I simply love them!
And if it’s confusing, just add a note which unit is which (like you did on the display board and mentioned by @Herdheart ). I’d gladly play against that army.
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i love doing diarama bases, and my bases can have hills, trees … even a whole ship on them’ with sails n everyfing!’ so apologies in advance to those who dislike tiered bases, you gonna hate my armies. in my defence… i regret nothing!
Some great points by both viewpoints, but at the end of the day, each to his own.
Being an old Warhammer+ 40k head, i’m weaning myself off WYSIWYG and actual line of sight, and for tabletop games, i really don’t think its much of an issue… yes, some dodgy gueezah might hide a sneaky assassin behind a unit in the shadow of a terrain piece on the diarama, but for most cases, you are not looking at it from ground level but from a sitting or standing height over the table.
i have much more problems on Universal battle where everything is flat including terrain and units, if my opponent hasnt bothered to put the hieghts in his unit stats,… or any other information either.
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What a great army, boo on banning it 
The chimera is the closest to being any kind of issue, and that’s because it’s Height 5 / monstrosity isn’t immediately apparent (I would assume it was a pegasus or something - which the Herd don’t have, so …?)
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I think the Chimera was 5" tall.
… I never thought to equate height to literal height in inches, well played 
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I don’t think its an exact science and I’m not sure that all of my other models quite fit the bill.
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@KoshtraBelorn Were the orange and blue ones inspired by digital dinosaurs?
I understand why they said that army was confusing. If it was me I would have dug up some weapons from the bit box and armed them all. That’s totally salamanders right there!
@Vince
I’m a firm believer that restrictions breed creativity. Someone wanting height on their base would have to find better ways to do it than large ruins and towers. Instead of buying a piece of scenery and donking it on the base that same piece could be customized cutting away a lot of it and internally detailed. Would still get you the height, line of sight and be much more visually impressive.
I don’t think that Lycans, Guardian Brutes, Beast Pack etc carry weapons!
You could train your dinosaurs to be guardians! No one’s going to want to fight a dinosaur carrying an executioners axe.
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Although this is totally true, I don’t think Mantic should limit peoples hobby projects in any way other than essential game rules.
I said it before, I’m no fan of giant buildings on multibases even though I put a mausoleum on my Ghoul horde. It should always be reasonable or detachable (or fun). I made the trees on my werewolves detachable and it works fine.
But I doubt that it’s a real advantage to have bases where you can hide a hero or troop behind. It’s pretty niche and easily avoided by playing fair.
Also I absolutly agree, that playing with painted armies is a totally different thing. It’s way more fun than to play against a pile of plastic.
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Its actually in the rulebook under the terrain rules:
height =~ 1 + actual height in inches. That’s probably where I got my earlier response on the thread say I was height 30+ relative to the playing field.
But thats of course a bit awkward for the blocks as we tend to play with 28-32mm scale models. I personally wouldn’t even notice 20-30% above the upper margin as potentially out of place (6" instead of 5").
Therefore, I just treat height as an abstract number rather than inches like most probably do.
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Feels like some sour grapes from people who can’t or can’t be bothered to make nice dioramas… ; P
Just joking!
It feels like this sort of sums up the two philosophical approaches to war games. The OP views it as a game first and foremost and a visual spectacle/hobby second (As can be noted from his dinosaur army that makes my eyes sore to look at it, he’s not into aesthetics clearly). The hobby side is a chore to him, and his admission that he likes 2d terrain reinforces this. I would suggest he also uses 2d units - perhaps with a photo of what it represents stuck onto it along with a large number for the height.
There’s a slight inconsistency in complaining that dioramas are confusing for height purposes and yet favouring 2d terrain that despite being a range of heights, will remain flat whether its a towering crag or small hedge! (and perhaps a sign that the OP isn’t being completely serious in his complaint)
At the extreme end of this spectrum were the people you would encounter for a Warhammer pick up game back in the day. As you were unpacking your delicately painted minis, they would upturn a battered holdall onto the table and several tonnes of black undercoated lead would crash to the table and be coaxed into vague approximations of units, sometimes occasioning an impulse purchase of GW superglue for an on the spot fix.
