The long awaited third edition of the world’s premiere rank and flank fantasy miniatures game is here, and what better topic to begin our discussions on Iowakow.com then to review this new rulebook. This post is going to be a little longer than most others because it is both our first post and it has so much material to cover. So let’s begin!
First things first. The overall production value of the book has dramatically improved over past editions. Mantic has always been hitting above its weight class. As a barely ten-year-old company it has been trying to compete with much more established, better funded companies with far more employees. As a result, when second edition came out in 2015 most people were highly impressed by the elegance of the rules system but felt the game’s backstory was underdeveloped, the miniatures were second tier at best, and the book’s art oscillated between acceptable and something obviously low budget.
All that has changed. This edition dramatically improves the overall presentation of the game. There are multiple beautiful layouts depicting epic battles, a much more detailed explanation of the game’s setting, and Mantic’s miniatures have become comparable to anyone else in the business. All this makes the rulebook feel good in your hands the way it is supposed to.
But the most important thing about any rulebook are the rules. Here Mantic has continued with its characteristic, less is more, style. Instead of releasing a whole knew collection of special units and other such things, the company mostly tided up a handful of glaring problems and rebalanced old lists (with the notable exception of its new Northern Alliance faction).
Shooting in the game has been greatly curtailed. Units that used to fling around 24-inch lightning bolts now have 12-inch fireballs. Multiple armies that used to have unlocking long range shooting infantry no longer do, and monsters that used to be able to take a ballista or a catapult no longer can. Even elven archers have been reduced in power, although they are still better than the competition from second edition, let alone third.
Likewise, alpha strike was brought down a couple pegs. Deadly, nimble flying cavalry such as Drakon Riders or Elohi lost nimble, which fundamentally changed the way they operate. Likewise, phalanx became stronger now that it grants ensnare against multiple kinds of cavalry and flying units.
These changes seem like they are moving the game away from selecting the right kind of powerful units and closer to board placement. It works with the general design philosophy that Kings of War has always used. Kings of War has never emphasized the meta game, which makes sense for a its genre. There is nothing wrong with having to swap out a Magic the Gathering card because some new edition changed the meta, but seeing one’s painstakingly painted 200 infantry strong army repeatedly get slaughtered because the rules let your opponent dance around your formations gets old fast. Thus, Mantic continued to emphasize the placement of units over the mastery of esoteric rule quirks.
This shows a substantial difference between the way Mantic thinks about edition changes from other companies. Competitors (Warmahoards and Warhammer come to mind) use to use new editions as a time to swamp the player with a bunch of hype about new stuff to buy. Sometimes this caused old fans of the game to become disenchanted and walk away, as the shift from 8th edition Warhammer to Warhammer Age of Sigmar showed. Mantic has instead chosen to use the new edition as a chance to generally reduce complexity by cutting out redundant units and consolidating rules. In the short term some might criticize this strategy for under utilizing a new edition change, but in the long run a periodic reset to the game’s complexity will help prevent it from becoming so bloated with excess rules and synergies that no new players want to join.
Overall, Kings of War 3rd edition continues doing exactly what most people have come to expect out of Kings of War. It took a clean, crisp, fast playing rule set and made it a little better at everything that made it all those things in first place. It also filled out the weaker areas of the game by showcasing the dramatically expanded model range and game lore. If you wanted a fun, fast paced rank and flank game that scales up or down very easily then rest assured, 3rd edition Kings of War continues to do that and so much more.
Written by Stephen DeRose