Hello! I’ve been following KoW since the very start, but I’ve only really managed to get a dozen or so games in in all that time. Moving countries, jobs, moving again and so on really disrupted my hobby for a few years there (not to mention the pandemic).
Now I’ve got a regular opponent again who is not a wargamer himself, and we play games with my collection. And I’ve decided to just stick with 2e for the time being.
For me, it’s a bonus that back then it was a more “generic” miniatures game with lots of obvious GW analogues. I’ve got some mantic armies or mantic units in my armies from GW and other manufacturers, but I’m mostly interested in gaming in the Old World of Warhammer but with good rules that are easy for newbies to understand.
I also like that I have all the books I need (main book, uncharted empires and the siege rules) and I don’t have to pay attention to any updates or anything. I’m playing with my friend, with my own collection. So skew lists and balance aren’t really a problem - KoW is already very well balanced for what I’m doing and I’m not going to try and break 2e. I’m not a big fan of the constant update approach to games, though I understand it’s important for tournament players, and KoW has always had a very strong tournament focus (and there’s nothing wrong with that).
I was wondering if anyone else is doing anything like this? I realise of course that most people will be playing the current edition. I’m not opposed to giving it a go if I find a local community here, though I don’t like certain changes to the rules, they’re nowhere near as bad as some other systems.
Anyway, happy to have found somewhere actively discussing Mantic games. Been a fan since day one, and I don’t see that changing any time soon!
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I don’t play older editions of KoW so far.
But at the weekend I looked into KoW2 and I totally forgot about the nasty magical items you could give to shooters.
Plus 12 inch for Boomers for example? Oh yeah.
I totally understand what you mean, and let’s be honest : back then Mantic wanted you to use their models in other games.
The armylists offered more. So many units. And you could use allies, which they also featured on photos.
But it was more of a powerplay edition and less balanced.
I do play older Warhammer Fantasy editions sometimes, because I really loved 6th and 7th (way better than 8th) and I still know how to be good at it and nearly all the stats (very important and useful in your daily life 
).
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I always play the most up to date version of KoW.
I play KoW for the community and because tournaments are still fun even if people get competitive.
Also, I like Mantic as a company.
Plus the rules are simple enough that I can remember how to play after a few months of not having time.
I like a tournament game because events promote community, I enjoy some level of competitiveness in games and arranging a free Saturday once in a while has been the easiest way for me to get in games recently.
KoW is also popular enough that I’ve found a group near me even after big moves.
All that said, I’ve had some doubts about KoW creep up.
Each update and edition has made it a little harder to bring your own (models, story, inspiration, etc) with you into the Mantic Universe.
Which, to be clear, is a sensible and good direction for Mantic to go. Even if it doesn’t suit me.
If was looking for a generic fantasy wargame with an existing group (or a friend) or looking to start a group rather than join one; then I’m not sure I would go with KoW anymore. Especially for casual or story first games.
In the time when I started KoW, 2nd Edition was definitely it. A little over a decade later, things have changed.
Now I would pick Midgard; if not joining an existing group or looking for a tournament game.
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I also really like Midgard, I haven’t gotten to play it yet but it looks great. I like especially that it has a strong dark ages feel. I’ll definitely use it for Middle Earth mass battle.
KoW I think still has a niche for me though in simulating that odd 15th-16th century pike and shotte with dragons and orcs mish mash that is the Old World. I don’t think Midgard can simulate that as well as KoW so I’m happy to have both games. Also, Midgard is a bit more “serious” as a game whereas Kings of War has some whimsy to it, which I think differentiate these two kinds of fantasy game.
Last, KoW is far easier to introduce to total wargaming newbies than Midgard, which has great rules but very complicated. That’s another reason why I prefer playing 2e - it’s simpler than later editions, where things got a bit more detailed to help out the tournament gamers.
I think I’d happily play 4th at a tournament, but for example, I love my old style Orcs and am not interested in the Rift Forged Orcs at all really. I get the impression my old green lads will be second string in future, with the focus on the more unique to mantic Riftforged.
Not really a big deal, at the end of the day KoW of any edition is a good enough game that I’d happily play it with a local community. I was even looking at playing Old World, which is a much worse system, because there are some people locally who play it. But looking at how poor the rules are I just couldn’t stomach it!
