Release schedule/expansion books

Kings of War News and rumours
42

I don’t disagree with that. It’s unfortunate. My daughter has a FoN army we were starting to put together that may be unusable as well.

However, is there a practical alternative? One could argue “get all the lists sorted first” but I’m not sure if that’s practical, though there is certainly some good sense to it.

It is an issue that mainly affects current players, and only smaller subset of them, and will perhaps help gain more players thanks to coherent later releases with hype and impact. It then becomes a question of if that’s the right thing to do or not? Your assessment that, in your opinion it is not, is valid.

In my case, I’ll look at the FoN list in the rulebook and probably out something together. My hope is that the new list in 6 months will have new toys (and probably new hard plastics) but won’t completely invalidate everything. We will see. If FoN was my main list I’m sure I would be more aggreived

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43

I definitely wouldn’t start any of the armies we think are likely to get a major overhaul - FON, elves, possibly even Dwarves, Varangur…

Whether this is a bad move on Mantic’s part or not, I really don’t know, I can see both sides of it and I might feel different about this if I had just completed a nice FON army based on lots of units likely to not be included for them, going forward.

But I do think where there is a radical refresh, it’s kind of necessary to - at some point - pull the faction back or take them out altogether, and then drop the “new look” take on them.

There is no ideal time to do this, other than to warn people who already collect them that it is going to happen and give some kind of timeframe.

I do think that it should be possible to radically change factions, that has to be on the table.

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44

I’m quite a bit against radically changing factions, if only because I don’t want to invalidate peoples hobby output. If you want to change a faction, keep in mind what people already have. If you want a radical shakeup? New (sub)faction!

Does that sound like more work? Yes! I think companies should sell products in a way that is convenient for consumers, because that’s how you get sales. I don’t think companies should do what happens to be convenient for the company.

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45

I assume Mantic have data that says refreshing - to create Mantic IP versions of factions (for example, TK versus old Dark Elves) - is worth it in sales terms.

We know they do track the success of stuff released by itself versus as part of refreshes / bigger coordinated drops and they report it sells better when its the latter approach, perhaps unsurprisingly.

I agree about not invalidating people’s hobby output ….to a point… but that can’t be forever and ever.

At some point, lists and models develop in games, right? Imagine if we never got TK because people had metal GW Dark elf armies no one wanted to impact?

But I anyway think TK - to take an example - were a good example of a rather radical refresh being quite successful. The corsairs ended up a bit emo, there are some scaling issues, but overall… great lore, some good models, and an interesting faction to play. Mantic went safer with Trident Realms, maybe because they are already pretty unusual.

If anything stays by becoming a sub faction maybe it should be the “legacy” version of the list?

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46

I’d say that there’s a difference between models Manic has sold people vs other stuff.
I’d expect Mantic to make sure that thier models continue to have a place. Even if it’s a different unit/counts as.
For other models, it would be nice but I don’t think Mantic are obliged in any way.
Considering that the usual generic fantasy tropes are represented in KoW, I think that someone would need a rather unusual collection to not be able to use it. Especially with alignment dropped, those the elf list can stat those dark elves.

Legacy lists are the worst way to do it.
The frustration and ill will generated by playing list that forever gets left behind is worse than just removing it to begin with.

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47

I personally agree regarding legacy lists- I was just making the point that if a faction is refreshed it makes more sense for the older list to be like a sub theme than for the new models and refreshed version to be a sub theme.

(Agree overall better to just say “this is the revamped faction and their list” and be done)

Regarding Mantic’s own models… If Mantic are still making and selling them, definitely they should be playable. If they are older Mantic models that have been withdrawn / are no longer made… Surely after a certain period of time they can be consigned to the past? Especially if rest of a list has been refreshed, given new options and has moved on in other regards.

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48

Incidentally, I heard GW’s Old World legacy lists for factions they didn’t include get fan maintenance in that community. Kind of cool, guess they have the numbers for it.

49

ToW is in a very different spot here as they are already using community rules for the most part
not just supporting the Legacy Armies but changing core rules and points values, the game GW sells isn’t the one people play

“we” could have supported the Historical armies into 3rd and now 4th but there was never a real reason to put the work into that instead of just straight using Kingdoms of Men to keep playing

50

ok, I don’t really like such things but I go with it

you have 10 flavours of tea on your menu, but only 1 is available to sell
are you now selling more tea and coffee because you have something that isn’t available on the menu because people who want those flavours bring their own while sitting in your cafe (and good tea sells either way so they may or may not buy the 1 that is available) or are people just pissed off because you offer something they cannot buy and tell them to get their tea from the supermarket and come back to get their hot water here

would you remove the 9 flavours you don’t sell from the menu until you actually can sell them and put them back on the menu once they are there, so that people notice that you now have more to offer?
or just keep everything the same and just hope that people keep asking for flavours so that once you actually have them you also sell them as no one will notice if something changed or not without asking?
and if you get an additional flavour of tea do you change the menu again or keep that one off because good tea sells either way and changing the menu might not be liked by everyone who visits?

the options how to handle new armies are similar here
put the final to be released army lists for 4th into the initial book, half of the units or even full armies won’t be available because Mantic doesn’t make the models so people need to search on their own for models to use here (like Mantic releases Xirkaali but not models and no one else out there making Dog Warriros, there is a good chance you piss more people of from playing KoW over making happy because the list is available) which makes it much harder or even impossible for new players to start the game
in addition it is also very unflexible regarding trends and models because if your community after 2 years likes a certain army much more than another and demands an expansion it is impossible to do because there are no changes to made any more

you release “starting” lists that follow the current available models and expand those together with the model release, so that previous players can play the game and new players have the option for the easy start with the newly released armies while the company can also adjust what they do over time
people don’t like the starter army list of a certain faction at all, you can re-work it for the later release.

I can understand why you would like version 1 more, but KoW isn’t a generic game any more and sourcing the specific models not easy. It never really was as playing Nightstalkers in 2nd was tricky unless you were able to make your own stuff as there just was no one else out there doing that kind of thing
and models not being available for every unit in the game is something a lot of people complained about in the past

51

No the important thing would be to get those teas that are on the menu but not available ready to sell? They shouldn’t have been on the menu to begin with, but here we are, get them in stock.

in what I’d love to see from Mantic terms: take the time to actually make the new things that the old is being revoked for! Take the time, instead of doing 17 games at once!

Did 4th edition need to happen in this way at the exact same time as Epic Warpath, and Worms, and all the other projects? I guess that really depends on who you prioritise, customer convenience or company convenience.

52

It has been previously mentioned that releasing everything at once doesn’t work as a business model. Which of the other games do you want them to stop? Will they make more money through KoW with your plan than that game makes? Bear in mind the only reason they can invest as much time and effort as they are in 4th is because one of their other games (halo) has been a massive success.

In short, what you propose is not feasible. You can still want it of course, in the same way I can still want to win the lottery, but it’s not going to happen.

What’s the better feasible option than their current plan?

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So they’ve just had a huge cash injection from a very succesful launch, but they can’t take the time to properly finish the product? Yeah, its not feasible.. or is it inconvenient? Are there shareholders that need the line to go up?

Perhaps I am just too harsh on companies? No, they’re companies, not people!

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I’m not sure the current plan Mantic are going with is more convenient for the company - it seems to me that they’ve got a lot of balls in the air now. The plan and schedule for delivery of books and model refreshes for 4th has been somewhat sketched out, and if they start missing milestones or failing to rebalance they’ll be in hot water.

I agree that they’re doing this at the same time as continuing to expand HALO, and they’re at the tail end of delivering on Epic Warpath.

Ronnie acknowledged, talking about Warpath, that they probably bit off more than they could chew… Delivery of all the factions versus the original plan for something like four.

I have no doubt that, next year and the year after, Mantic will continue to “divide their forces” between games, and they’ve always done that.

If I said they should just focus on KOW and HALO for a while, the games I play, that might be good for me, but I sympathise with players of the other games who might take issue with this.

I’m also not convinced 4th is disadvantageous to the community. It would be a rhetorical question if I asked “are you not looking forward to all the awesome stuff ahead in 4th?”, because you don’t seem to be (and I accept that, that’s your perspective).

I don’t feel inconvenienced, my perception is they’re trying to upscale KOW, make the branding and quality level of products higher… TBH I think they’re doing a good job so far.

I go back to the idea that instead of the phased roll-out… What if we kept the COK model, one book and universal updates… And I (think I’m correct in saying this is your preference)… Mantic just fill in the existing model ranges, bit by bit.

I think that would be fine… But it’s definitely a conservative approach that consolidates the existing community who have been asking for things like complete model ranges. Mantic might not lose players who don’t want much change… But they’d potentially lose other players who might be finding 3.5 and the lack of overall game progress/evolution a little stale. And I don’t think freezing KOW at 3.5, and continuing with careful COK updates where there’s something for everyone, but nothing much for anyone specifically (because change could disadvantage someone) sounds like a bit of a slow death.

55

In general retailers and distributors don’t like huge launches of product. When Reaper does their Kickstarters they don’t put out all the models to retail at once even though they are already in the hands of the backers.

Also I’ve heard that if you make, say, a mostly complete range of WW2 Germans it helps the sales of the existing product to put out new packs of Germans occasionally.

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56

Love those mats! So gorgeous.

57

Listened to the live mantix chat.

As we knew

Old models will be replaced

Dwarves elves were the question undead and orcs probably fall under that?

Fracture is nature. Several fractions have now split from green lady ideals as per hints in new books. It looks regional around claws. This one may not be a claw?

Relaunch of the above for me puts elves as arrogance lead army for me. Barica claw as there has been an effort to place elves in barica.

New models together Dwarves and free to me in alliance

Confirmed before plan to Varanguur the ip treatment. Won’t be gw chaos.

When they do kom it won’t be empire or bretonnia. Didn’t sound anytime soon.

Brothermark gone perm into basilia, green lady gone maybe the last few knights in nature.

Lore wise green have left and matt has plans for brotherhood.

I saw several references that herd are on the plains not so much forest.

Overall lore wise to me it sounds like celestians begin a war of celestian who know better than the others. Basilia, n alliance and green lady.

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59

Does anyone know when the updated digital version of the rules will be released? Have they updated the companion or does it still carry the original rules? Looking to pick up the digital copy if it’s current.

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The rules in the Companion have been updated with the erratas - in a tasteful magenta!

I don’t have the pdf rules, although they did say if you have it, you’ll be able to download the updated one for free.

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61

Cheers - hoping for a rules pdf with magenta sections.

62

Anyway I’ve seen people asking about the factions in the next book, here’s my guess

FON - confirmed

Ogres - confirmed by Ronnie by mistake

Abyss & Basilea - my guess

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