They would invariably win the game, because for them the game was The Thing.
Personally I’m at the other end of the spectrum. I moved from Warhammer to Kings of War so I could continue to use the minis I’d spent so long painting. As time went on, I embraced multibasing and gradually started to create dioramic style bases which allowed me to expand and practice hobby skills and techniques that you don’t learn when just painting individual minis.
I’m no great shakes at the game, but occasionally I do well when everything is in alignment. But the priority for me is hobby and the goal of creating fantastic armies and terrain to create a visual spectacle on the tabletop. I tend to favour games that have this element - card games like MTG have very little appeal to me and I buy board games that have minis in them.
I think there’s room for both types in KoW and would have no interest in the game if it started to restrict what you could do, and I suspect a large number of people would leave for pastures new. In the current iteration of the game we can co-exist - you can do your thing with your 2d terrain and boring crowded bases and I can do mine. Not sure why anyone would want to change this, unless they want to greatly reduce the player pool.
And some short points:
No-one creates dioramas to ‘game for advantage’. Thats way too much work and the sort of people who have that mindset are generally not going to spend that much time hobbying when there are games to be played on 2d terrain!
No-one is confused that your goblin sized minis are on a large piece of terrain. ‘It must be Large Infantry then’ is not a thought anyone thinks when they see that unit.
Heights in KoW are basically abstract because they have a numbering system. If its goblins on a horde base it doesn’t matter how high the model is, it is H2 and your cav can see over it. We have these handy things called phones and you can have all the unit stats stored on ‘The Internet’ to look up whenever you want.
So while I appreciate that the OP was probably playing devils advocate with a twinkle in his eye (cos we know him) other people have seriously advocated that Mantic make rules that would see me and many others never play the game again and destroy one of the aspects that attracts a lot of people to this system. Because they personally don’t like diorama basing. Narcisstic much? So try and forgive my sarcasm, I hope it’s been entertaining…
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You can tell that they’re elves with big swords though.
Infantry that looks like elves means Sp 6.
Armour but no shields means De 4+, maybe 5+.
Two handed weapons probably means CS 1.
They look kinda fancy so likely Me 3+, but your opponent can confirm.
That’s the kind of information that needs to be conveyed. Playing lots of Warhammer and being familiar with everything is a nice place to be, but I would rather have a rough idea from a glance.
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Yeah and there is no issue if you can at least guess what kind of unit these models are supposed to be. But it gets difficult when there are some real abstract uses of models.
Like elven crossbows as a Nightstalkers unit. There should at least be some kind of conversion or thematic paint to make it possible to identify those as Nightstalkers.
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That I agree with.
Crossbows could maybe be specters, they shoot and have piercing. I would expect doppelgangers to have more variety mixed in.
Further than that, night-stalkers especially need to look like their stats, they have weird rules to match the models one might use. The Mantic models generally do well at that, assuming that models that have fly due to being incorporeal are painted accordingly, as tortured souls should be as well.
The mindscreetch is a bit short, but floats so could conceivably be effectively taller/higher.
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For me models need to do 2 things give the game a good look and are markers to identify different units
and looking good means an arm length away, top down view
a lot of details or formations that look good from close or frontal view make good display models but not gaming armies (a problem most modern GW models have)
hence dioramas that make it look good as an army are welcome
2nd point is that I can keep track of different units and count as is ok as long as all similar units are the same
did not find a pic of the whole army, just a single unit but it was a full 2k 6th/7th Warhammer Undead army that did both things very well (and actually was the main thing that brought me into multi basing as making something like that with removable models is a pain)
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Calling people narcissistic for wanting small changes to help the game run smoother could easily be turned back on you as being too narcissistic to make reasonable compromises. There’s no point getting upset and starting an internet slap fight over it.
I have seen people model for advantage in the past where models will be positioned in such a way that gives them an advantage. Vehicles with no bases have often been an issue with this where you measured from guns and they had no fixed position so people could front load them. True line of sight went out of fashion pretty fast when people started to model space marines in weird positions to exploit it too.
@KoshtraBelorn had a tournament report with the perfect example of the type of basing I have a problem with.
On the back row the left unit looks fine, the middle I’d say is about the limit for a gaming model and the right is crossing the line into Lunch box basing IMO. He could hide his bolt thrower behind the wall on the right side and even standing it would be difficult to see it. There is no way to see through that wall and it’s large enough to cover units behind it. Mantic already have rules on how many models a base needs to include for their events so there are modeling rules for the game already. Asking for a reasonably clear line of sight through a set of models isn’t destroying people’s ability to make dioramas. The post above this one has a splendid diorama and it’s not obscuring anything behind it. I dread to think how difficult it would be to play a game where every unit was mounted on a wall the same way those elves are. No matter how nice it looked it would become a real headache when every unit is a wall with little men standing on it and you have to recognize which is which then figure out where the bases are.
If you want to play the wall army casually no one’s going to mind (well maybe your opponent) and I don’t think any one here’s suggesting casual play should be anything but what you and your opponent decide is fair game. When you’re entering events, people have a reasonable expectation of the game being the priority over your artistic expression and like with the dino army being banned there should be rules to make sure that runs as smoothly. One of those is keeping the board visually readable without having to walk around the table to see around over sized basing details. Dinos were a problem because they weren’t visually readable and giant walls fall into that same realm for me too.
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But dude - the one with the wall on has infantry models on. So they are height 2. It’s an abstract system, not true line of sight. I daresay in games like Warhammer that uses TLOS that would indeed be a problem.
If you are in doubt about the troop type, ask your opponent. Or look at his list. Or Easyarmy. Or the rulebook. Check the height. As you play more games you will know the heights of most things and be able to tell at a glance.
If you think there is an Individual mini hiding behind it, get up and go and have a look.
That army looks amazing and I would resist to the last breath any sour grapes ruling that would make that army not show up at a tournament.
This isn’t the problem you think it is and I can only surmise a) you don’t play KoW much or b) it’s sour grapes and personal preference.
Luckily Mantic are extremely unlikely to follow your advice as this would lead to much less impressive armies at tournaments (which inspire people) and fewer people at their tournaments. And those few people would be ghastly WAAC gamers who sprayed a couple of coats and stuck some static grass in the general direction of their miniatures.
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You clearly missed the point where I explained how easy it is to hide models behind giant walls like that, not that I found it confusing for unit heights. When people agree to play a game they expect it to be foremost a game, not your personal art project. There are plenty of better ways to display dioramas than pushing them around the table and I don’t find buying commercial terrain and gluing that to a base to be inspirational. I find it annoying and insulting to the person having to walk around the table to understand where half your army is or can’t measure from base to base properly because there’s a foot high piece of terrain where a unit of elves should be. I’ve played against plenty of opponents with back issues who find walking uncomfortable and I wouldn’t build an army in a way that forced them to walk to the side of the table if that’s even possible. If you go to an event with tables locked together are you going to expect your opponent to walk all the way round the table to see what the game state is or do they have to stand on a chair to see over your dioramas?
It’s funny for someone calling others narcissistic you don’t take even a second to consider other people’s views into account and try to belittle them with sly insults. I look forward to the day when someone turns up to a tournament with a Christmas tree glued to a base and says it’s a diorama. I’m sure you would approve of such things because you clearly have no interest in playing the game people paid good money to play at an event and just want an art display.
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Not being a tournament player I have to say, those Elves on that wall are a bit too much. I said before, your multibase should be reasonable and I can see people getting annoyed by something like that (not me though).
But, as with so many discussions, we are talking extremes here. I still think it´s unnessecary to ‘rule’ bases like this out by Mantic for the whole game as I think that they are not very common. As a TO you easily could ban these if you want to though.
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