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I also prefer the style of 2nd edition over current KoW. I liked that it was all a bit looser with a mix of mantic minis and minis from 3rd parties featured in the rulebook. It was (semi) mini and setting agnostic and had a homebrew feel which is now missing. I enjoyed it a lot and would gladly go back to 2nd. However, my local group is currently thriving with lots of new players and everyone is building armies for 4th, so it would be silly of me to not play along.
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I think that critique of 2nd is only true if you look at vanilla 2nd. Final CoK 2nd was a brilliant game and most of the imbalance had been ironed out.
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Yeah if you have a local scene with other players it makes sense to stick with the current edition. I’m pretty much on my own, with sporadic time available to play, and I provide all the miniatures, dice, scenery and rulebooks for my friend. So for me, it’s a case of going with what I feel like.
And in this scenario you’re building lists based on your own collection of models only, which really cuts out a lot of skew lists. I just don’t own more than 2-3 at most of any particular unit type, and for more special units it’s usually just the one. So any kind of spam list taking advantage of a particular undercosted unit is just not going to be an issue - all of our games are going to look like fantasy armies fighting each other, because I collect miniatures first and make lists later these days. So I’m not concerned about balance issues, I think it’s more balanced out of the box than any edition of Warhammer and if there’s an issue I’ll fix it myself in force selection or even just change points values if I feel it’s warranted.
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TL;DR - I can’t imagine playing an older edition of Kings, as I play in events and am too interested in living metas. What follows is me musing about metas of days past:
Whenever I hear people proselytizing for past editions of minigames, I tend to wonder what armies they play now or played during that edition. In my experience, adherents of WHFB 7E, for example, are very often Dark Elf, Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, or Lizardmen players. All of these factions were god tier in that edition (and heavily comped against in tournaments), and I do think some of the drive to return to bygone days is to relive a time when certain factions’ rules were amazing / broken or fit their players’ power fantasy.
As far as KOW goes, I found the late 2E meta to be quite narrow and unpleasant. Fast, flying elites dominated the game, backed up by lots of shooting thanks to bane chant working on shooters, the ubiquitous jar of extra range for those blaster units with a range of 18” or less, and as much lightning bolt as you could cram into your list. Elves were king, which I think we can all agree was just a shameful thing in itself, but in general interaction was down if you wanted to run non-shooting infantry or hammers that weren’t Sp 10.
KOW 3E was a better meta, thanks to rules that brought down the power of flyers and rounds of patching, that felt like it had a tighter grouping of army tiers. Like in 2E, some factions were simply better at the game than others (Ogres with their many scoring heroes, for example) and some units provided value far beyond their initial pointing (again like many scoring heroes - Snow Troll Primes, etc. - but also Scorchwings, etc.) but it felt like the internal and external balance was more or less there. Until the RC walked away and let Abyssal Berserkers skew the end game meta for almost a year 
(tho I presume 4E was in deep progress then so balancing 3E wasn’t on anybody’s mind).
KOW 4E has good bones but some obviously broken units or orders that should obviously be reined in but for some reason aren’t being, that has absolutely resulted in me burning out on the edition already. It happened with Berserkers in 3E and it’s happening again with Ratkin Wretches and Thonaar. Mantic needs to respond to these imbalances, and easily could be doing so.
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I think your perspective is really interesting. I enjoy reading about tournaments and I used to play in WFB tournaments in 6th and 7th. I played Dwarves or Orcs (the two coolest factions, obviously) and I think Dwarves were certainly the stronger force but in a very boring way. I prefer KoW dwarves because they can do more than sit in a boring gunline. And I prefer KoW Orcs because they don’t have animosity (a rule that looks fun at first but generally just feels awful in game). I much preferred 6th edition over all, because it was pretty tedious fighting Dark Elves, Daemons and Vampires over and over in hopeless last stands at the end of 7th.
But it’s interesting to read what you thought about the 2e meta, it tallies with what I remember reading about at the time. So I sort of “self comp” by generally only having the one or two flying units in an army and I don’t tend to take magic items unless I’m trying to replicate a particular unit - Abyssal Cavalry with the Wine of Elvenkind to make steeds of Slaanesh for example. If your aim is to play casually with a newbie, it’s good to know what’s really strong so you can curate the experience a bit and ensure fun games.
4e sort of annoyed me with the command dice, which I feel are not needed for KoW and also with the focus on Mantic’s own factions (as I perceive it). Of course, it makes sense for Mantic to focus on their own model ranges, they need to make money and I’m not furious about it or anything, but it’s just not a direction I enjoy personally. And command dice and so on are a modern game design thing I just don’t really like. The only thing I like about it is that it sort of introduces a bit of a random element into the game that stops it being completely predictable and math-hammerable.
Edit to add: I just realised, having looked into 4e more, that it doesn’t actually have command dice, just commands. I suppose that’s better - at least I don’t need to buy special dice to play the game. But the random element is then gone, which is a downside.
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Sorry, but I am going to disagree with your statements regarding late 2E. What you are describing is early, pre-CoK, vanilla 2E.
- ”Fast, flying elites dominated the game” - disordered removing fly and also nimble was introduced in the first CoK supplement in 2017 and the heavy flier rule (no nimble) was added in 2018 CoK.
- ”backed up by lots of shooting thanks to bane chant working on shooters” - The first CoK in 2017 changed bane chant to requiring 2 successes for piercing (not as effective as removing it entirely, but it helped).
- ”the ubiquitous jar of extra range for those blaster units with a range of 18” or less” - Personally I didn’t ever find the jar too egregious. The real problem was Brew of Keen-eyeness, which was removed in 2017 and reintroduced in 2018, but with much less effectiveness (couldn’t be used on hordes).
- ”lightning bolt” - The first 2017 CoK changed it to hitting targets in cover or stealthy on 5+, which reduced the power. LB was still good, although I’d argue 3E Ogre warlock spam was peak LB dominance.
- ”Elves” - I play Dwarfs, so I hate elves as much as the next man, but elf dominance was really only vanilla 2E. The ‘double elven archers hordes, one with jar, the other with keen-eyeness, and backed up by bane chanting wizards’ list was only really a problem in early 2E. The changes to shooting and bane chant brought them back into line. This is evident in that elves only won the 2016 clash of kings tournament and never again in 2E.
I agree that 3E smoothed things a little more (but also introduced its own problems), but the narrative that 2E was only ever shooting and fliers isn’t really true. I suppose the bad taste from the beginning of 2E just stuck in the mind.
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There’s a good chance I mashed all of the bad feelings of 2E together, you’re not wrong. I have no memory of 2E COK nerfs, I more strongly remember the buffs 
But I don’t think I’m off on what in-meta lists looked like, especially when it came to Elves. I spent the last year of the edition facing virtually the same Elf list, with the exception of about 200 points of flex. This is precisely the same situation with Dwarfs in late 3E, where I spent the last year (or two) facing virtually the same list, with the exception of about 200 points of flex.
Because it’s a movement game, every edition of Kings has pushed fast units that fly. Thankfully every edition has worked to build in counter play or tone them down. (There’s a different thread about the added nimble turns in 4E - my feeling is that they help to close this maneuverability gap further.)
As for the Jar, there were absolutely units that never saw the competitive table without the Jar on them. That’s some horrible design right there, and I was similarly happy to see the Potion of Pathfinder leave the game during 3E. Things that are Always Taken shouldn’t be around.
And finally, I don’t think it was until the Ogre warlock cabal around the midpoint of 3E that I saw lightning on the level of 2E. I ran I think 15 bolts in my Ratkin army? And that was considered tame compared to the 20+ that you could (and according to the meta should) run.
For me, a person playing in the Northeast and Midatlantic regions of the US competitive scene, KOW 2E clearly favored the types of armies I didn’t want to play (specifically fast, flying elites with significant shooting support). Each edition has brought it closer to the infantry-centric grind that I prefer … but the irony is that the 4E grindfest may be too grindy even for me 
I appreciate your memory of the edition @pforson and if you liked it, especially as a Dwarf player, then hell yea. Your faction certainly got it better throughout the next edition 
I would probably still play 3rd if given the chance, because my Twilight Kin and such actually get to be playable.
Instead I’m just not playing KoW at all, until they finish putting my armies back in.