be the best starting point based on your current models and the armies you said you were interested in.
Order of the green lady is a faction that mixes the Brothermark(breton) and Forces of nature lists. If you wanted to leave to your human forces at the models you have now and focus on getting nature models tou could work your way up to a full forces of nature army eventually. Also if you wanted to start a second army down the road you said elves were one you might be interested in you could start running them at first as sylvan kin(wood elves) and this would mix your forces of nature units with elves until you get a full elf list going.
This is something I love about KoW with all the theme lists your sure to find something that you can play even when you first start transitioning to a new army without heavily proxying models.
You could always start as just Kingdoms of men or nor.al brothermark with your brets but the order of the green lady will help toy learn a few more rules and how to use them like shambling and surge.
I did not read all the comments, but my number 1 advice would be, try a army out with empty bases. as long your opponent knows what is what. You can try everything without building a unit/army that is not a good playing style for you.
Thanks for all the replies I bought the expansions and will hopefully get some games in soon. I’ll probably start with order of the green lady, since it helps build up two additional forces I already like. I gotta say that empty bases idea is genius. I just add a postit to remind me of the height. Would anyone happen to know if there is a Midwest kings of war group? I would Ideally like to get good enough to go out to tournaments, in the future of course. Also does mantic print any lore books? I have alot thirst for some more background but can’t seem to find much online. Thanks again for helping out a new player.
Between the rulebooks, you can find some novels, like ‘Steps to Deliverance’.
https://www.manticgames.com/games/kings-of-war/books/
empty bases is a great way to do it, I taught a friend using them, put all the information for the unit with an arrow to mark the front leader point and it works well.
For lore books there are a few, https://www.whpsupplyroom.com/fantasy/kings-of-war with a lot more in the works Rob is writing a Goblin based book which makes sense being a fanatical goblin player, there is also a book coming later in the year to explain the halflings breaking away from the league. So lots to look forward to.
@KylePrz may be able to help point you in the direction of a Midwest group I know there seem to be groups everywhere in the US but I’ve not got a clue as to tracking them down.
If you want to read lore online this wiki is something you should look at: