Should Kings of War add a narrative focus in future editions?

Hobby talk / workshop
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The first time that I saw a major story/campaign event was with the introduction of rift forged orcs, but that wasn’t a really seismic campaign that I was hoping for. I think it’d be neat to introduce some campaigns like the famous battle of black fire pass, the war of the beards, the storm of chaos, and the nemesis crown event. This would add a ton of new lore, and as I’ve stated previously lore and story help build a game monumentally.

New battles could help tie and flesh out lore relations between factions, like having Basilea and the imperial dwarves hold out against the abyss, or have the elf armies and sylvan armies hold out against the Nightstalkers. The developers and writers could really bring the map to life with this, establishing not only the countries, but city siege battles having sprawling maps of the country side and terrain set up that helps paint this cool setting to life with some real depth and make Pannithor feel a lot more immersive.

This could also add a lot of depth to the game over all without having to change up the simplistic rules that make it a pick up and play experience. I think adding specific condition for missions like in a Basilea Vs undead game, there could be civilians that need saving so you’d have villager tokens to fight over; if the undead win the horde rises in the next match up, but if basilea wins they get more units for their next game. You could have epic siege battles like helms deep, or the battle of minas Tirith. There could be terrain modifiers like the northern alliance fighting in their tundra, making all models move slower or freeze up in a game.

Of course all these extra modifiers and rules would just be for the campaign book, you don’t need to do them for tournament play or casual play which is what most people are here for. Still though, I think it’d be a neat idea if done correctly and handled well, which i don’t fear from mantic. What about the rest of you, what do you think of this idea?

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I wonder if they’d do that with a series of quest packs for the game with some rules, perhaps a piece of terrain, some cards and maybe a resin or PVC mini

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Some of the CoK books have had some narrative scenarios and in the past they have run global campaigns, which in turn fed into the development of the ongoing background

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I’m not sure of the background. I think Mantic’s book (Steps to deliverance and the like) might be better suited. Campaign books and their narratives tend to favour a faction or try to establish every army as ‘the best’ as in WHFB.
The more bland setting gives plenty of room to build own armies and narratives.
Siege battles are already in the big red book, loot tokens can easily be swapped for villagers and the rules are overall simple enough to mix in own ideas.
On the other hand it may help to attract new players, who knows.

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The reason why I floated towards campaign books is because it would be very faction focused. It’d give a definitive map to the world and the regions within it. The reason why I harp on the lore so much in my posts is because lore sells gameplay. Warhammer used to be very similar to kow. Back in 1st and 2nd edition they left it all a vague mess and while it was fun, it wasn’t really engaging; but as the setting became more concrete the more lore and characters there were, this drove people like me to warhammer. I like rts’s already so I was a bit of an outlier, but i wouldn’t have been nearly as interested in warhammer fantasy if they didn’t have a bunch of lore and story behind it. I’m not saying for mantic to go grim dark, I like the cartoony, warcraft 3/ bungie myth aesthetic and feel to the universe. Just write more of that into the game, that’s all i’m asking.

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KOW works well because of:-

  1. Gameplay experience- Fairness and ease in terms of rules that are as concise, legible and logical as possible
  2. Limited number of faction-specific or unit-specific rules and overall Faction balance

The two things aren’t the same, but they depend on each other.

KOW’s ruleset is easier to manage than WHFB or TOW because, in part, a “cap” effectively exists on the amount of unique rules that have to be considered, for the purposes of both playing the game easily, and keeping factions in balance.

With no stand-alone army books, or campaign books adding special characters/units/rules for factions, each faction must fit within the annual scant few pages they get.

The gameplay and overall ruleset has grown in recent years, as I understand it, but as I’ve said before… In relative terms, it’s still a very manageable game for anyone, even young teens.

To come to the question of additional rules or guidelines for narrative play… Say, in the context of scenarios, campaigns and “make your own” rules for individuals / monsters / units:-

As someone observes, the big red book actually does quite a bit of this already, and I think quite well!

I would have no objection to either retaining and expanding sections relating to the above in 4th edition, or perhaps, yes, you do a stand-alone book release:-

Let’s say they tried to make siege gameplay more of a thing… “SIEGE! Storm mighty citadels and defend doughty hillforts in the world of Pannithor!”

You could revamp siege rules (try to find that elusive balance between attacker and defender), introduce new model scenery ranges and carefully put in new orders for command dice… Some of them faction specific…?

I also always like “make your own” rules for characters and whatnot. Maybe allow more scope to build characters, monsters and units by opening them up to buying a range of upgrades from a list, within reason? Nothing overpowered.

The risk with any releases of this nature is that the more faction-specific rules applied then the harder the task of balancing the game becomes. As observed above, the trend in GW was usually that the newer releases are the more powerful. This has been reversed to some extent in recent years, but even that causes headaches. There have been GW releases in 40K that disappointed fans because the faction getting the glow-up wasn’t sufficiently buffed… Dark Angels a couple of years back sticks out in my mind.

My last observation is that when we talk about narrative play sometimes what people are really saying they want is something ‘new’ or refreshing. People do enjoy novelty, difference and change, and it’s not always a bad thing or a sign of mild ADHD. It will be anathema to some gamers, but for 4th, part of what I expect is that they will not just add, subtract or adjust rules… This might not be just an overhaul… It could be a complete redesign in some areas. The only thing I would be totally sure of will be that all existing models will be playable, and no one will be required to rebase their models.

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